The Deerfield Public Library Podcast

• 68: Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., author of The El

  Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., in conversation on his new novel The El (Vintage Books, 2025). A love letter to our city of Chicago, The El follows a group of teen gang members in August 1979 as they travel across the city to a summit where gangs plan to join forces. But the reality is less like the movie The Warriors and more like the creation of a corporate structure, and leader Teddy—a devoted reader and the only Indigenous member of the gang—has to rely on his book smarts, street smarts, and the guiding spirit of Coyote to find a way to their next destination.  Van Alst Jr. is also the author of a stunning trilogy of "mosaic novels" of linked short stories, also starring his semi-autobiographical character Teddy: Sacred Smokes (2018), Sacred City (2021), and Sacred Folks (2024). In our conversation, we learn how the author's depiction of Teddy evolved to include more and more voices, and how literature can help us recover the past, see the future, and appreciate the "magic light." Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. (enrolled member, Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians) is the co-editor of Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (Vintage). He is the award-winning author of the trilogy Sacred Smokes, Sacred City, and Sacred Folks as well as the editor of The Faster Redder Road: The Best UnAmerican Stories of Stephen Graham Jones (2015), all from the University of New Mexico Press. His novella Pour One for the Devil: A Gothic Novella was published in 2024 from Lanternfish Press. You can check out titles by Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. here at the Library as part of our Podcast Collection, featuring books and other materials by past guests of the show. Find out more about Ted on his website or his Instagram @TVAyyyy. We hope you enjoy our 68th interview episode! ​​Each month (or so), we release an episode featuring a conversation with an author, artist, or other notable guests from Chicagoland or around the world. Learn more about the podcast on our podcast page. You can listen to all of our episodes in the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments and feedback—please send to [email protected].  

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• 67: James Shea, author of Last Day of My Face

  Our conversation with poet, writer, and translator James Shea, whose extraordinary new collection of poems Last Day of My Face (University of Iowa Press, 2025), was recently published as a winner of the prestigious Iowa Poetry Prize.  James Shea's work delights in word play and unexpected images with a voice set at and considering the edges of meaning. As you'll hear in our conversation, Shea draws from the traditions of haiku and The New York School, giving us humorous and elegiac meditations on our shared predicament as minds trying to make sense of emergency. Or, as Shea puts it at the start of the long poem, "Failed Self-Portrait," which ends his new collection—and our conversation, "I've made a sort of makeshift / sense of ourselves…" What makes this conversation especially meaningful is that our recording was also a reunion; my colleague, Adult Services Librarian Stevie Noguchi, and I each had James Shea as a poetry professor when he taught in Chicago over a decade ago. Stevie joins me as co-host for this special episode. You'll also hear Shea's reflections on the art of translation, poetic lineage, and readings from the treasure trove of recent publications Shea has put out, as translator and editor, including:  Applause for a Cloud (Black Ocean, 2025), Shea's translations of haiku by Japanese poet Sayumi Kamakura, The Routledge Global Haiku Reader (Routledge, 2023), an introduction to current issues within haiku studies, which Shea co-edited with Grant Caldwell, and, Moving a Stone: Selected Poems of Yam Gong (Zephyr Press, 2022), co-translated with novelist Dorothy Tse and introducing Hong Kong poet Yam Gong to English-language readers James Shea is associate professor and director of the creative and professional writing program at Hong Kong Baptist University. His previous poetry collections The Lost Novel (2014) and Star in the Eye (2008) were both published by Fence Books.  You can check out titles by James Shea here at the Library as part of our Podcast Collection, featuring books and other materials by past guests of the show.   

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• Queer Poem-a-Day, Year 5 Outro Episode (with Mathew Kerbis, Lisa Hiton, and Daniel Baer)

  Our Queer Poem-a-Day "outro" episode, featuring three "extras" for Year 5! At 02:00: Mathew Kerbis, a board member of The Friends of the Deerfield Public Library, shares details about the local 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, dedicated to enriching the Library's materials, services, and programs for the members of the community. Mathew shares with us some of the Library programs (like Queer Poem-a-Day!) and services that the Friends group supports, and how you can get involved. Check them out at: https://www.deerfieldlibrary.org/about/friends-of-the-library/ At 09:00: The audio of our annual Queer Poem-a-Day Capstone Lecture program, where co-directors Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno share their takes on the themes that emerged this season. The event was recorded live in front of a virtual audience on June 26, 2025. You can see video of the program on the Library's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brFQz0yF3Mc At 51:00: The full track of our music this year, "L'Ange Verrier" from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by our pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is "L'Ange Verrier" from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.

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• Queer Poem-a-Day, Year 5: Ocean Vuong

  Day 20: Ocean Vuong reads his poem "The Last Dinosaur." This poem first appeared in a slightly different form in The Boston Review (2021) and in his collection Time is a Mother (Penguin Press, 2022). Writer, professor, and photographer, Ocean Vuong is the author of The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he currently splits his time between western Massachusetts and New York City, where he serves as a Professor in Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA Program at NYU. Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is "L'Ange Verrier" from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.  

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• Queer Poem-a-Day, Year 5: Mark Doty

  Day 19: Mark Doty reads his poem, "A Display of Mackerel," which first appeared in his collection Atlantis (Harper Perennial, 1995). Mark Doty is the author of nine books of poetry. Fire to Fire: New & Selected Poems, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008.  Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is "L'Ange Verrier" from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.  

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