Tune in today to hear Millicent E. Brown read from Another Sojourner Looking for Truth: My Journey from Civil Rights to Black Power and Beyond (The University of South Carolina Press 2024). We talk about the continuing… Read more: Millicent E. Brown
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… Read more: Rebekah Modrak, Willie Carver and Martha Hickson
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… Read more: Sandra Cisneros
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… Read more: Marie-Helene Bertino
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… Read more: MK Czerwiec
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… Read more: Russell Brakefield
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… Read more: Aria Aber
*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
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
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
A conversation with Jericho Brown about his book of poems The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press 2019). We talk about spiral notebooks, semicolons and the Pulitzer Prize. We also talk about the music of formal poems and about the Duplex,… Read more: Jericho Brown
Diane Cook reads from The New Wilderness (Harper Books 2020). http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-09-30-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Tune in today to hear DianeCook read from The New Wilderness (Harper Books 2020). We talk about writing your first novel and how characters can become big and alive, and so much a part of your brain. We… Read more: Diane Cook
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. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-09-23-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio 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. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-09-09-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio… 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… 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
Jessica Abel reads from her latest book Growing Gills: How to find creative focus when you’re drowning in your daily life (2017). We talk about radio, podcasts, graphic novels, comics, self-publishing, creative focus and doing what you… Read more: Jessica Abel
Tune in today to hear Elizabeth Anderson read from Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It) published by Princeton University Press (2017, paperback April 2019). We’ll talk about freedom and equality, thinking structurally,… Read more: Elizabeth Anderson
Fulla Abdul-Jabbar talks about her work with the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival. We also talk about experimental film art, spoken word, Green Lantern Press, and Exquisite Dogs. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2019-03-27-1700-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Cartoonist Katie Cook talks about her current project Nothing Special (webtoons.com). We talk about drawing, process, characters, story creation, Star Wars, My Little Pony and fantasy. And, of course, about Nothing Special: “A Girl. A Boy. A Hot Mess.… Read more: Katie Cook
Gina Brandolino reads from her latest essay The Monster Inside: Frankenstein’s Legacy (2018).We talk about horror, the devil, films, monsters, and things you can’t unsee. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2019-01-16-1700-EST.mp3″ Download Audio
Aimee Bender joins Living Writers via phone from California and reads part of her short story “Tiger Mending” from The Color Master (Vintage & Anchor Books 2013). We talk about creativity + limitation, exhilaration,… Read more: Aimee Bender
Phillip Crymble reads from Not Even Laughter (Salmon Poetry 2015). We talk about lyrical places, disability, This Land is Your Land, and autumn. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-10-24-1700-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
RussellBrakefield reads poems from his debut collection Field Recordings (Wayne State University Press 2018). We talk about Alan Lomax, the land, music, growing up in Michigan, and collecting sound and stories. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-10-10-1700-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
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
Pamela Bannos reads from Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (University of Chicago Press 2017). We talk about reconstructing a life through photographs, the editor’s eye, and what is happening with Maier’s copyright and legacy. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-04-04-1700-EDT.mp3… Read more: Pamela Bannos
Chloe Benjamin reads from her second novel The Immortalists (Putnam 2018). We talk about not knowing, mystery, immersive atmosphere and magic. In the second half of the program, we hear two poems from Raymond McDaniel’s new collection The… Read more: Chloe Benjamin
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
*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 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
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. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-09-23-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio 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. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-09-09-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio… 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… 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
Jessica Abel reads from her latest book Growing Gills: How to find creative focus when you’re drowning in your daily life (2017). We talk about radio, podcasts, graphic novels, comics, self-publishing, creative focus and doing what you… Read more: Jessica Abel
Fulla Abdul-Jabbar talks about her work with the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival. We also talk about experimental film art, spoken word, Green Lantern Press, and Exquisite Dogs. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2019-03-27-1700-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
Cartoonist Katie Cook talks about her current project Nothing Special (webtoons.com). We talk about drawing, process, characters, story creation, Star Wars, My Little Pony and fantasy. And, of course, about Nothing Special: “A Girl. A Boy. A Hot Mess.… Read more: Katie Cook
Gina Brandolino reads from her latest essay The Monster Inside: Frankenstein’s Legacy (2018).We talk about horror, the devil, films, monsters, and things you can’t unsee. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2019-01-16-1700-EST.mp3″ Download Audio
Guest host Amanda Uhle talks with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah about Friday Black (Mariner Books 2018). Twelve stories. Dystopian future. Excellent conversation ahead. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-12-26-1700-EST.mp3 Download Audio *author photo credit: Limitless Imprint Entertainment
Aimee Bender joins Living Writers via phone from California and reads part of her short story “Tiger Mending” from The Color Master (Vintage & Anchor Books 2013). We talk about creativity + limitation, exhilaration,… Read more: Aimee Bender
Phillip Crymble reads from Not Even Laughter (Salmon Poetry 2015). We talk about lyrical places, disability, This Land is Your Land, and autumn. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-10-24-1700-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
RussellBrakefield reads poems from his debut collection Field Recordings (Wayne State University Press 2018). We talk about Alan Lomax, the land, music, growing up in Michigan, and collecting sound and stories. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-10-10-1700-EDT.mp3 Download Audio
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
Pamela Bannos reads from Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife (University of Chicago Press 2017). We talk about reconstructing a life through photographs, the editor’s eye, and what is happening with Maier’s copyright and legacy. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-04-04-1700-EDT.mp3… Read more: Pamela Bannos
Chloe Benjamin reads from her second novel The Immortalists (Putnam 2018). We talk about not knowing, mystery, immersive atmosphere and magic. In the second half of the program, we hear two poems from Raymond McDaniel’s new collection The… Read more: Chloe Benjamin
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
