Tajja Isen and Nicole Chung on Becoming Colleagues and Friends
In Conversation with Lena Crown on Awakeners
This is Awakeners, a Lit Hub Radio podcast about mentorship in the literary arts. Robert Frost allegedly said he was not a teacher but an “awakener.” On every episode of this podcast, host Lena Crown speaks with writers, artists, critics, and scholars across generations who have awakened something for one another. We chat about how their relationship has evolved, examine the connections and divergences in their writing and thinking, and dig into the archives for traces of their mutual influence.
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On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the nonfiction writers Tajja Isen and Nicole Chung, who became colleagues and friends after working together on an essay for Catapult, a (now sadly shuttered) digital magazine where Nicole served as editor.
The year was 2017, when Twitter still afforded meet-cutes like this one: Tajja published an essay with Electric Literature, and Nicole read the essay, loved the voice, and invited Tajja to pitch her at Catapult. After collaborating to publish Tajja’s essay, Nicole brought Tajja onto the magazine’s editorial staff, and eventually Tajja succeeded Nicole as Editor in Chief.
In the first half of the episode, Tajja and Nicole read aloud from their first email exchange, including Tajja’s pitch and Nicole’s feedback. We get into the nitty gritty of what this kind of editorial back-and-forth looks like—including the time Tajja took between drafts—and discuss how their mutual admiration as writer and editor grew into an enduring friendship (and how Nicole knew Tajja would make a good editor after seeing her revise her own work).
In the second half of the episode, we discuss how writing and editing feed one another, and how Tajja and Nicole have maintained their identities as writers alongside their identities as editors and champions of other writers’ work. We end with a peek into the thinking behind Tajja’s next book, Tough Love, a memoir about mentorship, control, desire, and the anxiety of influence.
Subscribe and connect with us on our website: awakenerspodcast.com
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Nicole Chung is the author of the award-winning memoir A Living Remedy, which was named a Notable Book by The New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen other outlets. Her 2018 debut All You Can Ever Know was a national bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Chung has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Time, Esquire, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Slate, and many other publications.
Tajja Isen is the author of the essay collection Some of My Best Friends, named a Best Book of the Year by outlets including Electric Literature and The Globe and Mail. She is a contributing writer for The Walrus, for which she received an honorable mention at the 2024 National Magazine Awards. Her work has been recognized with fellowships from the Black Mountain Institute, the Ucross Foundation, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She also edits for Orion magazine and works as a cartoon voice actor. Her next book, Tough Love, is a memoir of mentorship.
More Nicole: nicolechung.net
More Tajja: tajjaisen.com
Subscribe and connect with us on our website: awakenerspodcast.com.
