Author Kalani Pickhart is not only an up-and-coming writer, she’s also the first Spillers After Show podcast guest to give a shout out to the Nile Theater in downtown Mesa, Arizona. After flooring the Spillers № 6 crowd with her short story reading, the ASU MFA candidate joins us in the green room to talk about tackling rejection with help from Sylvia Plath, the pitfalls of naming your cat after a birth control device, and why there’s always something to write about–preferably in the dark of night. (Note: this episode is for mature audiences, only.)

Poet and author Justin Bigos is a writer who likes highbrow prose and lowbrow beer, and that combo is fine by us. On the heels of his Spillers № 6 reading, Justin sits down to discuss how all eight-year-olds are surrealists, what it takes to place a story with one of the big journals, and why he was honored to be shat upon by a pigeon in Midtown New York. (Note: this episode is for mature audiences, only.)

Susan DeFreitas may live and write in beautiful Portland, Oregon, but she’s not afraid to hit the road to publicize her debut novel, Hot Season. The writer and editor found time in her touring schedule to chat with us about how she can both support and satirize leftist activism, what it means to live honestly, and why Patreon–the crowd-funding website for creatives–can be a godsend for working writers.

[Originally released on March 28, 2016 as ep. 14.] Leah Newsom’s own writing mixes just fine with any beverage, but her literary magazine Spilled Milk has your morning coffee reading habits squarely in its sights. Fresh off her Spillers № 3 reading that left audience members in a Zen state, Leah tells us why she likes her literature adventurous (not experimental), how would-be writers should trash their Apple employment application, and why her Vespa’s never met a gas station it didn’t pull in to.