Monthly Archives: June 2026

Podcast

U.S. Media’s Gaza Failure with Robin Andersen | Plus: Trans Youth and Anti-Trans Laws with Nico Lang

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Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Who gets to tell the story, and who gets erased?

This week on Writer’s Voice, we talk with media scholar Robin Andersen about her book The Complicit Lens: U.S. Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. Andersen’s argument is blunt: the American press didn’t just fail to report accurately on Gaza. Through what she calls “the complicit lens,” it helped make the genocide possible.

“It’s no small charge to say that establishment media is complicit in a genocide. And I do believe that they know what they’re doing. They know exactly what’s happening there.”

We discuss media framing, censorship, language, competing narratives about October 7, and why independent journalism has become increasingly important.

Then we revisit part of my 2025 conversation with journalist Nico Lang about American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. Lang traveled across the country to meet trans young people and their families, documenting not only the challenges posed by anti-trans legislation, but also the resilience, humor, and humanity that rarely make headlines.

“They treat these kids like they’re like monsters and aliens rather than human beings who have the same kinds of human being experiences that they do.”

Both conversations ask a similar question: What happens when people are represented through narratives created by others rather than being allowed to tell their own stories? Whether it’s Palestinians documenting life under bombardment or trans teenagers fighting to define themselves in a hostile political climate, these interviews explore the establishment structures that keep the truth from the public — and how those who are being silenced are fighting back.

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Tags: Gaza media coverage, U.S. media bias, Robin Andersen, Complicit Lens, Israel Palestine journalism, media censorship, Palestinian journalists, media criticism, FAIR media, trans youth, transgender teenagers, Nico Lang, American Teenager, Pride Month, anti-trans legislation, trans kids resilience, Writer’s Voice podcast

You might also like: Nico Lang, AMERICAN TEENAGER, Omar Zahzah, GAZA

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Podcast

Ordinary Soil: A Journey Through Land and Legacy + Carey Gillam on Monsanto

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Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

The stories we tell can change how we live.

This week on Writer’s Voice, a novel about what happens when we lose our connection to the living systems that sustain us.

Songwriter and author Alex Woodard joins us to talk about Ordinary Soil, a multigenerational saga of a Choctaw farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle that traces the intertwined health of land, food, and people across more than a century.

“The simplified message of this book is that you get out what you put in. And that goes for the dirt, that goes for your stomach, that goes for your mind, that goes for your spirit, that goes for everything.”

Then, we revisit our 2019 conversation conversation with environmental journalist Carey Gillam about her book The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice. It’s about the groundbreaking case of school groundskeeper Lee Johnson—how he sued Monsanto and won.

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Tags: Alex Woodard, Ordinary Soil, regenerative agriculture, soil health, glyphosate, Roundup, Indigenous farming, environmental fiction, Carey Gillam, Monsanto

You might also like: Exposing Hidden Agendas: Will Potter on Factory Farm Secrecy, Carey Gillam, WHITEWASH

Love good coffee? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show!

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Podcast

Syria’s Lost Democratic Revolution with Anand Gopal

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Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Anand Gopal on Syria’s Lost Democratic Revolution

What really happened in Syria?

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we talk with journalist Anand Gopal about his extraordinary book Days of Love and Rage. Drawing on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, Gopal reconstructs the story of ordinary Syrians who rose up against dictatorship and attempted to build a democratic society in the city of Manbij during the Arab Spring.

“In these complex scenarios, you usually hear about devastation, not about acts of construction.”

We discuss the social contract that sustained the Assad regime for decades, the impact of neoliberal economic reforms and climate-driven drought, and the revolutionary awakening that swept through Syria in 2011. Gopal describes how citizens with no prior experience of democracy organized councils, newspapers, political assemblies, and public debates, creating a vibrant experiment in self-government under impossible conditions.

The conversation also explores the class divisions, economic crises, and political struggles that contributed to the rise of Islamist movements and eventually ISIS. Yet Gopal argues that the democratic experiment was real, meaningful, and not doomed to fail.

In the final part of our conversation, we examine hope, not as a feeling but as a practice, a willingness to remain open to possibility even in dark times.

Tags: Anand Gopal, Days of Love and Rage, Syria, Syrian Revolution, Arab Spring, Assad regime, Bashar al-Assad, ISIS, Middle East politics, Writer’s Voice Podcast

You Might Also Like: Remembering The Revolutions of 2011, Deborah Campbell, A DISAPPEARANCE IN DAMASCUS & Melissa Fleming, A HOPE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SEA

Love good coffee? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show!

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Podcast

Lost Worlds: The Untold Story of Human Adaptation

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Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary

What if the story we tell about civilization is wrong?

What if human history isn’t a steady march from “primitive” hunter-gatherers to ever more advanced societies, but something far messier, more inventive, and more fragile — a long experiment of adaptation, collapse, reinvention, and survival?

Our guest, historian and podcaster Patrick Wyman takes readers deep into that story in his new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World.

“Our human past is infinitely bigger than we generally tend to think it is.”

Drawing on breakthroughs in archaeology, ancient DNA, isotope analysis, and climate science, Wyman takes us from Ice Age North America to Bronze Age cities and forgotten civilizations across Europe and the Mediterranean. Along the way, he challenges the idea that history follows a single path toward “civilization.” Instead, he reveals a human story filled with experimentation, adaptation, migration, collapse, and renewal.

At a moment when many people feel trapped by crises that seem beyond our control, Lost Worlds offers a powerful reminder that history is full of alternatives, and that the future remains unwritten. One thing is clear: we’ve always had more choices than we thought.

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Tags: Patrick Wyman, Lost Worlds, Bronze Age collapse, Göbekli Tepe, Trypillia, Mycenaean Greece, Sea Peoples, hunter-gatherers, ancient DNA, archaeology, migration history, collapse and renewal, human prehistory, Writer’s Voice podcast, 

You Might Also Like: David Wengrow, THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING, Lizzie Wade on APOCALYPSE: What Collapse Reveals About Human Possibility

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