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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

55:14

Djuna Barnes — Nightwood with Margaret Vandenburg

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/12/09

Send us a text Dark and disturbing, yet strangely redemptive, Djuna Barnes’s 1936 modernist masterpiece Nightwood left even its greatest champion, T.S. Eliot, a bit bewildered. Guest Margaret Vandenburg, an expert in modernism, post-modernism and gender studies, joins us to illuminate Barnes’s tumultuous life and help us decipher her "ultimate breakup novel,” a work that casts its spell by turning the world upside down in subversive defiance of fascism. Mentioned in this episode: Nightwood by...

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41:02

Malachi Whitaker — And So Did I with Valerie Waterhouse

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/11/25

Send us a text Likened to a fresh Yorkshire breeze, Malachi Whitaker’s year-in-the-life memoir And So Did I, published in 1939, is a quirky spirit-quest juxtaposing wry humor and contemplative observations amidst the impending threat of global conflict. Valerie Waterhouse, a PhD researcher and executor of Whitaker’s literary estate, joins us to discuss the author’s life and work, as well as her own quest to keep Whitaker’s legacy alive, including securing a commemorative blue plaque for her b...

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44:43

The Sitting Room: A Treasure Trove of "Lost Ladies"

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/11/11

Send us a text In this special episode, Kim and Amy recount their recent visit to The Sitting Room, a unique library and literary salon in Sonoma, CA, dedicated to women's literature. Trip highlights included a stay at a Julia-Morgan-designed architectural gem in Berkeley, a private tour of Jack London State Park, and a fascinating tour of The Sitting Room’s extensive collection of books and artifacts. Listeners will also hear snippets from an engaging evening with library co-founder J.J. Wil...

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40:54

Rosalind Ashe — Moths with Lisa B. Kröger

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/10/28

Send us a text Republished this year by Valancourt books, Rosalind’s Ashe’s 1976 gothic thriller Moths is a spine-chilling tale of supernatural seduction featuring a femme fatale who lures men to their deaths like lepidoptera to a flame. Gothic lit expert Lisa B. Kröger joins us to discuss Ashe’s knack for channeling female rage in a novel that’s been compared to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Mentioned in this episode: Moths by Rosalind Ashe Monster, She Wrote by Lisa B. Kröger and Melanie R. ...

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42:02

Radclyffe Hall — The Well of Loneliness with Iris...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/10/14

Send us a text Often called “the lesbian Bible,” Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness has been sparking debate for nearly a century. Banned in the UK after an infamous obscenity trial, the book remains a lightening rod for readers — some revere it, others can’t stand it. We’ll explore what makes this groundbreaking novel so remarkable (and so divisive) with returning guest Iris Jamahl Dunkle, who found inspiration in Hall’s protagonist for her forthcoming book on strong-bodied w...

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40:46

Jessica Mitford — The American Way of Death with Mimi...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/09/30

Send us a text In this follow-up to our 2021 episode on Nancy Mitford, we’re turning the spotlight on her younger sister, Jessica (a.k.a. “Decca”) Mitford, an activist and journalist whom Time magazine called “the queen of the muckrakers.” Her influential 1963 nonfiction title The American Way of Death exposed corruption in the funeral industry and was lauded by David Bowie as one of his “Top 100” favorite books, whereas her 1960 childhood memoir, Hons and Rebels, left her own family seeing r...

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39:14

HIATUS ENCORE: Miriam Karpilove with Jessica Kirzane

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/09/16

Send us a text With her witty and self-deprecating takes on dating and the single life, the narrator of Miriam Karpilove’s Diary of a Lonely Girl: Or the Battle Against Free Love is the 1918 Yiddish precursor to Girls’ Hannah Horvath, Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, and Bridget Jones. Guest Jessica Kirzane’s English translation of the novel was published by Syracuse University Press in 2020. Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our subst...

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44:33

HIATUS ENCORE: Nora May French with Catherine...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/09/02

Send us a text In this encore presentation, we’re reviving a literary suicide scandal that took place among some of the biggest names in the West Coast’s early 20th century bohemian society. Joining us to discuss lost poet Nora May French and her life—and death—is Catherine Prendergast, author of the riveting book The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America. Discussed in this episode: Nora May French The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women an...

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44:17

HIATUS ENCORE: Meridel Le Sueur — The Girl with...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/08/19

Send us a text Originally drafted in 1939, the Prohibition-era gangster novel The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur remained unpublished for nearly 40 years. Le Sueur used the intervening decades to transform her work into a powerful narrative, focusing on the lives of marginalized women in Depression-era America. Joining us is Dr. Rosemary Hennessy, a Professor of English at Rice University, whose most recent book, In the Company of Radical Women Writers, rediscovers the political commitments and pas...

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29:12

HIATUS ENCORE: Minae Mizumura — A True Novel with...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/08/05

Send us a text What if we told you that there was an ingenious retelling of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights set in post-war Japan that also has shades of Middlemarch and The Great Gatsby? Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel, first published in 2002, checks all those boxes and more. Joining us to discuss A True Novel is Lavanya Krishnan, co-founder of the literary book subscription Boxwalla. (This episode originally aired in 2023). Discussed in this episode: A True Novel by Minae Mizumura&nbs...

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42:19

HIATUS ENCORE: G.E. Trevelyan — Appius and Virginia...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/07/22

Send us a text Woman yearns for child, adopts orangutan instead. Disaster ensues. That's the premise of Gertrude Trevelyan's wonderfully bizarre 1932 novel, Appius and Virginia. We're joined in this encore episode by guest Brad Bigelow, whose obsession with obscure books was celebrated in the 2016 New Yorker profile “The Custodian of Forgotten Books.” Discussed in this episode: Appius and Virginia by G.E. Trevelyan Every Which Way But Loose (1978 Film) Black Mirror The Twilig...

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43:59

Else Jerusalem — Red House Alley with Translator...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/07/08

Send us a text Else Jerusalem’s Red House Alley is a riveting exposé of the sex industry in fin-de-siècle Vienna. A bestseller upon its 1909 publication, the novel was banned by the Nazis in 1933 (along with its 1928 film adaptation) and fell into obscurity. Boiler House Press published the first full English translation of this landmark work last year, and translator Stephanie Gorrell Ortega joins us to discuss Jerusalem’s richly-drawn account of brothel workers (based on accounts from real ...

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43:13

Edna O'Brien — The Country Girls with Edan Lepucki

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/06/24

Send us a text When Edna O’Brien published her debut novel The Country Girls in 1960, she was branded a “Jezebel” in her native Ireland—but that didn’t stop her from completing a poignant trilogy about a pair of friends coming of age in a world for which village life and convent school failed to prepare them. Despite initial backlash to her sexually frank depiction of young women’s lives and desires, O’Brien’s writing brought her acclaim and celebrity status—Vanity Fair dubbed her “the playgi...

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28:03

Brigid Brophy — The King of a Rainy Country

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/06/10

Send us a text If Brigid Brophy’s The King of a Rainy Country had a soundtrack, it might include the soft patter of rain on a garret window, jazz drifting from a smoky cafe, the hum of a Vespa on narrow cobblestone streets … and the obnoxious griping of a few dozen uncultured Americans! As the description suggests, Brophy’s 1956 novel has a little bit of everything — atmosphere, nostalgia and poignancy mixed with subversive wit and madcap antics. Kim and Amy play “tour guide” examining ...

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47:19

Jessie Redmon Fauset — Plum Bun with Bremond Berry...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/05/27

Send us a text Langston Hughes called Jessie Redmon Fauset “the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance” with good reason. As literary editor at The Crisis magazine from 1919 until 1926, Fauset discovered and championed some of the most important Black writers of the early 20th century. Her own novels contributed to The New Negro Movement’s cultural examination of race, class and gender through the lens of women’s experiences. Fauset’s 1928 novel Plum Bun was republished this spring by Quite Litera...

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43:18

E.D.E.N. Southworth — The Hidden Hand with Rose Neal

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/05/13

Send us a text Dastardly villains are no match for Capitola Black, the audacious heroine at the center of E.D.E.N. Southworth’s 1859 bestseller, The Hidden Hand. Readers so admired this literary tomboy’s pluck that Capitola became a popular baby name for decades and inspired the name of a California town. Yet few readers today are familiar with Southworth, one of the highest-earning authors of her day (to whom Louisa May Alcott even gave a subtle nod in Little Women). Rose Neal, author of a b...

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53:22

ENCORE: Ursula Parrott: Ex-Wife with Marsha Gordon

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/04/29

Send us a text F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby may be the novel everyone’s talking about this month, but let’s not forget another “Jazz Age” novel that took this country by storm. Ursula Parrott’s Ex-Wife, a tragicomic indictment of early 20th-century romance, brought the author immense fame and wealth at the time of its publication in 1929. Yet by her death in 1957 she was penniless and homeless, a fate she all but predicted in the cautionary commentary of her writing. Our episode on ...

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15:36

🔒 "Constant Reader" Weighs In!

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/04/22

Subscriber-only episode Send us a text In this week’s bonus episode, Amy draws a throughline between the 1970s-era Esquire magazine writing of Nora Ephron and the sharp-witted book reviews of Dorothy Parker. A recent McNally Editions collection of these reviews called Constant Reader: The New Yorker 1927-28 provides a perfect opportunity to explore Parker’s opinions on some lost ladies of lit, from Zona Gale and Elinor Glyn to Fannie Hurst and Elinor Wylie. Which women earned Parker’s praise ...

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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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