Hi Everyone!

In this episode of the podcast, Caitlin Horrocks and I interview Erika Krouse about “Jude” from her new collection, Save Me, Stranger.

AND THEN…Erika and I interview Caitlin about her story “Better Not Tell You Now.”

We had so much fun! And I learned so much about the craft of writing. You will too.

Links to both stories are below. Please read before you listen, because we will spoil the endings :)

“Jude” is available here at The Colorado Review, Summer 2024.

“Better Not Tell You Now” is here at swamp pink.

See below for more information on these esteemed guests, along with links to purchase their books.

I’ll see you again on July 1st with Eli Sparkman. We’ll be discussing five of his flash fiction pieces (available on my Substack right now.)

I hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, please send your reading recommendations!

Cheers,

Kelly

PS: Shout out to our new paid subscribers who heard my plea for help supporting this podcast:) Thank you so much, Maureen, David, Lisa, Chris, Erika, and Barbara. I appreciate it!

Caitlin Horrocks is the author of the story collections Life Among the Terranauts and This Is Not Your City, both New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selections. Her novel The Vexations was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2019 by the Wall Street Journal. Her stories and essays appear in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The Paris Review, Tin House, and One Story, as well as other journals and anthologies. Her awards include the Plimpton Prize and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the MacDowell Colony. She formerly served as fiction editor of the Kenyon Review. She teaches at Grand Valley State University and occasionally in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the writer W. Todd Kaneko and their three noisy kids.

Purchase Caitlin’s amazing books here.

Erika Krouse is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her newest short story collection, Save Me, Stranger (Flatiron Books) was hailed as “a dozen little masterpieces,” by Adam Johnson, “remarkable” by Ann Beattie, and Louise Erdrich said, “Read these stories with a buddy, because someone will have to scrape you off the floor.” “Eat My Moose” from the collection is the winner of the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Short Story, and will be included in 2025 Best Mystery Stories of the Year and The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025.

Erika is also the author of Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation (March 2022, Flatiron Books): winner of the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, and the Housatonic Book Award for Nonfiction. Tell Me Everything is also a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Book of the Month Club pick, a People Magazine People Pick, named “Best Nonfiction of 2022” by BookPage and Kirkus Reviews, and “Best 10 Books of 2022” by both Slate and Jezebel. The memoir has been featured/reviewed in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, Airmail, The Week, Harper’s Bazaar, LitHub, Real Simple, ELLE, CrimeReads, BookPage, and others.

Purchase Save Me, Stranger (so good!!!) here.