Write-minded: Weekly inspiration for writers is currently in its fourth year. We’re a weekly podcast for writers who crave a unique blend of inspiration and real conversations about the ups and downs of being a writer. Hosted by Brooke Warner of She Writes and Grant Faulkner of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), each themed episode of Write-minded features an interview with an author, writer, or publishing industry professional.
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In this second week of Write-minded’s August Mashups, we bring back the heartfelt interviews with Javier Zamora and Susan Kiyo Ito, both of whom spoke so honestly and supportively about writing and sharing stories they’ve carried with them throughout their lives. Javier’s harrowing journey from El Salvador to the U.S. border when he was just nine years old and traveling as an unaccompanied minor is the subject of his memoir. Solitoand Susan’s I would meet you anywhere At the heart of the story is their adoption, which touches on themes of longing, abandonment, identity and more. Both authors grapple with revelations in these profound stories of identity and survival.
Subscribe and download the episode wherever you get your podcasts.
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Javier Zamora emigrated to the USA as a nine-year-old unaccompanied minor. His first volume of poetry, Unaccompanied, explores some of these issues. His memoir, which was on the New York Times bestseller list,Only,tells his nine-week odyssey through Guatemala, Mexico, and finally the Sonoran Desert. Zamora was a Radcliffe Fellow in 2018-2019 and is a fellow of CantoMundo, Colgate University MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, and others. Susan Kiyo Ito is the author of the memoirs, I would meet you anywhere, and a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is co-editor of the literary anthology A spirit on the edge of the heart. Her work has appeared in The Writer, Hyphen, Literary Mama, Catapult, Hyphen, and elsewhere. Her stage adaptation of Untold, stories of reproductive stigma, was produced at the Brava Theater. She teaches at the Mills College campus of Northeastern University.
