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PODCAST

Lost Ladies of Lit

Amy Helmes & Kim Askew

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. You can support Lost Ladies of Lit by visitinghttps://www.patreon.com/c/LostLadiesofLit339.

arts books

All Episodes

31:18

Angela Carter — The Bloody Chamber

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/04/15

Send us a text Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not the heroines from Angela Carter’s 1979 short story collection The Bloody Chamber. The British author tackles dark, primal themes in her spin on classic fables and fairy tales, urging women to eschew victimhood, reclaim their power and bite back! Join us as we dive into this enchanted world of blood, sex and animal magnetism, and find out how Carter’s own life experiences may have prompted her to peel back the skin on tropes of subjugation.&...

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12:49

🔒 Castaway Follow-up — He Said/She Said

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/04/08

Subscriber-only episode Send us a text There are always two sides to every story. In last week’s episode we discussed Lucy Irvine’s 1983 memoir Castaway, about her year-long experience on a deserted island. This week, Amy turns her attention to the memoir written by Irvine’s “other half” on that adventure, Gerald Kingsland. Do the two authors’ respective accounts of their time on tropical Tuin square with one another? And how did Kingsland really feel about the beautiful young woman who answe...

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36:57

Lucy Irvine — Castaway with Francesca Segal

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/04/01

Send us a text When Lucy Irvine answered a classified ad to play Girl Friday to a real-life Robinson Crusoe on a remote tropical island, she embarked on an enthralling—and at times harrowing—year-long adventure. The result was her bestselling 1983 memoir, Castaway, a beautifully-written tale of survival. We’re diving into Irvine’s unforgettable story with special guest Francesca Segal, whose own island-centric novel, Welcome to Glorious Tuga, was recently optioned for TV by See-Saw Films. Men...

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15:00

🔒 Penning Patriotism — Katharine Lee Bates and...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/03/25

Subscriber-only episode Send us a text The recent hatching of baby eaglets in Big Bear, CA has Amy thinking a lot about patriotism and what it actually means in turbulent times for our country. Lost lady of lit Katharine Lee Bates — a staunch activist for social justice who decried America’s isolationist policies — must have considered the same when, during a trip across the country in 1893, she penned what would eventually become the lyrics to “America the Beautiful.” The original words to h...

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47:16

Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich — Religious...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/03/18

Send us a text Religious mystics Margery of Kempe and Julian of Norwich lived in close proximity to one another in time and place, yet the lives of these two medieval women couldn’t have been more different. One traveled the world in relentless pursuit of spiritual validation, while the other withdrew into a walled cell. One boldly proclaimed her visions of Christ while the other recorded quiet revelations. One authored the first autobiography in English while the other penned the first known...

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13:41

🔒 Luck Be A Lady: Amy Gets an "Honorific"

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/03/11

Subscriber-only episode Send us a text Having been gifted a parcel of land on a Scottish estate, Amy was recently granted the title of “Lady Amy of Blairadam.” Kim joins her in this week’s bonus episode to “bend the knee” and to discuss the fine-print details of this development courtesy of a company called Scotland Titles. Together, they ponder her future as a member of the landed gentry and consider privileged (possibly delusional) possibilities for her Scottish landholding. Mentioned in th...

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41:16

Frances Wright — A Few Days in Athens with Tristra...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/03/04

Send us a text How do you engage with others in a polarized society? Early 19-century writer and freethinker Frances “Fanny” Wright offers an ostensible how-to manual in the witty didactic novel she penned at age 19, A Few Days in Athens. Wright’s radical ideas garnered her the praise of Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette and Walt Whitman, to name a few, but detractors dubbed her “The Red Harlot of Infidelity.” Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust, hosts of the 2024 podcast “Frances Wright...

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13:03

🔒 Marianne Faithfull’s “Lady of Shalott” and Other...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/02/25

Subscriber-only episode Send us a text One of the last projects recorded by singer/actress Marianne Faithfull (who passed away in January) was a 2021 spoken word album of English Romantic poetry, including a hauntingly beautiful 12-minute recitation of Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott.” After exploring Faithfull’s passion for (and family connections to) classic literature, Amy finds new meaning in this poem about an exiled woman fated to forever view life through a mirror’s reflection. This episod...

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47:46

Katharine S. White — Shaping The New Yorker, with Amy...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/02/18

Send us a text One hundred years ago this week, The New Yorker published its first issue. A few months later, the magazine’s first (and for decades, only) female editor joined the staff. Katharine S. White spent the better part of the next 50 years wielding her pen and her editorial influence there, carefully tending to an ever-growing stable of talented (sometimes high-maintenance) writers and shaping the magazine into a cultural powerhouse. Biographer Amy Reading joins us to discuss White’s...

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12:00

🔒 Dorothy Parker's Last Wish: The NAACP and a Lost Urn

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/02/11

Subscriber-only episode Send us a text How did Martin Luther King Jr. (and eventually, the NAACP) end up the stewards of Dorothy Parker’s literary estate? A life of bold activism prompted the witty writer to quietly bequeath her body of work to advocates for racial justice. But what happened to her actual body (or rather, her ashes) is another story entirely—one that involves misplaced remains, an abandoned urn, and a decades-long effort to find her a proper resting place. Mentioned in this e...

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38:05

Literary Jewelry with Leigh Batnick Plessner

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/02/04

Send us a text January was dismal, but we’re distracting ourselves with something shiny in this first new full-length episode of the year. Catbird Chief Creative Officer Leigh Batnick Plessner joins us to explore three works by women writers, each of whom used jewelry as a powerful storytelling device. Louise de Vilmorin, Maria Edgeworth and Dorothy Parker feature diamond earrings, friendship bracelets and a pearl necklace, respectively, to reflect the deepest desires and ambitions of the cha...

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10:56

🔒 Bibliomasochism and "Pieces o' Eight"

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/01/28

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a textOctavia E. Butler’s prescient dystopian novel Parable of the Sower may or may not be the perfect book to kick off 2025, as Amy discusses in this week’s bonus episode. On the other hand, if it’s escapism you’re after, consider the cutlass-wielding scalawags of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island and learn about a new book that explores the impact Stevenson’s wife Fanny (a writer herself) had on his literary output.Mentioned in this episode:Kind...

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45:00

Margaret Oliphant — Hester with Perri Klass

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/01/21

Send us a textIf you’re drawn to the hefty tomes of Victorian authors Anthony Trollope and George Eliot, we can pretty much guarantee you’ll enjoy this week’s novel, Hester, as much as we did. Margaret Oliphant is said to have been one of Queen Victoria’s favorite novelists, and she counted J.M. Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson among her many fans. Joining us to discuss Hester is New York Times columnist and pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass. Discussed in this episode: Hester by Ma...

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14:06

🔒 Adventures in Highgate Cemetery

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/01/14

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a textThis week’s episode was born out of Amy’s recent visit to London’s Highgate Cemetery, where fortuitous timing (or, perhaps, the graveside spirit of Christina Rossetti?) revealed a bit of juicy family drama. Find out why the tragic death (and later exhumation) of a pre-Raphaelite muse left another family member begging to not be buried next to her in the Rossetti family plot!Mentioned in this episode:Christina RossettiElizabeth SiddalDante Gabriel RossettiG...

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16:25

Hiatus Replay: Ukrainian Poet Lesya Ukrainka’s The...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/01/07

Send us a textIn this week's hiatus replay, we’re focusing on one of Ukraine’s best-known poets and playwrights, Laryssa Kosach, who wrote under the pen name Lesya Ukrainka. Her play The Forest Song is a masterpiece of Ukrainian drama. Discussed in this episode: The Forest Song by Lesya UkrainkaLooking for Trouble by Virginia CowlesLost Ladies of Lit episode on Virginia Cowles’ Looking for Trouble Invisible Battalion (2017 documentary)“Ukraine Isn’t Part of Littl...

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16:02

🔒 Simona Kossak, Forest Queen

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2024/12/31

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a textOnce upon a time, a young woman escaped to a primeval forest, befriended the animals there (including a lynx, raven and wild boar) and met her handsome prince. Sounds like a fairy tale, but in this week’s episode Amy discusses the enchanting true story of Simona Kossak, a Polish scientist who wrote about her deep love for the Bialowieza Forest and worked tirelessly to protect it. Poland awarded Kossak the Golden Cross of Merit for her ecological efforts be...

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49:02

Alba de Céspedes — Forbidden Notebook with Joy Castro

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2024/12/24

Send us a textNovelist and university professor Joy Castro returns to the show to discuss the 1952 novel Forbidden Notebook by Cuban-Italian writer Alba de Cespedes. In a New York Times review of a 1958 English edition of this novel, de Céspedes was called “one of the few distinguished women writers since Colette to grapple effectively with what it is to be a woman.” Discussed in this episode: Forbidden Notebook by Alba de CéspedesHer Side of the Story by Alba de CéspedesMuriel Ruke...

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24:25

🔒 Literary Rx — Books to Beat the Doldrums

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2024/12/17

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a textBooks are a time-tested cure-all, so in this week’s bonus episode Amy weighs a few of the titles that have helped her forget life's latest troubles and doubts … (sort of). She leaves no stone unturned in her quest for distraction, from Proust’s meandering sentences to a behind-the-scenes memoir about a beloved ’80s film and a charming, century-old suffrage novel that captures our current political zeitgeist. Rounding out the episode is a sneak peak at “los...

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42:48

Zitkála-Šá — "The School Days of an Indian Girl" with...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2024/12/10

Send us a textAt the age of eight, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (later known by her pen name Zitkála-Šá) left her Yankton Dakota reservation to attend a missionary boarding school for Native Americans, a harsh and abusive experience about which she eventually wrote a series of articles published in The Atlantic Monthly. Jessi Haley, editorial director of Cita Press (which just published a free anthology of the author’s work) joins Yankton Dakota poet Erin Marie Lynch to discuss how Zitkála-Šá’s se...

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20:14

🔒 A Christmas Tale From Christina Rossetti’s Speaking...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2024/12/03

Subscriber-only episodeSend us a textForget your troubles, get cozy, grab a cup of tea and curl up to this week’s “storytime” bonus episode as Amy reads the third tale from Christina Rossetti’s Speaking Likenesses. Follow Rossetti’s indefatigable heroine, Maggie, who trudges wearily through a snowy forest at Christmas-time, encountering along the way strange children who attempt to lead her astray.For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.comDiscuss episodes on our Facebook Forum. ...

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