Best Emily Dunbar Podcasts (2025)

1
710 Weird and Wonderful Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome (with Paul Chrystal) | A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT | Two Listeners Follow Their Dream (And Create Something Amazing) 1:00:09

1d ago1:00:09

1:00:09

It's another action-packed episode! First, Jacke relays the story of a long-time listener who worked some mundane jobs before becoming an artistic bookmaker. Then Jacke talks to author Paul Chrystal about his work diving into lesser-known ancient texts for his book Miracula: Weird and Wonderful Stories of Ancient Greece and Rome. And in between, Ja…

1
Raise A Glass 32:40

5d ago32:40

32:40

This is "Raise a Glass" two ways. Hope and Emily take the prompt in two very different directions and invite listeners to take the prompt and make it their own. Listen in to this new installment of two songwriters just hashing it out for better or worse week after week in service to the work. High five.…

1
709 Black American Humor (with Damon Young) | The Greatest American Joke Ever Told? 1:31:52

8d ago1:31:52

1:31:52

DAMON YOUNG (⁠What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays⁠) is a Pittsburgh writer and humorist. In this episode, Jacke talks to Damon about his work editing and writing an introduction for That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor, which emphasizes how and why Black American humor is uniquely transfixing.…

1
Drought 35:23

12d ago35:23

35:23

Don't worry. The rains of songwriting land gently on this podcast field, but even so, Drought was the prompt. Listen in as Hope and Emily talk about the prompt, share their new songs and also ramble about other stuff in a reasonable fashion.

1
708 Science Fact and Science Fiction (with Keith Cooper) | AI Discovers a Work of Ancient Philosophy and Dreams Up a Reading List 1:11:01

12d ago1:11:01

1:11:01

For decades, writers and filmmakers have imagined worlds where characters can do things like watch a double sunset (on Tatooine, of course), or stand among the sand dunes of Arrakis, or gaze at the gas-giant planet Polyphemus from the moon Pandora. But even as works like Star Wars, Dune, and Avatar have enticed us with their fictional renditions of…

1
707 Emile Zola (with Robert Lethbridge) | Graham Greene's Only Ghost Story | My Last Book with Irina Mashinski 1:00:42

15d ago1:00:42

1:00:42

For years, listeners have been requesting an episode devoted to the French novelist, journalist, playwright, and public intellectual Émile Zola (1840-1902). In this episode, Jacke talks to author Robert Lethbridge, whose new book Émile Zola: A Determined Life presents a comprehensive exploration of the life, work, and times of the celebrated French…

1
Postcard 37:50

19d ago37:50

37:50

Welcome to this week's romp into prompts! The prompt is "Postcard" and so we wrote some songs. Keep an ear out for a future episode featuring a guest!! Remember back in the before times when we sometimes had guests On? We are looking into the future and we see one. Stay tuned and thanks for listening.…

1
706 Living with Jane Austen (with Janet Todd) | A Listener Changes His Life | Bored Parents 1:12:23

22d ago1:12:23

1:12:23

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Jane Austen's novels make us wish she was our friend. She wouldn't be just any old friend: she'd be the sharpest and wisest, the one we turn to in a crisis, the one who understands our flaws and helps us see our blind spots. As we navigate the perils of love and life, she'd be the friend who gently point…

1
Impressionism 28:35

26d ago28:35

28:35

Marching Band, Memorial Day, Grilling, Frisbee, rain, life, Monday, cornhole, possibly burning the house down, federal holidays and the prompt was IMPRESSIONISM. This is our first recording back since before our California trip. We love you, thanks for listening, write a song from the prompt Impressionism and we will see you next week.…

1
705 Runaway Poets - How the Brownings Fell in Love (And Why It Matters) 59:34

26d ago59:34

59:34

Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) was one of the most prolific and accomplished poets of the Victorian age, an inspiration to Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, and countless others. And yet, her life was full of cloistered misery, as her father insisted that she should never marry. And then, the clouds lifted, and a letter arrived. It was …

1
704 Butterflies Regained 1:26:31

29d ago1:26:31

1:26:31

Poetry, butterflies, and original music oh my! With some help from poets Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, and John Keats, along with original music by composer Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal, Jacke tackles the topic of butterflies. Yes, yes, we all know that butterflies are symbols of beauty and transformation - but can great poets get beyon…

1
Punk 30:46

1M ago30:46

30:46

The prompt is PUNK. We did not discuss the ins and outs and even what that prompt meant, we just showed up with the songs we wrote just like every other week. This is us and this is punk and it doesn't get more punk than us (JKJKJKJK, yeah it does we are squares, as the kids say).

1
703 D.H. Lawrence (with David Ellis) | My Last Book with Dorian Lynskey 1:09:35

1M ago1:09:35

1:09:35

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is one of the most famous novelists of his era - and one of the most difficult to pin down. Was he a tasteless, avant-garde pornographer? Or the greatest imaginative novelist of his generation (as E.M. Forster once said)? What should we know about his hard-luck childhood and turbulent adult life? In this episode, Jacke tal…

1
One Line Chorus 32:28

1M ago32:28

32:28

The girls tackle a structural prompt this week with the very elusive, "One line chorus." But what does that even mean??? You're gonna have to tune in to find out! Thank you for listening and for being so awesome. You're like a snappy One LIne Chorus of a person (and that's good thing). High five!

1
702 Writing in the World of Jane Austen (with D.G. Rampton) | Disaster at the Book Festival! 52:01

1M ago52:01

52:01

Jacke talks to D.G. Rampton, Australia's Queen of the Regency Romance, about her love for the novels of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer - and what it's like for a twenty-first-century novelist to set her novels in the early-nineteenth-century world of intelligent heroines, dashing men, and sparkling banter. Find PLUS Jacke dives into the story of a…

1
701 Emerson's Struggle with Slavery (with Kenneth Sacks) | My Last Book with Victoria Namkung | We Had Sex Inside Moby-Dick! 1:11:31

1M ago1:11:31

1:11:31

For several decades, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was perhaps the most prominent writer and intellectual in America. As an advocate of personal freedom living in Massachusetts, surrounded by passionate abolitionists, one might expect that his positions regarding slavery would be obvious and uncomplicated. And yet, Emerson struggled with the issu…

1
Wilco 28:31

2M ago28:31

28:31

If Jeff and the boys over at Wilco pull a hammy (or multiple hammies) preventing them from being the stellar alt country band we all know and love, don't worry, we'll just write the songs for them while they heal. Yes indeed, my friends, Hope and Emily try their best Jeff Tweedy impressions on from top to bottom and wrote these songs. Enjoy.…

1
700 - Butterflies at Rest 28:08

2M ago28:08

28:08

Returning to some devastating news after a trip to Paris, Jacke searches for lost time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Jacke Wilson / The Podglomerate

1
Glitter 34:04

2M ago34:04

34:04

OH Ok. Now it's Glitter. Last week I bumbled and jumbled and got a little confused, but I've had a good night's sleep and now, friends and dreamers, this week it's GLITTER. Take a stardustified ride with Hope and Emily and see what they do with this week's prompt, THEN, write your own song to Glitter. It's be all sparkle all the time.…

1
699 Gatsby's Daisy (with Rachel Feder) | My Last Book with Francesca Peacock 1:12:12

2M ago1:12:12

1:12:12

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby might be one hundred years old, but it's still incredibly relevant: one list-of-lists site ranks it as the number-one book of all time. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Rachel Feder about this classic tale of reinvention - and the reinventing she did for her book Daisy, which retells the Gatsby sto…

1
New Mexico 35:19

2M ago35:19

35:19

OK this is the right one. New Mexico. Emphasis on the NEW. Sorry that I posted the wrong one got myself all over the place. And now it's New Mexico. Everything's new here.

1
698 Dante in Love (with Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerio) [Ad-Free Archive Edition] 1:05:26

2M ago1:05:26

1:05:26

It's springtime! A great time to be in love - and if you're a poetic genius like Dante Alighieri, a great time to catch a glimpse of a girl named Beatrice on the streets of Florence, fall madly in love with her, and spend the rest of your life beatifying her in verse. In this episode, we present a conversation that first aired in February 2018, in …

1
697 Race in European Fairy Tales (with Kimberly Lau) | My Last Book with Rolf Hellebust 1:21:03

2M ago1:21:03

1:21:03

Anyone digging into fairy tales soon discovers that there's more to these stories of magic and wonder than meets the eye. Often thought of as stories for children, the narratives can be shockingly violent, and they sometimes deliver messages or "morals" at odds with modern sensibilities. In this episode, Jacke talks to Kimberly Lau about her book S…

1
696 John Ruskin (with Sara Atwood) | My Last Book with Collin Jennings 1:00:25

2M ago1:00:25

1:00:25

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a powerhouse of a man: writer, lecturer, critic, social reformer - and much else besides. From his five-volume work Modern Painters through his late writings about literature in Fiction, Fair and Foul, he brought to his subjects an energy and integrity that few critical thinkers have matched. His wide-ranging influence r…

1
The 18th Century 31:43

2M ago31:43

31:43

You get 100 years to choose from, so EMily and Hope wrote these songs. Tune in to hear how the blank page is hard, oxygen is real, and we have lots in common with our friends and neighbors from the 1700s. And then write your own. High five.

1
695 Ten Indian Classics (with Sharmila Sen) | My Last Book with Adam Smyth 1:03:57

2M ago1:03:57

1:03:57

For the past ten years, the Murty Classical Library of India (published by Harvard University Press) has sought to do for classic Indian works what the famous Loeb Classical Library has done for Ancient Greek and Roman texts. In this episode, Jacke talks to editorial director Sharmila Sen about the joys and challenges of sifting through thousands o…

1
Murder Ballad 36:08

3M ago36:08

36:08

Hello!! What will happen this time? Will Emily have to call in at the end of the episode to be there for the goodbyes? Will Google finally offer us a super sweet sponsorship deal? Will Hope and Emily write and share two new songs to the prompt 'Murder Ballad?' Yes. That last one is a yes.

1
694 Apocalyptic Literature (with Dorian Lynskey) | My Last Book with Charles Baxter 1:07:02

3M ago1:07:02

1:07:02

For some reason, human beings don't seem to be content just thinking about their own death: they insist on imagining the end of the entire world. In this episode, Jacke talks to author Dorian Lynskey (Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World), who immersed himself in apocalyptic films and literature to discover exactly wha…

1
693 Understanding the Wonders of Nature (with Alan Lightman) | My Last Book with Alan Lightman 1:00:13

3M ago1:00:13

1:00:13

In today's world of specialization, Alan Lightman is that rare individual who has accomplished remarkable things in two very different realms. As a physicist with a Ph.D. from Cal Tech, he's taught at Harvard and MIT and advised the United Nations. As a novelist, he's written award-winning bestsellers like Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis. In th…

1
Rascal 32:36

3M ago32:36

32:36

Rascal is the prompt today and who knows what's gonna happen but probably raccoons will knock over your trash cans (energetically speaking). Write one yourself. Thank you for listening!

1
692 An Investigation in Chinatown (with Radha Vatsal) | The Five Books (with Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen) 1:02:57

3M ago1:02:57

1:02:57

It's a two-for-one special! First, Jacke talks to novelist Radha Vatsal about her new book, No. 10 Doyers Street, which tells the gripping story of an Indian woman journalist investigating a bloody shooting in New York's Chinatown circa 1907. Then podcaster Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen stops by to discuss her experience hosting The Five Books, which asks …

1
691 The Making of Sylvia Plath (with Carl Rollyson) | My Last Book with Cheryl Hopson 1:04:05

3M ago1:04:05

1:04:05

Since her death, poet and novelist Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) has been an endless source of fascination for fans of her and her work. But while much attention has been paid to her tumultuous relationship with fellow poet Ted Hughes, we often overlook the influences that formed her, long before she traveled to England and met Hughes. What movies did s…

1
FERN 32:08

3M ago32:08

32:08

Emily's love of houseplants is the inspiration for this week's episode. The lush green of the foliage really comes out in the chorus, ya know? Tune in and find out what happens next on this week's installment!

1
690 Coleridge and the Person from Porlock [Ad-Free] 1:06:26

3M ago1:06:26

1:06:26

[This episode originally ran on July 18, 2016. It is presented here without commercial interruption.] In 1797, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge took two grains of opium and fell into a stupor. When he awoke, he had in his head the remnants of a marvelous dream, a vivid train of images of the Chinese emperor Kubla Khan and his summer palace, Xanadu.…

1
689 Thomas Kyd (with Brian Vickers) | My Last Book with Jonathan D.S. Schroeder 47:28

3M ago47:28

47:28

For centuries, the playwright Thomas Kyd has been best known as the author of The Spanish Tragedy, a terrific story of revenge believed to have strongly influenced Shakespeare's Hamlet. And yet, a contemporary referred to Kyd as "industrious Kyd." What happened to the rest of his plays? In this episode, Jacke talks to scholar Brian Vickers about hi…

1
Lionel Richie 35:12

3M ago35:12

35:12

The data shows that whenever we have a prompt that mentions a truly successful songwriter, more of you tune in. NO, Mr. Richie did not have time in his busy schedule to come out and do the show with us, but don't worry. We wrote his songs for him.

1
688 Georges Simenon 1:05:36

3M ago1:05:36

1:05:36

The Belgian-born French writer Georges Simenon (1903-1989) was astonishing for his literary ambition and output. The author of something like 400 novels, which he wrote in 7-10 day bursts (after checking with his physician beforehand to ensure that he could handle the strain), he's perhaps best known for his creation of Chief Inspector Jules Maigre…

1
687 Gatsby Turns 100 (with James West) 53:29

3M ago53:29

53:29

"I want to write something new," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his editor, "something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Months later, he presented the results: the novel that would eventually be titled The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925 to middling success, the book has since become a can…

1
Costa Rica 36:15

3M ago36:15

36:15

Nothing says, "We're getting tired of this thing called cold in late winter and begging for spring", than the prompt "Costa Rica!" Emily and Hope tackle this new one and Hope convinced early on that this might be the episode where they each finally end of bringing the same song to the table....and now you have to listen to find out. Listen, like, s…

1
686 Russian Poetry After the Cold War (with Stephanie Sandler) 55:32

3M ago55:32

55:32

For decades, the Soviet Union was unfriendly territory for poets and writers. But what happened when the wall fell? Emerging from the underground, the poets reacted with a creative outpouring that responded to a brave new world. In this episode, Jacke talks to Russian poetry scholar Stephanie Sandler about her new book The Freest Speech in Russia: …

1
685 Charles Chesnutt (with Tess Chakkalakal) | My Last Book with John Goodby 1:01:41

4M ago1:01:41

1:01:41

Complex and talented, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was one of the first American authors to write for both Black and white readers. Born in Cleveland to "mixed race" parents, Chesnutt rejected the opportunity to "pass" as white, instead remaining in the Black community throughout his life. His life in the South during Reconstruction, and his kno…

1
Cooler 35:02

4M ago35:02

35:02

Dear friends, It's us again and we're back with another NEW weekly installment of everyone's favorite prompt songwriting podcast. Listen in as Hope and Emily tackle the prompt, "Cooler." I know I know. YOu have questions. So do we. Tune in to see if anything got clearer for any of us. Love, Hope and Emily…

1
684 The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne (with Mike Palindrome) 1:29:36

4M ago1:29:36

1:29:36

What happens when a respected church leader shows up one day wearing a mysterious veil that conceals his eyes, offering no explanation - and keeps wearing it for decades? How will the community respond? What conspiracy theories will they develop? And how will an author like Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing a hundred years later, spin a New England sin-…

1
683 Marianne Moore (with Cristanne Miller) 1:12:13

4M ago1:12:13

1:12:13

Marianne Moore (1887-1972) achieved something rare in American letters: a modernist poet who was popular with both critics and the public. Famous for her formal innovation, precise diction, and wit - as well as her black tri-corner hat and cloak, which she wore as she dashed around Manhattan - she was lauded by T.S. Eliot (and numerous prize commit…

1
Neptune 36:11

4M ago36:11

36:11

Don't ask us why the prompt is Neptune, just honor the moment, OK? It's where we're at, it took us to places, and we took you along for the journey without even asking your permission. WE're still back, this second episode of Season THREE is proof and we love you. Now go write that song.

1
682 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) [Ad-Free Re-Release] 58:55

4M ago58:55

58:55

As America closes out this year's Black History Month, Jacke dives into the archives for one of his favorite episodes, which featured a conversation with Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin about her book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. PLUS friend of the show Scott Carter stops by to tal…

1
681 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 3 | My Last Book by Colm Tóibín 56:02

4M ago56:02

56:02

It's the conclusion to "The Jolly Corner"! Spencer Brydon lived in Europe for 33 years (as did his creator, Henry James) before returning to his childhood home in New York City. Europe has changed him - and he can't help thinking, as he observes a highly transformed New York, that he'd have been a very different person had he stayed in America duri…

1
Tea 38:00

4M ago38:00

38:00

Did you think we were gone for good? Nope. Just steeping. Just brewing, like a good cup of TEA. Welcome back, friends and neighbors. Hope and Emily return with a brand new episode and a brand new lease on life. It's on. Let's write some songs.

1
680 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 2 1:16:34

4M ago1:16:34

1:16:34

After spending decades in Europe, the American Henry James felt haunted by the idea that he'd given up something essential. Inspired by a trip home to New York City, the place of his birth, he wrote an astonishing story about a man who creeps through his childhood home late at night, searching for ghosts, and one in particular he's desperate to see…

1
679 The Jolly Corner by Henry James - Part 1 1:15:52

4M ago1:15:52

1:15:52

Although the writer Henry James (1843-1916) was born in New York City's Washington Square, he spent most of his adulthood in Europe, where he wrote such masterpieces as The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl. Late in life, he returned to New York after a thirty-three year absence to find the city much transformed, as sky…

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