We talk with Fred Clarkson, co-founder of Talk2Action, about the book he just edited: Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America. We also talk with Chip Berlet about the essay he contributed to the book. And contributor and organizer Leo Maley tells us about how the religious Left organized successfully in Massachusetts to support marriage equality for same-sex couples. Continue reading
All posts by Francesca Rheannon
About Francesca Rheannon
Ron Suskind, THE WAY OF THE WORLD and ELIZABETH WINTHROP, COUNTING ON GRACE
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Francesca talks with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ron Suskind about [amazon-product text=”The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism” type=”text”]0061430633[/amazon-product]. Also, Elizabeth Winthrop on [amazon-product text=”COUNTING ON GRACE” type=”text”]0553487833[/amazon-product], the story of an 11-year old girl working in the textile mills of Vermont at the turn of the twentieth century. Continue reading
Web Extra: Elizabeth Winthrop’s Discovery of Addie Card
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Elizabeth Winthrop paints a vivid portrait of the plight of child laborers in the New England textile mills in the early 1900’s. She bases her main character, Grace, on the photograph by Lewis Hine of a young girl posed in front of her machine. While writing the book, Winthrop went in search of the real person behind the photo and found out the remarkable story of Addie Card.
To listen to the whole interview, click here.
David Cay Johnston, FREE LUNCH
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Francesca interviews reporter David Cay Johnston about his investigation into how government policy is rigged to enrich the super wealthy. And Francine Prose talks about GOLDENGROVE, her new coming-of-age novel. Continue reading
T.J. English, HAVANA NOCTURNE and Marisa Silver, GOD OF WAR
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Francesca talks with journalist T. J. English about the Mafia’s Cuba experiment, the parallels between the Mob and legal capitalism, and the role Mob activities played in spurring the Cuban Revolution into being. His bestselling book is HAVANA NOCTURNE: How the Mob owned Cuba…and Then Lost It to the Revolution.
Also, Marisa Silver tells us about her haunting novel, THE GOD OF WAR. Set in the arid landscape by the Salton Sea of California, GOD OF WAR is a powerful coming-of-age novel about a boy who confronts the need to balance his responsibility to his family with his emerging sense of self.
[amazon-product align=”right”]1416563172[/amazon-product]“Marisa Silver’s The God of War is a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty. It stays with you like a lesson well and truly learned.” — Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls
Toxic Cosmetics
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Francesca talks first with Stacy Malkan about NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. She’s communications director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and admitted former teenage make-up diva.
David Lovelace, SCATTERSHOT and Maggie Jackson, DISTRACTED
We talk with David Lovelace about his memoir, SCATTERSHOT: My Bipolar Family. And Maggie Jackson tells us about DISTRACTED: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Continue reading
The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
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Host Francesca Rheannon talks with journalist Jeff Sharlet about his bestselling new book, [amazon-product text=”The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” type=”text”]0060560053[/amazon-product]. It’s about the real “New World Order” of elite fundamentalism that threatens our democracy. Continue reading
New Fiction from Paul Auster and Jennifer Haigh; Michael Klare on Russia-Georgia War
Host Francesca Rheannon talks with acclaimed novelist Paul Auster about his new work of fiction, MAN IN THE DARK.
Also, Jennifer Haigh tells us about her new novel, THE CONDITION.
And we’ll also air an excerpt from an interview we did last year with Michael Klare about his book, RISING POWERS, SHRINKING PLANET, THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY. He predicted at that time that the next resource war could be between Georgia as a US client state and Russia.
John Kessel, BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE
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Host Francesca Rheannon speaks first with speculative fiction writer John Kessel, who makes thought experiments about real issues by placing them in imaginary contexts.
His latest collection, [amazon-product text=”THE BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE AND OTHER STORIES” type=”text”]193152050X[/amazon-product], brings fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism to bear on the relations between the sexes, the conundrums of time travel, the windfalls of fortune, terrorism, and democracy.
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Kessel is the author of numerous stories, novels, and a play. He’s a frequent contributor to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and he won the Nebula Award for his novella, Another Orphan. “Stories for Men”, which appears in his latest collection, won the 2002 James Tiptree Jr. Award. Kessel teaches writing at North Carolina State University.
You can download a copy of the book from Small Beer Press here.
Also, we talk with Elizabeth Strout about her latest novel, OLIVE KITTREDGE (archived interview).
Listen to Strout read from the book here.
Climate Change, Past, Present and Future
The current climate crisis isn’t the first time human beings have faced global climate change. Extreme weather, ice sheets melting into the Arctic ocean, and mega-droughts lasting a century or more: it all happened before, between the tenth and the fifteenth centuries. The global warming of the Middle Ages changed civilization, bringing both great disorder and great opportunity.
The audio for this episode is available upon request for a donation of $4.99 to Writers Voice. Contact writersvoice [at] wmua.org.
Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight
Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor talks about her memoir, MY STROKE OF INSIGHT: A BRAIN SCIENTIST’S PERSONAL JOURNEY.
The audio for this episode is available upon request for a donation of $4.99 to Writers Voice. Contact writersvoice [at] wmua.org.
Wind Energy Island, Milk-N-Honey, and Families of the Vine
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We talk with Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker about her recent article, “The Island in the Wind”. And Ellen Beckerman tells us about her new play, MILK AND HONEY. And finally, a clip from an archived interview with Michael Sanders about FAMILIES OF THE VINE: Seasons Among the Winemakers of Southwest France.
Melody Petersen
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Host Francesca Rheannon talks with reporter and author Melody Petersen about OUR DAILY MEDS. It’s about how the pharmaceutical industry has put marketing above medicine and corrupted our health care system in the process. Also, Maxine Kumin. talks about her poem “Nurture”. Continue reading
New Fiction from Margot Livesy and Ellen Cooney
We talk with novelists Margot Livesey ( THE HOUSE ON FORTUNE STREET) and Ellen Cooney (Lambrusco).
Livesey’s stunning new novel is about love, loss and the ambiguities of existence. Told from the point of view of four narrators, it explores how they try to make sense of their world when their lives are upended by the unexpected—and how their human frailties lead them to make choices that they long regret. Continue reading