Next Chapter is a podcast created by the inclusion interns at MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College through the generous support of Friends of Writers. The podcast features interviews between BIPOC/LGBTQ+ students and alums with forthcoming or recently released books. Through conversations, Next Chapter explores connections between the work, the writing process, and the writing life and celebrates the mentors, creative lineage, and culture/s particular to each author. The podcast hopes to bring awareness to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Episode 1: Poet Tobi Kassim, former inclusion intern, interviews poet Sebastian Merrill for this inaugural episode.
Follow along with the written transcript here.
Next Chapter, Episode 1 Credits: Next Chapter is sponsored by Friends of Writers, a nonprofit 501c3 organization. The first episode was created and produced by MFA Program inclusion interns Toby Kassim, Nicole W. Lee, Rowan Sharp, Teri Vela, and Priscilla Wathington, with support from David Haynes and Christine Kitano. The audio was edited and produced by Mer Luchs, the podcast music was composed by Chad Wathington, and the cover art is by Rowan Sharp. Thanks to the students and alumni of Warren Wilson who supported this project.
Tobi Kassim was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, and has lived in the United States since 2003. His poems have been published in The Volta, The Brooklyn Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Zocalo Public Square, and elsewhere. His chapbook Dear Sly Stone was published by Spiral Editions. He is an Undocupoets fellow, received a Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and works in New Haven’s Public Library.
Sebastian Merrill’s debut collection, GHOST :: SEEDS, was selected by Kimiko Hahn as the winner of the 2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, published by Texas Review Press in November 2023. A winner of the 2024 Stonewall Honor Book-Barbara Gittings Literature Award from the American Library Association, GHOST :: SEEDS was also selected by Ellen Doré Watson as the winner of the 2022 Levis Prize for Poetry from Friends of Writers. Sebastian’s poetry has appeared in The Common, Four Way Review, Diode Poetry Journal, wildness, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College and a BA from Wellesley College.
Website: www.sebastianmerrill.com
Instagram: @seb.merrill
