Ross Gay reads from The Book of (More) Delights (Algonquin Press 2023). We talk about life projects, joy, poems, and getting lost. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-12-06-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *many thanks to Jason Voss for engineering
Eleni Sikelianos read from Your Kingdom (Coffee House Press 2023). We talk about song poems, family, ecopoetics, and using the space of the page with words, images, drawings. We also talk about how a glossary and notes can be a kind of autobiography. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-11-22-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio photo credit: T Hetzel *many thanks to Jason Voss for engineering and… Read more: Eleni Sikelianos
Paul Tran reads from their debut collection All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Books 2022). We talk about history, family, trauma and resilience. We also talk about story-telling, play, and inventiveness. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-11-15-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio
Jim “Tex” Manheim talk about his years with the Ann Arbor Observer, his popular Twitter/X/Threads feed E/I (English Idioms), and his incomparable work with sound design and DJing WCBN FM’s Down Home Show, Bill Monroe for Breakfast, and, more recently, The Drive Time Polka Party. We talk about being a working writer, freelancing, social media’s demand for content, and a love for music… Read more: Jim “Tex” Manheim
John Fulton reads from The Flounder and Other Stories (Blackwater Press 2023). We talk about writing about place, the role of first sentences and first paragraphs in short stories, and listening to the language to find a shape for revision. We also talk about drawing from your own life to create fictional characters and settings–and how some material may take… Read more: John Fulton
Airea D. Matthews read from Bread and Circus (Scribner 2023). D came through town this June. We talk about hybrid memoir, economics, family, capitalism, and resistance. We also talk about erasure poems and making things visible, Sicily, and being a poet laureate. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-08-30-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *Thanks to Rev Andrew for engineering pre-recorded June 2023
David Lawrence Morse reads from The Book of Disbelieving (Sarabande Books 2023). We talk about the spark of a story. We also talk about utopia and dystopia, fables and parables–and disinformation and the craft of ethical persuasion. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-07-19-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *Big thanks to Jason Voss for engineering *Many thanks to Natalie Wollenzien and Joanna Englert at Sarabande… Read more: David Lawrence Morse
Frank Uhle reads from Cinema Ann Arbor: How Campus Rebels Forged A Singular Film Culture (University of Michigan Press 2023). We talk about the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Cinema Guild, revolutionaries, censorship, and cultural history. We also talk about primary documents, the archives, interviewing, and the mission to make this book and what it took. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-06-14-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *Thanks to Rev Andrew for engineering *live show June 14, 2023
Tune in today to hear David Maraniss talk about his latest Path Lit By Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe (Simon & Schuster 2022), the third biography in his sports trilogy which includes, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi and Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero. We talk about the triumphs and trials of… Read more: David Maraniss
Jack Driscoll reads from Twenty Stories: New and Selected (Pushcart Press 2022). We talk about the music in language, place as character, hard work and tenderness. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-05-03-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *Thanks to Sheryl Johnston for sending Twenty Stories *Thanks also to Cate Hotchkiss and Pete Fromm for photos *Thanks to Frank Uhle for engineering and for post-production
We talk about muscles and Jack LaLane, paratextual boxes, the drafting process, the great outdoors and yoga. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-04-26-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Rev Andrew for engineering! *thanks to Rebecca Manery at the Hopwood Room!
John Sayles reads from his latest novel Jamie MacGillivray: the renegade’s journey (Melville House). We talk about storytelling, historical research, screenwriting, creating characters and his approach to the novel. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-04-19-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio * thanks to Michael Barson for sending the book *thanks to Maggie Renzi and Phil, our studio audience! *thanks to Frank Uhle for engineering and for… Read more: John Sayles
Tune in today to hear poet Katie Hartsock read from Wolf Trees (Able Muse Press) and poet Jennifer Metsker read from Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise (New Issues). We talk about poems and process, birds and wolves, mental health, diabetes, writing groups, space on the page, the world, and trees. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-04-05-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Wendy S. Walters read from her books Multiply/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal (Sarabande) and Troy, Michigan (Futurepoem). We talk about the blurring of genre in creative nonfiction, about long poems, lyric essays, Detroit electronica and more. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-03-29-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Ashley Bates and Zell Visiting Writers Series *recorded 23 March 2023 in the studio *many thanks to Frank Uhle for engineering… Read more: Wendy S Walters
Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah talks about growing up in the Middle East and returning to the States for undergrad and med school. We talk about translation and adaptation, identity, and “what a Palestinian voice has to say to the world we live in.” http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-03-22-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Ashley Bates and Zell Visiting Writers Series… Read more: Fady Joudah
A special Fundraiser 2023 edition of Living Writers: a conversation with the incomparable arwulf arwulf about community, WCBN history, composing Face the Music, and the role of writing in his own life. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-02-15-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio
Lydia Conklin reads from their book of stories Rainbow Rainbow (Catapult 2022). We talk about interiority, gender, identity, queer joy, and love stories. We also talk about the intensity of the short story and rainbows. Please join us this sunny winter day- http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-02-01-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Ashley Bates and Zell Visiting Writers Series *thanks to Alisha… Read more: Lydia Conklin
Fred Moten reads from All That Beauty (Letter Machine Editions 2019), Field Trio(2014)and B Jenkins(Duke University Press 2010). We talk about the radical commitment to feeling, the small press poetry world, and multivocality. We also talk about contradictions, elegies and touchstones, The Undercommons, and what study can be. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-01-18-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *episode recorded on December 7, 2022 via Zoom *thanks… Read more: Fred Moten