Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Dr. Robert Kopp discusses the new report he co-authored that doubles projections of sea level rise if we fail to cut carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
John Michael Greer talks about his latest book The Retro Future: Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future (New Society Publishers.) Then, climate scientist Peter Kalmus weighs in on the personal choices we can all make to protect the climate. He tells us about his book, Being The Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution (New Society Publishers.) Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
The Alabama special election for the US Senate is today. Whatever the final vote — can it be trusted? For our What You Need To Know series on Writers Voice, Francesca spoke with John Brakey of Election Defense Alliance and attorney Chris Sautter, two long-term election integrity activists. They sued the state of Alabama to improve the integrity of the election. They won in court – but then lost in a last-minute backroom deal between the state GOP and the Alabama Supreme Court.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Celebrated author Sy Montgomery talks with us about the essays she and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas have written and collected in a wonderful new book, Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind. Then we hear part of our 2011 interview with Elizabeth Tova Bailey about her book The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Why are drug prices going through the roof? We talk with Wendell Potter about Big Pharma and what his new investigative journalism site, Tarbell, is finding out about it.
Then, critics say single payer health insurance would be too expensive. We talk with economist Gerald Friedman, who developed Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan. He answers his critics point by point. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Poet Rita Dove talks about her Collected Poems 1974-2004, published by W.W. Norton. Then, we honor our Thanksgiving tradition of airing Marge Bruchac’s true story of Thanksgiving and a reading of Francesca’s story, The Food Philosophe. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Katherine Nouri Hughes talks about her novel The Mapmaker’s Daughter. It tells the story of a remarkable historical figure of the 16th century, Queen Mother Nurbanu.
We also get advice from book publicist Claire McKinney on how to promote your book. She’s the author of Do You Know What a Book Publicist Does?: A Guide for Creating Your Own Campaigns. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Damion Searls talks about his translation of 1944 Diary by the late German/Dutch writer Hans Keilson. It’s the first nonfiction work of Keilson’s that Searls has translated. We also air most of our 2010 interview with Damion Searls about his translation of Keilson’s acclaimed novel, Comedy in a Minor Key. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
We talk with John Nichols about his book HORSEMEN OF THE TRUMPOCALYPSE: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America. We also talk with Valerie Brown, co-author of a just released report for the magazine In These Times on how Monsanto kept the EPA from regulating the toxic weedkiller glyphosate for over 40 years. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Carol Anderson talks about her bestselling book White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Anderson says every time African Americans make gains — from ending slavery to voting rights to the election of a Black POTUS — white Americans mobilize relentlessly to roll back those gains. She says the correct question is not why Black people are angry; it’s why whites are so angry when Black people get rights? Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
One of our favorite poets passed away on October 14, 2017. The great American poet Richard Wilbur was 96 years old. We remember him with a re-broadcast of our 2009 conversation with him at his home in Cummington, Massachusetts.
Author Christian McEwen and I spoke with Wilbur about his life, poetry and translations. He also read some of his poems to us in his beautifully resonant voice.
But first, we hear a clip from our 2007 interview with Jeanne Braham, author of The Light Within the Light: Portraits of Donald Hall, Richard Wilbur, Maxine Kumin, and Stanley Kunitz. Braham gives us her thoughts about the poet. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
We talk with John Duberstein about his late wife’s powerful and lyrical memoir, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying. Nina Riggs died just shortly before the book was published from metastatic breast cancer, leaving her husband and two young children behind.
Then we play a clip from our interview in 2015 with Joseph Luzzi about his memoir, In A Dark Wood. After he lost his wife to a car accident, he was helped to heal from his grief by his study of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Continue reading
Dispatch from the Dark
Speaking of the dark: It’s past midnight, and we’re lying in bed. “I just can’t wait for things to get back to normal,” says John from his side of the moon.
I’m not sure how to respond. I hadn’t realized how attached I have become to the idea that, even in all of this, we are moving ahead somehow, and that dealing with all this is something to value. I feel a sharpness in my throat, the slip of the sureness beneath me.
“I can’t handle you saying that,” I say after a silence, even though I know he isn’t trying to fight. “Thinking that way kind of invalidates my whole life right now. I have to love these days in the same way I love any other. There might not be a normal’ from here on out.” Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
We talk with the mavens of backyard building Jean and David Stiles about their new book, Building Small.
Then, the Airstream is the icon of travel trailers with a passionately devoted following. We talk all things Airstream with Karen Flett. Her book is Living the Airstream Life. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Writer and naturalist Leslie Sharpe talks about her new book, The Quarry Fox and Other Tales of the Wild Catskills. Then we air part of my 2007 interview with David Gessner about his book, Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond. Continue reading