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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

43:27

Magda Szabó — Abigail with Deborah H. Sussman

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2026/03/17

Send a text A literary icon in her native Hungary, Magda Szabó was relatively unknown to English-speaking readers until recent translations of her work opened the door to her powerful storytelling. In today’s episode we focus on her 1970 novel Abigail, which follows a headstrong teenager at an all-girls boarding school during WWII. Dangerous secrets, emotional complexity and an unexpected guardian angel add intrigue to this poignant coming-of-age tale. Our guest, Deborah H. Sussman of the ASU...

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42:49

Mary Elizabeth Braddon — Lady Audley's Secret with...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2026/03/03

Send a text Pass the smelling salts! Readers of the Victorian Era eagerly (or furtively) set scruples aside to read Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley’s Secret — the title of which was enough to tempt even the most puritanical schoolmarm into sneaking a peak. But it was Braddon’s sumptuous prose, eye for drama and sophisticated understanding of social mores which won her the admiration of contemporaries like William Makepiece Thackery, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Lo...

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44:33

ENCORE and updates! Elizabeth Garver Jordan — The...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2026/02/17

Send a text Her Life in Ink, a brand new biography by Sharon Harris about Elizabeth Garver Jordan, provides a good reason to plunder our podcast vault this week to revisit an episode about this star journalist, editor and mystery author. Jordan’s riveting coverage of the Lizzie Borden trial for The New York World captivated true-crime junkies of the late 19th-century, and her lengthy career as a journalist, fiction writer and literary editor still resonates today. Lori Harrison-Kahan and Jane...

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47:34

Hazel Hawthorne — Salt House with Allison Bass-Riccio...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2026/02/03

Send us a text “Queen of the Dunes” Hazel Hawthorne was a Cape Cod legend who wrote about The Road nearly two decades before her one-time tenant, Jack Kerouac. A uniquely feminine precursor to Beat literature, her novel Salt House captures Bohemian life amid the sand dunes of Provincetown. Though largely dismissed upon its 1934 publication, the book has been re-plucked from obscurity thanks to a new reissue by Provincetown Arts Press. Guests Allison Bass-Riccio and Livia Tenzer join us to dis...

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19:32

From Jane Austen to Zadie Smith — Advice from Women...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2026/01/20

Send us a text In this encore presentation, Kim and Amy take stock by dusting off a "New Year’s" episode from 1921, sharing secrets of what makes their writing partnership work and turning to famous women writers — including Nancy Mitford, Isabelle Allende, Anais Nin and more for advice on setting (and more importantly, accomplishing) one's goals. Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostla...

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41:39

Virginia Faulkner — Willa Cather Champion, with Brad...

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2026/01/06

Send us a text Virginia Faulkner had no family ties to that other famous Faulkner, but she is connected to another icon of classic American literature. A young flapper who made an authorial splash with the New York literati (earning comparisons to a young Dorothy Parker), Faulkner later switched gears, devoting the second half of her life to shaping The University of Nebraska Press into a powerhouse publishing institution. Her dedication to scholarship on Willa Cather helped solidify Cather i...

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13:00

Katharine Lee Bates — "Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride"

Lost Ladies of Lit ·

2025/12/23

Send us a text Before penning the lyrics to “America the Beautiful,” Katharine Lee Bates shone a spotlight on the invisible (and not so invisible) labor tackled by an unsung Christmas heroine, Mrs. Claus. Bates’s 1888 poem “Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride” imagines Santa’s spouse setting the record straight about who really does most of the work in preparation for Christmas. In this holiday episode, Amy confesses her own cynical feelings about the Yuletide season and reads this humorous poem wit...

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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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267 results

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