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).
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.
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.
Elizabeth Strout
Also, we talk with Elizabeth Strout about her latest novel, OLIVE KITTREDGE (archived interview).
