Literary Nomads

Literary Nomads


Latest Episodes

Literary Nomads for Readers
September 26, 2025

What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!

Le Guin – What I Carry With Me
September 19, 2025

Now that we've wrestled in and with Omelas for a bit, what questions remain for us to take forward on our journey? We're walking away from Omelas, but let's have an idea where we're going.

Le Guin Part 5: Q&A
September 12, 2025

Listeners offer their questions from narrator trust to activism to teaching controversy. I rant--or respond--back.

Le Guin Part 4: The Ones Who Stay – N. K. Jemisin
September 05, 2025

Can we pull this utopia dilemma together? Or will we add even more levels of complication?

Le Guin Part 3: The Reader’s Labyrinth
August 30, 2025

Sure, the Omelas dilemma is tough, but at least we have our narrator as ally, right? Right? Perhaps the real horror in Omelas has less to do with the child at its center.

Le Guin 2: Architectures of Happiness
August 23, 2025

Is this story really about that suffering child? Or is it more about how we wall its suffering out, then invite it back in?

Le Guin 1: The Hideous Bargain
August 15, 2025

At last we settle in to think about Le Guin's Omelas story and set aside some common approaches to it. The first of several parts.

Gardens of Imagination – Narrative Utopias
August 08, 2025

Let's niche down into a small sub-genre of fantasy and explore our desire for it, the classic utopia!

In Defense of Fantasy
August 01, 2025

Riddle: What do Beowulf, Palmolive dish liquid, and Sarah Maas have in common? Hint: Ursula K. Le Guin knows!

Stephen King Meets Shel Silverstein: Formalism and Trope in Story
July 25, 2025

What do a children's story and horror film have in common? Maybe our Suffering Child question, with very different approaches to it.