Tag Archives: memoir

Podcast

Octavio Solis, RETABLOS & Don Arbor, singer-songwriter

We talk with playwright and author Octavio Solis 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. We also talk about the August 3 mass shooting in El Paso and the impact it has had on Solis’ hometown.

Then, we re-air our 2018 interview with singer-songwriter Don Arbor about his song honoring immigrants, “Everyone Comes From Somewhere”. Continue reading

Podcast

Gregory Pardlo, AIR TRAFFIC and Robert Pollin on NY’s Climate and Community Protection Act

We talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Gregory Pardlo about his searing family memoir, AIR TRAFFIC: A Memoir of Ambition & Manhood in America (Knopf, April 2019).

Then, is New York State poised to pass the most ambitious Green New Deal in the country? We talk with economist Robert Pollin about New York’s Climate and Community Protection Act.

Continue reading

Podcast

Lori Gottlieb, MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO SOMEONE and Bev Thomas, A GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER

Today’s episode features two books that explore therapy from both sides of the couch. We talk with Lori Gottlieb about her bestselling memoir, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed.

Then, a novel about a therapist who finds herself crossing dangerous lines with a patient while struggling with her own grief: we talk with Bev Thomas about her debut novel, A Good Enough Mother. A breakout sensation in the UK, it was just published in the US.

Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes and your other podcast clients!

Continue reading

Podcast

Nora Krug, BELONGING & Roz Chast, GOING INTO TOWN

We talk with Nora Krug about her memoir exploring her family’s history during Nazi Germany, Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home.

Then, when her daughter got into college in Manhattan, celebrated New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast wanted to give her a guide to getting around in the city. We talk with Chast about the graphic book that came out of that guide. It’s called Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York.

Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres. On the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes!

Continue reading

Book Excerpt

“The Cure Hunter” from Province of the Heart

by Francesca Rheannon

In 2001, one week after the 9/11 attacks, I arrived in the rugged, sparsely populated region of southern France’s Haute Provence for a long-planned stay. I had come to write about my father’s role in one small corner of a decades-old war, World War II, but found myself paralyzed by 9/11 and the U.S. response. In this frightening new reality, the book seemed irrelevant. But, as I tried to come to grips with this world torn apart, an entirely different book emerged, one I came to call “Province of the Heart.”

I settled in a tiny village of no more than one hundred souls, in the shadow of the mountain where the great ProvenÁ§al writer Jean Giono had once created a community of visionaries dedicated to the land and its people.

Over the eight months I lived there, that land and its people stitched my world back up again, through the deep succor of the relationship between humans and the natural world that embraced them. Yet my neighbors were no innocents living out of time; instead, they clung more fiercely to the beauty they had for knowing how much it was threatened.

The following is one story from Province of the Heart, “The Cure Hunter.” Continue reading

Podcast

Cathryn Hankla, LOST PLACES: On Losing And Finding Home & Francesca Rheannon on “Finding Home”

Cathryn Hankla talks about her memoir LOST PLACES: On Losing And Finding Home. Then Francesca reads a passage about “finding home” from her memoir about Provence.

Please do us a favor: rate us on iTunes or whichever podcast app you use. It helps to spread the word about #WritersVoice. Thanks!

Continue reading

Podcast

Melissa Febos, ABANDON ME & Trump’s Attack on Social Security &Medicare

Melissa Febos talks about her acclaimed new memoir, Abandon Me. Then we talk with
Los Angeles Times business journalist Michael Hiltzik and Nancy Altman of Social Security Works about Trump’s attack on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Continue reading

Podcast

Amy Sutherland, RESCUING PENNY JANE & Sarah Ellis, THE TRAINABLE CAT

Amy Sutherland talks about dogs in shelters, getting them adopted and keeping them out of shelters to begin with. We also talk about some of the wonderful dogs she’s rescued and rehabilitated during the years she has been a shelter volunteer. Her book is Rescuing Penny Jane: One Shelter Volunteer, Countless Dogs, and the Quest to Find Them All Homes.

Then, we give equal time to cats. We re-air part of our interview with cat behaviorist Sarah Ellis about her book, co-authored with John Bradshaw, The Trainable Cat. Continue reading

Podcast

Min Jin Lee, PACHINKO & Suki Kim, WITHOUT YOU THERE IS NO US

Min Jin Lee talks about her acclaimed new novel Pachinko. It’s a multigenerational saga about a Korean family in Japan that  defies oppression to thrive in a society stacked against them.

Then we air an edited version of our 2015 interview with Suki Kim about her book Without You There Is No Us. It’s her memoir of going undercover with the sons of the North Korean elite. Continue reading

Podcast

Brad Gooch, RUMI’S SECRET & Samuel Bercholz, A GUIDED TOUR OF HELL

Brad Gooch talks about his biography Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love (now available in paperback from Harper Perennial.) Then, we’ve all heard of near-death experiences — going through a dark tunnel toward a brilliant loving light. But what if your near-death journey is to the nether regions instead? Buddhist publisher and author Samuel Bercholz tells us about his graphic memoir, A Guided Tour of Hell

Continue reading

Web Extras

Samuel Bercholz, A GUIDED TOUR OF HELL (Full Interview)

Samuel Bercholz
Hell is other people, it’s been said, but Samuel Bercholz says that’s wrong. Rather, it’s our illusion that we are separate from other people and indeed from all sentient beings that condemns us to hell. He knows. He’s been there. He tells the story of his near-death experience and sojourn in Hell in his graphic memoir, A Guided Tour of Hell. Continue reading

Web Extras

Sarah van Gelder, The Revolution Where You Live (full interview)

Sara van Gelder
Yes! Magazine is almost unique: a publication with positive stories about change, rather than the steady diet of gloom and doom that was the usual reading fare. Sarah van Gelder, is a cofounder of Yes!

But even someone who has been bringing stories about solutions instead of just problems to the public can get depressed sometimes, looking around that the enormous challenges we face in this world and this country. From economic to environmental meltdowns, the crises are overwhelming.

But her new book, The Revolution Where You Live, is filled with inspiring stories of ordinary Americans working together to confront power, take it back and make their communities better. The issues they confront range from threats to their land and water, workplaces closing down, poor access to healthy and adequate food and housing — and more.

From Native American reservations to the midwestern Rust Belt to the Northeast to the deep South, The Revolution Where You Live has stories that spark ideas and inspire hope.

Podcast

Muslim Women’s Voices: Amani Al-Khatahbeh & Susan Abulhawa

Amani Al-Khatahbeh talks about her new book, Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age. It’s about her experience growing up female and Muslim in America after 9/11 and how that led her to create muslimgirl.com, an online magazine by and about Muslim women.

Then we re-air our 2016 interview with Susan Abulhawa about her novel of a Palestinian family, The Blue Between Sky and Water.  Continue reading

Podcast

Katherine Harvey, Bare Bones Broth Cookbook, The True Story of Thanksgiving & “The Food Philosophe” (story)

Katherine Harvey talks about the book she co-authored, The Bare Bones Broth Cookbook. Francesca reads her story The Food Philosophe. And finally we continue our Thanksgiving tradition with native American scholar Marge Bruchac telling us the real story behind the holiday.

Also, a teaser from our interview with Nancy Altman of Social Security Works about her article for Huffington Post, “Medicare Will Be Gone By Next Thanksgiving If Republicans Have Their Way.” Continue reading

Podcast

George Hodgman, BETTYVILLE & Alan Teel, ALONE & INVISIBLE NO MORE

George Hodgeman talks about his wonderful memoir of taking care of his mother in her declining years, Bettyville, first published in 2015 and now out in paperback. Then we re-air our 2011 interview with Dr. Allan Teel about his innovative approach to caring for seniors, called Full Circle. His book is Alone and Invisible No More. Continue reading