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Today’s theme is family secrets. We talk first with art historian Benjamin Binstock about VERMEER’S FAMILY SECRETS: Genius, Discovery and the Unknown Apprentice. Then, a poem by Constatijn Huygens. And mystery writer Hallie Ephron delves into another family’s secrets in her debut solo novel, NEVER TELL A LIE. Continue reading
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We talk to novelist Beverly Swerling about the latest in her historical series about Old New York, City of God: A Novel of Passion and Wonder in Old New York. Also, children’s book author Richard Michelson, tells us about his latest, AS GOOD AS ANYBODY: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom. Continue reading
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Writers Voice spends the hour with former Marine Captain Tyler Boudreau. His brutally honest, brilliantly written memoir is PACKING INFERNO: The Unmaking of a Marine.
Boudreau also educates the public on veterans’ issues and is the founder of Collaborative Revolution. He is planning a 2009 cross country bicycle trip by veterans to “to positively re-invest their strength in America.” Continue reading
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It was tough, but we did it: we winnowed down the list of wonderful guests and their books to the Ten Best Books featured on Writer’s Voice in 2008. This week’s show features excerpts from our interviews with four of them. In the fiction category, we talk with Kevin Patterson (CONSUMPTION) and Elizabeth Strout (OLIVE KITTREDGE). For nonfiction, we hear from Ron Suskind (THE WAY OF THE WORLD) and Terry Tempest Williams (MOSAIC).
Update: We also have our best guests of 2009 list online too.
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We talk with poet Al Young and photographer Charles L. Robinson about their book and CD set, JAZZ IDIOM: Blueprints, Stills and Frames. And Eugene Jarecki tells us about THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR.
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Paul Roberts tells us about THE END OF FOOD, we talk with M. P. Barker about her historical novel of early 19th century New England, A DIFFICULT BOY, and Annie Boutelle reveals the life of poet Celia Thaxter in BECOMING BONE. Continue reading
Paul Fisher tells us about the James Family: the writer Henry James, the philosopher and psychologist William James, and the lesser known but influential sister, feminist Alice James. His book is HOUSE OF WITS: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family. Continue reading
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Award-winning translator Peter Filkins talks about THE JOURNEY, a lost masterpiece of Holocaust literature by acclaimed author and survivor H. G. Adler which Filkins translated. Food psychologist Brian Wansink gives us tips on how to keep the pounds off during the Holiday season; and Native American storyteller Marge Bruchac tells us what really happened during the first Thanksgiving.
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Host Francesca Rheannon talks with food writer Betsy Block about THE DINNER DIARIES: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World . Funny and informative, it chronicles how Block got her family –even the pickiest eaters to change their eating habits. And Dr. John La Puma, AKA ChefMD, tells us how the most delicious meals can be good medicine for our bodies. His book is CHEF MD’S BIG BOOK OF CULINARY MEDICINE: A Food Lover’s Road Map to Losing Weight, Preventing Disease, and Getting Really Healthy. Continue reading
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Host Francesca Rheannon talks with writer Joan Wickersham about her powerful new memoir, [amazon-product text=”THE SUICIDE INDEX: Putting My Father’s Death in Order” type=”text”]0156033801[/amazon-product]. Also, we talk with Jennet Conant about [amazon-product text=”THE IRREGULARS: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington” type=”text”]0743294599[/amazon-product]. Continue reading
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Host Francesca Rheannon talks to Peter Manseau about his novel [amazon-product text=”SONGS FOR THE BUTCHERS DAUGHTER” type=”text”]1416538712[/amazon-product] and to Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop about her new novel, [amazon-product text=”DECEMBER” type=”text”]0307388573[/amazon-product]. Continue reading
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It’s Halloween, time to take a break, if you can, from obsessively checking the latest presidential poll results, and have some fun. Today, we train our literary focus on hocus-pocus by exploring the magic of the Harry Potter series with magician Allan Kronzek.  He wrote [amazon-product text=”The Sorcerer’s Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter” type=”text”]0767919440[/amazon-product]. The most popular lexicon of the lore that underlies the Harry Potter series, THE SORCERER’S COMPANION will tell you where to find a basilisk today, how to get rid of a goblin, or who wore the first invisibility cloak, among much other useful and arcane information.
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A best-seller, it came out first in 2001 and was updated and re-issued in 2004. Â Alan Kronzek co-authored the book with his daughter, historian Elizabeth Kronzek.
Kronzek is also the author of [amazon-product text=”FIFTY TWO WAYS TO CHEAT AT POKER: How to Spot Them, Foil Them, and Defend Yourself Against Them” type=”text”]0452289114[/amazon-product] . Stay tuned to this site to hear Kronzek talk about poker with Francesca.
Also, we remember the great Studs Terkel, who died October 31, 2008 at the age of 96. We air an excerpt from an interview we did with him in 2006 about his last book, [amazon-product text=”AND THEY ALL SANG: Adventures of an Eclectic DIsc Jockey” type=”text”]1595581189[/amazon-product].
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In Part One of this week’s show, we talk with writer and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams about her new book, [amazon-product text=”Finding Beauty in a Broken World” type=”text”]0375420789[/amazon-product]. (Part Two, David Danelo talking about THE BORDER: Exploring the U.S.-Mexican Divide, will appear as a separate podcast.) Continue reading
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Writer and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams reads from her new book, [amazon-product text=”Finding Beauty in a Broken World” type=”text”]0375420789[/amazon-product].
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Host Francesca Rheannon talks with comix master Art Spiegelman. When Spiegelman’s [amazon-product text=”Maus I: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History” type=”text”]0394747232[/amazon-product] was published in 1986, (followed by [amazon-product text=”Maus II: A Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Began” type=”text”]0679729771[/amazon-product] in 1991), it exploded notions about the limited role of comix as art and literature.
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Winning a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992–the only comic book ever to do so–Maus is a memoir in graphic form of Spiegelman’s father’s experiences in Auschwitz and the impact that had on the artist’s own childhood growing up in New York City. His mother was also a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1968, she committed suicide, soon after Spiegelman himself was released from a mental hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown.
Maus was prefigured in an earlier work, Prisoner on the Hell Planet and in 1978 Spiegelman included that and other works in a collection of his underground comix called [amazon-product text=”Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!” type=”text”]0375423958[/amazon-product]. Innovative and drawn in a variety of styles in large format–the book sank like a stone. But now Spiegelman has “re-birthed it”, as he told me, with a new 20 page introduction and an afterword. We talk to him about BREAKDOWNS and breaking conventions in the comix.
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Also, investigative journalist Greg Palast talks about the new comic book he produced with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., [amazon-product text=”STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE!” type=”text”]061525781X[/amazon-product]. With illustrations by Ted Rall and other artists, the book is about the threat of massive voter suppression in the upcoming election and how to counter it. [Note: the audio to this segment has been removed.]