S2: Episode 2 :|: Carmen Radley

This episode features a conversation with host, Rhonda Willers, and guest, Carmen Radley 

I met Carmen through the online writing community and newsletter, The Isolation Journals, where she serves as the managing editor and host of the monthly writing hour called The Hatch. In this conversation you’ll hear how Carmen became a co-collaborator with the founder, author Suleika Jaouad, and how The Isolation Journals has evolved in so many beautiful ways. 

Carmen is based in Austin, Texas, and her family has been rooted in Texas since the early 1900s. Before coming to her present role and work, Carmen was a k-12 educator, hospital ship journalist, and professional biography writer. As we talked, she shared that her current personal project is focusing on reclaiming her hometown of Sour Lake, Texas, as a forgotten place. She is writing this book with no promise that it will be published, but this allows her to explore and evolve it before the pressures of the market come on it. Carmen’s love of literature and her poetics are so evident in this conversation - I can’t wait for you to experience it!

Please enjoy this episode with Carmen Radley.

To learn more about Carmen’s work follow her on Instagram via @theisolationjournals and check out the community at TheIsolationJournals.com and on substack: https://theisolationjournals.substack.com

Studio Mix #14 :|: Carmen Radley
Fast Car by Tracy Chapman
The Promise by Sturgill Simpson (When in Rome cover)
16, Maybe Less by Calexico, Iron & Wine
Texas Sun by Khruangbin & Leon Bridges
Summer's End by John Prine

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2apnzasqONvzmEuhNMOjID

Notes from the show:
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf
The Waves by Virginia Wolf
A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
The Isolation Journals :|: website :|: substack :|: instagram
Bennington College MFA in Writing Low Residency
Lit Hub: Literary Hub
Artwork discussed: Peaches by Bradley Kerl, Pigment Dispersion 2 by Andy Ness, Watercolor Self-Portrait in the style of Magali Cazo

Carmen Radley’s Biography:
Carmen Radley is the editor of the Isolation Journals. She’s currently writing a climate change memoir about her hometown of Sour Lake, Texas, an early twentieth-century oil boomtown where her family has worked in the oilfield for more than a century. A graduate of the University of Texas and Bennington College, she lives in Austin, Texas.