TAKE A LOOK INTO THE ENGLISH SUITE

The English Suite Podcast is the official podcast for the English and Creative writing department here at Widener University. The podcast started as an idea from professor James Esch, who pitched the concept of having a podcast one day at a Blue Route meeting in the fall semester. Despite the virtual school year, the podcast was able to thrive through the use of zoom recordings and editing software. During the spring semester, the podcast posted its first episode and gained staff members to help produce more episodes and ideas, such as Cloe Di Flumeri, who interviewed Dr. Schechner, a French professor at Widener University. Di Fluemri originally joined the podcast because of her developing interest in communications because of an audio class she was taking. Also, she finds it interesting to start on a brand new project. “Being able to work on a project while it is still new is cool. You can take part in how it is going.” Di Fluemri has learned how to conduct interviews, how to steer the conversation to go how you plan, and also to be prepared with questions. Di Fluemri recommends students should get involved with the podcast. “It’s an interesting way to get close to professors.”

There are a variety of episodes to choose from when tuning in to The English Suite Podcast. It is an interesting way to find out more about your fellow students and faculty who work and study in the English and Creative Writing department.

Interview with Professor Esch. The Creator of The English Suite Podcast.

Can you give us a breakdown of what the English suite podcast is? 

Sure, the English Suite podcast is built as the voice of Widener University’s, English and creative writing department, so I see it as a. A kind of megaphone for what we do in English and creative writing both at the Faculty level, the undergraduate level, and the alumni level too, so it sort of starts with what we’re doing at Widener, and we’re just sorta sharing what we’re writing. What our scholarly research is all about, things that we’re publishing and is used as a way to kind of get the word out about all the cool things that we’re up to with Widener in the English and creative writing department, because not a lot of people are fully aware of what we do so this is just a way to get us out there, My vision for the podcast is to not just talk about English and creative writing topics in general, like so it doesn’t always have to have a Widener tie in so already in some of our early episodes I’ve interviewed a comic artist who’s got no connection to Widener at all. So I’m hoping that anyone interested in books and writing and publishing and all that creative stuff can maybe find us out there on the Internet, too, and just take an interest in the topics that we discuss.

Why did you start the podcast? 

Professor Esch came up with the idea during the pandemic. There was also some talk among faculty to start a start podcast, One year Dr. Cocchiarale had a novel and short stories come out Professor Esch made a joke about interviewing him. Later after discussing it with Dr. Utell, it wasn’t until this year that Professor Esch was working on another podcast with a high school friend. The idea also comes from teaching the advanced fiction writing class that hosted the virtual open mic last fall. The feedback that was happening made Professor Esch want to keep doing things like this, especially because zoom made it a very easy way to record interviews. 

So everything kind of came together, and then I sort of floated the idea Dr. Utell, and she just jumped on it right away, and so that’s a great idea, and she had a sort of thing for coming up with the name of the podcast so it was really her idea English sweet, and I said oh that’s perfect so yeah things just kind of aligned this year, I had the time to do it and. I learned how to do podcasting better than I was doing it before and as everything just became much more feasible and then I had time over the winter break to develop the concept and I did a pilot episode with Dr. Utell just to see if it was going to work and I thought I can do this so the rest is history.

Is the podcast specifically for English and Creative Writing students, or do you hope you can get all majors to listen? 

Absolutely yeah, like we’re doing a lot of outreaches on our social media to all kinds of Widener organizations campus clubs fraternities sororities I’ve let it groups like different majors. I hope everyone listens to the podcast and anyone who’s creative and likes to write or is artistic I mean I think they should listen to it and they’re welcome to contribute to it as well like clearly the focus is on what we do in English and creative writing but. it’s a campus-wide initiative, I mean I don’t see it as like a little click it’s more like we just want you to know what we’re up to because we find it interesting and we think you’ll find it interesting.

What do you hope students get out of the podcast?

To the students who are working on it, I hope you’re building skills that will transfer into the working world and your gaining hands-on experience on creative production that you can put on your resume to show future employers like I did this, look you can listen to it, it’s still out there on the internet. It Is invaluable to do that because learning isn’t just what you learn in a classroom. It’s what you do. It’s the writing that you do, the editing that you do, the activities that you’re involved in, the events you produce, and the recordings that make all that.

For the people who listen to it, I hope it enriches their lives, broadens their horizons, and it would be nice to gain some new majors, and people who are interested in taking more writing classes, or maybe they want a minor in English or Creative Writing.

Professor Esch hopefully wants to gain high school listeners to those who are interested in Creative Writing and English to hear some of the things widener students are doing and to gain a few majors. 

What are your future plans for the podcast?

 Professor Esch hopes for the future that the podcast can remain strong even with it being in person for future semesters. This spring Professor Esch has put out more podcast episodes than expected. Initially, he thought he would have one a month but there are eight episodes produced in this semester alone. 

Professor Esch hopes they can branch off and not only do literary journalism but find more creative outlets for the podcast. Some ideas are virtual book groups, and segments that can grow the audience. 

You can listen to the podcast on Anchor.FM, Spotify, Apple podcast, Google podcast, and the Breaker Radio Republic, and many more. You can also listen to The English Suite Podcast on Youtube on Widener University’s English page.