We Are Family: Sister City by Ian Woollen

By Yael Ksander

Published January 17, 2023 at 5:46 PM EST

On this episode, Yaël Ksander brings us a review of Bloomington-based author Ian Woollen’s fifth novel Sister City (Coffeetown Press, 2020). A psychotherapist by day, Woollen writes novels and short fiction, for which he has been recognized with the 2006 Best Books of Indiana Award, the Mid-American Review’s Sherwood Anderson Prize, INDIES Bronze Award, and as a finalist for the Balcones Fiction Prize. As Yaël writes, Woollen’s wildly absurdist take on the Sister City concept gets its heart from its “maelstrom of broken souls” “longing to find home.” This review is produced in partnership with Limestone Post magazine, where you can read the review in its entirety.

Alex Chambers

Alex Chambers runs WFIU’s arts desk, and produces and hosts WFIU’s Inner States, a weekly podcast and radio show about arts, culture, and ideas from southern Indiana and beyond. He’s the co-creator of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about the present, produced in partnership with Indiana Humanities. He has a PhD in American Studies, with a dissertation called Climate Violence and the Poetics of Refuge, and a book of poems called Bindings: A Preparation, about domestic life and empire. In his spare time, he teaches audio storytelling at the IU Media School. When he’s not in the woods gathering sound, you might see him out for a run on the streets of Bloomington.

See stories by Alex Chambers