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From iconic fashion designer Norma Kamali to Grammy-nominated poet Nikki Giovanni, THE IDEALISTS. podcast gets the inside scoop on the lives and musings of visionary women. In this insightful weekly podcast, entrepreneur and host Melissa Kiguwa spans the globe interviewing the world's most idealistic, mission-driven women to learn what wisdom they’ve gleaned on their journey. Listen in to find like-minded community, to be intellectually stimulated, and to tap into your inner visionary.
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Lost Ladies of Lit

Amy Helmes & Kim Askew

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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.
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Send us a text 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 lost. We have Melissa Kiguwa, host of The Idealists podcast, joining us to discuss Zora Neale Hurston…
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Send us a text 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 importance as an indomitable “newspaperman” (her term) telling Americans about the Third Reich's agenda can’t be understa…
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Send us a text 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, event-filled interludes at the homes of wealthy acquaintances and desperate gambits to stay one…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 smash debut success by convincing Dylan Thomas to record himself readin…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 wireless innovations like Bluetooth, GPS and Wifi. Lamar received sca…
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Send us a text 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 favorite of the two in this week’s episode with our guest, author and bookstagrammer Wendy-Marie Chabot. Discussed…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 a piece of. Feeling like a prisoner in a gilded cage, “Sisi” managed h…
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Send us a Text Message. 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 features vivid period details, sultry psychological thrills and a protagonist on the brink of a personal revolu…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 Your Vegetables,” “Most Likely to Up Your Selfie Game,” and “Most Lik…
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Send us a text 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 became an instant classic of Australian literature and still delights readers with its feisty heroine, Sybylla M…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 find out what happens when we play around with prompts for Virginia Wo…
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Send us a text 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 came in the form of translating 22 monumental works by the German literary giant. Her English tra…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 sitcom "Friends," only this one populated by an ever-changing mix of creat…
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Send us a text 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 iconic comedy duo Nichols and May. Despite her significant contributions to films like "Toots…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 genius behind the groundbreaking “Fountain” urinal sculpture that rocked the art world in 1917. Le…
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Send us a text 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 and Shakespeare, and we invite listeners to text feedback using a new ‘text us’ feature. Plus, we te…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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-wearing travel companion, McGinty, and other primates who captured the h…
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Send us a text 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 offers insight into Comyns' unique blend of dark humor and her empathetic portrayals of vulnera…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text 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 daily newspaper whose coverage of the 1908 World Series so impressed oth…
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Send us a text Dying by suicide shortly after her novel, Love and Silence, was rejected for publication in 1963, Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat gained brief recognition when the book was finally published four years after her death. Discovering the novel in a Cairo market some 30 years later launched acclaimed Egyptian writer Iman Mersal on a dec…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text Have you ever wanted to hit the “pause” button on your life and simply start over? In 2022, Anne Boyd Rioux did just that, making the bold and audacious decision to leave her job as a tenured English professor, sell all her earthly possessions and embark on a European adventure. In this episode, Anne talks to …
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Send us a text An eyewitness to monumental moments in the 20th century, author Kay Boyle hung out with Left Bank artists and literary giants, chronicled the ravages of WWII, was blacklisted in the 1950s and was jailed for her Haight-Ashbury activism in the late 1960s. An intrepid modernist committed to a “Revolution of the Word,” this two-time O. H…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text In this episode Amy explores the history of the 19th-century dance craze that made political leaders nervous, religious leaders aghast, dance instructors insecure and the masses primed for revolt! From Johann Strauss Jr.'s "pop star" status to popular representations in film, we're covering everything you ever…
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Send us a text In this week’s episode Kim and Amy discuss the life and work of “Speranza,” a.k.a Lady Jane Wilde, a.k.a. Oscar Wilde’s mom! An outspoken, rabble-rousing poet who championed Irish independence, she stirred up members of the Young Ireland movement while writing for Dublin’s radical newspaper “The Nation” in the 1840s. Oscar may have i…
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Send us a Text Message. In our first-ever "Game Show Edition" of the podcast, McNally Editions editor Lucy Scholes joins us for a lightning-round quiz pitting quotations from Elizabeth Taylor the actress vs. Elizabeth Taylor the author! Test your knowledge and join in the fun! For the full forty-minute episode in which we discuss the author Taylor'…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text FULL LENGTH EDITION!!! In our first-ever "Game Show Edition" of the podcast, McNally Editions editor Lucy Scholes joins us to talk about the TWO Elizabeth Taylors! Lucy collaborated with Pushkin Press Classics on the short story collection A Different Sound, in which midcentury British novelist and short story…
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Send us a text Get ready to fall hopelessly in love with Emilie Loring, a New England native whose prolific output of richly-detailed romance novels feature the sort of charming characters and snappy dialogue reminiscent of films like The Philadelphia Story and It Happened One Night. Loring’s 30 years of commercial success continued long after her …
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text Fasten on those Harry Winston jewels! With Oscar night approaching, Patreon members get “red carpet” access as Amy takes a look back at some of the films honored by the Academy over the decades which were written (or co-written) by women. Women’s representation in screenwriting categories at the Oscars has bee…
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Send us a text Blogger, podcaster and consultant for the British Library Women Writers series Simon Thomas returns to the show to discuss Angela Milne’s 1942 novel One Year’s Time. The book follows a year in the life of a 1930s-era “bachelor girl” named Liza who lives in London. Milne, the niece of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, was a contribut…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text In this bonus episode, Amy follows the clues to learn more about writer Anna Katharine Green (a.k.a "The Mother of the Detective Novel") whose late 19th-century mysteries inspired the likes of Agatha Christie and last week's "lost lady," Carolyn Wells. Green's 1878 debut novel The Leavenworth Case was an insta…
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Send us a text A pioneer of the detective/mystery genre who began writing locked-room mystery novels a decade before Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells was a turn-of-the-twentieth century celebrity who counted Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain among her many famous friends and fans. Guest Rebecca Rego Barry, whose new book is The Vanish…
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a text In this bonus episode, Amy reflects on a recent trip to the Winchester Mystery House, an architecturally-unusual mansion in San Jose, California which helped inspired Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. In addition to exploring the life of Sarah Winchester and her legendary home, Kim and Amy discuss …
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Send us a text Zelda Fitzgerald is known as “the first American flapper” and an icon of the Jazz Age, but you may be surprised to learn that beneath the glittering facade, there was substance—and literary talent. Her sole published novel, “Save Me the Waltz,” is a poignant blend of beauty and biography that draws on her complex personal narrative, …
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Send us a text As Merchant Ivory super fans, we were surprised (and chagrined!) that we’d been unaware of Ismael Merchant and James Ivory’s longtime collaborator, novelist and Academy Award winning-screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Hollywood screenwriter Brigitte Hales joins us to discuss Jhabvala and her Booker Prize-winning 1975 novel, Heat and …
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Send us a text New full-length episodes beginning Jan. 30. Edna Ferber’s So Big was the top-selling novel of 1924 and it won a Pulitzer Prize, yet it’s little known now! Wildly popular in its day, So Big was adapted for film three times, the second of which (in 1932) starred Barbara Stanwyck and featured a young Bette Davis in one of her earliest r…
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Send us a text Published anonymously six years prior to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park—yet largely ignored for two centuries—the Regency-era epistolary novel The Woman of Colour: A Tale is the only one of its kind to feature a racially-conscious Black heroine at its center. Dr. Leigh-Michil George, a lecturer in the English Department at Geffen Acade…
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Send us a text New episodes beginning January 30. Ready for some Edwardian Era YA? Set in Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century, Maud Hart Lovelace’s delightful Besty-Tacy series is closely based on the author’s idyllic midwestern childhood. In this week’s episode we’re discussing the four books that span Betsy’s high school years (1906-1910): …
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Send us a text Back with new episodes on January 30. Lucia Berlin has been called one of America's "best kept secrets.” We’ll be discussing Berlin’s engrossing short short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women, published posthumously in 2015 and soon to be adapted for the screen by Pedro Almodovar. Joining us is a longtime friend of Berlin’s…
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Send us a text We’re back January 30, 2024 with all new episodes. Did you know there was a controversial, now-forgotten 1888 novel written in response to George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda by a writer who has been described as “the Jewish Jane Austen?” Until recently, neither did we. Join us as we talk with Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith about author Amy Levy an…
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Send us a text We’re back January 30, 2024 with all new episodes. Sisters Jane and Mary Findlater were literary celebrities in their day and counted the likes of Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Rudyard Kipling among their admirers. We’ll be discussing one of their joint efforts, Crossriggs, which is considered their finest work. Joining us are Hol…
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Send us a text We're back with all new episodes on Jan. 30, 2024. Join us for a wonderfully funny and poignant conversation about life, death, and motherhood with award-winning writer Hilma Wolitzer. Her short stories, most of them originally appearing in magazines in the 1960s and 1970s, were re-discovered by her daughter, bestselling author Meg W…
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Send us a text Join us as we discuss Mary McCarthy’s best-known work, The Group, published in 1963. An instant hit, it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two years and follows eight friends over the course of seven years following their graduation from Vassar College in 1933. It was banned in Australia, Ireland, and Italy for its fr…
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Send us a text In this week’s bonus episode, we dig into the poem “Thanksgiving” by lost lady Lydia Maria Child. AND we remain ever thankful for you, our listeners! Discussed in this episode: Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life by Lydia Moland “The Thanksgiving Poem” The Paul Curtis House The Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child The Mother’…
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Send us a text Novelist 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 i…
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Send us a text Last week, with guest Kathleen B. Jones, we discussed Christine de Pizan and her Book of the City of Ladies. Could a woman's hand have been behind any of the beautiful illustrations in this medieval work? Given what we know about women's involvement as artists in the medieval manuscript making process, it's certainly possible. Kathle…
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Send us a text A widow who turned to her pen to support herself and her family, Christine de Pizan was described by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex as the first “woman to take up her pen in defense of her sex.” Published in 1405, The Book of the City of Ladies is Christine’s history of Western civilization from the point of view—and in praise …
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Send us a text Learn more about the feminist open source publisher cita press and An Immortal Book: Selected Writings of Sui Sin Far, a curated collection of short fiction and nonfiction by the pioneering writer, Sui Sin Far (also known as Edith Maude Eaton), one of our past "lost ladies." A journalist and writer of Chinese and British descent who …
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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 beautifully-written, powerful narrative, focusing on the lives of marginalized women in Depression-era America. Joining us is Dr. Rose…
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Send us a text In this week’s mini, Amy shares some of the lesser-known spots she visited on her August trip to England (which included meetups with a few past guests from the show!). From Cotswolds beauty to bizarre curiosities—as well as a few lost ladies—you’ll be wishing she had packed you along in her suitcase! CORRECTION: Leonora Carrington o…
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Send us a text Joining us to discuss Mary Wollstonecraft's extraordinary life and her seminal work, A Vindication on the Rights of Woman, is Dr. Susan J. Wolfson, a professor of English from Princeton University whose scholarship focuses on British Writers of the Romantic period. Her latest book, On Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights…
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