Megan Howell — Softie - with Hannah Grieco

<p>In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls in<em><strong> Softie </strong></em>transform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places.</p><p>A former child star haunted by a past she can't remember. An Afro-French girl with an obsession for ear lobes. A loner whose only friend is hiding a terrible, otherworldly secret. Each of these stories shares situations that are sometimes fantastical, sometimes commonplace, but always strange. From a Corsican vacation town in its off-season to hospital rooms and a seedy hotel suite in Chicago, experience the every day come fully untethered from reality.</p><p><br /></p><p>PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781959000310?ic_referral=HxsV7sS_YboX2jouZZf9nAqrSJ0QLz0ltedyCv-HliwwM74IWcuJjm3kVfxrFPI_3VMUeNwvDxVI8Rj-eGn1muClQjyDBFK3RNuWn0IsCtkjCCf9X0LSjZ6sRGe9JN2DiovsRw</p><p><br /></p><p><strong>Megan Howell </strong>is a DC-based writer. She earned her MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland in College Park, winning both the Jack Salamanca Thesis Award and the Kwiatek Fellowship. Her work has appeared in <em>McSweeney's</em>, <em>The Nashville Review</em> and <em>The Establishment</em> among other publications.</p><p>Howell is in conversation with <strong>Hannah Grieco.</strong> Grieco is the author of <em>First Kicking, Then Not</em>, forthcoming from Stanchion in 2025. She writes a literary column for Washington City Paper, edits prose at a variety of small presses and literary journals, and teaches literature at Marymount University. You can read her work in The Washington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, Brevity, Craft Literary, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, Fairy Tale Review, and more. Find her online at <a href="http://www.hgrieco.com/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.hgrieco.com</a> and on most social media @writesloud.</p><p><br /></p><p>*recorded 1/25/2025</p>