The Gilded Vectors of Disease

April 4 will see the launch of The Gilded Vectors of Disease, one of the more weird-and-wonderful radio programs you’re likely to hear, and something I’m incredibly pleased to be a part of.

Created by The Mustard Club – a project of actress & producer Rebecca Tremain and editor & co-producer Rob Falconer – the series is produced in conjunction with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Each episode takes both a scientific and a poetic/artistic look at one of the creepy-crawlies that comprise the “gilded” vectors of the School’s study – lice, fleas, snakes, rats, ticks, mosquitos, bedbugs, and flies.

In an inspired act of counterintuitive radio, Tremain and Falconer have brought in writers and musicians alongside the School’s world-renowned scientists to discuss these mighty mites in terms that veer from freakish and frightening to downright hilarious.

Up first on April 4 (7:30pm GMT; 2:30pm EST) is the dreaded Louse – scourge of the trenches and schoolyards alike. This episode includes my prose-poem, “Others Took Their Place,” using text sampled from World War I-era scientific studies and troops’ memoirs as well as new writing.

It’s all on Resonance FM in London, and listenable worldwide online.