New Letters on the Air
program schedule

Young adult writer M. T. Anderson, author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, talks about his immersion into 18th century literature in preparation for writing this National Book Award-winning novel.  Anderson also discusses the importance of language, and how it shapes our reality, as well as the need for books written exclusively for teenagers, and how that is distinguished from writing for adults. 

Known for her poetry that is linguistically brash, playful and dazzling, this National Book Award finalist's public reading at the Midwest Poets Series at Rockhurst University lives up to that description. Suggestive and often humorous, Heather McHugh, a writer-in-residence for the University of Washington in Seattle, reads from her collections Hinge and Sign: Poems 1968-93 and Eyeshot, along with some new works that challenge the standard assumptions of English grammar and syntax.

The Los Angeles Times has called Bakken’s short story collection Necessary Lies, “straightforward American fiction that works.” This book, published by BkMk Press as the winner of the  G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, also won the Best Books 2006 Award from USABookNews.com, a silver medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards and a bronze medal from the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards.   Bakken talks about her work with New Letters editor, Robert Stewart.

Kansas City Star book critic and poet John Mark Eberhart's new book, Broken Time, is named for the style of playing in which the rhythm section refuses to follow a measured beat, which becomes his metaphor for life.   The book focuses on all kinds of musicians and music—from blues, jazz, classical, to movie scores--and it has led the poet to a whole new relationship with his musician brother, Ken Eberhart.  In this recording made at the Writers Place in Kansas City, the Eberhart brother perform together for the first time, as John Mark reads from his book and Ken plays the marimba and other instruments.

Recorded at a symposium at the University of Georgia, Cave Canem founders Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady talk about their goal of providing a safe space for African-American poets.  They are joined on stage for conversation and poetry by Opal Moore, Sean Hill, Kyle Dargan, and Nikki Finney, the editor of The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (Cave Canem Anthology). 

Nathan Englander discusses his novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, about Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s.  In this interview with New Letters on the Air Assistant Producer Dennis Conrow, Englander talks about the relationship between fathers and sons—which plays a significant role in the novel—and the role that Judaism plays in his novels, in his writing, and in his life.

Maria Helena Viramontes discusses her fiction, including her 2007 novel, Their Dogs Came With Them, a book that offers a profoundly gritty portrait of everyday life in the barrios of East Los Angeles in the 1960s.  Viramontes teaches English at Cornell University, and is also the author of Under the Feet of Jesus and The Moths and Other Stories.  In 2006, she won both the Luis Leal Award and the John Dos Passos Award for Literature.

Chicano writer and activist Tomás Riley began his writing career officially in 1994 as a member of the Taco Shop Poets in California. A first-generation American raised in San Diego, his work is a meld of bilingualism and cultural politics with a hip hop beat. A finalist for the 2004 California Voices Award from Poets & Writers magazine, Riley shares work from his first book Mahcic in this energetic public reading for the Latino Writers Series at the Kansas City Public Library.

Sophie Gee always wanted to be a writer.  While in high school, she won a prestigious magazine award in her native Australia, but postponed her desire to write to pursue a career as an eighteenth century scholar.  Now, she's combined the two with her first novel, The Scandal of the Season, which is about the poet Alexander Pope and the inspiration for his famous poem "The Rape of the Lock." 

Chip Kidd, who has been described as the world’s most famous book cover designer, has worked at Knopf for over 20 years.  Now a novelist too, he talks about his two books The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners.  In this conversation with New Letters on the Air’s Dennis Conrow, Kidd explains how to see with a designer’s eye, and talks about the challenging transition from working with pictures to working with words.

Co-founder of Cave Canem for African-American poets, Cornelius Eady talks about his book, Brutal Imagination, that brings to life fictional characters in American culture, including Uncle Tom, Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth, and the black man invented by Susan Smith to cover her murder of her own children.  Some of these poems, along with works from his six other books, are included in his 2008 collection of new and selected poems, Hardheaded Weather.

The author of three books of fiction, Colbert talks about her most recent collection of linked stories, Dream Lives of Butterflies.  A native of Hawaii, Colbert was educated in Seattle and New England, and currently lives and teaches in Binghamton, NY.  She talks about how place influences her fiction, particularly this book, which is set in St. Louis, where Colbert lived briefly as a visiting writer, and was inspired by the people in her apartment building.   

This Philadelphia playwright talks about his trilogy of plays that deal with racial issues in America.  The author of dozen dramas, Thomas Gibbons uses real life events as the basis of his fictional works.  He reads from A House with No Walls and Permanent Collection, and talks about how the shaping of the plays were influenced with the rolling premiers of these works in five different theatres across the country.

In 2008, Missouri’s governor appointed Walter Bargen as the state’s first poet laureate. In this interview before an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, Bargen talks about the development of his poetry in his dozen books, from the early surreal imagery to the more narrative style of his award-winning collection, The Feast: Prose Poem Sequences. He also reads from his most recent books, Remedies for Vertigo and West of West.

Born and raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) by his British parents, Smith now lives in Scotland, but returns to Africa in his worldwide bestselling fiction series about “The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency.”   He discusses the appeal of his main female characters, and reads from the series’ seventh and eighth books, Blue Shoes and Happiness and The Good Husband of Zebra Drive.  He talks about his writing process and one of his other series, “The Sunday Philosophy Club,” set in Edinburgh.

New Letters magazine is the winner of the National Magazine Award in the category of the essay, up against essays from The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Elle, and Entertainment Weekly, so we’re returning to a conversation with New Letters magazine editor, Robert Stewart, to find out how he measures good writing, a topic which he covers in his book of essays, Outside Language.

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry,  Mary Jo Bang reads from her prize-winning fifth collection, Elegy, that traces the year following the death of her son.  This manuscript was originally chosen to be published as the winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnoia Award from the Poetry Society of America because it cuts “a guiding path for the reader.”

Paul Muldoon, the new poetry editor for The New Yorker,  talks about his own rejection from the magazine in his earlier days.  This Irish author of ten collections of poetry reads from his work that includes formal poems about made-up words along with tributes to musicians such as the Beatles and Warren Zevon.  We’ll also hear some music from Muldoon’s own rock band, Rackett.

The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress is one of America’s most distinguished appointments for a poet. This program gives a short history of the 70 year-old position, along with conversations and readings by two poets who recently held the post, Ted Kooser and Donald Hall, as well as the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Charles Simic.

A MacArthur fellow and former editor of The American Poetry Review, Eleanor Wilner is known for her poetry that captures "cultural memory."   Rather than her personal confessions as a peace and civil rights activist, she touches on topics ranging from ancient Greece to Hurricane Katrina and the cosmos. Besides her six collections of poetry, Wilner has written lyrics, set to music by Luna Pearl Woolf.  Wilner discusses the power of artistic collaboration and reads from The Girl with Bees in Her Hair.

In her book of essays, Writing in an Age of Silence, Sara Paretsky sheds light on her popular female detective V.I. Warshawski.  She reads from this book, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award, and talks about her future plans for the mystery series. Paretsky also discusses Bleeding Kansas, a novel that moves away from that series set in Chicago to a story that intertwines history from her childhood stomping grounds near Lawrence, Kansas.

Noted nonfiction writer and poet Patricia Hampl discusses the growing importance of memoir in public discourse and her book I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory, and gives practical examples of how to begin writing memoir.  In this interview recorded live at the Kansas City Public Library, Hampl also reads from her latest book, The Florist's Daughter, and talks about the act of “being a daughter,” around which the book is framed.

In this second half of an interview with Lisa See, she talks about the female characters in her latest novels, Peony in Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan , both set in imperial China, in the 19^th and 17^th centuries respectively.  Discover how these characters—and their real-life historical inspirations—dealt with life in a male dominated, oppressive culture.  See also talks about the importance history in her fiction. 

This best-selling writer often combines wisdom, humor, honesty and panache in her dozen books of essays and fiction.  She discusses her 2007 book Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith , a collection of essays that captures the difficulties of leading an authentic life within American culture and focuses on the strengths of helpfulness, decency, love and forgiveness.  She also reads from the book, now available in paperback.

Major Jackson’s poems are often set against a Philadelphia backdrop, with its clubs and local jazz celebrities.  Jackson knows and speaks the language of the ethnic communities within the large cityscape of America. The author of two books of poetry and the recipient of a Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and Whiting Writers Award, Jackson talks about and reads from his collections, Hoops and Leaving Saturn.

The late Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966) was a poet and educator, who has re-emerged in the public consciousness with the recent film, The Great Debaters.  Author of A Gallery of Harlem Portraits, Tolson hailed from Kansas City, Missouri, where part of his family still resides, including a younger cousin, Bonnie Tolson, who is a painter and poet in her own right.  She responds to some recordings of Tolson reading his poetry. We’ll also hear some comments by his biographer, Robert Farnsworth.

In the second part of this interview with poet Kevin Young, he talks in-depth about his 2007 collection For the Confederate Dead, which reclaims the original meaning of a confederate as a companion.  He reads his tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks, another poet who preceded him from his hometown of Topeka, Kansas, and to another Midwestern poet, Langston Hughes. 

The young novelist Tayari Jones was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1970, so she was very cognizant of the child murders that took place during her third and fourth grade years in the black neighborhoods of her hometown.  This formed the basis of her first novel, Leaving Atlanta , which builds a strong fictional world around the mysterious tragedies as seen through the eyes of several children.  Jones also talks about the joy of writing fiction and her second novel The Untelling, which depicts young women in their 20s attempting to overcome past traumas. 

The Melancholy Fate of Captain Lewis is about Meriwether Lewis's great journey twice across North America.  The novel traces his difficult life and untimely end, and parallels his crisis with the modern day character, Bill Lewis, a biographer.  Pritchett, a professor  of creative writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a John Simmons Short Fiction Award winner, discusses the challenges of writing a novel, and the academic's quest to categorize fiction.

Poet Leslie Adrienne Miller became fascinated by 17th century medical illustrations, and the myths and ignorance that surrounded female anatomy in scientific literature all the way until the 20th century.  She uses these themes in her poetry collection The Resurrection Trade, and discusses what it was like to become a first-time mother at age 45.  She also reads from Eat Quite Everything You See . 

Bestselling author Erik Larson discusses two of his nonfiction works.  Devil in the White City juxtaposes the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and the nation's first serial killing, while Thunderstruck! deals with the invention of radio and England's second-most famous murder.  In this interview with New Letters' Dennis Conrow, Larson reveals how he uses historical facts to create a novelistic approach to writing nonfiction.

The author of After the Lost War: A Narrative about the Confederate soldier and poet Sydney Lanier, Andrew Hudgins’s most recent book, Ecstatic in the Poison is a lyrical look at middle-class America.  Hudgins, who teaches at Ohio State University, still bears the marks of his southern Baptist military upbringing in his work.  He reads from his poetry and talks about the writing life with his wife, fiction writer Erin McGraw.

Born and raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) by his British parents, Alexander McCall Smith now lives in Scotland, but returns to Africa in his worldwide bestselling fiction series about “The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency.”   He discusses the appeal of his main female characters, and reads from the series’ seventh and eighth books, Blue Shoes and Happiness and The Good Husband of Zebra Drive.  First published as a children’s author when he was 28, Smith made his living teaching law for over 20 years before turning to writing fulltime in 1995.  He talks about his process and one of his other series, “The Sunday Philosophy Club,” set in Edinburgh.

Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for the book Late Wife, Claudia Emerson discusses her work that so aptly portrays the people of her native rural Virginia. Emerson was Witter Bynner Fellow selected in 2005 by then-U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. In this program she reads from Late Wife, as well as from her other two books, Pharaoh, Pharaohand Pinion: An Elegy, and talks about what led her to be a poet.

A holiday favorite, this popular and highly anthologized short story is read by the author, the late Grace Paley.  "The Loudest Voice" tells an amusing tale of a little Jewish girl chosen to play the lead in her school’s Christmas pageant.  This is the only recording in existence of Grace Paley reading this favorite story.  

Both Lemony Snicket (the pen name of Daniel Handler) and Kate DiCamillo are authors of children's literature whose work has multigenerational appeal. Lemony Snicket has enchanted readers with his comically morose A Series of Unfortunate Events, now in a box set of 13 books called The Complete Wreck. DiCamillo is a two-time Newberry Medal winner, whose books include Because of Winn-Dixie, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and the Christmas tale just released, Great Joy.  They share stories about the inspiratio