In this episode Idelle is joined by returning guest Maddy Dietz. Maddy is a fiction writer and aspiring journalist, a Gold Award Girl Scout, the National Student Poet representing the Midwest region, a YoungArts Finalist in Short Story, and is a candidate for US Presidential Scholar in the Arts. She is also a recent recipient of Girl Scouts River Valleys' Changemaker Award for her work in arts and journalism education.

Maddy talked with Idelle about what she's up to now and her plans for after graduation this spring, and shares an on-air reading of her short story Why We Endured the Darkness, which was published in the short story anthology Triangulation: Dark Skies.

Idelle and Maddy discuss the story's themes of love, freedom of religion and thought, women who are engineers and physicists, and representation. Maddy talks about her love of the short story medium and how she fits so much background into such a short time. She also talks about why she identifies with the story's characters and how she set out to write a story that reflects her own identity in hopes that other young women will see themselves in it.

Make sure you listen to our first episode with Maddy - Episode 18: Becoming a Writer.

This will be the last GIRL Talk episode for a few months - but we'll be back soon! Stay well and enjoy your summer :-)