Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.
What does courage demand when freedom is threatened?
This week on Writer’s Voice, two conversations ask one of the hardest questions any of us can face. What does it really mean to resist?
First, journalist Gal Beckerman joins Writer’s Voice to talk about his book How to Be a Dissident. Drawing on figures from Hannah Arendt to Alexei Navalny, Osip Mandelstam and Etty Hillesum, he argues that dissidents aren’t superheroes. They’re ordinary people who decide they can no longer live with inaction.
“I really have come to understand those choices as not only burdensome, but actually the substance from which a real meaningful life is made.”
Then Writer’s Voice revisits a conversation with novelist Buzzy Jackson about To Die Beautiful, her novel inspired by Dutch resistance fighter Hannie Schaft. Through Schaft’s story, Jackson explores how ordinary people become extraordinary when injustice closes in, and why even for any of us, small acts of courage matter.
“I really started to understand that a refugee crisis in a country is a little bit of like a canary in a coal mine.”
Two conversations, one enduring question. How do we prepare ourselves to choose courage when the moment arrives?
Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.
Tags: How to Be a Dissident, Gal Beckerman interview, Writer’s Voice podcast, Hannie Schaft, To Die Beautiful, Dutch Resistance, World War II resistance, Alexei Navalny, Hannah Arendt, Osip Mandelstam, Etty Hillesum, Buzzy Jackson interview,
You might also like: Buzzy Jackson, TO DIE BEAUTIFUL, Robert Matzen, DUTCH GIRL
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!
Continue reading