The Host Dispatch: A Literary Podcast

In this episode, we had the immense honor to chat with Chiagoziem Jideofor, author of local remedies, 

In local remedies, Chiagoziem Jideofor speaks through memory, myth and strangeness to interpret lived and inherited experiences, and in this conversation we talk about everything from the Igbo Uri art form that is featured on the cover, to the way poems are like very different fruits that grow on the same tree—a tree that doesn't belong to anyone, but is ours collectively to tend and to share.
 
Chiagoziem is so fun to talk to, and brings such an engaging and meditative presence to the conversation on this feral podcast. We loved getting to learn more about her and about local remedies, and we're so honored to share this humorous and wise poet's work with you. As always, thanks for listening!

In this episode, we dive deep into the creative practices and philosophies of the brilliant gamer, poet, professor, scholar, and the most charismatic introvert we know, dezireé a. brown! 

Dez's debut poetry collection, they/she/he: ritual to forget your (un)becoming, won the 2025 Joe W. Bratcher Prize, for its immense tenderness, singular experimentation, and refusal to conform to what we think we know about poetry.

Influenced by video game worlds, choose-your-own adventures, and a multifaceted collective of Mesopotamian goddesses, speaking with Dez about this collection led to the most engaging conversation about gender, transformation, and healing, as well as video games and the space they can create for us to imagine ourselves into a better future. 

We know you'll love this conversation with this inimitable poet. As always, thanks for listening!

What a maximalist joy it was to speak with Summer Farah, Palestinian American editor, zine-maker and author of THE HUNGERING YEARS! In this conversation, we geek out about our poetic obsessions, and pick Summer's brain about her relationship to digital collage, Etel Adnan, and Supernatural, just to name a few. Listen to this wild conversation for a boost of creative energy, and enjoy the sneak preview into Summer Farah's magnetic collection, THE HUNGERING YEARS, available at hostpublications.com 

Please join us in making a donation to The Sameer Project  by supporting one of their campaigns or purchasing books (including Summer's chapbook I Could Die Today and Live Again) through Open Books' Workshops for Gaza Bookstore

After a long hiatus (while we converted to nonprofit and published 4 new books!) we're back with Season 6 of The Host Dispatch!

We're thrilled to be kicking off this season with a very special episode, a conversation with one of our all-time favorite creatures, heidi andrea restrepo rhodes! heidi is the author of Wayward Creatures, which we had the privilege to publish in August of 2025. After a delightful set of readings and an incredible author panel to celebrate Wayward Creatures, we hopped on the mics to talk with heidi about the poet's right to opacity, cultivating a perpetual curiosity, queer joy in the ocean, and much more! We're so happy to be back, and we hope you enjoy the episode! 

This is a monster of a book, an ecology of being in which all bodies are poems and all poems are bodies. rhodes asks the reader: How does the poem of us begin? Then, proceeds to dismantle the notion of beginning and ending. In Wayward Creatures, time is a branch from which we fruit, die, and bud again. It is the dark unknowable depth of space. It is the constellatory nature of queer love. Tucked into these pages is the book of crip dreams, which is a kind of scripture, and is also the book you are touching now—with your hot and human hands. — Gala Mukomolova, author of Without Protection

In this episode, it was a thrill to speak with Katherine Packert Burke about her captivating debut novel, Still Life (Norton, 2024).

"Katherine Packert Burke’s Still Life is everything you want from a Künstlerroman: smart, sexy, funny, sly, and exceptionally queer. With biting insights and heartbreaking attention, this debut captures the daunting thrill of becoming an artist while becoming yourself." — Isle McElroy, author of People Collide

 

This was such a fun, tender and insightful conversation with an exceptionally talented writer. We are honored to share this episode with you! Here are some titles Katherine recommends that are in conversation with or inspired the writing of Still Life:

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Imogen by Nevada Bonnie

And Katherine was so generous to give us an additional list of the trans authors she recommends as well! ::

LOTE by Shola von Reinhold
Gossip Girl Fanfic Novella by Charlie Markbreiter 
My Volcano and Bad Houses by John Elizabeth Stintzi 
and the writings of: Alison Rumfitt, Jackie Ess, Gretchen Felker-Martin, torrin a. greathouse, and Isle McElroy