Podcasts | Waywords Studio: Recent Episodes
Steve Chisnell
How does the map overwrite the physical territory it claims to represent?
Today we look at literary simulations, from the bedroom of Victor Hugo to the Orlando welter of parks and rides. Guided by the semiotics of Umberto Eco, the simulation theory of Jean Baudrillard, and the urban critiques of Sam Jacob, we investigate the social construction of experience environments and what creates our preference for them over the raw experience.
Resources:
- Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation, 1994.
- Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project, 1999.
- Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality: Essays, 1986.
- Jacob, Sam. “Vriesendorp Syndrome.” Perspecta 41: Grand Tour, 2008.
- MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel, 2021.
- Melton, Jeffrey Alan. “Keeping the Faith: Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad.” South Atlantic Review, 1996.
- Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career, 1917.
- Montgomery, L. M. The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery, 1985-2004.
- Twain, Mark. Roughing It. American Publishing Company, 1872.
- Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Columbia University Press, 1990
Episode 7.08 –Building FantasiesGlossaryThe Absolute Fake: An engineered, hyperreal reproduction or simulation that seeks to completely replace reality, offering a polish that works to eliminate the traveler’s desire for the messy or difficult original.
Touristic Faith: The psychological suspension of disbelief where travelers willingly dismiss their own skepticism and actively collude with the tourist industry to pretend they are gaining an “authentic” experience.
Vriesendorp Syndrome: The construction of spaces where the sheer number and juxtaposition of cheap, mass-produced replicas separates our idea of place from its physical reality, turning place into a frictionless, standardized “flavor.”
Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions1. When we look at a clean replica or model, what do our minds do to judge it more informative than a weathered original? 2. How does the metaphor of a map “generating” a territory change how we think about our expectations for a space? 3. When we observe a reflection or a photo of a landscape, how does that visual frame change our view of the physical environment behind it? 4. In what ways do curated soundscapes, scents, and climate controls shape our willingness to accept an artificial room as a valid space? 5. How does remembering a past journey alter what we experienced in the physical moment?
Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: * The Grand Tour - PDF * Packing Lists - PDF * Author Footprints - PDF * Mapping Dreams - PDF * Building Fantasies – PDF
Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
CHAPTERS00:00 Leaving the Road Behind
06:49 Intro Theme
07:25 All the Flavors
17:49 Lake Tahoe on Fire
22:46 Pilgrim Exercises Pt 5
24:31 Montgomery’s Lost Island
30:17 Closing Credits
===
Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-08-building-fantasies
New to Literary Nomads?
Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/
Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag
===
Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.
Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.
Website: https://waywordsstudio.com
Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio
===
CREDITS:
Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
USING THIS WORK:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.
MLA CITATION:
Chisnell, Steve. “7.08 Building Fantasies. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 07 August 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
How do we navigate the space between the curated tourism experience and the raw concrete of the world beneath it?
We investigate the “imaginative geographies” we project onto other lands, examining how Italo Calvino’s semiotic cities, Arthur Conan Doyle’s romanticized London, and Mathieu Kassovitz’s brutalist Paris reveal the ethical tensions of the traveler’s gaze. We look into our habit of cropping out infrastructure and ask whether reading the raw city makes us better travelers or something worse. Bloomsday in Dublin and Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital are also considered.
Resources:
- Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities, 1974.
- Doyle, Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet,” 1930.
- Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, 1989.
- Joyce, James. Ulysses, 1922.
- Kassovitz, Mathieu, director. La Haine, 1995.
- Said, Edward W. Orientalism, 1978.
- Sinclair, Iain, and Chris Petit, directors. London Orbital, 2002.
- Sinclair, Iain. London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25, 2002.
Episode 7.07 –Mapping DreamsGlossaryImaginative Geography: The thought process, according to Edward Said, where we build a mental conception of a foreign landscape through literature, art, and personal or cultural desire long before we physically arrive, pre-determining and replacing the actual physical geography with a commodified myth. See Edward Said’s Orientalism, 1978.
Staged Authenticity: The socio-spatial phenomenon where tourism operators construct aesthetically controlled “front stages” (such as curated landmarks or replica villages) to satisfy the consumer/tourist’s desire for an authentic encounter, even while actively concealing the “back-stage” realities of local labor, economic extraction, and physical infrastructure.
Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions1. When you crop a travel photograph to remove a power line, parking lot, or trash can, what reality are you trying to erase? 2. How does Sherlock Holmes’s cocaine addiction or Leopold Bloom’s alienation ruin the versions of London and Dublin sold by tourism? 3. How has Edward Said’s “imaginative geography” worked on your travel expectations in the past? 4. Do you watch fictional films or read books about urban decay or poverty? For what reasons? 5. Which of the two Calvino cities featured most resonate with you, Tamara or Zaira? Why?
Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: * The Grand Tour - PDF * Packing Lists - PDF * Author Footprints - PDF * Mapping Dreams - PDF
Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
CHAPTERS00:00 PEI and Tamara
04:26 Intro Theme
05:03 My PEI Failures
13:49 The Unhandy Embrace
20:51 Some Skeptical Exercises (Pt 4)
23:37 Zaira and Hard Spaces
36:45 Closing Credits
===
Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-07-mapping-dreams
New to Literary Nomads?
Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/
Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag
===
Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.
Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.
Website: https://waywordsstudio.com
Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio
===
CREDITS:
Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
USING THIS WORK:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.
MLA CITATION:
Chisnell, Steve. “7.07 Mapping Dreams. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 31 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
What happens to a real, working community when a fictional landscape is physically constructed on top of it?
We discover the socio-economic friction behind literary travel, contrasting the magical ideals of Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo with the unpaved streets of Aracataca, Colombia. Behind the “front stage” of tourist attractions are bulldozers, evictions, and even a violent army. We learn about the history of PEI National Park expropriations, the 1928 Banana Massacre, and how to critically read tourist destinations beyond the gift shop facade.
Resources:
- García Márquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967.
- Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space, 1991.
- Montgomery, Lucy Maud. Anne of Avonlea, 1909.
- Montgomery, L. M. The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery, Volume V: 1935–1942, 2004.
- Steele, Fiona, host. “Painting the Gables ‘Green’.” The Hidden Island, Season 3, Episode 5, 12 Sept 2022.
Episode 7.06 –Author Footprints Pt. 2 - The Aracataca ParadoxListener’s Guide Reflection Questions1. When you encounter a perfectly preserved historical landmark, what omissions or missing community details must you ignore to maintain your feeling of nostalgia? 2. How does the presence of a corporate licensing agreement or trademark boundary alter an author’s legacy? 3. When local residents invent fictional anecdotes or point to fake historical spots for visiting pilgrims, who is truly controlling the performance of the tourist site? 4. In what ways does buying a mass-produced souvenir act as a buffer against the uncomfortable economic disparities of the places we visit? 5. If every tourist destination is a manufactured “front stage,” what active choices can a wayfarer make to step off the guided path and read the real location?
Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges: * The Grand Tour - PDF * Packing Lists - PDF * Author Footprints - PDF
Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
CHAPTERS00:00 A Quick Review
00:38 A Broader Context
00:03 Intro Theme
03:52 The Magic and the Austerity
09:19 Plenty of Masks to Go Around
21:51 The Earth Paved Over
32:09 Closing Credits
===
Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-06-author-footprints-pt-2
New to Literary Nomads?
Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/
Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag
===
Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.
Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.
Website: https://waywordsstudio.com
Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio
===
CREDITS:
Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
USING THIS WORK:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.
MLA CITATION:
Chisnell, Steve. “7.06 Author Footprints Pt. 2 - The Aracataca Paradox. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 24 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Why do we drive thousands of miles just to touch the wooden beams of an author’s birthplace?
From Poe’s Baltimore to PEI and Waywords’s own Waterford, MI, we consider what it takes to build a literary destination and how this works to undermine the very real need for we travelers to cross the threshold from the literary into the physical. Is there a way to thwart the hucksters of simulations? Perhaps!
Resources:
-
- Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space, 1969.
- Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 1969.
- MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel, 2024.
- Montgomery, Lucy Maud. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career, 1917.
- Tuan, Yi-Fu. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values, 1990
Episode 7.05 –Author Footprints Pt. 1 - Aura & ReliquaryGlossary:Topophilia: The real and physical human desire to meet authentic space and map our emotions onto the physical earth.
Heterotopia: A specially-created “other space” or place of difference that exists wholly outside of ordinary daily life. In the context of literary tourism, an arranged, static attraction designed that offers the idea of a flawless, isolated world in contrast to our own.
Aura: The unique, irreplaceable physical presence and authority of an original work/art that is weakened by mass reproduction.
Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions1. When you feel a sudden wave of awe while standing inside a historical building, are you emotionally connecting to the long-dead occupant, or are you reacting to the architectural cues—the lighting, the placards, the quiet—designed to trigger a posture of reverence? 2. Consider the threshold of a museum’s velvet rope: how does the act of cordoning off a mundane everyday item (like an author’s writing desk or an antique bookcase) alter your perception of its value compared to an identical item sitting in a thrift store? 3. If our internal imagination requires us to ground ourselves in physical landmarks to feel a text’s “authenticity,” what does that suggest about the limitations of our minds to hold abstract ideas without a concrete, material anchor? 4. Reflect on the psychological role of the gift shop at the end of an historic tour: how does buying a plastic replica or a themed postcard serve as a physical mechanism for our emotions? 5. Think about your own home or neighborhood using the metaphor of a flawless diorama: what details, chores, or structural flaws would you have to entirely censor or rope off to make your daily space look like an arranged attraction for an outside visitor?
Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges:
- The Grand Tour - PDF
- Packing Lists - PDF
- Author Footprints - PDF
Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
CHAPTERS00:00 Genuine Impulse
07:29 Intro Theme
08:06 Blueprint of a Shrine
18:19 Simulating Simulations
23:05 The Decay of Aura
30:00 Closing Credits
===
Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-05-author-footprints-pt-1
New to Literary Nomads?
Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/
Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag
===
Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.
Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.
Website: https://waywordsstudio.com
Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio
===
CREDITS:
Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
USING THIS WORK:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.
MLA CITATION:
Chisnell, Steve. “7.05 Author Footprints Pt 1 - Aura & Reliquary. ” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 17 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Who carries the weight of our leisure?
Some readings from the past by thoughtful and resilient women! Take in some early writing of place and circumstance, journals and reflections which reflect the jarring collisions between our travel expectations and the realities we meet. More, we learn that an adaptable attitude and skeptical eye are essential tools.
Readings from:
-
- Dorothy Wordsworth - “The Highland Hut” from Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, A.D. 1803
- Mary Seacole - Chapter III from Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, 1857
- Sei Shōnagon - “182. The House Had a Spacious Courtyard,” from The Pillow Book, c. 1002
Episode 7.04 –Packing Lists Pt. 2 - Stalwart WomenOther Resources: MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel*, 2024.
Glossary:Compartmentalized World: A theoretical concept from Frantz Fanon which describes how the colonial world is divided into two distinct species: the wealthy, secure sector of the colonizer and the impoverished, exploited sector of the colonized. In the context of travel, we ask who is permitted to move safely through a space, and who is forced to serve as manual labor, landscape, or a prop for the comfort of others.
Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions1. When you examine your expectations which you pack for a highly anticipated trip, what do they suggest about the kind of difficulties or travel challenges you most dislike? 2. Consider the physical metaphor of a curtain: if your travel planning and packing keep the “raw” destination apart from you, what boundaries have you created between your leisure and local survival? 3. From Dorothy Wordsworth’s smoky chimney-corner to a modern climate-controlled resort lounge, how has our idea of safety changed and why? 4. Consider when a text presents you with an offensive historical slur or an ugly, uncomfortable truth: does that sudden friction cause you to see the history more clearly or does your mind want to censor and buffer that discomfort away? 5. If “roughing it” or traveling “close to the ground” is also a stylized, performative lifestyle choice, what signals do we project to those who observe us?
Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges:
- The Grand Tour - PDF
- Packing Lists - PDF
Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
CHAPTERS00:00 Where We’ve Been
01:20 Stalwart Women
03:02 Intro Theme
03:38 Dorothy Wordsworth: “The Highland Hut”
08:07 Mary Seacole: The Chaos of Cruces
22:02 Sei Shonagon: “The Exorcism”
28:39 Sovereign but Skeptical
29:45 Closing Credits
===
Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-04-packing-lists-pt-2/
New to Literary Nomads?
Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/
Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag
===
Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.
Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.
Website: https://waywordsstudio.com
Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio
===
CREDITS:
Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
USING THIS WORK:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.
MLA CITATION:
Chisnell, Steve. “7.04: Packing Lists Pt. 2 - Stalwart Women,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 10 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
Did your horse throw ya, buddy?
We investigate what we hope to achieve by literary travel . . . and why our packing cannot prepare us for it!
While the global tourism industry spends billions to shape our eager expectations, what is it that we’re actually so anxious to see? And whatever it is, how likely are we to find it? In this first of two parts, we ask if what we pack in anticipation is to better guarantee our success or to ward us from disappointment. As an example, we read an excerpt from Isabella Bird’s 1879 travelogue, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. And we hear from philosopher/critics Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger along the way. Will we find an answer? Maybe not, but we will be better prepared to understand the questions.
Episode 7.03 –Packing Lists Pt. 1: Dreams and DirtReadings & Resources: Bird, Isabella L. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. 1879. * Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. 1917. * Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. 1999. * MacLeod, Nicola E. Literary Fiction Tourism: Understanding the Practice of Fiction-Inspired Travel*, 2024.
Glossary:The Broken Tool (Zuhandenheit): Martin Heidegger’s term explaining how we remain unconscious of our protective equipment and infrastructure—our constructed “World”—until the moment it fails us, forcing a sudden encounter with raw nature, or the “Earth.”
The Comfort Trap: A psychological defense mechanism in which a reader or traveler seeks “comfort,” “tidiness,” or “closure” to avoid intellectual or moral discomfort. We passively accept a safe, frictionless experience—or a text’s status quo—specifically to avoid confronting nuance or complication in a situation and one’s own possible complicity in it.
Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions1. When you look at the very bottom of your daily commuter bag or travel pack, what do you discover that you find most intolerable? 2. Consider the physical metaphor of a “portable fortress.” How accurate is this to describe your approach to travel? 3. In tracking the transition from a 19th-century carpetbag to a modern multi-compartment backpack, what has changed in our definition of what an adventure is supposed to feel like? 4. Think about when some gear or device failed you. How did you respond: the “stripped gear in the brain?” Or did you see the physical earth more clearly? Why? 5. In our travel behavior and packing lists, who are we performing for?
Skeptical Pilgrim Challenges:
- The Grand Tour - PDF
- Packing Lists - PDF
Complete Resources: https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
CHAPTERS00:00 The Infrastructure of Dreams
05:22 Intro Theme
05:58 Industrialized Travel
13:57 Isabella Bird & the “Ill-Found” Expedition
22:50 Skeptical Pilgrim Exercises: Counter-weights
28:11 Closing Credits
===
Transcript and Full Bibliography: https://waywordsstudio.com/general/transcript/7-03-Packing-Lists-1
New to Literary Nomads?
Check out my introductory episodes (0.1-0.3) to find out what’s going on here! I’ve got an episode for readers, for teachers, and for students: https://waywordsstudio.com/podcasts/waywords-podcast/
Have a Question? Want to Comment? Literary Nomads Mailbag
===
Literary Nomads is the main program of Waywords Studio (https://waywordsstudio.com). The podcast posts new material each week, with thought-provoking examinations of literature around selected questions or themes and several smaller supplemental episodes in between the larger programs: history, writing, and contemporary applications of ideas.
Visit us for expanded resources for guests and the Waywords community, for other programs and writing, and for opportunities to support our goal to expand reading. Resources available can include full bibliographies of material referenced, full and partial texts, annotated editions, supplemental and expanded episodes, fictional explorations, teaching and learning resources, additional essays, and online courses.
Website: https://waywordsstudio.com
Newsletter: https://waywordsstudio.kit.com/
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and BlueSky: @WaywordsStudio
===
CREDITS:
Original music by Randon Myles (https://randonmyles.com/)
Chapter headings by Natalie Harrison and Sarah Skaleski
USING THIS WORK:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is open to be used and adapted for all not-for-profit uses with proper attribution.
MLA CITATION:
Chisnell, Steve. “7.03: Packing Lists Pt. 1 - Dreams and Dirt,” Literary Nomads. Waywords Studio, 3 July 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/literary-tourism/
We finish our side trail on the implications of Poe's horror by stepping more deeply into our own capacity to violence, reaching finally to Le Guin's own direction: look to our modern political scene and the impulse to annihilation.
We say Poe has influence the genre of horror, but have we really considered what that influence has revealed to us across the generations? What happens when we tell stories of a culture that has abandoned its moral foundations?
There really isn't that much to say about Poe, is there? He's just creepy. But wait. What if we could explain the supposed madness in all these stories?
Another Halloween treat from Poe, a reading of this lesser-known tale. And follow the podcast for some ways to think about it and "The Tell-Tale Heart"!
This story, a quintessential Poe classic, is perfect not only for its conception of the psychology of horror, but for our larger discussion in Le Guin's Journey 6.
What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!
What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!
What is this podcast? I recommend you start here, with this introduction to Literary Nomads and get a taste of what the larger series offers!
Now that we've wrestled in and with Omelas for a bit, what questions remain for us to take forward on our journey? We're walking away from Omelas, but let's have an idea where we're going.
Listeners offer their questions from narrator trust to activism to teaching controversy. I rant--or respond--back.
Can we pull this utopia dilemma together? Or will we add even more levels of complication?
The first of three full interviews from the book launch of my poetry book Unwoven. Here, Dr. Jessica Manuel digs at some of the themes and motivations for the book.
The Waywords Podcast is reborn as Literary Nomads: Wider explorations, broader embraces of reading, and (im)practical thinking!
A Winter Solstice story of 1907, when four women begin to tell stories around the fire. . . .
The second visual album from Waywords is built upon the concept of “creative reading,” forming a phenomenological response to three different texts (essay, fiction, or poetry) around a provided term.
A Winter Solstice tale of a peculiar kind of terror, this story was recently discovered (2011) among a collection of du Maurier's works completed around the age of 21. This story has mature themes.
The first visual album from Waywords is built upon the concept of “creative reading,” forming a phenomenological response to three different texts (essay, fiction, or poetry) around a provided term.
What do we do with--how do we read--can we make us of--a classic and famous metaphysical poem which is also misogynistic?
Happy Bloomsday 2022! Celebrate by sampling Waywords sounds: a bit of Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake' produced for the Waywords and Meansigns project.
Carol Pearson's work following Carl Jung offers us a way to transform our understanding of our own lives, and also how we read the narratives we have so long been taught. I review her strategies for using the archetypes and review her online assessment tool, the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator.
A reading of "Clarimonde," an appropriately creepy story befitting the tradition of Winter Solstice ghost stories. This story in French is titled "La Morte Amoureuse."