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 about donkeys. Put your feet up! http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-02-21-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio […]
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*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, about having to leave home, and about finding the
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 University Press *thanks to Jason Voss for engineering
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 for engineering
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
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
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
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
