Suzan Colon

Kenneth Turan

Guest host Chris Rohmann interviews Los Angles Times drama critic Kenneth Turan about FREE FOR ALL: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told. It’s about the how Joseph Papp founded the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater. Then Suzan Colon tells us about her memoir, CHERRIES IN WINTER: My Family’s Recipe for Hope in Hard Times. Finally, we talk about THE HEALTHY COLLEGE COOKBOOK with editor Rachel Holcomb.

Theater for the People

The great impresario Joseph Papp was a revolutionary force in American theater. He brought Shakespeare to the masses on the streets of New York and finally, after winning out over the resistance of Robert Moses, to Central Park. Brilliant, contentious, single-minded and passionate, Papp showed an intuitive genius for picking hits from obscure sources. The script for Hair was handed to him by two unknowns on a commuter train. A Chorus Line came from taped interviews of dancers’ reminiscences.

As told by theater critic Kenneth Turan, brings together the recollections of many great actors, including George C. Scott, Meryl Streep, and James Earl Jones, as well as those of Papp himself.

Guest host Chris Rohmann is author of A World of Ideas: The Dictionary of Important Ideas and Thinkers.

Recipe for Hope in Hard Times

Last year, Suzan Colon found herself unemployed, like many Americans these days. When she got laid off from her job at a magazine, at first she felt a great loss of identity. But then she found a silver lining in form of recipes handed down to her from her grandmother and her mother — good, cheap, stick to the ribs recipes that had held her family together in hard times as well as good. She found solace and recovery in them and the memories they brought — and the material for her memoir, .

Watch Suzan Colon makes butter cookies and meatloaf.

The Healthy College Cookbook

Are you wondering what to give your son or daughter when they come home for the holidays after a semester away at college? How about the ? Revised and updated from the first edition, published ten years ago, it brings together a slew of cheap, easy and yummy recipes that are written and tested by college students. Host Francesca Rheannon invited editor Rachel Holcomb into the WMUA studio. She’s a student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and former chef in the bake shop of the one of the on-campus dining commons.

Some recipes from the HEALTHY COLLEGE COOKBOOK.

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Dahr Jamail

“Unembedded journalist” Dahr Jamail tells us about the profound impact on veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and how they are fighting back. We also talk with mystery novelist Lisa Kleinholz, cookbook author Lora Brody and journalism prof and blogger B.J. Roche – they’re all panelists on the upcoming Write Angles writers conference taking place Nov 21, 2009 at Mount Holyoke College.

An Unembedded Journalist

Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq when he took the lives of thirteen people at Fort Hood earlier this month. He’d seen the effects of the war firsthand counseling veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Rather than go to Iraq, he planned to die along with those he murdered Fort Hood suspect said his goodbyes before rampage. Though some suspect a Muslim extremist motive for the shootings, it’s telling that eighteen U.S. war veterans commit suicide every day. The toll is even higher for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dahr Jamail’s first book, , looked at the devastation of the war in Iraq on Iraqi civilians. Now this unembedded journalist has come out with . The book is about how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are affecting veterans who have come back home. They suffer from PTSD from battle, but also from sexual violence (against women soldiers), the failures of the veteran’s system, and continual redeployments. As a result, he says more soldiers are dying by suicide than are killed in combat.

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Some soldiers are fighting back – not through violence, but through political resistance, by talking with fellow soldiers, and even by fleeing the country. They’re also trying to make sure that other troops don’t have to go through what they did. Dahr Jamail writes of their courageous opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His book gives us insight into how the horrors of war can affect the human soul.

Write Angles

For the last 22 years our region has played host to Write Angles, a terrific writers conference. Francesca caught up with a few of the panelists to give you a preview.

Lora Brody is the bestselling author of 18 cookbooks, among them and, . She’s even got a cookbook about broccoli, which takes certain amount of courage. I caught up with her by phone in France’s beautiful southwestern region, the Dordogne, where she was leading her annual cooking tour.

Links

• Lora Brody’s Rugelach
• Lora Brody’s Christmas Stollen

Mystery writer Lisa Kleinholz is author of the Zoe Szabo mysteries, about a punk-rock journalist sleuth in rural New England. She started out by wanting to write regular fiction, but found it difficult to sell her first book. So she tried her hand at mystery writing and her career took off.

Links

• Read an excerpt from Lisa Kleinholz’ Exiles on Main Street.
• Read an excerpt from Lisa Kleinholz’ Dancing With Mr. D.

Our last Write Angles conference panelist is UMass journalism professor, BJ Roche. She was a correspondent and columnist for the Boston Globe before becoming a journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and an online publisher. We invited her on to talk about online publishing. Her own blog, fiftyshift.com, is for, by and about women over 40.

Find out about the fiftyshift.com booklet Friends Indeed.

Lora Brody, Lisa Kleinholz and B.J. Roche will be speaking on their respective genre panels at the WA conference at the Willits Hallowell Center on the campus of MHC, November 21.

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Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups frsh or frozen rasberries, 2 cups almond milk, 1 cup plain yoghurt, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 1/2 tsp almond extract, 1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Place all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth.
2. Pour into glasses and serve.

For a Change:
* Substitute pitted cherries, peaches or blueberries for the rasberries.

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