Episode 124: My Beans, Spiders, and Mammals by Elisabeth Sharp McKetta

Elisabeth Sharp McKetta is an award-winning writer and writing teacher and a mother of two. With a PhD on the intersections between fairy tales and autobiography, as well as a seven-year streak of writing weekly poems for strangers, she teaches writing for Oxford Department for Continuing Education and for Harvard Extension School, where she won their highest teaching award. She has authored thirteen books, most recently the personal growth guide Edit Your Life, based on the experience of living three years in a 275-square foot backyard guest house with her family of four (five, if you count the Labrador)—and the middle grade novel Ark, set during the pandemic and described by Kirkus Reviews as “infectiously hopeful.” Elisabeth co-edited the anthology What Doesn’t Kill Her: Women’s Stories of Resilience, which Gloria Steinem described as stories that “will help each of us to trust and tell our own.” Her poetry and short work have been published widely, including in The Poetry Review and Real Simple; her work with myth and memoir has been spotlighted in Harvard Magazine. Elisabeth and her family call Boise home and travel widely. (elisabethsharpmcketta.com)