essays – LIVING WRITERS

essays

Michigan Quarterly Review

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, its history since 1962, and its future.  We also talk about the issue’s central question, and the poetry, fiction, non-fiction, interviews …

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Sarah Vowell

Summer host Amanda Uhle talks with historian, author, journalist, essayist, and actress Sarah Vowell. Vowell has written seven nonfiction books on American history and culture, was a contributing editor to This American Life  from 1996 to 2008, and was the voice of Violet Parr in the animated film The Incredibles and its sequel. We talk about what it …

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Richard Russo

Richard Russo reads from Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life (Knopf 2018).  We talk about looking backwards to make sense of things, creativity and mental illness, voice and honesty, Springsteen, and destiny. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2018-07-12-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *taped on June 6th, 2018, anniversary of D-Day

David Sedaris

David Sedaris  came to town with his  essay collection When You Are Engulfed in Flames (Little, Brown 2008).  In this conversation, we talk about the wonders of the public library, Tobias Wolff and Matt Damon, and fact checking. We also talk about balancing humor, unstable fables and little known ant facts. *archives: taped June 9, 2008 *photo credit: …

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George Bornstein

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 Stair and other Poems (1933).  We also talk about passion, a life of poems, the Nobel Prize and Ireland. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-05-24-170001-EDT.mp3 Download …

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Rebecca Solnit

Rebecca Solnit reads from The Mother of All Questions (Haymarket Books) the final book of essays in the trilogy that began with Men Explain Things to Me.  We talk about politics, silence, language and hope. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-03-01-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio To visit the author’s website, click here!

Martin Espada

Martin Espada reads poems from The Trouble Ball (Norton 2011) and The Republic of Poetry (2006) and talks about his collection of essays The Lover of a Subversive Is Also a Subversive (The University of Michigan Press: Poets on Poetry Series 2010). We talk about practical poetry and a sense of urgency. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2015-03-18-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio …

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textsound

textsound: an online audio publication: two of the founding editors, Anna Vitale and Laura Wetherington, join T in the studio.  We talk about textsound’s mission and vision–and the experimental idea.  We also talk about the online arts community, the Scandanavian connection and the art of arranging sound in journal form. Download Audio

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