The Short Fuse Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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About Reading the City

 "Reading the City" is a weekly newsletter of bookish events in and around NYC, a weekly diary of upcoming New York literary life on a need-to-know basis. No long blurbs, no reviews, just book events of all stripes. "Reading the City" links to the author’s books, website, or social pages when possible. Tyler Wetherall, the founder and editor, is a believer in the  power of the literary community to raise each other up, champion one another, and help make the site an inclusive and welcoming space for all writers and readers. 

Tyler Wetherall is a  Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and teacher, and the author of No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run (St. Martin’s Press) and Amphibian (forthcoming from Virago).   She arrived in New York from London in 2014, knowing just three people. She  carried with her a manuscript she had  written alone in a Victorian outhouse at the end of her mother’s garden in Devon. Her entire experience of the writerly life thus far was solitary—and pretty cold. She found herself in a  very special place called the Oracle Club (RIP) in Long Island City, and there  she met real life authors for the first time. After staying up late and  talking craft, drinking gin, and playing records, or reading poetry and howling into the night, she had  found her community, and through that community the practical and intellectual resources she needed to become an author myself. 

Photo credit:  Sammy Deigh

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others.  Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman:  A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York.  @elizh24 on Instagram

The Arts Fuse 

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

The goal of The Arts Fuse is to treat the arts seriously, to write about them in the same way that other publications cover politics, sports, and business — with professionalism, thoughtfulness, and considerable attitude. The magazine’s motto, from Jonathan Swift, sums up our editorial stance: “Use the point of your pen … not the feather.” 

The Arts Fuse has published over 7,000 articles and receives 60,000+ visits a month. This year they are celebrating their 5th birthday, a milestone for a small, independent magazine dedicated to covering the arts.

Why The Arts Fuse? Its birth was a reaction to the declining arts coverage in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. When the number of news pages shrink in the mainstream media, attention is paid. But the continual whittling down of arts coverage has been passed over in silence. Editor-in-Chief Bill Marx started the magazine to preserve the craft of professional arts criticism online, while also looking at new and innovative ways to evolve the cultural conversation and bring together critics, readers, and artists.

Serious criticism, by talking about the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the arts, plays an indispensable role in the cultural ecology. Smaller, newer organizations need a response. When they are ignored as they are by the mainstream media, they fail to gain an audience. And without an audience, they fold, further weakening the entire ecosystem.

Assist The Arts Fuse in their  mission: to keep arts and culture hale and hearty through dialogue rather than marketing.

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HELP  The Arts Fuse thrive by providing underwriting for the magazine. Even better — make a tax deductible donation.

 Sonya Chung is the author of the novels The Loved Ones (Relegation Books, 2016) and Long for This World (Scribner, 2010). She is a staff writer for the The Millions and founding editor of Bloom, and is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the Bronx Council on the Arts Writers’ Residency, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Key West Literary Seminars residency, a Studios of Key West residency, and an Escape to Create residency.  Sonya’s stories, reviews, & essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Tin House, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, Short: An International Anthology, and This is The Place: Women Writing About Home, among others. Sonya has taught fiction writing at Columbia University, NYU, and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She is the Director of Film Forum. 

Film Forum

Film Forum began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership, Film Forum moved downtown to the Vandam Theater in 1975. In 1980, Cooper led the construction of a twin cinema on Watts Street. In 1990, Film Forum’s current Houston Street cinema was built at a cost of $3.2 million. In 2018, Film Forum raised $5 million to renovate and expand its Houston Street cinema, upgrading the seating, legroom, and sightlines in all theaters and adding a new, 4th screen. In 2023, Cooper stepped down as Director and was succeeded by Deputy Director Sonya Chung.

We present two distinct, complementary film programs – NYC theatrical premieres of American independents and foreign art films, programmed by Cooper (Advisor to the Director as of 2023), Mike Maggiore, and Sonya Chung; and, since 1987, repertory selections including foreign and American classics, genre works, festivals and directors’ retrospectives, programmed by Bruce Goldstein. Our third and fourth screens are dedicated to extended runs of popular selections from both programs, as well as new films for longer engagements. 

Film Forum is open 365 days a year, with as many as 250,000 annual admissions, nearly 500 seats, approximately 60 employees (of which half are full time), 6,500+ members and a $7 million operating budget. Approximately 80% of our budget is spent directly on programs. As a non-profit, we raise approximately 50% of our operating income. Public funders include: The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and various NYC agencies including the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Private donors include individuals, foundations, and corporate entities. Additionally, our members contribute more than $500,000 annually. This allows us to take risks on emerging filmmakers and challenging films. Film Forum has a $6 million endowment, begun in 2000 with a $1.25 million gift from the Ford Foundation.

Film Forum is the only autonomous nonprofit cinema in New York City and one of the few in the U.S. The success of our distinctive position is evidenced by our over 50-year tenure, during which our programs and fiscal resources have grown steadily. Sadly, since the 1970s, dozens of NYC art-house theaters (and a great number throughout the U.S.) have closed their doors.

As a cinema of ideas, Film Forum is committed to presenting an international array of films that treat diverse social, political, historical and cultural realities. Unlike commercial cinemas that primarily “book” high-grossing, Hollywood films, Film Forum’s programs are thoughtfully selected, with attention to unique cinematic qualities, historical importance individually or within a genre and – particularly for documentaries – relevance to today’s world.

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard is the Host of the Short Fuse Podcast.

Arts Fuse 

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

Justice Malala is one of South Africa’s foremost political commentators and the author of the #1 bestseller We Have Now Begun Our Descent: How to Stop South Africa Losing its Way. A longtime weekly columnist for The Times (South Africa), he has also written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Financial Times, among other outlets. The former publisher of The Sowetan and Sunday World, he now lives in New York.

Kyle Dacuyan is a poet, performer, and translator. His poem have appeared in DIAGRAM, Lambda Literary, Foundry, and Best New Poets, among other places. He is the recipient of scholarships from Poets House, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Academy of American Poets. Prior to joining The Poetry Project, he served as co-director of National Outreach and Membership at PEN America, where he led the launch of a nationwide community engagement fund for writers. Previously, he served as associate director at the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America.

The Poetry Project

American Academy of Poets

St. Mark's in the Bowery Church

Poetry Foundation

The Paris Review 

O, Miami

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary where he teaches Indigenous literatures and cultures with a focus on gender and sexuality.  His book of poetry, full-metal indigiqueer (Talonbooks 2017), was shortlisted for the inaugural Indigenous Voices Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry.  His novel, Jonny Appleseed  (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018), established Joshua Whitehead as one of the most exciting and important new literary voices on Turtle Island.  Jonny Appleseed was long listed for the Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award, the Governor General's Literary Award, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. In Making Love With the Land  (University of Minnesota, 2022), a book of essays, he writes in prose that is evocative and sensual, unabashedly queer and visceral, raw,  autobiographical, and emotionally compelling. Whitehead shares his devotion to the world in which we live and brilliantly—even joyfully—maps his experience on the land that has shaped stories, histories, and bodies from time immemorial.   His work is published widely in such venues as Prairie Fire, CV2, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Grain, CNQ, Write, and Red Rising Magazine.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

University of Minnesota Press

Johnny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast, Con Confianza and The Stand Unshaken Podcast. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries.

Free Tasha Shelby is the website where you can learn more about Tasha's case. 

To support Tasha:

Governor Tate Reeves: C  Governor’s office,  call 601-359-3150/ email governor@govreeves.ms.gov.

Lynn Fitch, Mississippi Attorney General:  601.359.3680/P.O. Box 220, Jackson MS 3920

Valena Beety is a law professor, an innocence litigator, and a former federal prosecutor. She has exonerated wrongly convicted clients, founded the West Virginia Innocence Project, and obtained presidential grants of clemency for drug offenses. She served as an appointed commissioner on the West Virginia Governor's Indigent Defense Commission. She is currently a professor of law at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O' Connor College of Law and the deputy director of the Academy for Justice, a criminal justice center at the law school.V

Tasha Mercedes Shelby is a writer and an advocate for incarcerated women. Tasha was wrongly convicted of a crime that did not occur on June 16, 2000 in Biloxi, Mississippi. In her twenty-two years of incarceration, she has earned her GED, taken classes at Millsaps College through the Prison to College Pipeline, and developed as a writer and as an artist. She continues to fight her wrongful conviction and you can learn more about her struggle at Free Tasha Shelby.

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at  alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

Bloomberg Public Arts Challenge 

Audio used in the episode has been contributed by Bloomberg Philanthropies' Public Art Challenge. 

Artist David Best's Temple of Time brought the communities of Parkland and Coral Springs, Florida together on the one-year anniversary of the school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The Greenwood Art Project in Tulsa, Oklahoma commemorated the centennial anniversary of the 1921 massacre of a thriving Black community, known as Black Wall Street. The history of the massacre had been buried, and these art projects marked the community's resilience and recovery through installations by local artists who told the story of Black Wall Street's past, present, and future..

Bloomberg Philanthropies believes in the power of arts and culture to inspire creativity and spark collaboration. The Arts program supports artists and cultural organizations and improves audience experience to strengthen the creative landscape and quality of life in cities around the world. These efforts include facilitating collaborations between artists and local governments to address civic issues, building capacity for small and mid-sized cultural institutions, and increasing and enhancing visitor engagement through the integration of digital technology.

Data on projects over the five most recent Public Challenge Projects underscores their impact, including catalyzing more than $100 million in economic benefits for local communities. Cities can apply for Public Art Challenge grants until February 15, 2023.

Stephanie Dockery brings more than 12 years of experience in arts management to her role as a member of the Arts Team at Bloomberg Philanthropies. Currently, Stephanie manages Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Art Challenge, a national competition supporting temporary public art projects that address significant civic issues and demonstrate an ability to generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity, and strengthen local economies. She also manages partnership teams on the Bloomberg Connects portfolio app, a free app with guides to 160 cultural organizations. 

Elizabeth Howard  is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast. 

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at  alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

Diane Glancy is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and professor emeritus at Macalester College. Her works have won the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. and the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center the Book, among other awards. In 2018, Publishers Weekly named her book Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears one of the ten essential Native American novels.

Turtle Point Press introduces readers to outstanding literature by classic and contemporary writers from around the globe. We promote the work of emerging and neglected authors alongside those who are better known. The mix creates a publishing program that is both iconoclastic and challenging, revealing lives not usually seen in books that are playful, poignant, and poetic. Our writers work with some of the best editors in publishing and are treated to exquisitely designed and produced books. We are especially dedicated to supporting women, the LGBTQ community, and writers whose first language is not English. 

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of Short Fuse Podcast.  She engages individuals in lively and provocative conversations around how the arts can affect social change.  As a creative director and communications consultant she is recognized for her creative approach in working with clients and assisting them in their messaging, branding and media, as they stride past boundaries in search of the new. Her portfolio includes authors, artists, and cultural organizations; business leaders, universities, nonprofit organizations; and professional service firms, including high-profile architectural and design firms, often with international practices.

Alex Waters

Alex is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at  alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

Diane Alters

Diane Alters is a lecturer in journalism at Colorado College. She has worked as an editor or reporter for several publications, including the Boston Globe, the Sacramento Bee and the Denver Post and is co-author of Media, Home and Family (Routledge 2004). Her exquisite book of poetry, Breath, Suspended, (Finishing Line Press 2022.) was described by a critic as, “What it means to write at the aperture of grief.”

Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch is a beloved American poet. Gabriel: A Poem, published in 2014, is a book-length elegy for his son.  He has written 10 volumes of poetry and is the author of five prose books. His most recent book is 100 Poems to Break Your Heart. Edward Hirsch has taught creative writing and is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a position he has held since 2002.

Sarah J. Purcell

Author, Spectacle of Grief, Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era and L. F. Parker Professor of History at Grinnell College.

Alex Waters

Alex is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at  alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

Valena Beety is a law professor, an innocence litigator, and a former federal prosecutor. She has exonerated wrongly convicted clients, founded the West Virginia Innocence Project, and obtained presidential grants of clemency for drug offenses. She served as an appointed commissioner on the West Virginia Governor's Indigent Defense Commission. She is currently a professor of law at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O' Connor College of Law and the deputy director of the Academy for Justice, a criminal justice center at the law school.V

Tasha Mercedes Shelby is a writer and an advocate for incarcerated women. Tasha was wrongly convicted of a crime that did not occur on June 16, 2000 in Biloxi, Mississippi. In her twenty-two years of incarceration, she has earned her GED, taken classes at Millsaps College through the Prison to College Pipeline, and developed as a writer and as an artist. She continues to fight her wrongful conviction and you can learn more about her struggle at Free Tasha Shelby.

Alex Waters 

Alex is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at  alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries.