In this workshop lecture from 2008, Bender and Almond, both the offspring of therapists, offer sage advice on how to attack your bad habits on the page, before you sit down to write. The discussion includes many of today's most alarming literary disorders: The artistic sabotage of the unconscious, fear of emotional exposure, obsessive metaphor breakdown, and prose envy. With three out of every for writers suffering from some sort of literary discombobulation, this is a lecture you cannot afford to miss.

The work of both of our featured authors today seems breezy on the surface. Poems about celebrities. An essay on summer camp. But their lightness begets something darker. Something more recognizable and moving than we initially suspected. Like the best of all writing, there is blood in these words. They leave a mark.

The Tin House Podcast starts the new year off in good hands as writer Anthony Doerr takes the pre off the dictable with a talk on defamiliarization and how its usage in art can alter our perception of the known world. Like the best of his writing, Doerr’s lecture ends up being more than just a display of craft: It’s a blueprint for life itself. 

Join us as literary sorcerer Luis Urrea takes us to a Tijuana happening where saints, ghosts, and storytelling all intersect to form a potent elixir. Recorded at the 2011 Tin House Writer's Workshop, Luis reads for the first time from The Queen of America, his anticipated follow up to The Hummingbird's Daughter. Luis also provides keen insight into his writing in the form of a lecture entitled "The Theory and Practice of Trust: Writing as a Ghost Story." Turn on, tune in, and drop some knowledge on yourself.

On today’s podcast, sublime duets. The Tin House Writer’s Workshop has witnessed many over the years, but few can compare to the mellifluous cocktail that was mixed by poet Mary Szybist and novelist Benjamin Percy this past July. With voices as disparate as seasons, the pair laid claim to an ownership of storytelling by both playing to and subverting the implied nature of their vocals. In this, they cemented their status as the Nancy and Lee of Tin House.

After a lengthy summer absence, The Tin House Podcast returns with Dorothy Allison talking dialogue, a subject which few other writer are better equipped to discuss. In works such as Bastard Out of Carolina and the short story collection Trash, Dorothy brings life to her characters by infusing them with dialects that jump from the page, immediately immersing her readers in time and place. Gifted with a voice that could command an audience in any era, Dorothy treated the participants of this past summer’s Tin House Writer’s Workshop to a spirited discussion on how people should speak on the page.

A journey back through halcyon days with two authors who have spent their fair share of time crashing at Tin House. And then some. Steve Almond opens up our third podcast with a lecture given at last year's Writers Workshop. Ever the trickster, Steve called it: "Everything They told You In MFA School is Wrong, Except The Part About The Debt." Like the best of his writing, Steve’s lecture offended, told some truths, and was tied together with humor and grace. Next we're treated to some verbal magic from D.A. Powell, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow. His reading last year, at sunset, before a rapt audience, reminded us why poetry is meant to be read aloud. Preferably with a summer cocktail in hand.

March Madness is not just confined to the basketball courts this year, as Episode #2 of the Tin House Podcast is up and ready for your bracket busting (and downloading) pleasure. In this installment, host Lance Cleland (forever a #12 seed) brings you inside 2010's Tin House Writers Workshop, with a wondrous lecture from author Karen Russell. In "The Cartography of Imaginary Places," Karen holds forth on the ways magic and reality can coexist in fiction, as well as her fascination with the dust bowl and talking scarecrows. Her debut novel, Swamplandia, is in bookstores now, and you'll be wise to check out her story "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach," in our forthcoming Fantastic Women anthology (August, 2011). A big shout out to Daniel Grazzini (of the Portland band Reporter) for helping us out with the recording and mastering, and providing us with a sweet intro/closing beat.

Live at the 2010 Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, Joy Williams (author of The Quick and the Dead — a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 — and five other works of fiction) reads the essay “Why I Write” from her 2001 collection Ill Nature.