Arts & Culture

Acclaimed essayist, poet, and critic Carmen Maria Machado discusses her literary repertoire and process.

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, among others. Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, The Believer, Guernica, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, garnering residencies with Hedgebrook, Baldwin for the Arts, and more. Flame’s work appears in diverse publications, and her first poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame’s second book, apocrifa, a love story told in verse, launched 2023 from Red Hen Press. She serves as Program Director of Hedgebrook while working on a third poetry collection, singing with her band, Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, writing essays, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks.

Share this Save on Linkedin Share this Share by email