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Cultural scholar Carla Kaplan talks about her acclaimed new book, Miss Ann in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance. It explores the lives, contributions and contradictions of white women who supported the African American cultural ferment of the 1920s. And we re-air a clip from our interview with Rilla Askew about the impact of anti-immigration laws on families and communities. Her novel is Kind of Kin.
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Emily Brady talks about her book, HUMBOLDT: Life on America’s Marijuana Frontier (Grand Central Publishing, 2013). And Susan Stinson discusses her just published novel, SPIDER IN A TREE (Small Beer Press, 2013), in a new interview with Drew Adamek. It’s about the brilliant, 18th century preacher Jonathan Edwards.
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Writer, artist and historian Russell Steven Powell talks with Drew Adamek about the intersection of the natural world and our place within it, as it relates to the Connecticut River, the metaphorical spine that flows through our region. And in this, our last episode in our special series The River Runs Through Us, we also air highlights from previous episodes in the series.
Our thanks to Mass Humanities for their support for this series.
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Russell Steven Powell is a publisher, writer, artist, poet, filmmaker, blogger and agricultural historian based in Hatfield Massachusetts. For decades, he’s written about the arts, the environment, agriculture and education in the Connecticut River Watershed. He spoke about his work on Episode Six of Writers Voice’s special series, The River Runs Through Us.
Powell’s work is deeply committed to the intersection of the natural landscape and our presence in it. His work searches for meaning in the natural world and finds it in paying attention to the subtle, the present and the ever-changing landscape. His writing and artwork can be found at his blog, russpowell.net. Here he reads his essay, “Border Crossings.”
Our thanks to Mass Humanities for their support for this series.
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When it comes to fracked fossil fuels, are we being sold a bunch of snake oil? Energy analyst Richard Heinberg talks about his riveting new book, SNAKE OIL: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future. And journalist Bill McKibben helped spark the global mass movement to save the climate. McKibben tells the story of how that movement developed — and a parallel story of his neighbor in rural Vermont who just happens to be a foremost beekeeper. McKibben’s latest book is OIL AND HONEY: The Education of An Unlikely Activist.
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Novelist Ivy Pochoda talks about her new work of fiction, VISITATION STREET. And children’s book Sandra Boynton discusses her new book and CD set of country music songs, sung by some of country music’s greatest. It’s called FROG TROUBLE.
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Veronica Gonzalez PeÁ±a talks about her new novel, THE SAD PASSIONS ; it’s about a family of four daughters and a mother dealing with mental illness, set in Mexico in the 1960s. And ecologist Carl Safina talks about the new National Geographic film he narrates: GYRE: Creating Art From a Plastic Ocean.
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Investigative journalist Jo Robinson tells how to choose the most nutritious plant foods in her book, EATING ON THE WILD SIDE: The Missing Link To Optimum Health.
And Maker and author Wendy Jehanarah Tremain talks about her book THE GOOD LIFE LAB: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living. It’s about living well by living free or cheaply within Earth’s eco-budget.
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Margalit Fox tells the fascinating story of how the ancient Minoan script linear B got cracked — and the forgotten female professor from Brooklyn College without whom it would never have been done. Her book is THE RIDDLE OF THE LABYRINTH:The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code. Then Anne C.Heller talks about her biography of Ayn Rand (encore from 2009.)
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Dan Fagin talks about his terrific history of what went down at Tom’s River New Jersey after a chemical plant moved in. His book is TOM’S RIVER: A Story of Science and Salvation. And Ed Brown discusses his prizewinning documentary, UNACCEPTABLE LEVELS. It’s about the environmental toxins threatening our kids and ourselves.
Dan Fagin won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2014 for TOM’S RIVER.
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Radio host, monologist and author Mike Feder talks about threading the fine line between tragedy and comedy in writing his memoir, A Long Swim Upstream.
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Radio host, monologist and author, Mike Feder talks about surviving a crazy childhood and finding healing in humor. His book is A Long Swim Upstream. And Helen Thomas died on July 20. We play our 2006 interview with Thomas about her book on the Washington Press Corps, Watchdogs of Democracy?
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Suspense writer Hallie Ephron’s newest page-turner is THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN. Its protagonists are the daughter of a difficult mother and her mother’s ninety-year old neighbor who’s the most delightful sleuth since Miss Marple. A dash of history, attitudes toward the elderly, and the impact of overdevelopment on communities are all part of the story.
And Lionel Shriver delves into the loyalties that can divide families when, in BIG BROTHER, her protagonist’s morbidly obese brother comes to visit and she feels compelled to get him to lose weight. The novel explores power struggles in families, our society’s obsession with food, and the obesity epidemic — all deftly drawn with Shriver’s dry wit.
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David McConnell discusses his true crime exploration of bias murders of gay men, AMERICAN HONOR KILLINGS: Desire And Rage Among Men. And psychotherapist and author Karen Krett talks about THE DARK SIDE OF HOPE: A Psychological Investigation and Cultural Commentary.
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Brian Fagan talks about his book, THE ATTACKING OCEAN: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels, and we also air our 2011 interview with Christine Shearer about Kivalina, an Alaskan community that is already getting hammered by sea level rise.