Then, there is one way to make sure your voting machines aren’t being hacked and it’s being used by one county in New York State. We talk with Board of Elections Commissioner Virginia Martin. She’ll tell us how and why they hand count the vote in her county. Continue reading →
Then, we replay our 2013 interview with filmmaker Tia Lessin, about the documentary she co-directed with Carl Deal, Citizen Koch. It’s about how the Koch Bros. and their rightwing advocacy organization, Americans For Prosperity, helped Wisconsin governor Scott Walker beat back a recall campaign after he devastated public employee union rights. Continue reading →
On October 6, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel and contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen sat down in Moscow for a wide-ranging discussion with Edward Snowden, where he shared his thoughts on the surveillance state, the American political system and the price heÂ’s paid for his understanding of patriotism.
The conversation lasted for nearly four hours and has been distilled into an in-depth article in this week’s edition of the Nation magazine. Francesca Rheannon of Writers Voice spoke with Katrina van den Heuvel about the interview with Snowden, as well as her thoughts on the impact the Snowden revelations have had on the US press.
Then Katy Simpson Smith talks about her novel, The Story of Land And Sea (Harper Collins, 2014.) It takes place just after the Revolutionary War, when ideas of equality and liberty were transforming America.
NEWSFLASH! We’re excited to announce that Writer’s Voice has a redesigned, more user friendly website. It’s built to work with all your web devices: smart phones, tablets and computers.
Explore the site, join the email list and keep an eye on exclusive features we’re rolling out in the coming weeks. Let website designer Bill Weye know how much you appreciate this new design (or tell him what else you’d like to see there). We love his work!Continue reading →
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.
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.
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.]
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 →
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 →
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 →
We talk with Margot Livesey about THE HOUSE ON FORTUNE STREET, her stunning new novel 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. Along the way, the reader is challenged to examine his or her own sense of right and wrong — and the power of forgiveness.
Writer’s Voice guest Steve Freeman ([amazon-product text=”WAS THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION STOLEN?” type=”text”]1583226877[/amazon-product]) and co-author Steve Bleifuss have just published an excellent op ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinal about how independent exit polling is a critical means of safeguarding the integrity of the vote.
Our guest Friday October 27 will be Steve Freeman, author of WAS THE 2004 ELECTION STOLEN. He’s also with Election Integrity, working to make sure that the election results tally the real exit polls. Read ahead this note about it from Stephanie Frank Singer, the director of the Vote Count Protection Project at Election Integrity Continue reading →
This excellent video explores the unanswered questions around 9-11: what the Bush Administration knew before the event and their possible cover-up. Watch it here. Continue reading →
