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OUR LATEST SHOWS:
richard ford
Listed as a 2012 Best Book of the Year in
various newspapers and magazines,
Canada depicts an unusual tale of
transgressions set against the backdrop of North
Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan. The 1996
winner of both the Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner
Awards, Richard Ford talks with fellow writer
Whitney Terrell in front of an audience at the
Kansas City Public Library as part of the
Writers at Work series. Ford shares stories
about his creative process, and why he pursues
certain stories and takes his time with the
telling of them.
Christina Anderson is an up-and-coming
playwright who grew up in Kansas City, Kansas.
She talks about her unusual journey first to
Brown University and then to Yale to study
theatre. She discusses the importance of
transformation in her plays, from the first
creative spark to the final curtain call, and
hopes that her work will inspire change in the
real world by testing audiences about their
feelings on settings and situations not often
examined. She reads from her play, Good
Goods, published in 2012 in
The Methuen Drama Book of Post-Black Plays,
and discusses Blacktop Sky,
which is part of the National New Play Network.
This month's Save America's Treasures Archive
selection.
There's no better poet to hear around Memorial
Day than the late John Ciardi (1916-1986), a WW
II gunner for the Army Air Force. The author of
more than 35 books, Ciardi was also the
long-time poetry editor of The Saturday
Review
and host of National Public Radio's "A
Word in Your Ear," but he got his start at the
University of Kansas City in 1940, teaching and
working on the University Review, which
became New Letters magazine. This show
features excerpts from a 1983 reading in which
Ciardi shares both poems about war and poems for
children, and a 1984 interview with then New
Letters editor, David Ray. His related
books include
Saipan: The War Diary of John Ciardi,
The Divine Comedy,
and
You Read to Me, I'll Read to You.
Also of interest,
The Collected Poems of John Ciardi
and
John Ciardi A Biography
by Edward Cifelli.
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ABOUT
NEW LETTERS ON THE AIR:
New Letters on the Air,
hosted by
Angela Elam, is the
half-hour radio companion to the
literary quarterly magazine
New Letters. Past
guests include U.S. Poet
Laureates Ted Kooser, Rita Dove,
Billy Collins; Pulitzer Prize
winning playwrights August
Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony
Kushner and novelists Jim
Harrison, Jane Smiley, Richard
Russo. The program, which also
features emerging writers of
poetry, fiction, drama and
creative non-fiction, is
produced by the University of
Missouri-Kansas City and
distributed via the
Public Radio Satellite System's
Content Depot, and the
Public Radio Exchange.
Angela Elam, Host of New Letters on the Air
MEET THE STAFF OF NEW LETTERS ON
THE AIR:
The
New Letters on the Airproduction team includes producer/host Angela Elam, assistant producer
Jess Williams, technical editor Stephanie Hughes, and our intern
Christian Liljequist. Robert Stewart is the executive editor.
THE STORY OF NEW LETTERS ON
THE AIR:
This radio companion to the
distinguished literary
quarterly,
New Letters, was
founded in 1977, by
David and
Judy Ray with help from
their staff, including
Robert Stewart, now the
editor of the magazine.
Rebekah Presson Mosby worked
as a producer and then host from
1982 until 1995. Now,
producer/host Angela Elam
continues the tradition.
New Letters on the Air
is a weekly program broadcast
over many public radio stations,
and is also one of the largest
and best collections of
recordings of contemporary
authors from the United States
and around the world.
Many of these important writers,
including Allen Ginsberg, Jane
Kenyon, Howard Nemerov, Michael
Dorris, James Dickey, John
Gardner, and Gwendolyn Brooks,
have now passed from the
literary scene. Many are Nobel
laureates, winners of Pulitzer
Prizes or National Book Awards.
Most programs from our extensive
archives are offered for sale on
audiocassette or CD.
TIP You may use the left-side search parameters in any combination. You can search by author name, ID, Genre or Interview Year. For example, to find all authors who have a last name beginning with "A" simply put an "a" in the text box field, on the drop down box select On The Air and press the enter key.
SPONSORS:
Support for New Letters on the Air comes from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and the University
of Missouri-Kansas City's College of Arts and Sciences.
of Missouri-Kansas City's College of Arts and Sciences.