Sara Pirkle and Anya Krugovoy Silver

Sara Pirkle and Anya Krugovoy Silver

From The Beat by Knox County Public Library

June 3, 2025 · 22 min · Season 5 · Episode 2

About this episode

This episode features a discussion with poets Sara Pirkle and Anya Krugovoy Silver about their experiences and contributions to literature.

Sara Pirkle is a Southern poet, an identical twin, a breast cancer survivor, and a board game enthusiast. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Disappearing Act, won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry and was published by Mercer University Press in 2018. In 2019, she was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry, and in 2022 she was shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry Prize. She also dabbles in songwriting and co-wrote a song on Remy Le Boeuf’s album, Architecture of Storms, which was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album category. Pirkle's poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, the Best of the Net Anthology twice, and the Independent Best American Poetry Award. She earned a PhD in English from Georgia State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University. She is an Associate Director of Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. Anya Krugovoy Silver was born in Media, Pennsylvania in December of 1968, and she grew up in Swarthmore. The child of immigrants, her first two languages were German and Russian. She graduated from Haverford College, and she earned a PhD in…

People in this episode

Guests: Sara Pirkle, Anya Krugovoy Silver

Topics covered

  • poetry
  • cancer survival
  • creative writing
  • literature
  • Southern poets

Keywords

  • Sara Pirkle
  • Anya Krugovoy Silver
  • poetry
  • cancer
  • Southern poet
  • creative writing
  • literature

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mercer University Press, The University of Alabama, Haverford College, Emory University

Books & works: The Disappearing Act, Architecture of Storms

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