Textual Healing with Mallory Smart

Krystle Ratticus was born in Denver, Colorado, and raised on the rural border of Iowa and Missouri before running away to Chicago as a teenager. There, she found her voice in the raw pulse of local zine culture and DIY publishing. Her writing channels the dramatic undercurrents of the working class, shaped by years spent in kitchens, funeral parlors, and outsider circles. With a dark sense of humor and sharp eye for detail, Krystle weaves together tales of latchkey childhoods, rock’n’roll hillbillies, and the lonely, electric tension of being othered—even by other outsiders. Website: alexalexherehere.com 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

Alex Moreno's work explores emotional processes through surrealism, visceral interiority, and synesthetic play. Sticky Time (Sunflower Station Press) is her debut poetry book. You can also find her writing in Spectra Poets, Lit Angels, and Dream Boy Book Club. She earned a BA from Bowdoin College, eats 1-2 apples a day, and really likes it. Website: alexalexherehere.com 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

Daniel W. Wright is a poet, editor, and fiction writer. Wright is the author of poetry chapbook Gods of a Former World (Crying Heart Press, 2025), the full-length poetry collection The Unheard Music (Kung Fu Treachery, 2025), and the novel Call Center (Back of the Class, 2024). He is also the author of four other full-length collections of poetry, five poetry chapbooks, a novella, a short story collection, and co-author of four poetry splits. His work has appeared in numerous print and online journals including Chiron Review, Book of Matches, and Gasconade Review. Wright currently resides in St. Louis, MO where you can usually find him in a bar or a bookstore. 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

Josh Dale is from Pennsylvania and recommends playing metal music to your cat. He’s the founder of Thirty West Publishing House, cohost of the Bring a Blanket reading series, and the author of The Light to Never Be Snuffed _and _Duality Lies Beneath. Drop a line at www.joshdale.co or on most social media @jdalewrites 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

Juliet Escoria is the author of You Are the Snake (Soft Skull, 2024), Witch Hunt & Black Cloud: New and Collected Works (CLASH Books, 2023), and Juliet the Maniac (Melville House, 2019). She is an Editor-in-Chief at Zona Motel, and lives in West Virginia. (author photo taken by Saja Montague) Mesha Maren is the author of the novels Sugar Run, Perpetual West, and Shae (May 2024, Algonquin Books). Her short stories and essays can be read in Tin House, The Oxford American, The Guardian, Crazyhorse, Triquarterly, The Southern Review, Ecotone, Sou’wester, Hobart, Forty Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the 2015 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, a 2014 Elizabeth George Foundation grant, an Appalachian Writing Fellowship from Lincoln Memorial University, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Ucross Foundation. She was the 2018-2019 Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an Associate Professor of the Practice of English at Duke University. Check out Zona Motel now to understand what the hell we are talking about and read some lit content 🐐 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram| Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer, editor, curator, and folklorist. The author of two books, his writing has appeared in HAD, Fence, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. Along with hosting the Neon Night Mic reading series, he recently launched Piżama Press. You can find more at neonpajamas.com. https://asterismbooks.com/publisher/pizama-press https://www.neonpajamas.com/ 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

Josh Denslow is the author of the collectionNot Everyone Is Special (7.13 Books), the novel Super Normal (Stillhouse Press), and the collection Magic Can't Save Us (UNO Press). His most recent short stories have appeared in Electric Literature's The Commuter, The Rumpus, and Short Story, Long, among others. He is the Email Marketing Manager for Bookshop.org, and he has read and edited for SmokeLong Quarterly for over a decade. He currently lives in Barcelona. 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan

John Patrick Higgins is a writer, illustrator, and filmmaker. His short fiction has appeared in The Black Dreams, The BHF Book of Horror Stories, Fears: An Anthology of Psychological Terror, and Weird Horror. He is working on a short story collection titled No Light in the Trees. He is the author of Fine, a tragicomic novel published by Sagging Meniscus Press in November 2024, and Teeth: An Oral History, a memoir released in April 2024. His latest book, Spine (June 2025), is a semi-sequel to Teeth, continuing his attempt to catalogue each of his failing body parts in real time. He lives in Belfast, goes for long walks in the rain, and sings in the post-rock band Ebbing House. Check out his website: https://www.johnpatrickhiggins.com/ 🎧 Like what you hear? Rate and review Textual Healing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It seriously helps us reach more listeners. 🌐 Visit us: https://textualpodcast.com 📲 Follow: Twitter| Instagram | Bluesky: @mallorysmart.bsky.social 🔗 More from Mallory: https://mallorysmart.com 🎵 Beats by God’Aryan