Podcast

Episode Five: Andrew Fisk, Connecticut River Watershed Council & Naila Moreira, “Alaska, Massachusetts”

Naila Moreira
Naila Moreira
Andrew Fisk
Andrew Fisk

Andrew Fisk of the Connecticut River Watershed Council talks about the environmental challenges facing the river, the environmental prognosis for the River in the next fifty years and how to get involved in protecting the river. And science and nature writer Naila Moreira reads from Alaska Massachusetts, a story about a walk she took along the banks of the Connecticut River.

This Week: the fifth episode of our year-long series, The River Runs Through Us. For the first four episodes of the series, we examined the spiritual and economic importance of the Connecticut River.

In the final two episodes we look at the environment of the Connecticut River. We’ll explore the history and challenges of environmental degradation of the River and talk to people at the front of the fight to restore and secure the River’s environmental integrity for generations to come.

MH_logoWe’ll also hear from writers who draw deep and meaningful inspiration from the physical environment of the Connecticut River and how that connection helps them create a sense of place in their work. And, later, we’ll hear from folks who depend on the River’s environment for food, work and health. The River Runs Through Us is funded by a generous grant from Mass Humanities and listeners like you.

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Podcast

Ruth Ozeki, A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING & Gretel Ehrlich, FACING THE WAVE

Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki
Gretel Ehrlich
Gretel Ehrlich

Ruth Ozeki talks about her acclaimed new novel, A Tale For The Time Being. It’s about a Japanese-American teenager, a Canadian-Japanese writer, and the time-twisting connection between them after the Japanese tsunami. And Gretel Ehrlich discusses her riveting new book, Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami.

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Podcast

Barbara Garson, DOWN THE UP ESCALATOR & Tia Lessin, CITIZEN KOCH

BGarson
Barbara Garson
Tia Lessin
Tia Lessin

Barbara Garson talks about her new book, DOWN THE UP ESCALATOR: How the 99% Live in the Great Recession. And Citizens United gave the 1%, like the Koch Brothers, inordinate influence over our political process. Now they’re moving to take over our media, as well. Filmmaker Tia Lessin discusses the film she co-directed, CITIZEN KOCH, and how its distribution is being threatened by its namesake. Continue reading

Podcast

INTERNET & PRESS FREEDOM: Rebecca MacKinnon, Tim Karr, Alexander Cockburn

Rebecca MacKinnon
Rebecca MacKinnon
Alexander Cockburn
Alexander Cockburn

We re-play our 2012 interview with Rebecca MacKinnon about her book Consent of the Networked. Then we look back again at Wikileaks and what it means for press freedom: we air our 2010 interviews with the late Alexander Cockburn and with Tim Karr of the organization, Free Press. And finally, we hear a Spring poem from Philip Schultz: Bleeker Street.

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Podcast

Marisa Silver, MARY COIN & Jess Walter, WE LIVE IN WATER

 

Marisa Silver
Marisa Silver

 

Jess Walter
Jess Walter

Marisa Silver talks about her acclaimed new novel, MARY COIN. It’s about a famous photograph of a migrant worker taken during the Great Depression. And Jess Walter discusses his collection of short stories set during the Great Recession, WE LIVE IN WATER. Continue reading

Podcast

Roberta Olson, AUDUBON’S AVIARY & Chaz Nielsen, HENRY GETS MOVING

Chaz Nielsen
Chaz Nielsen, left; Pierre Rouzier, right
Roberta Olsen
Roberta Olsen

Curator Roberta Olson talks about her book and the New York Historical Society exhibition, AUDUBON’S AVIARY. It’s about the original watercolors for Audubon’s The Birds of America.

And a new bilingual children’s book takes aim at childhood obesity. Chaz Nielsen talks about HENRY GETS MOVING.

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Podcast

Episode Four of THE RIVER RUNS THROUGH US: The Palimpsest of Time

Brian Kitely
Brian Kitely
Tim Brennan
Tim Brennan

In this fourth episode of our Writers Voice special series, The River Runs Through Us, Brian Kitely talks about THE RIVER GODS, his novel-in-vignettes of Northampton, Massachusetts from its founding to today; Native American scholar Marge Bruchac tells us about the original inhabitants of the Valley, and Pioneer Valley Planning Commission director Tim Brennan discusses the history and future of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts.

Our thanks to Mass Humanities for their support for this series.

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Podcast

Amy Larkin, ENVIRONMENTAL DEBT & Katharine Applegate, THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN

ka
Katharine Applegate
Amy Larkin headshot
Amy Larkin

 

Amy Larkin discusses her terrific new book, ENVIRONMENTAL DEBT: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy. And Katharine Applegate talks about her new novel for kids of all ages, THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN. Written in the poignant voice of a gorilla, it’s based on the true story of a gorilla held captive for thirty years in a suburban mall.

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Podcast

Growing Season: Patricia Klindienst, THE EARTH KNOWS MY NAME & Rebecca Thistlethwaite, FARMS WITH A FUTURE

Patricia Klindienst
Patricia Klindienst
Rebecca Thistlethwaite
Rebecca Thistlethwaite

Patricia Klindienst talks about her book, THE EARTH KNOWS MY NAME: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans. (Encore interview.) And then, America needs more farmers — and more young people are showing up to fill that need. Farmer and author Rebecca Thistlethwaite joins us in the second half of our show to talk about how sustainability-minded farmers can survive and thrive in farming today. Her book is FARMS WITH A FUTURE: Creating and Growing a Sustainable Farm Business.

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Podcast

Anthony Lewis, FREEDOM FOR THE THOUGHT THAT WE HATE & Edward Ball, THE INVENTOR AND THE TYCOON

Anthony Lewis
Anthony Lewis
Edward Ball
Edward Ball

The late Anthony Lewis on his “biography of the First Amendment,” Freedom for the Thought That We Hate. Lewis died on March 25, 2013. And Edward Ball talks with Drew Adamek about his book, The Inventor and the Tycoon. It’s about how modern media were born out of an unlikely partnership between a tycoon and an inventor who was a murderer.

THANK YOU From Writers Voice Hosts Drew Adamek and Francesca Rheannon

We want to send a big shout out of thanks to all who sent in donations to our Kickstarter Campaign to support our special series, The River Runs Through Us. We’re happy to report we exceeded our goal and have been able to heave a huge sigh of relief. Thanks SO much — and tune in to our next episode of The River Runs Through Us, coming up next week on WV. We’ll be listing our supporters on this website in the coming weeks. Continue reading

Podcast

Lois Leveen, THE SECRETS OF MARY BOWSER & Eve LaPlante, MARMEE & LOUISA

 

Lois Leveen
Lois Leveen

 

Eve LaPlante
Eve LaPlante

Lois Leveen talks about the remarkable true story of Mary Bowser, a freed slave who became a Union spy right inside the Confederate White House. Her acclaimed new novel, THE SECRETS OF MARY BOWSER, is based on it. And Eve LaPlante talks about her terrific new book, MARMEE AND LOUISA. It’s about the powerful relationship between Louisa May Alcott and her mother Abigail. Continue reading

Podcast

Helaine Olen, POUND FOOLISH & Les Leopold, HOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR

Les_Leopold
Les Leopold
Helaine Olen
Helaine Olen

Helaine Olen talks about her exposÁ© of the personal finance industry, POUND FOOLISH: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry and Les Leopold discusses his new book HOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS AN HOUR: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America’s Wealth.

WE’RE BEGGING: WE REALLY NEED YOUR HELP ON OUR KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN. PLEASE DONATE!

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Blog

REVIEW: Dan Jones, THE PLANTAGENETS

by Francesca Rheannon

plantagenetsEver since I discovered Shakespeare’s historical plays at age 11, I’ve been fascinated by the Plantagenets, the dynasty of English/Norman kings who counted among their number some of the greatest scoundrels and most illustrious monarchs (some of them one and the same) England has ever known.

Alas, Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England does not include my own personal favorite Shakespearean monarchs, Henry V and Richard III. But then that hardly matters, for this sweeping 300 year history kept me on the edge of my seat as I followed the royal soap operas played out from Henry II, through Richard I (the Lionheart) and bad King John to Richard II (also the star of a Shakespeare play, but a rather mediocre one.)

The reader is prompted throughout to contemplate the fickle finger of Fate (or Karma) as monarchs triumph, only to crash and burn. Sometimes, they are able to hoist their luck up Fortune’s Wheel again, but dastardly deeds, cruel betrayals by family and friends, internecine wars — in short, all the “slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune” — are unloosed on nearly all  Jones’ primary subjects in the course of their eventful lives, often by their own actions. King Lear hath no tragic chops over Richard II, whose wife and sons tried to depose him.

But despite the tragic — and sometimes comic — elements of their history, The Plantagenets also had a profound effect on English law and custom that continues to reverberate down to our present time, as Jones reveals: the creation of the Magna Carta, for example, with its establishment of rights of the governed. As President Obama erodes the right of habeus corpus with his “targeted” killings of American citizens, we would do well to contemplate with what copious amounts of blood this right was birthed and defended over the past 800 years. And the penchant for wars in the Middle East (the Crusades then, our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq now) has been devastating for the balance sheets of rulers from Henry II to President Bush II and the current US administration.

In The Plantagenets, Jones gives the reader many rip-roaring yarns, a good lesson in history, and much food for thought about current events.

Podcast

Russ Kick, THE GRAPHIC CANON & Louise Erdrich THE ROUND HOUSE (encore)

Russ Kick
Russ Kick
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich

Russ Kick, editor of The Graphic Canon, talks about the two volume set of the western world’s greatest literature, rendered in graphic novel form. And Louise Erdrich talks about her novel The Round House. It’s about the brutal rape and beating of a Native American woman and her struggle for justice against her non-native perpetrator. Continue reading