• About
  • Cats Dig Hemingway
  • Guest Bookings
  • John King’s Publications
  • Literary Memes
  • Podcast Episode Guide
  • Store!
  • The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Videos
  • Writing Craft Discussions

The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Tag Archives: Dianne Turgeon Richardson

Episode 298: A Night of Protest Poetry!

27 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Live Show, Poetry, politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dianne Turgeon Richardson

Episode 298 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On January 19th, 2018, Dianne Turgeon Richardson hosted an evening of protest poetry at Milk Bar in Orlando, Florida!

Dianne Turgeon Richardson

The readers included on this recording are Talor Carr, Rachel Fox, Lana Ghannam, Drew Weinbrenner, John King, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Lisa Roney, Troy Cunio, Laurie Uttich, and Sean Patrick Mulroy.

Lana Ghannam

Lana Ghannam.

Lisa Roney

Lisa Roney

Bar Dogs!

Bar dogs.

NOTES

  • For help with getting Voter IDs, for yourself or others, please check out IDignity.
  • Learn more about Exodus United.
  • You can greatly help my efforts and stay better informed about my video offerings by subsciring to my youtube channel.

Episode 298 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

 

Episode 258: A Star Wars Roundtable!

04 Thursday May 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Star Wars

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dianne Turgeon Richardson, George Lucas: A Life, Julian Chambliss, Kevin Hutchinson, Rogue One A Star Wars Story, The Force Awakens, Tod Caviness

Episode 258 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Banner SW show 1

In this week’s episode, Julian Chambliss, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Tod Caviness, and Kevin Hutchinson join me in a roundtable discussion of Star Wars. We talk about the questionable genius of George Lucas, the role of Disney in anticipating the needs and desires of the SW audience, the imposition of romance in war narratives, and the profound role of play in our development of self. A lot of beer was drunk. We made fun of each other.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

George Lucas A Life

Rogue One Blu RayThe Force Awakens Blu Ray

Check out Kevin Hutchinson’s podcast, Nerding Out About.


Episode 258 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 227: HP Lovecraft Roundtable!

08 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Horror

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cthulhu, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Dunwich Horror, Elise McKenna, HP Lovecraft, John King, Julian Chambliss, The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Tom Lucas, Weird Tales

Episode 227 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I and my inestimable guests have a fine conversation about Lovecraft and his bizarre tales and his rather strange life and his exceptionally unfortunate opinions

The participants included Elise McKenna, Tom Lucas,

Elise & Tom Lovecraft RoundtableJulian Chambliss,

Julian Lovecraft Roundtableand Dianne Turgeon Richardson.

Diane Lovecraft Roundtable
TEXTS DISCUSSED

the-dream-quest

This looks like a 1980s era Penguin book, right?

call-of-cthulu the-new-annotated-h-p-lovecraftweird-tales-july-1933-the-dreams-in-the-witch-house-and-the-horror-in-the-museum

Save

An author photo can look unintentionally scarier than the horror book cover sometimes.

Save

Save

Save

Buzzed Books #27: Something Rich and Strange

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Buzzed Books

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Ron Rash, Something Rich and Strange

Buzzed Books #27 by Dianne Turgeon-Richardson

Something Rich and Strange

Something Rich and Strange

This is less of a book review and more of a public service announcement:

If you’re not reading Ron Rash, you should be.

To put it simply and to risk using an already overused word, he is awesome. If you worry that you’re late to the Ron Rash party (and you should be worried), then Something Rich and Strange, a compilation of thirty-four previously published stories released last year by HarperCollins, is a thorough and satisfying crash course.

Here’s what you need to know about Ron Rash: he grew up in the Piedmont of North Carolina, eventually making his way up into the Blue Ridge Mountains, a spot he rarely leaves. He is a professor in Appalachian cultural studies at Western Carolina University, and most of his fiction is set in the highlands of western North Carolina.

I know you may be groaning. I can even imagine a few eye rolls. Another southern regional writer? What is it with these people who grow up in the Deep South?

Fair enough. We do tend to be slightly obsessed with our homeland.

And yes, Rash’s fiction is very much fiction of place, but there is more to it than location, landscape, and being “southern.” Oh, sure, all that you would expect from southern writing is there: a certain conservative world view, all-encompassing fire-and-brimstone religion, clear and significant class divisions, agricultural society, race, and (of course) the Civil War. And themes of nature, landscape, and environmentalism are widely regarded as hallmarks of Rash’s work. But place and capital T “The” and capital S “South” are not—at least to me—what makes his work worth reading.

His work may start with place, but really it’s about voice.

Voice is how Rash captures place. It’s what leads to great characters, too. The voice is at once uniquely southern and Appalachian but unique to the individual character. Sometimes that voice is very, very funny, as in the case of the female carpenter trying her darndest to stay out of her ex-husband’s cockamamie (and Biblical) schemes in “The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth in Cliffside, North Carolina,” and sometimes that voice is so melancholy and hopeless that it borders on the existential, as in “Those Who Are Dead Are Only Now Forgiven,” wherein a young man gives up on a college education in an honorable but pathetic attempt to rescue his high school sweetheart from the scourge of meth addiction.

The great thing about Rash’s grounding his characters in voice instead of place or landscape is that it lends them a humanity, a realness, instead of letting them be bogged down in caricatures of southern Appalachian clichés. And this is no accident. Rash uses his own characters to warn us of buying into the hype so often exploited by today’s “redneck chic” reality television. In “The Trusty,” a Depression-era chain gang convict falls for those same stereotypes, and it costs him his life. There’s the Yankee game warden in “Their Ancient, Glittering Eyes” who refuses to believe the stories of a giant fish in the Tuckaseegee River and who refuses to take the old men who catch that fish seriously. Rash is forcing you to take these people seriously, to acknowledge the dignity of all his characters, even the most backwoods, dirt-floor-poor among them, and to recognize a common human experience. This is what all good regional fiction does—disguises the universal in the particular.

If Rash’s short fiction is not only about place, it is also not Grit Lit, the current buzz-genre in southern literature. Henry Crews is widely credited with creating the term that has been referred to as redneck stories, white trash literature, even southern noir. A play on words, referring both to “gritty” stories and the grits so commonly devoured by southerners of all classes, Grit Lit centers on the lives of the rural (usually white) poor, and the tales are full of single-wide trailers, drugs, guns, fights, and almost unspeakable violence. While I admit to reading and enjoying the work of Crews, William Gay, Tom Franklin, and others, there are a few problems with Grit Lit: Most of the writers are men, and commonly the Grit Lit stories they write would not pass the Bechdel Test by a long shot. Grit Lit stories tend to ignore a significant portion of the southern population, namely that portion with darker skin. And at times it seems the writers of Grit Lit are locked in a battle to see who can write the most violent, repulsive characters imaginable, as if they’re all trying to out-Cormac-McCarthy Cormac McCarthy himself.

And you will certainly find some of this in Rash’s writing. But if Rash’s work is gritty or violent, it’s more a product of place than some attempt to shock readers into listening to the stories of the poor and marginalized, which leaves his work more in the realm of regional literary fiction, harkening more to the original notion of Southern Gothic with its preoccupation with the spooky and grotesque. “The Corpse Bird” hinges on long-held superstitions about death, and “Shiloh” suggests the existence of ghosts and spirits. And Rash gives us grotesque, as in the branding of an Englishman’s tongue by Scotch-Irish mountain folk exacting revenge for the massacre of their ancestors centuries before in “A Servant of History,” the repeated “faces of meth” images that litter a number of these stories like trash on the side of the highway, and the ill-fated escapades of the modern-day grave robbers in “Dead Confederates.” But there’s a difference between “grotesque” and “violent,” especially what can often feel like gratuitous violence. Thus, Rash’s work never becomes some version of literary gore porn, and his characters never fall into the trope of brutish redneck. Yes, his characters are often savage, sometimes noble, but Rash never condescends to them or allows them to fall into stereotypes (southern or Grit Lit-y). Instead we get characters with an intense love of the land, of home, coupled with an unspoken desire to escape it, leading to a quiet desperation that plays out in the decisions they make.

This is why you need to read Ron Rash. And don’t forget that Rash is also an accomplished poet and novelist. 2008’s Serena was a New York Times bestseller. But if short fiction is your thing, or if you just want to dip your toe in the clear and cold mountain streams of western North Carolina, Something Rich and Strange is a mighty fine place to start.

_______

Dianne Turgeon Richardson (Episodes 72, 77, 102, and 129) is a writer of fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Florida Review, Cooweescoowee, and Word Riot, among other places. She received her MFA from the University of Central Florida, where she currently teaches freshman composition. Originally from South Carolina, she now lives in Orlando with her husband, her hound, and a fetus whose arrival is imminent.

Dianne Turgeon Richardson, politician

Episode 102: A Roundtable in Honor of Donald Duck, on his 80th Birthday!

07 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Disney, Episode

≈ 288 Comments

Tags

102 Ways to Save Money at Walt Disney World, Der Furher’s Face, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Donald Duck, Donaldism, Dumbbell of the Yukon, Early to Bed, George Plimpton, Jeffrey Shuster, Lewis Hyde, Lou Mongello, Mary Blair, Mousterpiece Theater, RObert Benchley, Saludos Amigos, sean ironman, Teege Braune, The Band Concert, The Clock Watcher, The Symphony Hour, The Three Caballeros, Trickster Makes This World, Walt Disney

Episode 102 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download. On this week’s show, my friends Teege Braune of In Boozo Veritas fame, Sean Ironman of Heroes Never Rust fame, Jeff Shuster, who is the Curator of Schlock, and Dianne Turgeon Richardson join me for a roundtable discussion of Donald Duck on his 80th birthday.

Donald Duck roundtable 2

Donald Duck roundtable 1

Donald Duck Roundtable 4Donald Duck Roundtable 5 TEXTS DISCUSSED

Trickster Makes This World The Best of Plimpton 102 ways The Band Concert (1935)

Early to Bed (1941)

The Symphony Hour (1942)

Saludos Amigos Trailer (1942)

Der Furher’s Face (1943)

Commando Duck (1944)

The Clock Watcher (1945)

Dumbbell of the Yukon (1946)

Soup’s On (1948)

Donald Applecore (1952)

Mickey Mouse Club Intro (1955)

Clip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988, set in 1947)

Commercial for Mousterpiece Theater (1980-something)

NOTES

Dianne Turgeon-Richardson critiqued of the storytelling of Maleficent on her blog.

_______

Episode 102 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In Boozo Veritas #15: The Drunken Odyssey with John King, Episode 72: The Liner Notes

11 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Drinking, In Boozo Veritas

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baudelaire, Baudelaire Beer, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, Intergalactic Polynesian Luau Punch, John King, Matt Peters, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #15 by Teege Braune

The Drunken Odyssey with John King, Episode 72:

The Liner Notes

The Drunken Odyssey with John King is your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature. Last Tuesday I was honored to be invited by John to take part in episode 72 with fellow local writers Dianne Turgeon Richardson and Matt Peters, who is the man behind Orlando-based publishing house Beating Windward Press. What literary subject could John have possibly needed my expertise to discuss? Drinking, of course. And how should one discuss drinking? While drinking, naturally.

Sweet love

The four of us gathered at the clubhouse of John’s condo where an important meeting was taking place, so we were subsequently relegated to a hot, cramped back room that was still decorated for Halloween. The walls were entirely black and covered with drawings of skulls and messages of death scrawled along them, but every writer worth her grit knows that literature isn’t about comfort, nor for that matter, is drinking. John initiated our union by mixing together equal parts white rum, dark rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, and more than a splash of grenadine into a pitcher large enough to quench the thirst of an entire little league team.

The concoction known as Intergalactic Polynesian Luau Punch was atomic red, contained enough sugar to send Cookie Monster into a diabetic coma, and entered literary posterity for keeping us well quaffed throughout the night (assuming we all become celebrated writers).

I was hesitant to listen to the resulting podcast for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it has been said on more than one occasion that I like to hear the sound of my own voice. If this is so (it probably is), it only pertains to my voice as it comes out of my mouth. Once recorded and played back to me, I rather hate the sound of my own voice. I know I’m not alone in this hangup. Hearing your own voice tends to be equivalent to seeing your own distorted image in a fun house mirror, and then cringing as you realize there’s nothing wrong with the mirror at all; you actually look that way.

Teege Braune channels Donald Duck

Secondly, bouts of drinking were not meant to be documented. Foggy recollections, exaggerated tales: these are the only ways drinking binges should be remembered. It is why drunks obsessively try to get those around them to have another drink. A recording device is not only stone-cold sober, it also has been blessed with an infallible memory and a tendency to create scandals for people like former presidents and celebrities. Fortunately, John, Dianne, Matt, and I are neither of these things.

Dianne Turgeon Richardson, future politician

Nevertheless, we each harbor our own sense of pride and threshold for humiliation. Anyway, the podcast is certainly not as incriminating as the video of me at twenty-three having consumed a great deal of bourbon and wearing a bikini, and we can all thank Bacchus for that.

The podcast speaks for itself, as podcasts tend to do. Though I would like to point out, if you didn’t notice already, what an absolute champion drinker our illustrious host John King proved to be. Matt got pretty silly before he was half finished with his first glass, and I followed close behind. Dianne held her own pretty well, but even she was stumbling over her words and dropping casual F-bombs by the end of it. John, on the other hand, drank his portion of the Intergalactic Luau Punch in stride. He unsuccessfully attempted to keep us focused while we went off on strange rants. I’m still not sure why he expected a group of drunks to stay on topic.

Baudelaire speaks

Never once did he slur his words or embarrass himself by blubbering on whilst trying to remember where he was and what the hell he was doing there. I can’t say the same thing for myself, but then again, I don’t think John invited me to be the resident teetotaler.

Lastly, my apologies to Ryan Rivas for his inclusion in the discussion. John promised to edit out anything that was inappropriate. He lied.

___________

Teege Braune at workTeege Braune (episode 72) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

Scribophile, the online writing group for serious writers

Online, shop here:

If you must, shop Amazon and help the show.

Audible.com

Blogs

Not forgotten

Categories

  • 21st Century Bronte
  • A Word from the King
  • Aesthetic Drift
  • animation
  • Anime
  • Art
  • Autobiography
  • AWP
  • Biography
  • Blog Post
  • Bloomsday
  • Buddhism
  • Buzzed Books
  • Cheryl Strayed
  • Children's Literature
  • Christmas
  • Christmas literature
  • Comedy
  • Comic Books
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart
  • Craft of Fiction Writing
  • Creative Nonfiction
  • David Foster Wallace
  • David James Poissant
  • David Lynch
  • David Sedaris
  • Disney
  • Dispatches from the Funkstown Clarion
  • Doctor Who
  • Drinking
  • Dungeons and Dragons
  • Editing
  • Education
  • Episode
  • Erotic Literature
  • Essay
  • Fan Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Feminism
  • Film
  • Film Commentary
  • Flash Fiction
  • Florida Literature
  • Francesca Lia Block
  • Functionally Literate
  • Ghost writing
  • Graphic Novels
  • Gutter Space
  • Help me!
  • Heroes Never Rust
  • History
  • Horror
  • Humor
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • In Boozo Veritas
  • Irish Literature
  • Jack Kerouac
  • James Bond
  • James Joyce
  • Jazz
  • Journalism
  • Kerouac House
  • Kung Fu
  • Like a Geek God
  • Literary Criticism
  • Literary Magazines
  • Literary Prizes
  • Literary rizes
  • Literature of Florida
  • Litlando
  • Live Show
  • Loading the Canon
  • Loose Lips Reading Series
  • Lost Chords & Serenades Divine
  • Magic Realism
  • Mailbag
  • manga
  • McMillan's Codex
  • Memoir
  • Miami Book Fair
  • Michael Caine
  • Military Literature
  • Mixtape
  • Music
  • New York City
  • O, Miami
  • Old Poem Revue
  • On Top of It
  • Pensive Prowler
  • Philosophy
  • Photography
  • Poetry
  • politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Publishing
  • Recommendation
  • Repeal Day
  • science
  • Science Fiction
  • Screenwriting
  • Sexuality
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespearing
  • Sozzled Scribbler
  • Sports
  • Star Wars
  • Television
  • The Bible
  • The Curator of Schlock
  • The Global Barfly's Companion
  • The Lists
  • The Perfect Life
  • The Pink Fire Revue
  • The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Theater
  • There Will Be Words
  • translation
  • Travel Writing
  • Vanessa Blakeslee
  • Versify
  • Video Games
  • Violence
  • Virginia Woolf
  • War
  • Westerns
  • Word From the King
  • Young Adult
  • Your Next Beach Read
  • Zombies

Recent Posts

  • The Curator of Schlock #383: CQ
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #176: With Jurassic Chomping Action!
  • Episode 524: Yeoh Jo-Ann!
  • The Curator of Schlock #382: Dark Crimes
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #175

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Drunken Odyssey
    • Join 4,215 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Drunken Odyssey
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...