2024 Interviews – LIVING WRITERS

2024 Interviews

  • Michigan Words: Nandi Comer, Brittany Rogers, Jonah Mixon-Webster, and M. Bartley Seigel
    Tune in today to hear Michigan Poet Laureate Nandi Comer and Michigan poets Brittany Rogers, Jonah Mixon-Webster, and M. Bartley Seigel talk about Michigan Words: the project and the poems. We also will hear their poems as we celebrate this work! http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-12-11-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio Michigan Words Michigan Words is a… Read more: Michigan Words: Nandi Comer, Brittany Rogers, Jonah Mixon-Webster, and M. Bartley Seigel
  • Morgan Parker
    Tune in today to hear Morgan Parker read from You Get What You Pay For: Essays (One World 2024).  We talk about essays, poems, YA novels, the *best* titles, Los Angeles, and her dog. Shirley. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-12-04-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Julie Cadman-Kim at… Read more: Morgan Parker
  • Rebekah Modrak, Willie Carver and Martha Hickson
    Tune in today to hear co-editor Rebekah Modrak read from Trouble In Censorville: The Far Right’s Assault on Public Education and the Teachers Who Are Fighting Back (Disobedience Press 2024). We are joined via phone by Willie Carver and Martha Hickson, two of the book’s contributors, who will… Read more: Rebekah Modrak, Willie Carver and Martha Hickson
  • Sawako Nakayasu
    Tune in today to hear Sawako Nakayasu read from Some Girls Walk Into The Country They Are From (Wave Books 2020) and Pink Waves (Omnidawn Publishing 2022). We talk about performance, translation, using the space of a page, multilingualism, experiment and play. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-11-13-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio… Read more: Sawako Nakayasu
  • Andre F. Peltier
    Tune in today to hear Andre F. Peltier read from his latest book of poems Petoskey Stones (Finishing Line Press 2024). We talk about writing place and writing memory in poems.  We also talk about online poetry, teaching, soccer, and comic books. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-11-06-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Jason… Read more: Andre F. Peltier
  •  Public School Poetry
    Tune in today to hear Public School Poetry : the co-founders and editors–Julie Babcock, Scott Beal, Megan Levad, Ellen Stone and David Ward– read poems and essays from Issue #3 of their online poetry journal. We talk about the origin story of Public School Poetry, its mission and vision, and what… Read more:  Public School Poetry
  • Leslie Jamison
    Tune in today to hear Leslie Jamison read from Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story (Little, Brown 2024). We talk about being specific, google searches into prose poems, memory, memoir, mothers, babies, exes, fathers, places, and writing. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-10-23-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Julie… Read more: Leslie Jamison
  • Sandra Cisneros
    Tune in today to hear Sandra Cisneros talk about The House on Mango Street (1984) and read poems from Woman Without Shame (Vintage 2022). We talk about memory, imagination, stories, a love for the image and the lyrical, the body and opera. Please join us this afternoon– http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-10-16-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thank you to… Read more: Sandra Cisneros
  • Perry Janes
    Today Perry Janes reads from Find Me When You’re Ready  (Curbstone Books/ Northwestern University Press 2024).  We talk about poems and filmmaking, structure, myth, and moving cross country. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-10-02-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Jason Adam Voss for engineering today’s show
  • Katie Hartsock, J.C. Scharl, and James Matthew Wilson
    Today poets Katie Hartsock, J.C. Scharl, and James Matthew Wilson read poems from their latest collections, Wolf Trees (Able Muse Press 2023), Ponds (Cascade Books 2024), and Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds (Word on Fire 2024), respectively. We talk about what it means to each poet to understand their work in… Read more: Katie Hartsock, J.C. Scharl, and James Matthew Wilson
  • Phranc
    Today Phranc reads from The Butch Closet. Phranc is currently in residency with The Butch Closet exhibit at the Institute of Humanities Gallery. We talk about art and identity, making, the Women’s Center, LA’s punk movement, folk music, cardboard and tupperware–and a parrot named Pickles. Please join us this afternoon–… Read more: Phranc
  • Marie-Helene Bertino
    Today Marie-Helene Bertino reads from Beautyland (FSG 2024). We talk about imagination, growing up, fax machines, and aliens. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-09-11-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Jason Adam Voss for engineering today’s show *thanks to Julie Cadman-Kim at the Zell Visiting Writers Series 
  • Michael Dickman
    Today Michael Dickman reads from Pacific Power & Light (Copper Canyon Press 2024). We talk about poems, teaching, and life. Please join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-09-04-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Jason Adam Voss for engineering today’s show 
  • MK Czerwiec
    Tune in today to hear MK Czerwiec talk about her comic anthology Menopause: A Comic Treatment (Graphic Mundi, an imprint of The Pennsylvania State University Press 2021).We also talk about MK’s graphic novel Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 (Graphic Mundi 2021) and her work as co-author of Graphic Medicine… Read more: MK Czerwiec
  • Darcey Steinke
    Tune in today to hear Darcey Steinke read from Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life (Sarah Crichton Books). We talk about composition notebooks, Simone de Beauvoir, using the body to experience the world, and Lolita and Granny, the Orcas. Please join us this afternoon… Read more: Darcey Steinke
  • Jane Smiley
    Stream or tune in today to hear a conversation with Jane Smiley about her latest novel  Lucky (Knopf 2024). We talk about using your own memory of your lived experience of a place as the setting for a character in a novel. We also talk about folk singers, horses, St. Louis,… Read more: Jane Smiley
  • Diane Seuss
    Stream or tune in today to hear a conversation with Diane Seuss about her latest book of poems Modern Poetry(Graywolf Press 2024). We talk about form, musical structure, resistance, rawness and raw material, and listening to the lines in your head. We also talk about how writing life is… Read more: Diane Seuss
  • Kemp Powers
    Hear a conversation with Kemp Powers in town last week to give the keynote lecture for the 2024 Hopwood Awards Ceremony. We talk about playwriting and screenwriting; the writers’ room; living life as a storyteller; and the special glories of editing. We talk about One Night in Miami, Soul (2020), and Spider-Man: Across… Read more: Kemp Powers
  • Luis Alberto Urrea
    Stream or tune in today to hear Luis Alberto Urrea read from his novel Good Night, Irene (Little, Brown and Company 2023). We talk about World War II and the Red Cross Clubmobiles. We talk about research, family, inspiration, and imagining the human stories of history. Please join us… Read more: Luis Alberto Urrea
  • Russell Brakefield
    Stream or tune in today to hear Russell Brakefield read poems from Irregular Heartbeats at the Park West (Wayne State University Press 2024). We talk about bees, family history, writing with and to poets in your life, and also about death and geography. Hope you can join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel… Read more: Russell Brakefield
  • Mary Gaitskill
    Stream or tune in today to hear Mary Gaitskill read poems from The Devil’s Treasure: A Book of Stories & Dreams (McNally Editions). We talk about dreams, novels, short stories, memoirs, and collage. We also talk about cats, beauty, cruelty, pity, and grace. Hope you can join us… Read more: Mary Gaitskill
  • Aria Aber
    Stream or tune in today to hear Aria Aber read poems from Hard Damage (Prairie Schooner/University of Nebraska Press). We talk about countries and continents, multiple languages, geopolitics, home and family.  We also talk about her upcoming debut novel.  Hope you can join us this afternoon– T  Hetzel http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-03-13-170001-EDT.mp3 Download… Read more: Aria Aber
  • Ruth Behar
    *Annual Fundraiser Episode: This year with Ruth Behar!* Ruth Behar reads from Across So Many Seas (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin 2024). We talk about writing across generations of characters–across time and countries, as well as seas! We also talk about main characters who are twelve year old girls, about memoir and poetry,… Read more: Ruth Behar
  • Nandi Comer
    Michigan’s Poet Laureate Nandi Comer read from Tapping Out (Triquarterly Books 2020). We talk about lucha libre, masks, Detroit, travel, and home. We also talk about being the Michigan Poet Laureate, the moment now and her vision to come. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-02-07-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Olivia Aguilar at Northwestern… Read more: Nandi Comer
  • Halle Butler
    Halle Butler reads from her latest novel  The New Me (Penguin Books 2019). We talk about first person narrators, pacing, rage, humor, and temp jobs. We also talk about her next novel Banal Nightmare coming this summer. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-01-31-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Vanessa DeJesus and Katie McKee *thanks to Jason Voss… Read more: Halle Butler
  • Bonnie Jo Campbell
    Michigan’s own Bonnie Jo Campbell reads from her latest novel  The Waters (W.W. Norton & Company 2024). We talk about a place and its people, the swamp, and three generations of rural women as your central characters. We also talk about finding power in revising, about changing life into a story, and… Read more: Bonnie Jo Campbell
  • Keith Taylor
    Michigan’s own poet Keith Taylor read from  All the All the Time You Want (Dzanc Books 2024). We talk about selecting poems, Isle Royale National Park, and being outdoors, no matter the weather or terrain. We also talk about bookstores, birds, traveling, fear/no fear, and love. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-01-17-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio
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