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… Read more: Bonnie Jo Campbell
*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… Read more: Ruth Behar
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… Read more: Nandi Comer
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… Read more: Halle Butler
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!
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… Read more: Lydia Conklin
Eduardo C. Corral reads from Guillotine (Graywolf Press 2020). We talk about attentiveness, structuring books, audience and interiority. We also talk about expanding possibilities and French pop songs. Playlist:
Kaveh Akbar reads poems from Calling A Wolf A Wolf (Alice James Books 2017) and Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021). We talk about technology of language–its limitations and failures–and ways of working to subvert it.… Read more: Kaveh Akbar
Natalie Bakopoulos discusses her novel Scorpionfish (Tin House 2020). We talk about first swims, balconies and growing into your writer self. We also talk about Elena Ferrante, identity, gender, and Greece. Download Audio Bonus:… Read more: Natalie Bakopoulos
John Barr and Dan Murphy talk about their book Start By Believing: Larry Nassar’s Crimes, the Institutions that Enabled Him, and the Brave Women Who Stopped a Monster (Hachette Books 2020). We talk about investigative reporting,… Read more: John Barr and Dan Murphy
Rion Amilcar Scott reads from The World Doesn’t Require You: Stories (Liveright Publishing Corporation/W.W.Norton & Company 2019). We talk about narrative forms, beautiful lines and building a world. We also talk about imagination, characters, and Cross… Read more: Rion Amilcar Scott
Carmen Bugan reads from Lilies from America: New & Selected Poems (Shearsman Books UK 2019). We talk about narrative poems, memoir, and recording a documentary. We also talk about resistance, reclaiming your story, and planting a… Read more: Carmen Bugan
Guest host Amanda Uhle speaks with Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game (HMH, 2019) about keeping our parents’ secrets, the art of memoir writing, and gourmet meals by the sea. Brodeur co-founded the fiction… Read more: Adrienne Brodeur
Freelance journalist/filmmaker and 2019 Wallenberg Medalist Safa Al Ahmad talks about her documentaries, including Saudi’s Secret Uprising (2014) and Targeting Yemen (2019). We talk about activism, the power of reporting, access, and editing. We also talk about moral… Read more: Safa Al Ahmad
Artist and teacher Joe Caslin talks about his latest multimedia project The Volunteers. We talk about creating large scale public murals, activism, and community. We also talk about metaphor and stories and empathy.
CM Burroughs reads poems from The Vital System (Tupelo Press 2012). We talk about a sister, a red bird, experimental forms, and choosing art. We also get a preview of poems from Master Suffering out in 2020… Read more: CM Burroughs
Michigan Quarterly Review editor Khaled Mattawa, guest editor Benjamin Paloff and contributor Jeremiah Chamberlin talk about the Fall 2019 issue of Michigan Quarterly Review: What Does Europe Want Now? We talk about MQR’s mission,… Read more: Michigan Quarterly Review
Yevgenia Albats talks about her work with The New Times, Absolute Albats and her book The State Within the State (FSG 1994). We also talk about investigative journalism, radio, the KGB, and her role as the inaugural International Institute Distinguished… Read more: Yevgenia Albats
Novelist and journalist Rebecca Clarren (KICKDOWN, Skyhorse Publishing, 2018) reads from her novel, a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Summer host Amanda Uhle and Rebecca Clarren talk about writing with a social… Read more: Rebecca Clarren
Frank Uhle talks with actor, director, and writer Simon Callow, author of the memoir Being an Actor and acclaimed biographies of Charles Dickens, Richard Wagner, and Charles Laughton. Callow is working on the fourth and… Read more: Simon Callow
Guest host Amanda Uhle talks with Anna Clark about The Poisoned City (Metropolitan Books 2018), an acclaimed, thorough account of the causes, crisis, and aftermath of the Flint, Michigan water disaster. They talk about tragedy,… Read more: Anna Clark
Guest host Amanda Uhle talks with Mokhtar Alkhanshali about being the subject of Dave Eggers’ book The Monk of Mokha (Knopf 2018). They also talk about grandmas, coffee and Yemen. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-07-19-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Billy Bragg talks about his book Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World published by Faber & Faber. We talk about how skiffle fits into musical history–US and UK. We also talk about research and… Read more: Billy Bragg
Detroit novelist and arts writer Lynn Crawford talks about visual art, Detroit, families, fashion, and food. Lynn is the author of Shankus & Kitto A Saga, Solow, Blow, Fortification Resort (a selection of art related sestinas) and… Read more: Lynn Crawford
John Cheney-Lippold reads from We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves published by New York University Press. We talk about categorization, control and privacy. We also talk about reconceptualizing ourselves and what… Read more: John Cheney-Lippold
George Bornstein discusses a new facsimile edition of W.B. Yeat’s classic poetry collection, The Wild Swans at Coole, published by Scribner. We talk about George Bornstein’s introductions to the facsimile editions, this book and The Winding… Read more: George Bornstein
Theodoros Chiotis reads from his anthology Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis published by Penned in the Margins, UK (2015). We talk about putting together an anthology of a new generation of poets, the Cavafy Archive, and graffiti.… Read more: Theodoros Chiotis
Nickolas Butler reads from his novel The Hearts of Men out with Ecco. We talk about a “day without women,” friendship, loyalty, heartbreak, Jim Harrison and a moral code. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-03-08-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio To head to this author’s website,… Read more: Nickolas Butler
Josh Cramer reads from The Cartoon Picayune. We talk about comics journalism, freelancing, collaborations and community. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-02-08-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio To head to the author’s website, click this link!
Bryan Burrough is in the studio with his latest book DAYS OF RAGE: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence published by Penguin Books. We talk about interviewing members of… Read more: Bryan Burrough
Michigan’s own Clare Croft reads from her book Dancers As Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange published by Oxford University Press. We talk about cultural diplomacy, interviewing in research, and We Are the World.… Read more: Clare Croft
Diane Cook reads from her debut story collection Man V. Nature published by Harper; it’s also an Indie Next Pick. We talk about the wild, the surreal, and about survival. We also talk about… Read more: Diane Cook
This special edition of Living Writers features the Bird Center of Washtenaw County with guests Executive Director Carol Akerlof, and Center Manager Gabby Costello and Board Member Stephanie Douglass-Carpenter (that’s right! Living Writers’ very… Read more: Bird Center of Washtenaw County
Elizabeth Berg reads from her latest novel The Dream Lover published by Random House. We talk about historical fiction, singing in a band, and the life and loves of George Sand. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2015-05-13-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio… Read more: Elizabeth Berg
Lloyd Cole talks about his album STANDARDS released by Omnivore in 2014. We also talk about a seed for a song, time passing, golf, and notebooks. Are you ready to be heart broken? http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2015-05-06-170001-EDT.mp3… Read more: Lloyd Cole
Charles Baxter reads from There’s Something I Want You to Do from Pantheon Books. We talk about geography, requests, and surprises. We also talk about the upcoming symposium in honor of Nicholas Delbanco. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2014-12-03-170001-EST.mp3 Download… Read more: Charles Baxter
Poet Scott Beal reads from his debut collection Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems out with Dzanc Books. We talk about “outlandish” writing, poems from memory, and building community. We also talk about fury… Read more: Scott Beal
Eric Bogosian visits the studio to talk about his book 100 (monologues) published by Theatre Communications Group (2014). We also talk about writing for stage and screen,Talk Radio, and the 100 (monologues) project website. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2014-10-15-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Oni Buchanan and Jon Woodward discuss their books of poems. We have Oni Buchanan’s “Must A Violence” (University of Iowa Press, 2012) and “What Animal” (University of Georgia Press, 2003) and Jon Woodward’s “Uncanny… Read more: Oni Buchanan and Jon Woodward
George Bornstein reads from The Colors of Zion: Blacks, Jews, and Irish from 1845 to 1945 published by Harvard University Press. We talk about the process of looking closely at the connections and relationships among Blacks,… Read more: George Bornstein
Izzeldin Abuelaish reads from his book I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity (2010) published by Walker & Company. We talk about growing up in the Jabalia refugee… Read more: Izzeldin Abuelaish
John Beer reads from his debut collection The Waste Land and Other Poems (2010) published Canarium Books. We talk about first books, Bob Hope, Boston terriers and a “Theses on Failure” which could be another way… Read more: John Beer
From the archive: 2010 Kazim Ali reads from Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press 2009). We talk about gender theory, Yoko Ono, and blurring genre. We also talk about the geography of… Read more: Kazim Ali
Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier read poems from among their many poetry books including Last Water Song from Harbour Publishing and The Blue Hour of the Day published by McClelland & Stewart. We talk about the ways of “seeing”–how… Read more: Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane
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… Read more: Bonnie Jo Campbell
*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… Read more: Ruth Behar
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
Eduardo C. Corral reads from Guillotine (Graywolf Press 2020). We talk about attentiveness, structuring books, audience and interiority. We also talk about expanding possibilities and French pop songs. Playlist:
Kaveh Akbar reads poems from Calling A Wolf A Wolf (Alice James Books 2017) and Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021). We talk about technology of language–its limitations and failures–and ways of working to subvert it.… Read more: Kaveh Akbar
Natalie Bakopoulos discusses her novel Scorpionfish (Tin House 2020). We talk about first swims, balconies and growing into your writer self. We also talk about Elena Ferrante, identity, gender, and Greece. Download Audio Bonus:… Read more: Natalie Bakopoulos
John Barr and Dan Murphy talk about their book Start By Believing: Larry Nassar’s Crimes, the Institutions that Enabled Him, and the Brave Women Who Stopped a Monster (Hachette Books 2020). We talk about investigative reporting,… Read more: John Barr and Dan Murphy
Rion Amilcar Scott reads from The World Doesn’t Require You: Stories (Liveright Publishing Corporation/W.W.Norton & Company 2019). We talk about narrative forms, beautiful lines and building a world. We also talk about imagination, characters, and Cross… Read more: Rion Amilcar Scott
Carmen Bugan reads from Lilies from America: New & Selected Poems (Shearsman Books UK 2019). We talk about narrative poems, memoir, and recording a documentary. We also talk about resistance, reclaiming your story, and planting a… Read more: Carmen Bugan
Guest host Amanda Uhle speaks with Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game (HMH, 2019) about keeping our parents’ secrets, the art of memoir writing, and gourmet meals by the sea. Brodeur co-founded the fiction… Read more: Adrienne Brodeur
Freelance journalist/filmmaker and 2019 Wallenberg Medalist Safa Al Ahmad talks about her documentaries, including Saudi’s Secret Uprising (2014) and Targeting Yemen (2019). We talk about activism, the power of reporting, access, and editing. We also talk about moral… Read more: Safa Al Ahmad
Artist and teacher Joe Caslin talks about his latest multimedia project The Volunteers. We talk about creating large scale public murals, activism, and community. We also talk about metaphor and stories and empathy.
CM Burroughs reads poems from The Vital System (Tupelo Press 2012). We talk about a sister, a red bird, experimental forms, and choosing art. We also get a preview of poems from Master Suffering out in 2020… Read more: CM Burroughs
Michigan Quarterly Review editor Khaled Mattawa, guest editor Benjamin Paloff and contributor Jeremiah Chamberlin talk about the Fall 2019 issue of Michigan Quarterly Review: What Does Europe Want Now? We talk about MQR’s mission,… Read more: Michigan Quarterly Review
Yevgenia Albats talks about her work with The New Times, Absolute Albats and her book The State Within the State (FSG 1994). We also talk about investigative journalism, radio, the KGB, and her role as the inaugural International Institute Distinguished… Read more: Yevgenia Albats
Novelist and journalist Rebecca Clarren (KICKDOWN, Skyhorse Publishing, 2018) reads from her novel, a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Summer host Amanda Uhle and Rebecca Clarren talk about writing with a social… Read more: Rebecca Clarren
Frank Uhle talks with actor, director, and writer Simon Callow, author of the memoir Being an Actor and acclaimed biographies of Charles Dickens, Richard Wagner, and Charles Laughton. Callow is working on the fourth and… Read more: Simon Callow
Guest host Amanda Uhle talks with Anna Clark about The Poisoned City (Metropolitan Books 2018), an acclaimed, thorough account of the causes, crisis, and aftermath of the Flint, Michigan water disaster. They talk about tragedy,… Read more: Anna Clark
Guest host Amanda Uhle talks with Mokhtar Alkhanshali about being the subject of Dave Eggers’ book The Monk of Mokha (Knopf 2018). They also talk about grandmas, coffee and Yemen. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-07-19-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Billy Bragg talks about his book Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World published by Faber & Faber. We talk about how skiffle fits into musical history–US and UK. We also talk about research and… Read more: Billy Bragg
Detroit novelist and arts writer Lynn Crawford talks about visual art, Detroit, families, fashion, and food. Lynn is the author of Shankus & Kitto A Saga, Solow, Blow, Fortification Resort (a selection of art related sestinas) and… Read more: Lynn Crawford
John Cheney-Lippold reads from We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves published by New York University Press. We talk about categorization, control and privacy. We also talk about reconceptualizing ourselves and what… Read more: John Cheney-Lippold
George Bornstein discusses a new facsimile edition of W.B. Yeat’s classic poetry collection, The Wild Swans at Coole, published by Scribner. We talk about George Bornstein’s introductions to the facsimile editions, this book and The Winding… Read more: George Bornstein
Theodoros Chiotis reads from his anthology Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis published by Penned in the Margins, UK (2015). We talk about putting together an anthology of a new generation of poets, the Cavafy Archive, and graffiti.… Read more: Theodoros Chiotis
Nickolas Butler reads from his novel The Hearts of Men out with Ecco. We talk about a “day without women,” friendship, loyalty, heartbreak, Jim Harrison and a moral code. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-03-08-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio To head to this author’s website,… Read more: Nickolas Butler
Josh Cramer reads from The Cartoon Picayune. We talk about comics journalism, freelancing, collaborations and community. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-02-08-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio To head to the author’s website, click this link!
Bryan Burrough is in the studio with his latest book DAYS OF RAGE: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence published by Penguin Books. We talk about interviewing members of… Read more: Bryan Burrough
Michigan’s own Clare Croft reads from her book Dancers As Diplomats: American Choreography in Cultural Exchange published by Oxford University Press. We talk about cultural diplomacy, interviewing in research, and We Are the World.… Read more: Clare Croft
Diane Cook reads from her debut story collection Man V. Nature published by Harper; it’s also an Indie Next Pick. We talk about the wild, the surreal, and about survival. We also talk about… Read more: Diane Cook
This special edition of Living Writers features the Bird Center of Washtenaw County with guests Executive Director Carol Akerlof, and Center Manager Gabby Costello and Board Member Stephanie Douglass-Carpenter (that’s right! Living Writers’ very… Read more: Bird Center of Washtenaw County
Elizabeth Berg reads from her latest novel The Dream Lover published by Random House. We talk about historical fiction, singing in a band, and the life and loves of George Sand. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2015-05-13-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio… Read more: Elizabeth Berg
Lloyd Cole talks about his album STANDARDS released by Omnivore in 2014. We also talk about a seed for a song, time passing, golf, and notebooks. Are you ready to be heart broken? http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2015-05-06-170001-EDT.mp3… Read more: Lloyd Cole
Charles Baxter reads from There’s Something I Want You to Do from Pantheon Books. We talk about geography, requests, and surprises. We also talk about the upcoming symposium in honor of Nicholas Delbanco. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2014-12-03-170001-EST.mp3 Download… Read more: Charles Baxter
Poet Scott Beal reads from his debut collection Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems out with Dzanc Books. We talk about “outlandish” writing, poems from memory, and building community. We also talk about fury… Read more: Scott Beal
Eric Bogosian visits the studio to talk about his book 100 (monologues) published by Theatre Communications Group (2014). We also talk about writing for stage and screen,Talk Radio, and the 100 (monologues) project website. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2014-10-15-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Izzeldin Abuelaish reads from his book I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity (2010) published by Walker & Company. We talk about growing up in the Jabalia refugee… Read more: Izzeldin Abuelaish
John Beer reads from his debut collection The Waste Land and Other Poems (2010) published Canarium Books. We talk about first books, Bob Hope, Boston terriers and a “Theses on Failure” which could be another way… Read more: John Beer
From the archive: 2010 Kazim Ali reads from Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press 2009). We talk about gender theory, Yoko Ono, and blurring genre. We also talk about the geography of… Read more: Kazim Ali
Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier read poems from among their many poetry books including Last Water Song from Harbour Publishing and The Blue Hour of the Day published by McClelland & Stewart. We talk about the ways of “seeing”–how… Read more: Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane
