Hear-Tell

What happens when a journalist known for telling other people’s stories turns the spotlight on her own? In this episode of Hear Tell, host Laurie Hertzel sits down with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author Anne Hull to discuss her new memoir, "Through the Groves." After nearly two decades as a national reporter for The Washington Post, Hull shifts from observer to subject, exploring her coming of agein rural central Florid...

In In Blood, Flowers Bloom, Sam traces the unexpected journey of a Japanese battle flag taken during World War II— from a battlefield in the Philippines to a shed in upstate New Yor...

In this episode of Hear-tell, Pat Thomas—MFA Distinguished Professor of Practice at the University of Georgia—joins award-winning author Jessica Handler to talk about Pat’s essay for The Bitter Southerner, “The Answer Is Yes.”

Their conversation moves through memory, hesitation, and what it takes to finally write the story you’ve been quietly avoiding. Together, they reflect on how grief shapes our work and how timing, courage, and...

In this episode of Hear-Tell, Martin Padgett illuminates the complicated, very human life of Michael Hardwick—the Atlanta man at the center of Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the Supreme Court decision that upheld state sodomy laws and galvanized LGBTQ+ activism, decades before Lawrence v. Texas overturned it. In his latest book, The Many Passions of Michael Hardwick: Sex and the Supreme Court in the Age of AIDS (W. W. Norton, 2025), Pa...

In this episode of Hear-Tell, Rosalind Bentley—distinguished professor of practice in the University of Georgia’s MFA Narrative Nonfiction program—sits down with recent MFA graduate and freelance journalist Ryan Atkinson for a thoughtful conversation about reporting, trust, and the art of storytelling.

Ryan, now based in metro Atlanta, spent over a decade as a sports writer and editor in newsrooms across the lower Midwest before tr...

In this episode, Moni Basu, the director of the University of Georgia’s MFA Narrative Nonfiction program, talks with journalist and author Kim Cross.

Kim spent many formative years in the South, swimming in catfish ponds in Alabama, finishing graduate school in Birmingham, and editing stories at Southern Living Magazine.  

Kim is the author of three books:  “What Stands in a Storm,” explores how people came together in the aftermat...

In this episode, John T. Edge, a distinguished professor of practice in the University of Georgia’s MFA Narrative Nonfiction program, talks with Tommy Tomlinson about his latest book, “Dogland: Passion, Glory and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show.”  

Tommy’s book explores the bond between dogs and their people in this inside account of the Westminster Dog Show that follows one dog on his quest to become a champion. 

In th...

In this episode, we talk to Ashley Fantz about her transition from an senior investigative reporter at CNN to writer, reporter and host of two hit podcasts. Ashley graduated with her MFA from UGA in 2024 and has more than 20 years of experience as a reporter, writing and voicing multimedia stories at CNN, where she won two Peabody Awards, an Eppy and numerous other awards.  

But in 2021, facing burn-out and a rapidly changing med...

In this episode, celebrity ghost writer Nick Chiles discusses the process of writing in someone else’s voice.  

Nick, who graduated from UGA with his MFA in 2022, has won nearly 20 major journalism awards, including a 1992 Pulitzer Prize as part of a New York Newsday team.  He is currently writer in residence teaching Feature Writing courses at The University of Georgia.  

Nick is also the aut...

In this episode, Laurie Hertzel, a distinguished professor of practice in the University of Georgia’s MFA Narrative Nonfiction program, interviewed Emily Strasser about her book, “Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning With a Hidden History.” 

Emily visited Athens in January to speak to our MFA students during their winter residency. In this conversation, she discussed  her 10 years of research and writing about her grandfather’s role in...

In this episode, Lookout Books editor and writing professor KaToya Ellis Fleming (MFA '18) reflects on the work of editing the award-winning anthology Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic. Bigger Than Bravery was edited by the late Valerie Boyd who founded the MFA in narrative nonfiction program at UGA. Publishers’s Weekly listed Bigger than Bravery among their Big Indie books of fall, Library...

In this episode, renowned speaker, nationally acclaimed educator and former debate coach at Harvard University, Brandon P. Fleming discusses his memoir,  “MisEducated,” (Hachette, 2021). Brandon, who earned his MFA in 2021 and worked primarily with the program’s mentor Pat Thomas, shares the inspirational story of his transformation from a delinquent, drug-dealing dropout to an award-winning Harvard educator  – all by the age of 27...

In this episode, poet, educator and environmental writer James Murdock (MFA ‘21) discusses how using poetry, place and the natural world around him informed the reporting and writing of “Orange is the New Peach.” The piece was recently featured in Food Stories: Writing That Stirs the Pot, an anthology published by The Bitter Southerner.

James says good writing is built on the fine art of paying close attention and this article is ...

Moni Basu reads her story, "In Search of Spirits in Cassadaga," originally published in Flamingo Magazine. 

Basu, a member of the Low-Residency MFA in Narrative Nonfiction faculty, travels to the quiet Floridian community of Cassadaga, known as the psychic capital of the world and home, since 1894, to followers of Spiritualism, a faith that believes that we never truly die. Instead, we leave our bodies and become another form of ma...

In this episode, Shannon McCaffrey (MFA ‘23) and Distinguished Professor of practice Jan Winburn discuss the challenges Shannon ran into while reporting and writing, “Sanctuary,” the love story between a woman named Carol and an elephant named Tarra and their 50- year bond that was published earlier this year in Atavist Magazine. Shannon’s article was described as “lyrical” by Sunday Longform, in part, because of the m...

In this episode, Distinguished Professor of practice John T. Edge interviews author Paul Kix about his latest book You Have to Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin to Live, which chronicles 10 critical weeks of the Civil Rights Movement. From nuts and bolts questions on how to keep a story moving forward, and how to humanize grandiose questions like how to change the world through narrative this conversation gets to the core of ...

Mississippi writer and poet Beth Ann Fennelly, author of the genre-bending Heating and Cooling, spoke at the nonfiction program’s residency in January 2023. She asked students to explore the art of micro-memoir. "What should we do when we can’t figure out how or where to start our story?" she asked. The answer? Start small. Precisely because they are so small, hummingbirds can do things other birds can’t do. In this episode of Hear...

Martin Padgett reads an essay titled “Underneath the Sweet Gum Tree,” originally published by the Oxford American, and adapted from his book, “A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution” (W.W. Norton, 2021).

The story follows Frank Powell, an architect of Atlanta’s queer nightlife from the 1960s until his death in 1996. One of Powell’s many nightclubs, the Sweet Gum Head, offered gay Atlantans a...

We're telling stories about a kind of love that created us, sustained us, maybe drove us crazy. A kind of love that—no matter what—made us who we are.

This special episode of Hear-Tell revisits stories about relationships with our mothers—how they cared for us and how we care for them. Stories come from past guests on the show: 2017 MFA graduate Karen Thomas, a professor of practice in journalism at Southern Methodist University;...