Lost Ladies of Lit
A book podcast hosted by writing partners Amy Helmes and Kim Askew. Guests include biographers, journalists, authors, and cultural historians discussing lost classics by women writers.
Episodes
216 episodes
Sanora Babb — Whose Names Are Unknown with Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Growing up on the Great Plains and witnessing the struggles of migrant workers in California made Sanora Babb uniquely qualified to write the story of the Dust Bowl. Her novel Whose Names Are Unknown was slat...
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Episode 214
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43:56
How a "Lady of Lit" Inspired the Band Green Day
Look closely enough, and you can find “lost ladies of lit” almost anywhere — including at a rock concert! In this week’s bonus episode, Amy explains how a Saturday night spent attempting to sing along with Green Day on their world tour conce...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 213
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9:22
Eliza Haywood — The Female Spectator and Betsy Thoughtless with Kelly J. Plante
Details of Eliza Haywood’s life may be murky today, but in the early 18th century, she was a literary force—writing plays and bestselling novels, editing periodicals, and ruffling the feathers of male contemporaries like Alexander Pope. Acad...
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Episode 212
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34:44
The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff
Amy springboards off our discussion of last week’s “lost lady,” Mary MacLane, to further investigate the woman whose diary inspired her. From the age of 12 until her death at 25, Russian-born painter Marie Bashkirtseff detailed her daily life, ...
Subscriber Episode
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Season 1
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Episode 211
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19:08
Mary MacLane — I Await the Devil's Coming with Cathryn Halverson
Long before 'Brat Summer,' America was taken with Mary MacLane, a defiant and wildly egotistical 19-year-old resident of Butte, Montana, whose confessional diary implored the “kind devil” to deliver her from a life of bourgeois boredom. Profess...
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Season 1
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Episode 210
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33:13
HIATUS ENCORE: M.F.K. Fisher — How to Cook a Wolf with Anne Zimmerman
HIATUS ENCORE: Anne Zimmerman, author of the 2011 biography An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher, joins us to discuss Fisher and her World War II-era book How to Cook a Wolf, which was an attempt to tea...
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Season 1
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Episode 209
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40:56
Sigrid Schultz — “The Dragon from Chicago” with Pamela Toler
As Berlin bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune from 1925-1941, Sigrid Schultz deflected both sexism and danger to report the truth and speak truth to power. The Nazis dubbed her “that dragon from Chicago,” and her impo...
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Episode 208
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44:48
HIATUS ENCORE: Jane and Anna Maria Porter with Devoney Looser
HIATUS ENCORE: Sisters Jane and Anna Maria Porters’ books took Regency-era England by storm just a few years ahead of Jane Austen, and their lives were chock-full of fascinating (and insufferable) characters, intriguing romantic escapades, even...
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Season 1
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Episode 207
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44:31
Caedmon Records — Lost Ladies of the Audiobook Industry
Amy discusses the good and bad of audiobook narration in this week’s bonus episode, then dives into the origins of the commercial audiobook industry. Founded in 1952, Caedmon Records was the brainchild of two young women who achieved their s...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 206
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8:22
Hiatus Encore: The Letters of Zora Neale Hurston with Melissa Kiguwa
HIATUS ENCORE: Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is widely considered to be a masterpiece, yet were it not for a renewed push by author Alice Walker in the 1970s, Hurston and her legacy might well have been l...
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Season 1
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Episode 205
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42:38
Hedy Lamarr, Star Inventor
She was called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” but silver screen siren Hedy Lamarr was much more than just a pretty face. Looking to help combat German U-boats during WWII, she pioneered technology that today serves as the basis for...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 204
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18:37
HIATUS ENCORE: Noel Streatfeild — Ballet Shoes and The Whicharts with Wendy-Marie Chabot
Did you know that Noel Streatfeild’s 1936 children’s book Ballet Shoes is based on her earlier novel The Whicharts, a tawdrier and not-for-children “shadow twin” that was published five years prior? Find out why it’s our favor...
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Season 1
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Episode 203
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44:31
The Secret Poetry of Austria's Empress "Sisi"
Long before an insatiable press laid siege to Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Diana, Meghan Markle and in-law to America’s “royal family,” Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Empress Elizabeth of Austria was the beautiful royal everyone wanted ...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 202
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20:30
Ann Schlee (Rhine Journey) with Sam Johnson-Schlee and Lucy Scholes
Pack your steamer trunks! We’re traveling to 19th-century Bavaria this week by way of Ann Schlee’s 1980 historical novel Rhine Journey, newly republished by McNally Editions. This Booker-Prize nominated travel tale fea...
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Season 1
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Episode 201
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34:01
A Bicentennial Backward Glance
Reflecting back on four years of literary “lost ladies,” Amy celebrates our 200th episode with a quirky list of yearbook superlatives to help jog your memory about some of our favorite titles, including the books “Most Likely to Make You Eat Yo...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 200
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21:15
Miles Franklin (My Brilliant Career)
An Australian author — and the 1979 film adaptation of her work — capture Kim and Amy’s fancy this week on the show. Published in 1901 and written when author Miles Franklin was only eighteen years old, My Brilliant Career
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Season 1
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Episode 199
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34:04
Lost Ladies Meet AI
Things get weird on the show this week as Amy and Kim commune with some ladies of literature from beyond the veil… with a little bit of help from ChatGPT. Check out our “interview” with Restoration-era author and playwright Aphra Behn, then ...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 198
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16:22
Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, Lost Lady of Translation — with Jo Salas
You may think you’ve never read anything by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, but if you’ve read any Thomas Mann, there’s a good chance you’ve seen her handiwork. Lowe-Porter was a writer and translator whose greatest (but largely unsung) success cam...
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Season 1
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Episode 197
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32:12
7 Middagh Street — The House of Literary Misfits
Writers Carson McCullers and W.H. Auden, literary editor George Davis, composer Benjamin Britten and burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee... once upon a time they all lived together in a house in Brooklyn Heights, an early 1940s version of the sitc...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 196
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12:49
Elaine May — Miss May Does Not Exist with Carrie Courogen
Guest Carrie Courogen, author of the acclaimed new bio "Miss May Does Not Exist," joins us to discuss comic genius Elaine May. Known for her groundbreaking work in comedy, screenwriting, directing, and acting, May rose to fame as part of the...
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Season 1
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Episode 195
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45:55
A Urinal, a "Punk" Baroness and a Dinner Party
Marcel Duchamp created one of the most influential works of art in the 20th century. Or did he? There are some who theorize that a woman — “proto-punk” poet and Dada-ist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven — is the true geniu...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 194
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16:33
Kim and Amy Catch Their Book Breath
In this special catch-up episode, we take a breather to share updates and insights from our recent reads, including works by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Radclyffe Hall. Amy introduces a quirky new business idea inspired by silent disco ...
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Season 1
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Episode 193
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22:17
Lost Ladies and Their Pet Monkeys
Inspired by Barbara Comyns, who lived with an unusual assortment of pets over the years, this bonus episode explores female authors who owned pet monkeys. Amy discusses Virginia Woolf and her Nazi-disarming marmoset Mitz, Nellie Bly’s fez-we...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 192
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16:53
Barbara Comyns — Our Spoons Came From Woolworths and The Vet’s Daughter with Avril Horner
Barbara Comyns was recently called, “the best English novelist you’ve never heard of” and her unsettling gothic novels are equal parts enchanting and horrific. Joining us is Avril Horner, author of "Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence," who offe...
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Season 1
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Episode 191
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42:28
Ina Eloise Young, Lost Lady of Sports Reporting
Inspired by watching Caitlin Clark play in this year’s NCAA tournament, Amy is feeling uncharacteristically “sporty” in this week’s bonus episode. She’ll dive into the history of Ina Eloise Young, America’s first female sports editor at a da...
Subscriber Episode
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Episode 190
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20:25