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April 28th, 2025

Failing Upwards: Elizabeth Mateer | Episode 61

  1. Failing Upwards: Elizabeth Mateer | Episode 61 Brent van Staalduinen 44:46

Elizabeth Mateer is a former professional dancer and actor who now writes poetry as a diversion from her work as a fellow in neuropsychology at Harvard University. We chat about the inevitable rejections in the artistic life, what it’s like to be a research-focused doctoral fellow in Trump’s America, and how reject is about learning, or in her words, “failing upwards.” Her book of poetry Searching for Home is titled after a poem she calls a “Love letter to a friend.”

Rejected Central is a human podcast hosted by bestselling novelist Brent van Staalduinen and educator and life-embracer Dave Parkinson. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, follow us online and social media, and let us know what you think. Thanks for listening!

Brent van Staalduinen Rejected Central Podcast

I am the award-winning and bestselling author of the novels UNTHINKABLE, NOTHING BUT LIFE, BOY, and SAINTS, UNEXPECTED, as well as the story collection CUT ROAD. My stories appear in literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and have won the Bristol Short Story Prize, The Fiddlehead Best Fiction Award, the Lush Triumphant Literary Award, and numerous other accolades. A recovering army medic, tree planter, radio announcer, and high school English teacher, I now spend my time podcasting, writing, teaching, and figuring out what it means to be a family man.