The first thing that many people want to ask my guest, Tikaera Madden, about when they

meet her is her famous last name.

Yes, that Madden.

But it's also understandably the last thing she wants to talk about so much so that for

the first few years as an up-and-coming writer in the literary world, and as a person

in her 20s looking to really carve out her own identity, she wrote entirely under a pen

name before finally emerging into a place where she was comfortable standing in her work,

her story, and her craft.

Since then, she has established herself as a powerful voice and editor, earning fellowships

from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Tin House, the McDowell Colony,

and Yado, serving as the founding editor-in-chief of Notokins, which Tikaera described as a journal

celebrating work that is felt in the spine, run entirely by women and non-binary individuals,

dedicated to featuring the words and artwork of all voices of the past, present, and future,

here to keep stories alive and to make a physical object to hold in your hands.

And she ends the Notokins mission statement by reminding us all we are paying attention.

She's also the author of the really moving 2019 New York Times Editors Choice memoir,

Long Live the Tribe of Fatholist Girls, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics

Circle Award, and it drops you into this wildly colorful and character-filled childhood,

and she teaches at Sarelarne College.

We explore all of this in today's really fun, wide-ranging conversation, so excited

to share with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

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