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Is a politics of love essential to our survival?
We talk with activist, spiritual leader and former presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson about her book, A Politics of Love: A Handbook for a New American Revolution.
Then, we replay an extended excerpt from our 2020 interview with Rabbi Michael Lerner, about his book, Revolutionary Love.
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This week, we talk about two novels about colonialism, both from the point of view of the colonized.
First, we are honored to talk with the 2021 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah about his novel Afterlives, just published in the United States by Penguin Random House.
Then R.F. Kuang tells us about her fantasy/slash/alternate history novel, Babel, Or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution.
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In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we air our 2019 interview with playwright and author Octavio Solis. We spoke with him about growing up the son of Mexican migrants in El Paso Texas. His book of stories based on that history is Retablos: Stories from a Life Lived Along the Border. Octavio Solis.
Then, a new novel from British novelist Freya Sampson, The Lost Ticket. It’s one of those heart-warming but page-turning reads that makes you feel really good.
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We talk with Bill McKibben about his terrific new book, The Flag, The Cross And The Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What The Hell Happened.
Then, a brilliant coming-of-age novel that treats the personal as political and vice versa. We talk with Sarah Thankam Mathews about All This Could Be Different.
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We talk with Dolen Perkins-Valdez about her novel, Take My Hand. It’s based on a famous case accusing the federal government of forced sterilization of poor and minority women inspires a novel about reproductive justice.
Then we air an excerpt from our 2021 interview with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers about her novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The “Mississippi Appendectomy.” That’s what the great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer called the practice of involuntary sterilization forced on poor, mostly Black and Brown, women for decades in the 20th century — a practice Hamer herself was a victim of.
Dolen Perkins Valdez’ novel Take My Hand takes up this history in the story of a young nurse who fights for justice for two young girls who have been sterilized in Mississippi in 1971.
Out from Penguin Random House in April of this year, the book has garnered widespread praise. Ms Magazine called it “A searing and ultimately hopeful novel about (in)justice and the importance of learning from history.”
In addition to Take My Hand, Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of previous novels, Wench and Balm.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
In 2021 Writer’s Voice spoke with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers about her award-winning novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois. Listen to the full interview here.
We play an extended excerpt from that interview.
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We talk with journalist Keri Blakinger about her powerful prison memoir, Corrections In Ink.
Then, Eve Karlin tells us about her historical novel Track 61. It’s about the invasion by a group of German saboteurs during World War II, who came ashore in Amagansett, Long Island.
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Mohsin Hamid tells us about his fable of race and humanity, where white people suddenly turn brown. It’s called The Last White Man.
Then Omar El Akkad talks about his novel What Strange Paradise. It’s about what happens when a Syrian refugee, a young boy, washes up on a Greek island.
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Bruce Holsinger tells us about his novel, The Displacements. It’s about what happens to a family when the first Category Six hurricane hits the wealthy enclave of Coral Gables, Florida.
Then, we talk with moral philosopher Elizabeth Cripps about her book, What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care.
Bruce Holsinger
There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide in a world beset by the Climate Catastrophe—not even if you’re rich. The leveling impact of climate change is at the heart of Bruce Holsinger’s novel The Displacements.
It’s a page-turning dive into what happens to people when climate driven disasters take everything from them. And how they cope in an America where disaster response is ever more stretched to the breaking point.
Bruce Holsinger is the author of the bestselling novel The Gifted School, as well as two historical novels set in the Middle Ages, among other books. He teaches English at the University of Virginia.
Read an excerpt from The Displacements
Elizabeth Cripps
At the very heart of the climate crisis is the question: what is our responsibility to our fellow humans, future generations and all the other living beings we share the planet with?
Elizabeth Cripps examines the moral dimensions of the climate crisis in her book What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care.
Cripps is a moral and political philosopher and writer, specializing in climate justice and parental duties. She teaches at the University of Edinburgh and is Associate Director of CRITIQUE: Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought.
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We talk to Mary Pipher about her new memoir, A Life In Light: Meditations On Impermanence.
And poet, therapist and translator Anita Barrows talks with us about her stunning debut novel, The Language of Birds.
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Artist, technologist, and philosopher James Bridle tells us about his book, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for A Planetary Intelligence.
Then we talk with Sy Montgomery (Soul of the Octopus) about her new book, a memoir of falconry, The Hawk’s Way.
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We talk with Ari Rabin-Havt about his campaign memoir, The Fighting Soul: On The Road With Bernie Sanders.
Then we play an excerpt from our 2020 interview with Chuck Rocha, Bernie’s campaign lead on Latino voters, about his book, Tío Bernie.
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We talk with novelist Jim Shepard about his latest work of fiction, Phase Six. It’s about what happens when a mining operation in the thawing permafrost of Greenland releases a deadly virus into the world.
Then, we talk with Cob Carlson about his new documentary, The Greatest Radio Station In The World. It’s about listener-supported WPKN 89.5 fm Bridgeport CT, which just happens to be the home station of Writer’s Voice.
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We speak with Jonathan Lee about his historical novel The Great Mistake. It’s about the man who’s called “The Father of Greater New York,” Andrew Haswell Green.
Then, Michael Mechanic takes us on a tour into the lives of the super-rich and what their astronomic wealth says about America. His book is Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live- and How their Wealth Harms Us All.
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We talk with David Bollier about his latest book, The Commoners Catalog For Change Making: Tools For The Transitions Ahead.
Then, in light of the Supreme Court ruling taking away the constitutional right of women to reproductive freedom, we listen back to our 2015 interview with Katha Pollitt about her book, PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.
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How safe are our national parks, especially for women hikers?
Not safe enough, says Kathryn Miles. We talk with her about her book Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. It’s about the murders of two remarkable women in 1996, a botched investigation and the failure by the National Park Service to take the safety of women hikers seriously.
Then, as 2022 is slated to experience a severe hurricane season, we revisit our 2015 conversation with Kathryn Miles about her book about Hurricane Sandy, Superstorm.