November 4, 2024
In this episode, hosts Lindsay Pereira and Ella Jando-Saul explore the concept of virtual pilgrimage through conversations with two guests.
October 7, 2024
Andrew Whiteman invites listeners to step into an arena of collaboration between poetry and sound.
September 16, 2024
The SpokenWeb Podcast is back for Season 6!
July 29, 2024
For this final ShortCuts, we listen with Brandon LaBelle in a conversation recorded on-site at Errant Bodies Press in Berlin.
July 1, 2024
In this live episode, producers Nicholas Beauchesne and Chelsea Miya venture into the roots and future directions of algorithmic art.
June 3, 2024
In this month’s episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast, ShortCuts is taking over the airwaves with a special edition episode.
May 20, 2024
Xiaoxuan Huang talks about hybrid poetics (and more) with then-supervising producer Kate Moffatt.
May 6, 2024
For a riotous underground scene in 1980s Montreal, the Ultimatum Urban Poetry Festival was the site for radical experimentation in artistic performance.
April 24, 2024
In the archival clip played in this episode, we hear Maxine Gadd ask Andreas Schroeder if he would like to improvise with her for the poem, “Shore Animals.”
April 1, 2024
In this podcast, author and Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto, Adam Hammond, asks if computers can help us to decide which readers are best at “doing” the voices in the poem.
March 18, 2024
This ShortCuts presents one of the ShortCuts Live! conversations recorded at the University of Alberta as part of the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium.
March 4, 2024
In this episode, Michelle Levy and Maya Schwartz revisit the early history of Caedmon records.
December 11, 2023
This month, the SpokenWeb Podcast presents a crossover episode with Linda M. Morra’s, Getting Lit with Linda – The Canadian Literature Podcast.
November 20, 2023
This ShortCuts presents the first of many conversations recorded at the University of Alberta as part of the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium.
November 6, 2023
This episode navigates this question using an associative method which links stories and sounds, forming a non-linear audio collage.
October 16, 2023
SUMMARY Welcome to Season 5 of ShortCuts. ShortCuts started out on the podcast feed as a ‘minisode’ during our first season and it soon took on a life of its own. ShortCuts host and producer Katherine McLeod would take you on a deep dive into the SpokenWeb archives through a short ‘cut’ of audio. What […]
October 2, 2023
Ghislaine Comeau brings us along on her quest to translate the “The Ruin” – a famously ruined Old English poem from the 10th century manuscript known as the Exeter Book.
September 18, 2023
The SpokenWeb Podcast is back for Season 5! Join us on our ongoing quest to uncover “what literature sounds like” through audio scholarship.
August 7, 2023
This bonus episode is about Headlight 24, the most recent edition of Concordia University’s graduate student-run literary journal.
June 19, 2023
This episode of ShortCuts, produced by Ella Jando-Saul, explores how even unintentional sounds can affect our interpretation of a recording.
June 5, 2023
EPISODE SUMMARY In this episode, Maia Trotter—SpokenWeb research assistant and recent graduate of the MLIS program at the University of Alberta—explores what libraries actually sound like. Featuring interviews with three staff members at the Edmonton Public Library Stanley A. Milner branch and her own personal reflections, this episode considers how the sounds of library spaces […]
May 1, 2023
Join Dr. Michelle Levy and graduate student Maya Schwartz as they think through what it means to read audiobooks in the literary classroom.
April 17, 2023
In this ShortCuts Live!, Katherine McLeod and Annie Murray talk about the EMI Music Canada Archives at the University of Calgary.
April 3, 2023
Inspired by experimental radio, this episode from Don Shipton and Teddie Brock revisits an event with Fred Wah and meditates on recording and voice.
March 20, 2023
This is ShortCuts Live! Katherine McLeod sits down with Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya, past SpokenWeb Podcast producers.
March 6, 2023
Producer and SpokenWeb Podcast Sound Designer Miranda Eastwood asks, “What is sound design?” They go on an epic sonic journey to find out.
February 20, 2023
This is ShortCuts Live! A conversation with host Katherine McLeod and Faith Paré about the Atwater Poetry Project archives.
February 6, 2023
SpokenWeb RA Frances Grace Fyfe thinks about the literary concept of the dialogue—about conversations—by having conversations of her own.
December 5, 2022
What does data sounds like? Producer Chelsea Miya explores this question with guests Tunde Adegbol, Oana Avasilichioaei, and Matt Russo.
November 21, 2022
This is ShortCuts Live! Host Katherine McLeod and UBCO doctoral candidate Sarah Cipes talk feminist redaction and collaborative research.
November 7, 2022
What better way to understand the archival state of a poem than to ask it? “The Night of the Living Archive” is an audio drama/mock interview between research assistant Liza Makarova and Fred Wah’s poems Mountain (1967), Limestone Lakes Utaniki (1987, 1989, and 1991), and Don’t Cut Me Down (1972), which currently live in the Fred Wah Digital Archive (fredwah.ca).
October 17, 2022
In this first episode of Season 4, SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts continues the tradition of starting a new season by diving into its own archives. What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through short archival clips? Join host and producer Katherine McLeod to listen to clips from Season 3 of ShortCuts as a way of asking what literary criticism sounds like through cutting and splicing sound.
October 3, 2022
This crossover features an episode from producer Judith Burr’s master’s thesis podcast about fire knowledges in the Okanagan Valley.
September 19, 2022
The SpokenWeb Podcast is back for its fourth season, premiering October 3, 2022! Join us for more stories about how literature sounds.
August 1, 2022
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast we are excited to share an episode from The WPHP Monthly Mercury, hosted by Kandice Sharren and our very own podcast supervising producer, Kate Moffatt. First aired on July 21, 2021, this episode of The WPHP Monthly Mercury features an interview with Dr. Kirstyn Leuner, director and editor-in-chief of […]
July 18, 2022
This month, ShortCuts is replaying a past episode as a response to this month’s full episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode – “starry and full of glory”: Phyllis Webb, in Memoriam (produced by Stephen Collis) – is a moving commemoration of the life and work of Canadian poet Phyllis Webb.
July 4, 2022
In commemoration of Canadian poet Phyllis Webb (1927-2021), producer Stephen Collis charts a path through her work by following the “stars.”
June 20, 2022
Katherine McLeod revisits “Situating Sound” (ShortCuts, Ep. 2.9) to think about transcription, context, and embodied listening.
June 6, 2022
In this episode, Shortcuts producer Katherine McLeod and SpokenWeb Podcast transcriber Kelly Cubbon talk to Maya Rae Oppenheimer, Judith Burr, and Bára Hladík about the accessible, collaborative, and creative practice of transcription.
May 16, 2022
We listen to the recording of the event that concluded last year’s SpokenWeb Symposium (including excerpts of Oana Avasilichioaei’s live performance and Klara du Plessis’s reading) as this year’s Symposium begins, asking: what does this event sound like?
May 2, 2022
Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya celebrate the history of early UAlberta college radio and its producers in this episode, including interviews with host Jars Balan and audio engineer Terri Wynnyk, as well as archival radio show audio of Western Canadian poets Douglas Barbour and Phyllis Webb.
April 18, 2022
SUMMARY In this episode, ShortCuts returns to a recording of Phyllis Webb in order to re-listen through this season’s question of how the archive remembers. What is held in the ‘room’ of the recording, and how does that differ from the room where reading took place? Or from the room of personal memory? What exceeds […]
April 4, 2022
SpokenWeb members Kate Moffatt and Kandice Sharren take us behind the scenes of cataloguing SFU’s Women and Words Collection.
March 21, 2022
EPISODE SUMMARY Our guest-producer this month, Michael O’Driscoll, invites us to listen to the introductions of the late Douglas Barbour (March 21, 1940 – Sept 25, 2021) from readings held at the University of Alberta. What are we listening to when we hear introductory remarks from past readings spliced together? By asking us to listen […]
March 7, 2022
This is a mixed format episode presenting SpokenWeb members Mathieu Aubin and Stéphanie Ricci’s critical commentary after taking part in the organization of and attending the Listening, Sound, Agency Symposium. Bridging techniques from journalism and oral history, this episode includes sounds from the conference, interviews, and critically reflective discussions between Mathieu and Stéphanie. This episode […]
February 21, 2022
EPISODE SUMMARY On ShortCuts this month, producer Katherine McLeod talks with poet, novelist, and sound performer Kaie Kellough about a memorable recording from The Words & Music Show. What are we listening to? Kellough unpacks what we are listening to — which turns out to be a highly technical, performative, and polyphonic sonic object, along […]
February 7, 2022
How has the reading series been transformed by the Covid pandemic and its accompanying technologies of virtual gatherings? In this episode, Jason Camlot – SpokenWeb Director and Professor of English at Concordia University – takes us on a reflective listening tour through recordings of the Words and Music Show as it has evolved through the […]
January 17, 2022
EPISODE SUMMARY This ShortCuts episode responds to poet Daphne Marlatt’s conversation with Karis Shearer and Megan Butchart in the recent SpokenWeb Podcast episode “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive.” By listening to audio from Marlatt’s previous archival performances, ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod considers how we remember feelings attached to reading a poem out loud. What […]
January 3, 2022
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast, we are excited to share with you a special episode from our sister podcast Soundbox Signals. Host Karis Shearer, guest curator Megan Butchart, and poet Daphne Marlatt have a conversation about Daphne Marlatt’s 1969 archival recording of leaf leaf/s and her experience of performing poetry with the archive in […]
December 20, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY As part two of ShortCuts 2.9 Situating Sound—and as one of the many remembrances of Stó:lō writer and activist Lee Maracle—this ShortCuts explores how the archive remembers and who these memories serve. The audio recording for this episode is a 1988 recording of Lee Maracle and Dionne Brand, recorded for broadcast on Gerry […]
December 6, 2021
Forced Migration: Bison stories and what they can tell settlers about a past, present, and future on stolen land As uninvited guests on Indigenous land, we are continually told that national parks, and our conservation system in general, are a benevolent inheritance from our settler ancestors. The creators of parks and conservation societies crafted archives […]
November 22, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY In this episode, ShortCuts explores one of the methods of listening from the previous episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode, produced by Julia Polyck-O’Neill, listens to the emotional weight of archives. Julia’s conversations with poet Lisa Robertson uncover the ways in which archives record the relationships between memory, affect, and mortality. In […]
November 1, 2021
In this episode, SpokenWeb contributor Julia Polyck-O’Neill shares an archived recording of Canadian poet Lisa Robertson with us and talks us through two interviews she recorded with Robertson. Polyck-O’Neill invites us to consider the significance of Robertson’s intimate archival collections in light of the relationships between archives, memory, affect, and mortality. In examining these conceptual, […]
October 18, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY ShortCuts is back! Season Three of ShortCuts begins with a listening exercise. We attune our ears to what it sounds like and feels like to hear archival clips ‘cut’ out of context. Join ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod in this exploration of the sonic and affective place-making of ShortCuts as podcast. What kind of […]
October 4, 2021
Today, we are welcoming you to Season 3 by reintroducing and replaying an episode that exemplifies what our podcast is all about. In January 2020, we released the episode “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Elizabeth Smart” created by researcher and producer Myra Bloom. To kick off this season, Hannah and Myra sat down for […]
September 20, 2021
Another season is upon us! At the SpokenWeb Podcast, we continue to bring you episodes that journey into literary history and explore our contemporary responses to it. This season, researchers from across the SpokenWeb community – and a few special guests – produce audio stories that creatively engage with literary recordings in the SpokenWeb archives […]
August 2, 2021
This episode takes us back to a SpokenWeb Project panel presentation from April 2021: “Podcasting as a Field of Critical Study.” This panel was organized by Jason Camlot and Stacey Copeland, and led by SpokenWeb Podcast host Hannah McGregor. It used the recently published volume, Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media (ed. Dario Llinares, […]
July 19, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY For our last minisode of season two, ShortCuts dives into the archives of The Words & Music Show, a monthly series of poetry, spoken word, music, and dance performances that has been happening in Montreal for over twenty years. Last year, SpokenWeb RA Ali Barillaro was digitizing that collection when she heard a […]
July 5, 2021
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a group of poets at UBC Vancouver began a little magazine: the TISH poetry newsletter. The TISH poets would later be called one of the most cohesive writing movements in Canadian literary history. In the summer of 2019, Craig Carpenter visited one of the former editors of TISH […]
June 21, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY On this ShortCuts, we dive into a new audio collection: Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection, accessible through SFU Library’s Digitized Collections. We’ll hear a recording of Dionne Brand reading in Vancouver with Lee Maracle of the Stó:lō nation. The recording of this reading was then played on the local radio program radiofreerainforest on August […]
June 7, 2021
In the March 2021 episode of the SpokenWeb Podcast, SpokenWeb contributors Kate Moffatt, Kandice Sharren, and Michelle Levy presented the first episode of a two-part series: “Mavis Gallant reads ‘Grippes and Poche’ at SFU,” which included a full-length recording of Mavis Gallant’s reading of her New Yorker short story at Simon Fraser University in 1984. […]
May 17, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY In this ShortCuts minisode, listen to the contrapuntal poetics of poet Alexei Perry Cox. In a recording made at home, Alexei reads and improvises in response to a second voice in the room – the voice of her daughter Isla. Their interaction itself could be heard as a poem. Meanwhile, sounds of place enter […]
May 3, 2021
In this episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast, jamilah malika and Jessica Karuhanga talk about the sounds and sound-based practices that have informed their projects as recipients of the 2020-2021 SpokenWeb Artist-Curator in Residence Award. For her residency, jamilah is building an online archive highlighting Black women sound artists across Canada to provide inspiration and representation […]
April 19, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY This month, it is April – the month of poetry. The audio we will be listening to is a poem by Canadian poet Phyllis Webb. In fact, it is a series of poems from Naked Poems, poems that open up space and that leave room for the listener to listen – to listen […]
April 5, 2021
This episode is a series of interviews with Humanities scholars Mathieu Aubin, Clint Burnham, Treena Chambers, and T.L. Cowan about their approaches to the ethics of listening in their own research. We join Deanna Fong and Mike O’Driscoll as they step back to listen to the ethical practices of expert listeners. They’ll guide us through […]
March 15, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY March is a time of year when you can hum along to “It Might as Well be Spring,” but, on other days, it can feel like winter might never end. Can we hear spring in the archives? And what does it feel like to listen to sonic representations of change – at a distance […]
March 1, 2021
On February 14, 1984, Mavis Gallant visited Simon Fraser University. She did a reading of her short story “Grippes and Poche,” which was published in the New Yorker in 1982 — her ninety-fifth work in the magazine. Containing the full recording of her reading, which includes Gallant’s live commentary as she reads, “Mavis Gallant Reads […]
February 15, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY In this season of ShortCuts we’ve spent some time in a 1969 recording of poet Muriel Rukeyser, and we’re going to stay in that recording for this minisode, partly due to the depth of material within this single recording and partly as an opportunity to reflect upon what a minisode can do – […]
February 1, 2021
What does “listening” mean within the context of the literary classroom? In this episode we join Director of the SpokenWeb Network and Professor at Concordia University – Jason Camlot – in conversation with SpokenWeb podcast supervising producer and Simon Fraser University PhD candidate – Stacey Copeland – to explore how sound studies is being taken […]
January 18, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY This ShortCuts minisode listens to one of the January readings that we heard about last time: a reading by Muriel Rukeyser that took place on January 24, 1969. Along with listening for mentions of January in the recording, this minisode listens to how Rukeyser’s reading enacts the very connection that she describes – […]
January 11, 2021
For hundreds of years, the Yorùbá people of West African have used “talking drums” to send messages across great distances. West African languages are highly musical, full of rising and falling tones. The pitch of talking drums can be adjusted to mimic these tones, so drummers can “speak” to one another. The drummer encodes the […]
December 21, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY In trying to listen for time, this ShortCuts minisode listens for the New Year in SpokenWeb’s audio collections. What hopes do audiences have for the new year? And how do archival recordings help us understand our affective relation to time in our present moment? The audio for this ShortCuts minisode is cut from […]
December 7, 2020
For Penn Kemp, poetry is magic made manifest. While her subjects are varied, and her interests and approaches have evolved over the years, Kemp has always understood the power of spoken word to evoke emotion, shift consciousness, and shape the world. Drawing on a syncretic blend of spiritual philosophy informed by Buddhist, Hindu, and Celtic […]
November 16, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month’s ShortCut is an archival recording which transports us into the feeling of being at a live poetry reading. A feeling we are craving (right now in November 2020) as the covid-19 pandemic and social distancing continue. What is it that we are really missing about the live listening experience? The poetry? […]
November 2, 2020
This episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast is a little different than episodes you’ve heard from us before. It is a kind of “feminist memory-work” – An audio collage, a method, an approach to community building which aims to honor lesbian-feminist collective histories and renewed public attention to lesbian feminist culture. SpokenWeb network members Felicity Tayler […]
October 19, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY Welcome to ShortCuts. To kick off the new miniseries season, Katherine invites us into an audio remix of short clips from deep in the archive to consider: what does it mean and what is possible (technologically, phenomenologically, ethically, poetically) to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio-criticism can be […]
October 5, 2020
Who chooses what words will be heard at a poetry reading, in what order, and why? Since 2018, Montreal-based poet and researcher Klara du Plessis has been developing her own practice of poetry reading organization by heightening the curator’s role in its production. She calls this experimental practice Deep Curation. This episode – the “Season […]
September 21, 2020
Get ready for Season 2 of the SpokenWeb Podcast, stories about how literature sounds. We have a brand-new line up of original episodes for you from archives, universities and in these physically distant times, the many spaces and places we call home, all across Canada and beyond. Whether it’s a deep dive into deep curation poetry, […]
August 3, 2020
How do concepts make us feel? What is the function of affect in the communication of ideas? In this episode, three SpokenWeb graduate students – Ali Barillaro, Sadie Barker and Emma Telaro – revisit their experience of making a short-form podcast as an exercise that was assigned to them by SpokenWeb researcher Jason Camlot in […]
July 20, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY In episode 7 of The SpokenWeb Podcast (“The Voice is Intact”), producer Hannah McGregor and guest Jen Sookfong Lee listen together to Gwendolyn MacEwen reading the poem “The Zoo” (recorded in Montreal, 1966). As we listen to them listening on the podcast, we hear a gasp and even an exclamation: “Melodious!” What was […]
July 6, 2020
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast, we are excited to share with you a special episode from our sister podcast Soundbox Signals. Spokenweb’s Karis Shearer is joined by curator Amy Thiessen and special guests Hannah McGregor and Emily Murphy to question what we can uncover about the dynamics of a space through listening. Together they […]
June 15, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month we bring you a very special guest curator edition of SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month. In this minisode, Katherine McLeod is joined by SpokenWeb researcher and postdoctoral fellow Mathieu Aubin for a glimpse into the life and work of Canadian poet bill bissett – from poetic surveillance to an avant-garde dinner […]
June 1, 2020
If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, there’s a name you might be familiar with — it’s mentioned every episode — that has so far been almost entirely off-mic. We’re talking about Stacey Copeland, SpokenWeb’s podcast project manager and supervising producer. Stacey helps to make this podcast possible, collaborating with SpokenWeb contributors […]
May 18, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month our SpokenWeb minisode features Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt reading “Lagoon” from Vancouver Poems (1972), a deeply local collection that she had not yet published when this reading took place at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) in Montreal. When listening to Marlatt reading “Lagoon,” we can hear the many futures of […]
May 4, 2020
Since mid-March 2020 most people across the world have been adhering to protocols of social distancing and self-isolation due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. We are living a historical period of major global and local disruption to work, social life, home life, and major new parameters around what we can do, who we can see, […]
April 20, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY In this Audio of the Month minisode Katherine Mcleod features recordings of poet Dorothy Livesay. We hear Livesay read selections of her work including “Bartok and the Geranium,” a poem that is often anthologized and, in fact, you may have studied it in a course on Canadian poetry. But do you know how […]
April 6, 2020
Poet Gwendolyn MacEwen, perhaps best known for winning the 1969 Governor General’s Award for her collection The Shadow Maker and the 1987 GG, posthumously, for Afterworlds, is perhaps one of the most significant Canadian poets whose work is entirely out of print. MacEwen was only 46 when she died, and her tragic life combined with […]
March 16, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month our SpokenWeb minisode features Kaie Kellough reading at The Words and Music Show, Nov 20, 2016. As Kellough starts to introduce his reading, a pre-recorded voice slowly mixes with his live words. Where, then, does the introduction end, and where does the reading begin? EPISODE NOTES Each month on alternate fortnights […]
March 2, 2020
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast, we are excited to share with you a new podcast in the SpokenWeb family – SoundBox Signals – inviting us to listen in close to UBCO’s SoundBox Collection. In this episode, Spokenweb’s Karis Shearer, curator Mathieu Aubin and guests Lauren St. Clair and Nour Sallam invite us into a […]
February 17, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY As we come to the end of a holiday long weekend here in Canada, it’s time for a new episode of SpokenWeb’s Audio of The Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds. This month Katherine shares a recording of Canadian poet Maxine Gadd reading “Shore Animals” with improvised flute by Richard Sommer (1972). […]
February 3, 2020
In this episode of the SpokenWeb podcast, student contributor Kate Moffatt revisits “Feminist Noise, Silence, and Refusal” – a live panel from the 2019 SpokenWeb Symposium hosted at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. With presentations from Lucia Lorenzi, Milena Droumeva, Brady Marks, and Blake Nemec (moderated by Hannah McGregor) the panel explores how we […]
January 20, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY Welcome to our first SpokenWeb minisode. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly spokenweb podcast episode) – join Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of Month mini series. This month Katherine shares a recording of Canadian poet Daryl Hine reading “Point Grey” […]
January 6, 2020
Over the years, Elizabeth Smart’s 1945 novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept has risen from obscurity to cult classic. The book, which details an ill-fated love affair between an unnamed narrator and her married lover, is celebrated for its lyricism, passionate intensity, and its basis in Elizabeth’s real-life relationship with the […]
December 2, 2019
From archival work to domestic and care work or the hidden labour behind the podcast you’re listening to right now… invisible labour is everywhere. That is, the work and the people not always seen from the outside or valued in our day to day lives. This month we reflect on the often invisible (or inaudible) […]
November 4, 2019
In “Sound Recordings are Weird: Stories and thoughts about early spoken recordings”, SpokenWeb research Jason Camlot interviews collaborators in the SpokenWeb Network to uncover the stories behind the making of Early Literature Recordings. Drawing from his recent book “Phonopoetics: The Making of Early Literary Recordings”, Jason invites guests Lisa Gitelman, Patrick Feaster, David Seubert, John […]
October 7, 2019
SpokenWeb is a literary research network, dedicated to studying literature through sound. But how did this project begin? What kinds of literary recordings inspired it and where were they found? And what happened next in order for these recordings to be heard? For this inaugural episode of the SpokenWeb Podcast, Katherine McLeod seeks to answer […]
September 18, 2019
Say hello to SpokenWeb host Hannah Mcgregor as we kick off our brand new series – The SpokenWeb Podcast: Stories about how literature sounds.
September 18, 2019
Say hello to SpokenWeb host Hannah Mcgregor as we kick off our brand new series – The SpokenWeb Podcast: Stories about how literature sounds.
October 7, 2019
SpokenWeb is a literary research network, dedicated to studying literature through sound. But how did this project begin? What kinds of literary recordings inspired it and where were they found? And what happened next in order for these recordings to be heard? For this inaugural episode of the SpokenWeb Podcast, Katherine McLeod seeks to answer […]
November 4, 2019
In “Sound Recordings are Weird: Stories and thoughts about early spoken recordings”, SpokenWeb research Jason Camlot interviews collaborators in the SpokenWeb Network to uncover the stories behind the making of Early Literature Recordings. Drawing from his recent book “Phonopoetics: The Making of Early Literary Recordings”, Jason invites guests Lisa Gitelman, Patrick Feaster, David Seubert, John […]
December 2, 2019
From archival work to domestic and care work or the hidden labour behind the podcast you’re listening to right now… invisible labour is everywhere. That is, the work and the people not always seen from the outside or valued in our day to day lives. This month we reflect on the often invisible (or inaudible) […]
January 6, 2020
Over the years, Elizabeth Smart’s 1945 novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept has risen from obscurity to cult classic. The book, which details an ill-fated love affair between an unnamed narrator and her married lover, is celebrated for its lyricism, passionate intensity, and its basis in Elizabeth’s real-life relationship with the […]
January 20, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY Welcome to our first SpokenWeb minisode. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly spokenweb podcast episode) – join Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of Month mini series. This month Katherine shares a recording of Canadian poet Daryl Hine reading “Point Grey” […]
February 3, 2020
In this episode of the SpokenWeb podcast, student contributor Kate Moffatt revisits “Feminist Noise, Silence, and Refusal” – a live panel from the 2019 SpokenWeb Symposium hosted at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. With presentations from Lucia Lorenzi, Milena Droumeva, Brady Marks, and Blake Nemec (moderated by Hannah McGregor) the panel explores how we […]
February 17, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY As we come to the end of a holiday long weekend here in Canada, it’s time for a new episode of SpokenWeb’s Audio of The Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds. This month Katherine shares a recording of Canadian poet Maxine Gadd reading “Shore Animals” with improvised flute by Richard Sommer (1972). […]
March 2, 2020
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast, we are excited to share with you a new podcast in the SpokenWeb family – SoundBox Signals – inviting us to listen in close to UBCO’s SoundBox Collection. In this episode, Spokenweb’s Karis Shearer, curator Mathieu Aubin and guests Lauren St. Clair and Nour Sallam invite us into a […]
March 16, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month our SpokenWeb minisode features Kaie Kellough reading at The Words and Music Show, Nov 20, 2016. As Kellough starts to introduce his reading, a pre-recorded voice slowly mixes with his live words. Where, then, does the introduction end, and where does the reading begin? EPISODE NOTES Each month on alternate fortnights […]
April 6, 2020
Poet Gwendolyn MacEwen, perhaps best known for winning the 1969 Governor General’s Award for her collection The Shadow Maker and the 1987 GG, posthumously, for Afterworlds, is perhaps one of the most significant Canadian poets whose work is entirely out of print. MacEwen was only 46 when she died, and her tragic life combined with […]
April 20, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY In this Audio of the Month minisode Katherine Mcleod features recordings of poet Dorothy Livesay. We hear Livesay read selections of her work including “Bartok and the Geranium,” a poem that is often anthologized and, in fact, you may have studied it in a course on Canadian poetry. But do you know how […]
May 4, 2020
Since mid-March 2020 most people across the world have been adhering to protocols of social distancing and self-isolation due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. We are living a historical period of major global and local disruption to work, social life, home life, and major new parameters around what we can do, who we can see, […]
May 18, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month our SpokenWeb minisode features Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt reading “Lagoon” from Vancouver Poems (1972), a deeply local collection that she had not yet published when this reading took place at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) in Montreal. When listening to Marlatt reading “Lagoon,” we can hear the many futures of […]
June 1, 2020
If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, there’s a name you might be familiar with — it’s mentioned every episode — that has so far been almost entirely off-mic. We’re talking about Stacey Copeland, SpokenWeb’s podcast project manager and supervising producer. Stacey helps to make this podcast possible, collaborating with SpokenWeb contributors […]
June 15, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month we bring you a very special guest curator edition of SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month. In this minisode, Katherine McLeod is joined by SpokenWeb researcher and postdoctoral fellow Mathieu Aubin for a glimpse into the life and work of Canadian poet bill bissett – from poetic surveillance to an avant-garde dinner […]
July 6, 2020
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast, we are excited to share with you a special episode from our sister podcast Soundbox Signals. Spokenweb’s Karis Shearer is joined by curator Amy Thiessen and special guests Hannah McGregor and Emily Murphy to question what we can uncover about the dynamics of a space through listening. Together they […]
July 20, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY In episode 7 of The SpokenWeb Podcast (“The Voice is Intact”), producer Hannah McGregor and guest Jen Sookfong Lee listen together to Gwendolyn MacEwen reading the poem “The Zoo” (recorded in Montreal, 1966). As we listen to them listening on the podcast, we hear a gasp and even an exclamation: “Melodious!” What was […]
August 3, 2020
How do concepts make us feel? What is the function of affect in the communication of ideas? In this episode, three SpokenWeb graduate students – Ali Barillaro, Sadie Barker and Emma Telaro – revisit their experience of making a short-form podcast as an exercise that was assigned to them by SpokenWeb researcher Jason Camlot in […]
September 21, 2020
Get ready for Season 2 of the SpokenWeb Podcast, stories about how literature sounds. We have a brand-new line up of original episodes for you from archives, universities and in these physically distant times, the many spaces and places we call home, all across Canada and beyond. Whether it’s a deep dive into deep curation poetry, […]
October 5, 2020
Who chooses what words will be heard at a poetry reading, in what order, and why? Since 2018, Montreal-based poet and researcher Klara du Plessis has been developing her own practice of poetry reading organization by heightening the curator’s role in its production. She calls this experimental practice Deep Curation. This episode – the “Season […]
October 19, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY Welcome to ShortCuts. To kick off the new miniseries season, Katherine invites us into an audio remix of short clips from deep in the archive to consider: what does it mean and what is possible (technologically, phenomenologically, ethically, poetically) to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio-criticism can be […]
November 2, 2020
This episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast is a little different than episodes you’ve heard from us before. It is a kind of “feminist memory-work” – An audio collage, a method, an approach to community building which aims to honor lesbian-feminist collective histories and renewed public attention to lesbian feminist culture. SpokenWeb network members Felicity Tayler […]
November 16, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY This month’s ShortCut is an archival recording which transports us into the feeling of being at a live poetry reading. A feeling we are craving (right now in November 2020) as the covid-19 pandemic and social distancing continue. What is it that we are really missing about the live listening experience? The poetry? […]
December 7, 2020
For Penn Kemp, poetry is magic made manifest. While her subjects are varied, and her interests and approaches have evolved over the years, Kemp has always understood the power of spoken word to evoke emotion, shift consciousness, and shape the world. Drawing on a syncretic blend of spiritual philosophy informed by Buddhist, Hindu, and Celtic […]
December 21, 2020
EPISODE SUMMARY In trying to listen for time, this ShortCuts minisode listens for the New Year in SpokenWeb’s audio collections. What hopes do audiences have for the new year? And how do archival recordings help us understand our affective relation to time in our present moment? The audio for this ShortCuts minisode is cut from […]
January 11, 2021
For hundreds of years, the Yorùbá people of West African have used “talking drums” to send messages across great distances. West African languages are highly musical, full of rising and falling tones. The pitch of talking drums can be adjusted to mimic these tones, so drummers can “speak” to one another. The drummer encodes the […]
January 18, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY This ShortCuts minisode listens to one of the January readings that we heard about last time: a reading by Muriel Rukeyser that took place on January 24, 1969. Along with listening for mentions of January in the recording, this minisode listens to how Rukeyser’s reading enacts the very connection that she describes – […]
February 1, 2021
What does “listening” mean within the context of the literary classroom? In this episode we join Director of the SpokenWeb Network and Professor at Concordia University – Jason Camlot – in conversation with SpokenWeb podcast supervising producer and Simon Fraser University PhD candidate – Stacey Copeland – to explore how sound studies is being taken […]
February 15, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY In this season of ShortCuts we’ve spent some time in a 1969 recording of poet Muriel Rukeyser, and we’re going to stay in that recording for this minisode, partly due to the depth of material within this single recording and partly as an opportunity to reflect upon what a minisode can do – […]
March 1, 2021
On February 14, 1984, Mavis Gallant visited Simon Fraser University. She did a reading of her short story “Grippes and Poche,” which was published in the New Yorker in 1982 — her ninety-fifth work in the magazine. Containing the full recording of her reading, which includes Gallant’s live commentary as she reads, “Mavis Gallant Reads […]
March 15, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY March is a time of year when you can hum along to “It Might as Well be Spring,” but, on other days, it can feel like winter might never end. Can we hear spring in the archives? And what does it feel like to listen to sonic representations of change – at a distance […]
April 5, 2021
This episode is a series of interviews with Humanities scholars Mathieu Aubin, Clint Burnham, Treena Chambers, and T.L. Cowan about their approaches to the ethics of listening in their own research. We join Deanna Fong and Mike O’Driscoll as they step back to listen to the ethical practices of expert listeners. They’ll guide us through […]
April 19, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY This month, it is April – the month of poetry. The audio we will be listening to is a poem by Canadian poet Phyllis Webb. In fact, it is a series of poems from Naked Poems, poems that open up space and that leave room for the listener to listen – to listen […]
May 3, 2021
In this episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast, jamilah malika and Jessica Karuhanga talk about the sounds and sound-based practices that have informed their projects as recipients of the 2020-2021 SpokenWeb Artist-Curator in Residence Award. For her residency, jamilah is building an online archive highlighting Black women sound artists across Canada to provide inspiration and representation […]
May 17, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY In this ShortCuts minisode, listen to the contrapuntal poetics of poet Alexei Perry Cox. In a recording made at home, Alexei reads and improvises in response to a second voice in the room – the voice of her daughter Isla. Their interaction itself could be heard as a poem. Meanwhile, sounds of place enter […]
June 7, 2021
In the March 2021 episode of the SpokenWeb Podcast, SpokenWeb contributors Kate Moffatt, Kandice Sharren, and Michelle Levy presented the first episode of a two-part series: “Mavis Gallant reads ‘Grippes and Poche’ at SFU,” which included a full-length recording of Mavis Gallant’s reading of her New Yorker short story at Simon Fraser University in 1984. […]
June 21, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY On this ShortCuts, we dive into a new audio collection: Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection, accessible through SFU Library’s Digitized Collections. We’ll hear a recording of Dionne Brand reading in Vancouver with Lee Maracle of the Stó:lō nation. The recording of this reading was then played on the local radio program radiofreerainforest on August […]
July 5, 2021
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a group of poets at UBC Vancouver began a little magazine: the TISH poetry newsletter. The TISH poets would later be called one of the most cohesive writing movements in Canadian literary history. In the summer of 2019, Craig Carpenter visited one of the former editors of TISH […]
July 19, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY For our last minisode of season two, ShortCuts dives into the archives of The Words & Music Show, a monthly series of poetry, spoken word, music, and dance performances that has been happening in Montreal for over twenty years. Last year, SpokenWeb RA Ali Barillaro was digitizing that collection when she heard a […]
August 2, 2021
This episode takes us back to a SpokenWeb Project panel presentation from April 2021: “Podcasting as a Field of Critical Study.” This panel was organized by Jason Camlot and Stacey Copeland, and led by SpokenWeb Podcast host Hannah McGregor. It used the recently published volume, Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media (ed. Dario Llinares, […]
September 20, 2021
Another season is upon us! At the SpokenWeb Podcast, we continue to bring you episodes that journey into literary history and explore our contemporary responses to it. This season, researchers from across the SpokenWeb community – and a few special guests – produce audio stories that creatively engage with literary recordings in the SpokenWeb archives […]
October 4, 2021
Today, we are welcoming you to Season 3 by reintroducing and replaying an episode that exemplifies what our podcast is all about. In January 2020, we released the episode “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Elizabeth Smart” created by researcher and producer Myra Bloom. To kick off this season, Hannah and Myra sat down for […]
October 18, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY ShortCuts is back! Season Three of ShortCuts begins with a listening exercise. We attune our ears to what it sounds like and feels like to hear archival clips ‘cut’ out of context. Join ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod in this exploration of the sonic and affective place-making of ShortCuts as podcast. What kind of […]
November 1, 2021
In this episode, SpokenWeb contributor Julia Polyck-O’Neill shares an archived recording of Canadian poet Lisa Robertson with us and talks us through two interviews she recorded with Robertson. Polyck-O’Neill invites us to consider the significance of Robertson’s intimate archival collections in light of the relationships between archives, memory, affect, and mortality. In examining these conceptual, […]
November 22, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY In this episode, ShortCuts explores one of the methods of listening from the previous episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode, produced by Julia Polyck-O’Neill, listens to the emotional weight of archives. Julia’s conversations with poet Lisa Robertson uncover the ways in which archives record the relationships between memory, affect, and mortality. In […]
December 6, 2021
Forced Migration: Bison stories and what they can tell settlers about a past, present, and future on stolen land As uninvited guests on Indigenous land, we are continually told that national parks, and our conservation system in general, are a benevolent inheritance from our settler ancestors. The creators of parks and conservation societies crafted archives […]
December 20, 2021
EPISODE SUMMARY As part two of ShortCuts 2.9 Situating Sound—and as one of the many remembrances of Stó:lō writer and activist Lee Maracle—this ShortCuts explores how the archive remembers and who these memories serve. The audio recording for this episode is a 1988 recording of Lee Maracle and Dionne Brand, recorded for broadcast on Gerry […]
January 3, 2022
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast, we are excited to share with you a special episode from our sister podcast Soundbox Signals. Host Karis Shearer, guest curator Megan Butchart, and poet Daphne Marlatt have a conversation about Daphne Marlatt’s 1969 archival recording of leaf leaf/s and her experience of performing poetry with the archive in […]
January 17, 2022
EPISODE SUMMARY This ShortCuts episode responds to poet Daphne Marlatt’s conversation with Karis Shearer and Megan Butchart in the recent SpokenWeb Podcast episode “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive.” By listening to audio from Marlatt’s previous archival performances, ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod considers how we remember feelings attached to reading a poem out loud. What […]
February 7, 2022
How has the reading series been transformed by the Covid pandemic and its accompanying technologies of virtual gatherings? In this episode, Jason Camlot – SpokenWeb Director and Professor of English at Concordia University – takes us on a reflective listening tour through recordings of the Words and Music Show as it has evolved through the […]
February 21, 2022
EPISODE SUMMARY On ShortCuts this month, producer Katherine McLeod talks with poet, novelist, and sound performer Kaie Kellough about a memorable recording from The Words & Music Show. What are we listening to? Kellough unpacks what we are listening to — which turns out to be a highly technical, performative, and polyphonic sonic object, along […]
March 7, 2022
This is a mixed format episode presenting SpokenWeb members Mathieu Aubin and Stéphanie Ricci’s critical commentary after taking part in the organization of and attending the Listening, Sound, Agency Symposium. Bridging techniques from journalism and oral history, this episode includes sounds from the conference, interviews, and critically reflective discussions between Mathieu and Stéphanie. This episode […]
March 21, 2022
EPISODE SUMMARY Our guest-producer this month, Michael O’Driscoll, invites us to listen to the introductions of the late Douglas Barbour (March 21, 1940 – Sept 25, 2021) from readings held at the University of Alberta. What are we listening to when we hear introductory remarks from past readings spliced together? By asking us to listen […]
April 4, 2022
SpokenWeb members Kate Moffatt and Kandice Sharren take us behind the scenes of cataloguing SFU’s Women and Words Collection.
April 18, 2022
SUMMARY In this episode, ShortCuts returns to a recording of Phyllis Webb in order to re-listen through this season’s question of how the archive remembers. What is held in the ‘room’ of the recording, and how does that differ from the room where reading took place? Or from the room of personal memory? What exceeds […]
May 2, 2022
Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya celebrate the history of early UAlberta college radio and its producers in this episode, including interviews with host Jars Balan and audio engineer Terri Wynnyk, as well as archival radio show audio of Western Canadian poets Douglas Barbour and Phyllis Webb.
May 16, 2022
We listen to the recording of the event that concluded last year’s SpokenWeb Symposium (including excerpts of Oana Avasilichioaei’s live performance and Klara du Plessis’s reading) as this year’s Symposium begins, asking: what does this event sound like?
June 6, 2022
In this episode, Shortcuts producer Katherine McLeod and SpokenWeb Podcast transcriber Kelly Cubbon talk to Maya Rae Oppenheimer, Judith Burr, and Bára Hladík about the accessible, collaborative, and creative practice of transcription.
June 20, 2022
Katherine McLeod revisits “Situating Sound” (ShortCuts, Ep. 2.9) to think about transcription, context, and embodied listening.
July 4, 2022
In commemoration of Canadian poet Phyllis Webb (1927-2021), producer Stephen Collis charts a path through her work by following the “stars.”
July 18, 2022
This month, ShortCuts is replaying a past episode as a response to this month’s full episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode – “starry and full of glory”: Phyllis Webb, in Memoriam (produced by Stephen Collis) – is a moving commemoration of the life and work of Canadian poet Phyllis Webb.
August 1, 2022
This month on the SpokenWeb Podcast we are excited to share an episode from The WPHP Monthly Mercury, hosted by Kandice Sharren and our very own podcast supervising producer, Kate Moffatt. First aired on July 21, 2021, this episode of The WPHP Monthly Mercury features an interview with Dr. Kirstyn Leuner, director and editor-in-chief of […]
September 19, 2022
The SpokenWeb Podcast is back for its fourth season, premiering October 3, 2022! Join us for more stories about how literature sounds.
October 3, 2022
This crossover features an episode from producer Judith Burr’s master’s thesis podcast about fire knowledges in the Okanagan Valley.
October 17, 2022
In this first episode of Season 4, SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts continues the tradition of starting a new season by diving into its own archives. What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through short archival clips? Join host and producer Katherine McLeod to listen to clips from Season 3 of ShortCuts as a way of asking what literary criticism sounds like through cutting and splicing sound.
November 7, 2022
What better way to understand the archival state of a poem than to ask it? “The Night of the Living Archive” is an audio drama/mock interview between research assistant Liza Makarova and Fred Wah’s poems Mountain (1967), Limestone Lakes Utaniki (1987, 1989, and 1991), and Don’t Cut Me Down (1972), which currently live in the Fred Wah Digital Archive (fredwah.ca).
November 21, 2022
This is ShortCuts Live! Host Katherine McLeod and UBCO doctoral candidate Sarah Cipes talk feminist redaction and collaborative research.
December 5, 2022
What does data sounds like? Producer Chelsea Miya explores this question with guests Tunde Adegbol, Oana Avasilichioaei, and Matt Russo.
February 6, 2023
SpokenWeb RA Frances Grace Fyfe thinks about the literary concept of the dialogue—about conversations—by having conversations of her own.
February 20, 2023
This is ShortCuts Live! A conversation with host Katherine McLeod and Faith Paré about the Atwater Poetry Project archives.
March 6, 2023
Producer and SpokenWeb Podcast Sound Designer Miranda Eastwood asks, “What is sound design?” They go on an epic sonic journey to find out.
March 20, 2023
This is ShortCuts Live! Katherine McLeod sits down with Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya, past SpokenWeb Podcast producers.
April 3, 2023
Inspired by experimental radio, this episode from Don Shipton and Teddie Brock revisits an event with Fred Wah and meditates on recording and voice.
April 17, 2023
In this ShortCuts Live!, Katherine McLeod and Annie Murray talk about the EMI Music Canada Archives at the University of Calgary.
May 1, 2023
Join Dr. Michelle Levy and graduate student Maya Schwartz as they think through what it means to read audiobooks in the literary classroom.
June 5, 2023
EPISODE SUMMARY In this episode, Maia Trotter—SpokenWeb research assistant and recent graduate of the MLIS program at the University of Alberta—explores what libraries actually sound like. Featuring interviews with three staff members at the Edmonton Public Library Stanley A. Milner branch and her own personal reflections, this episode considers how the sounds of library spaces […]
June 19, 2023
This episode of ShortCuts, produced by Ella Jando-Saul, explores how even unintentional sounds can affect our interpretation of a recording.
August 7, 2023
This bonus episode is about Headlight 24, the most recent edition of Concordia University’s graduate student-run literary journal.
September 18, 2023
The SpokenWeb Podcast is back for Season 5! Join us on our ongoing quest to uncover “what literature sounds like” through audio scholarship.
October 2, 2023
Ghislaine Comeau brings us along on her quest to translate the “The Ruin” – a famously ruined Old English poem from the 10th century manuscript known as the Exeter Book.
October 16, 2023
SUMMARY Welcome to Season 5 of ShortCuts. ShortCuts started out on the podcast feed as a ‘minisode’ during our first season and it soon took on a life of its own. ShortCuts host and producer Katherine McLeod would take you on a deep dive into the SpokenWeb archives through a short ‘cut’ of audio. What […]
November 6, 2023
This episode navigates this question using an associative method which links stories and sounds, forming a non-linear audio collage.
November 20, 2023
This ShortCuts presents the first of many conversations recorded at the University of Alberta as part of the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium.
December 11, 2023
This month, the SpokenWeb Podcast presents a crossover episode with Linda M. Morra’s, Getting Lit with Linda – The Canadian Literature Podcast.
March 4, 2024
In this episode, Michelle Levy and Maya Schwartz revisit the early history of Caedmon records.
March 18, 2024
This ShortCuts presents one of the ShortCuts Live! conversations recorded at the University of Alberta as part of the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium.
April 1, 2024
In this podcast, author and Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto, Adam Hammond, asks if computers can help us to decide which readers are best at “doing” the voices in the poem.
April 24, 2024
In the archival clip played in this episode, we hear Maxine Gadd ask Andreas Schroeder if he would like to improvise with her for the poem, “Shore Animals.”
May 6, 2024
For a riotous underground scene in 1980s Montreal, the Ultimatum Urban Poetry Festival was the site for radical experimentation in artistic performance.
May 20, 2024
Xiaoxuan Huang talks about hybrid poetics (and more) with then-supervising producer Kate Moffatt.
June 3, 2024
In this month’s episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast, ShortCuts is taking over the airwaves with a special edition episode.
July 1, 2024
In this live episode, producers Nicholas Beauchesne and Chelsea Miya venture into the roots and future directions of algorithmic art.
July 29, 2024
For this final ShortCuts, we listen with Brandon LaBelle in a conversation recorded on-site at Errant Bodies Press in Berlin.
September 16, 2024
The SpokenWeb Podcast is back for Season 6!
October 7, 2024
Andrew Whiteman invites listeners to step into an arena of collaboration between poetry and sound.
November 4, 2024
In this episode, hosts Lindsay Pereira and Ella Jando-Saul explore the concept of virtual pilgrimage through conversations with two guests.
