Dr. Harcourt shivered.

So, what you're saying is this is a horror podcast.

My God, there could be adult language in situations inside.

Sudapod, episode 969 for March 31st, 2025.

Spunk by Zora Neill Hurston.

Narrated by Dominic Rayburn.

Hosted by Jamie Grimes. Audio by Chelsea Davis.

Hello everyone. I'm Jamie, associate editor at Sudapod.

Freshly dug out of Montressor's walls in one of the many sub-basements of

Sudapod Towers to host this week's episode, Spunk by Zora Neal Hurston.

Zora Neil Hurston was born in Nadasulga, Alabama in 1891. She's probably best known for her novel

Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937, but she was also an anthropologist and

folklorist. She co-founded Howard University's newspaper at the Hilltop, and while attending Columbia

University, she founded the literary magazine, Fire, with her friends Langston Hughes and Richard

Bruce Nugent. For her essay Sweat, which was included

in that publication's only issue in November 1926, Hurston received attention as a potential

literary force. Fun fact, this literary magazine was the inspiration for the name of current

literary speculative fiction juggernautut Faya. Check them out at

fia litmag.com. Hurston spent much of her life exploring the plurality of the black American

experience. Though widely read today, Hurston fought throughout her life to maintain an audience.

She struggled personally and professionally, and after suffering a series of strokes, she moved to a welfare home in St. Lucie County, Florida, where she died in poverty in 1960.

Her work was almost forgotten until Alice Walker, of the color purple fame, rediscovered her and brought her out of obscurity in 1975 with the essay In Search of Zora

...