As part of our 35^th anniversary celebration, each month we will feature an archive reel-to-reel program that has been digitized thanks to our Save America’s Treasures grant.

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.

This month's Save America's Treasures Archive selection.

What better poet to hear around Memorial Day than the late John Ciardi, who was a fighter pilot in World War II. 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." this show features excerpts from a 1983 reading in which Ciardi shares both poems about war and poems for children, and a 1984 New Letters on the Air interview about his poetry collection, The Birds of Pompeii.

Taiwanese-American poet, Shin Yu Pai, was born in Illinois, raised in California, schooled in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Washington State and has lived in Texas and Arkansas, in big cities and small towns, yet people still think of her as a foreigner. She discusses how her poetry's improved with her wanderlust and reads from her seventh collection, Adamantine, and her earlier work, Sightings, in which she not only composed the poetry but also collaborated with designer, Rolando Murillo, on the hand carved cover art.

In part one of this 2013 interview, Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort discusses her work, in particular her book, Factory of Tears. She admits that her poems are never truly finished and discusses how translating the work from Belarusian, with the help of poets Franz and Elizabeth Oehlkers-Wright, allowed her to both continue editing and find new meaning in her work. Mort reads from the 2008 Factory of Tears in both English and Belarusian and introduces her 2011 book Collected Body with the transitional poem “For Grandmother.”

For Father’s Day, we revisit 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner, Leonard Pitts Jr., who has gained fame from his syndicated column that deals with social issues, race, and family life, that make up his book, Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2008. Pitts also discusses Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, which is part memoir about his own childhood with an abusive and semi-absent father.  He talks about how those experiences influence his work, including his three fiction books, and reads from his 2012 novel, Freeman, about former slaves who return to the south after the Civil War in search of their scattered families.

In part two of this 2013 interview with Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort, this winner of the 2005 Crystal of Vilenica Award in Slovenia and the 2008 Burda Poetry Prize in Germany reads from her 2011 book, Collected Body, and talks about how her grandmother and female ancestry inspired the work, helping her develop themes of migration, movement and the exiled body. Mort also talks about how family, nature, and various landscapes—from her own landlocked place of origin to the Caribbean islands of her husband--have influenced her work.

Kansas native Robert Day has penned several books of fiction and non-fiction, including the novel, The Last Cattle Drive, and the short story collection, Speaking French in Kansas. Regularly published in New Letters magazine, as well as in other journals and newspapers nationwide, he discusses his two most recent books: the 2012 book of short stories, Where I Am Now, and his 2009 essay book, The Committee to Save the World. Day, who has split much of his life between Maryland and Kansas, shares how he believes the western plains influence the themes in his work as well as the development of his characters.

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.

After working for years as a corporate lawyer in England, Alex George moved to the states with his family in 2003, and later opened his own law practice in mid-Missouri. The author of four previous novels published in England, George made his American debut with the 2012 novel, A Good American, which received accolades from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and O Magazine. An epic tale about German emigrants who settle in Missouri in the late 1800s, the novel explores the notion of family, home, and what it means to be an American. George discusses the inspiration behind this novel (now out in paperback) and why it took six years to write.

Born to Pakistani parents in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ayad Akhtar grew up in a secular home, but like the protagonist of his 2012 debut novel, American Dervish, he became a devout Muslim as a child. He discusses how his evolving relationship with Islam influences his writing, which often features Western-born Muslims struggling with issues of identity, politics, and faith. Akhtar also debuted two plays in 2012, including Disgraced, which is now the winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. He describes how writing for the stage and screen prepared him to write his novel. 

The 2013 Cockefair Chair Writer-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Dean Young talks about his 2012 collection Bender: New & Selected Poems, which draws from his previous dozen books, including the 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Elegy on Toy Piano. Young is known for his sardonic wit and profound take on life, partly due to the degenerative heart condition that ultimately led to his 2011 life-saving heart transplant. He discusses that and reads some of his poetry in front of an audience as part of the Writers at Work series at the Kansas City Public Library.

Husband and wife poets, Terrance Hayes and Yona Harvey talk about their work and how they balance their creative lives and family. Hayes reads poems from his 2010 National Book Award-winning collection, Lighthead, while Harvey shares work from her 2013 book, Hemming the Water. Unsentimental and straight forward, this 2011 conversation shares insight about the creative process and the two very different approaches to writing for this couple.

Esteemed poet Mark Doty discusses his work, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2008 National Book Award, and his 2013 book-length poem and meditative bestiary called A Swarm, A Flock, A Host: A Compendium of Creatures. He also talks about why he turned to writing the memoirs, Heaven's Coast, Dog Years and Firebird, and how the prose writing helped him deal more fully with the difficult issues of AIDS, death, and grief. Doty reads from his poetry and talks about his recent collaboration with the painter Darren Waterston on his exploration of the animal kingdom through poetry.

As a bridge between Women's History Month and National Poetry Month, we revisit Natasha Trethewey, who is currently serving as both the Poet Laureate of the United States and of her home state of Mississippi.  The winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, Native Guard traces her personal history growing up as a biracial child in the South, and includes poems about the Union's first black regiment on the Gulf Coast during the Civil War. Trethewey reads from this book and also discusses her earlier collection, Domestic Work, which won the first Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Her newer books include the 2012 Thrall and her essay collection Beyond Katrina.

Award winning Poet Gloria Vando—daughter of poet, playwright, and actress Anita Velez-Mitchell and mother to poet and musician Anika Paris—grew up both a part of and apart from the two worlds of New York and Puerto Rico. The trio published Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertoriquena Poets Look at their American Lives. Vando and Paris talk about the poetry collection, history and longing, and the family’s creative contributions in the production of the musical drama, Temple of the Souls.

Naomi Benaron is a trained scientist, marathon runner, and massage therapist. She is also the author of two award-winning fiction books, Love Letters from a Fat Man, a set of short stories published by BkMk Press, and the Bellwether prize-winning novel, Running the Rift, a tale of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Benaron discusses how her many passions and her connections to Rwanda have impacted both her work and her personal life.

Known for her 1985 novel Annie John, and her early “Talk of the Town” pieces for the The New Yorker, Caribbean-American writer Jamaica Kincaid frequently blurs the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction. Born Elaine Potter Richardson in colonial Antigua, Kincaid reads from her 2002 novel, Mr. Potter, in which she explores the life of a philandering chauffeur who bears a striking resemblance to her own biological father, and from her 1997 memoir, My Brother. Kincaid also discusses how she approaches difficult issues, such as poverty, AIDS, and the dissolution of families within her work. Her novel, See Now Then, which she previewed at the 2012 Hall Center for the Humanities Lecture Series at the University of Kansas, is now available.

This month’s Save America’s Treasures recording, chosen to kick off Women’s History Month, features the late, great poet Adrienne Rich, who died in 2012. Known for her perfectly crafted, award winning poems, she was also a fearless spokeswoman for the Feminist Movement, gay rights and peace.  This program features excerpts from a 1995 New Letters on the Air interview and from a 2002 Cockefair Chair presentation at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

North Carolina native and former Jehovah’s Witness minister, Stephanie Powell Watts, reads from her first published book, We are Taking Only What We Need, a collection of short stories that was a finalist for the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and winner of the 2012 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. As young, poor, black women, her characters deal with questions of race, faith, and “post-blackness.”  Watts talks about the influence of her story-telling family and Southern upbringing that helped bring her fictional protagonists into being.

Winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Fiction Prize, Ron Tanner, has been crafting stories for decades, but it was his 2000 move, when he and his girlfriend began renovating an old frat house together that inspired his memoir, From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story.  The home has since been featured in This Old House magazine and is also the subject of both Ron Tanner's website, www.houselove.org, and a book trailer in which he talks about themes from his work and reactions from his family. Tanner discusses how the renovations helped him examine his relationships and demonstrate why the most solid foundation of any home is love. Tanner also reads from his prize winning short story book, A Bed of Nails.

Poet, Tracy K. Smith, winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Prize for her collection, The Body's Question, reads from her Pulitzer Prize winning work, Life on Mars, at the Fall 2012 Midwest Poets  Series. She discusses how science fiction, the reality of God, and the death of her father inspired her to explore the outer limits of space and the abyss in work that critics have said present images transformed into the space of possibility.

It was 38 years ago when author Thomas Fox Averill heard the song "Tennessee Stud." He enjoyed the lyrical story of courtship, love, and fugitive life so much, that he used the song's plot and mood to write the novel  rode. Averill describes his unique methods of research, creating believable characters in a western, and how he surprises readers. His earlier novels include the 2001, Secrets of the Tsil Cafe, and the 2003, The Slow Air of Ewan McPherson, a bildungsroman about a Scottish boy in small town Kansas.

This month's Save America's Treasures Archive selection.

In memory of acclaimed author Evan S. Connell, who passed away on January 10, 2013, we bring you this 1991 interview by former New Letters on the Air host, Rebekah Presson. The author of 19 works, Connell is best known for his character, Mrs. Bridge, a Kansas City socialite in his novel of the same name. After writing the sequel, the two books became the film Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. In this interview Connell talks about that as well as his novel The Alchymist's Journal.

This compilation features very different approaches to intertwining poetry and music, resulting in equally different performances.  It includes work by current Missouri Poet Laureate William Trowbridge with musician Bob Walkenhorst in their presentation of Ship of Fool: The Musical. Tony Barnstone talks about revising his poetry to set with music by the folk duo Genuine Brandish called Tokyo Burning: World War II Songs. Anika Paris, who won a 2012 Hola Award for the musical drama Temple of the Souls, discusses the differences between writing poetry and crafting lyrics and shares a little of her pop music as well.

Tony Barnstone, son of poet, translator, and scholar Willis Barnstone and visual artist Elli Barnstone, was surrounded by great works of art, literature, and philosophy as a child, and like his sister, Aliki, followed in his father’s footsteps. The author of four collections of poetry, The Golem of Los Angeles, Sad Jazz: Sonnets, and Impure, Barnstone reads from his work and focuses on his 2009 book, Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki. This collection of dramatic monologues draws from history, pulp fiction, and pop culture to tell imagined stories about characters struggling with historical events, challenging readers to connect with what unites and makes us human.

Winner of the first ever Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction in 2012, Irish author Anne Enright talks about her often darkly humorous approach to writing about love, desire, death, and family. Recorded at the Kansas City Public Library, this author of five novels and two short story collections reads from her Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The Gathering, and from The Forgotten Waltz, which was a finalist for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.  She also discusses how having children helped organize her writing life and reads from her older nonfiction book, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, published in the U.S. this year.

Acclaimed fiction writer Jim Shepard is the author of six novels and several short story collections, including Like You'd Understand Anyway, winner of the 2008 Story Prize and a National Book Award finalist. Known for his well-researched and historically grounded fiction about obscure topics, Shepard shares his inspiration for writing and reads from his 2011 collection, You Think That's Bad, in front of an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, while the 2012 Cockefair Writer-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Filipino-American poet Rick Barot wanted to be a lawyer, but after a writing class with Annie Dillard, when he first heard Jane Kenyon, he knew that he was destined to write poetry. Barot discusses the politics of identity, his disdain of narrative poetry, and the odd way in which repressed memories surface in his work. Barot also talks about the influence of Greek poet George Seferis and reads from his collections The Darker Fall and Want.

Poet Marilyn Kallet reads from her book, One for Each Night: Chanukah Tales and Recipes, which she wrote for families to share in lean times.  The book features humorous stories about traditional Chanukah foods, and provides the recipes to prepare them.  In this program, we put the recipes to a test with a family of four Jewish women in Kansas City, including KCUR’s own Linda Sher.  Celebrate the holidays with poetry and food!

Robert Bly, the preeminent poet, translator, and cultural commentator, reads from his 2011 poetry collection, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey, which won the 2012 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement. Winner of a National Book Award and two Guggenheims, Bly has published over twenty collections of poetry, and is highly regarded as a great translator of international poetry. In this recording of his reading at Rockhurst University’s Midwest Poets Series, he performs with sitartist David Whetstone and also reads from My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems, his own adaptation of the Mideastern ghazal form in three-line stanzas.

In this 1991 interview by former New Letters on the Air host, Rebekah Presson, well known Native American poet Joy Harjo reads from her book In Mad Love and War, which won both the William Carlos Williams prize of the Poetry Society of America and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Prize. Harjo—whose memoir, Crazy Brave, was release in July 2012—makes this interview unique by sharing one of her other creative talents and playing the saxophone.

2004 Pulitzer Prize winner, Leonard Pitts Jr., has gained most of his fame from his syndicated column that deals with social issues, race, and family life, many of which are gathered in his book, Forward from This Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2008. Pitts also wrote Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, which is part memoir as he writes about his own childhood with an abusive and semi-absent father.  He talks about how those experiences influence his work, including his three novels.  He reads from his 2012 novel, Freeman, about former slaves who return to the south after the Civil War in search of their scattered families.

Midwestern poet Trish Reeves discusses her latest work in New Letters magazine, which includes a series of poems accompanied by images of glass negatives and photos, depicting life around her great-grandfather, Dr. Joseph Kinyoun, the founder of the National Institute of Health. Reeves describes the historical significance of these negatives for both her own family's heritage and the nation's medical community. She also reads from her book, In the Knees of Gods and discusses the importance of writing poetry and keeping record.

Winner of the 2010 American Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award, poet Sherwin Bitsui reads from his collection, Flood Song. Bitsui also discusses his 2003 book of poetry, Shape Shift, which explores various kinds of "border-crossings." The poet grew up on a Navajo reservation in northern Arizona and says his poetry reflects his connection to nature and ancient traditions but also examines the dichotomy of living in two different worlds with shifting senses of time, language, and culture. Bitsui is also a visual artist and talks about how his paintings, photography, and the intense imagery of his childhood landscapes inform his art.

North Carolina native and former Jehovah’s Witness minister, Stephanie Powell Watts, reads from her first published book, We are Taking Only What We Need, a collection of short stories that was a finalist for the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and winner of the 2012 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. As young, poor, black women, her characters deal with questions of race, faith, and “post-blackness.”  Watts talks about the influence of her story-telling family and Southern upbringing that helped bring her fictional protagonists into being.

This month’s Save America’s Treasures recording.

Listen to the writer made famous on public radio with the airing of his “Santaland Diaries.”  In this 1997 interview, David Sedaris talks about his literary and familial influences and reads from his early bestselling memoir Naked.  He also discusses the impetus for some of his stories that ended up in his collection Me Talk Pretty One Day.  Join us for this archive conversation with one of America’s most comedic writers.

Award winning Poet Gloria Vando—daughter of poet, playwright, and actress Anita Velez-Mitchell and mother to poet and musician Anika Paris—grew up both a part of and apart from the two worlds of New York and Puerto Rico. The trio recently published Woven Voices: 3 Generations of Puertoriquena Poets Look at their American Lives. Vando and Paris talk about the poetry collection, history and longing, and the family’s creative contributions in the production of a new musical drama.

The Kansas City Latino Writers Collective discuss the importance of community to their creative work. Gabriela Lemmons, Josè Faus, Xànath Caraza, and  Miguel Morales each read their own work from Primera Pagina: Poetry from the Latino Heartland as well as selections of fiction and unpublished favorites. This diverse group describes their history, purpose, and service to the community as well as telling the truth, finding an audience, and the art of translating oneself.

 New Letters on the Air 35^th Anniversary tribute to the late Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes. In this 1994 interview by former New Letters on the Air host, Rebekah Presson, the late Carlos Fuentes talks about his collection of five novellas, The Orange Tree. He gives insight into historical stories, such as Columbus arriving in the New World or his imagined meeting between Cortes and Montezuma.  Fuentes discusses the importance of history in his work and what it means to be called upon to be a spokesman for Mexico.

Marjorie Agosin has always felt outside of her culture. Born to Chilean parents in Bethesda, Maryland, she was actually raised in Chile until political instability forced the family to return to the United States. As a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jewish girl with a thick Spanish accent, Marjorie Agosin encountered difficulties transitioning into the North American culture, and talks about how that shaped her poetry and prose.  She discusses why she continues to write in Spanish and reads from translations of her recent books, Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir and her sensual 2010 book-length poem, The Light of Desire, her tribute to Israel.

Luis Alberto Urrea is perhaps best-known for his nonfiction.  His memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life, won the 1999 American Book Award and his book The Devil's Highway: A True Story, about a controversial border-crossing, was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.  But Urrea--the author of four novels and a graphic novel, in addition to collections of short stories and poetry--is equally adept at fiction.  In this interview, he discusses the craft of writing and talks about how the research for his novels The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen Of America changed the way he thinks about the intersections of family legend and history.

Born to Pakistani parents in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ayad Akhtar grew up in a secular home, but like the protagonist of his 2012 debut novel, American Dervish, he became a devout Muslim as a child. He discusses how his evolving relationship with Islam influences his writing, which often features Western-born Muslims struggling with issues of identity, politics, and faith. Akhtar also debuted two plays in 2012, including Disgraced, which will open at Lincoln Center in October. He describes how writing for the stage and screen prepared him to write his novel. 

Poet Jeanne Marie Beaumont talks about how her work pays tribute to some of her poetic foremothers and her passion for collecting. Her three collections of poetry include Curious Conduct, Placebo Effects, and Burning of the Three Fires, all assemblages of everyday objects, fairy tale imagery, and nods to writers who've influenced her, including Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson. Beaumont discusses her love of integrating different art forms and also talks about how poets collect sounds, words and images to create a dreamlike, imaginary world that connects us with time and history.

Wayne Miller calls himself an “obsessive reviser” who tries editors’ patience; ironic given that he edits Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing at the University of Central Missouri, where he also directs the Creative Writing program. Miller reads from his 2011 collection, The City, Our City, and talks about how history and war shape culture and language. He also discusses the art of translation and what it can teach young poets, and shares award-winning poems from his 2006 book, Only the Senses Sleep, and his 2009 collection, The Book of Props.

Best-known for her 1996 novel Push, which became the award-winning 2009 film, Precious, the poet and fiction writer Sapphire has also written books of poetry and prose, including American Dreams and Black Wings and Blind Angels. Her 2011 novel, The Kid, follows the son of Clarice “Precious” Jones. Sapphire reads from the book, now out in paperback, and discusses why she takes on the gritty subject matter of violence, racism, and poverty, and how language and literacy have been redemptive in her own life and the lives of her characters.

Writer and founder of Tia Chucha Press, Luis J. Rodriguez was born in El Paso and grew up in East L.A. and worked odd jobs until he discovered writing. His experiences fueled his earliest books of poetry and his 1993 memoir, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. His 2012 sequel is It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing. He talks about his novels, Music of the Mill, and My Nature Is Hunger: New & Selected Poems, 1989-2004, which won the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize.

Poet Ada Limon’s world changed when she won two book prizes in 2005: the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize for a collection that became her 2006 book, Lucky Wreck, and the Pearl Poetry Prize for what became her 2007 book, This Big Fake World. A California native who lived and worked in New York City for years, Limon draws inspiration from the Sonoma Valley of her childhood, the mythologies of her Mexican grandfather’s Churascan tribe, and the visual arts. She discusses her time working for magazines, and how copywriting and poetry work together for her, and reads from her 2010 book, Sharks in the Rivers.

By the time director Ang Lee adapted the novel Woe to Live On into the 1998 movie Ride with the Devil, Daniel Woodrell had published five other novels and in 2010, four years after its publication, his novel Winter’s Bone became another acclaimed film. In this interview, recorded at the Kansas City Public Library, the Missouri-based writer discusses his work, including his 2011 collection of short stories, The Outlaw Album, with fiction writer Whitney Terrell for the Writers at Work Series.

Known for her 1985 novel Annie John, and her early “Talk of the Town” pieces for the The New Yorker, Caribbean-American writer Jamaica Kincaid frequently blurs the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction. Born Elaine Potter Richardson in colonial Antigua, Kincaid reads from her 2002 novel, Mr. Potter, in which she explores the life of a philandering chauffeur who bears a striking resemblance to her own biological father, and from her 1997 memoir, My Brother. Kincaid also discusses how she approaches difficult issues, such as poverty, AIDS, and the dissolution of families within her work.

Recently named the next United States Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey is also winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Native Guard. In this interview she reads from the book, which traces her personal history growing up as a biracial child in the South and also includes poems about the Union's first black regiment on the Gulf Coast during the Civil War. Trethewey also discusses her earlier book, Domestic Work, which won the first Cave Canem Poetry Prize. She succeeds Phillip Levine as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and will take up her official duties in September 2012.

Acclaimed fiction writer Jim Shepard is the author of six novels and several short story collections, including Like You'd Understand Anyway, winner of the 2008 Story Prize and a National Book Award finalist. Known for his well-researched and historically grounded fiction about obscure topics, Shepard shares his inspiration for writing and reads from his 2011 collection, You Think That's Bad, in front of an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, while the 2012 Cockefair Writer-in-Residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

After working for years as a corporate lawyer in England, Alex George moved to the states with his family in 2003, and later opened his own law practice in mid-Missouri. The author of four previous novels published in England, George has made his American debut with the 2012 novel A Good American, which has received accolades from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and O Magazine. An epic tale about German emigrants who settle in Missouri in the late 1800s, the novel explores the notion of family, home, and what it means to be an American. George reads from A Good American and discusses the inspiration behind the novel and why it took him six years to write it.

Tony Barnstone, son of poet, translator, and scholar Willis Barnstone and visual artist Elli Barnstone, was surrounded by great works of art, literature, and philosophy as a child, and like his sister, Aliki, followed in his father’s footsteps. The author of four collections of poetry, The Golem of Los Angeles, Sad Jazz: Sonnets, and Impure, Barnstone reads from his work and focuses on his 2009 book, Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki. This collection of dramatic monologues draws from history, pulp fiction, and pop culture to tell imagined stories about characters struggling with historical events, challenging readers to connect with what unites and makes us human.

From his first novel, Prague, which became an acclaimed best-seller in 2002, to his most recent novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Phillips has been writing widely varied novels about subjects that naturally pique his interest. In this interview at the Kansas City Public Library, Phillips discusses his faux memoir about the discovery of a lost Shakespeare play and the challenges of writing in William Shakespeare’s voice and weaving metafictional elements into this novel, which features a main character named Arthur Phillips. The Tragedy of Arthur is now out in paperback.

Japanese poet and fiction writer Mariko Nagai has lived all over the globe, from Brussels, Belgium, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and her work includes characters equally diverse. Her 2007 book of poetry, Histories of Bodies, winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, explores different types of love and desire. In her 2010 short story collection, Georgic, winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize, Nagai draws from history to depict characters facing extreme adversity. She talks about her work and reads from both books, including a Pushcart Prize-winning story originally published in New Letters magazine.

Father/daughter poets Willis Barnstone and Aliki Barnstone talk about how they influence each other's work.  Aliki's first book was published before her father's, when she was only 12 years old, but his books of poetry and translations now far outnumber hers.  They read one of their earliest collaborations, published in New Letters magazine in 1977, and Aliki reads from her 2011 book, Bright Body, and her 2009 collection of new and selected poems, Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak, while Willis reads from Life Watch and one of his 501 Sonnets from The Secret Reader.

Fiction writer Jaimy Gordon worked on her novel, Lord of Misrule, set on a West Virginia horse racetrack, for over years before it was published in November 2010. That same month, the novel became the dark horse of the literary world by winning the 2010 National Book Award. Gordon reads from the novel, which recently won the 2012 Independent Publishers Gold IPPY Award for Literary Fiction, and also talks about the craft of writing and some of the similar threads that weave through her six books, including the recently re-released Bogeywoman.

Winner of the 2010 American Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award, poet Sherwin Bitsui reads from his collection, Flood Song. Bitsui also discusses his 2003 book of poetry, Shape Shift, which explores various kinds of "border-crossings." The poet grew up on a Navajo reservation in northern Arizona and says his poetry reflects his connection to nature and ancient traditions but also examines the dichotomy of living in two different worlds with shifting senses of time, language, and culture. Bitsui is also a visual artist and talks about how his paintings, photography, and the intense imagery of his childhood landscapes inform his art.

In this interview recorded at the Kansas City Public Library, Irish author Anne Enright talks about how having children helped organize her writing life and reads from her nonfiction book, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood, released in the U.S. in 2012. Enright discusses her often darkly humorous approach to writing about love, desire, death, and family. The author of five novels and two short story collections, Enright also reads from her Man Booker Prize-winning and bestselling novel, The Gathering, and from The Forgotten Waltz, which was just shortlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Luis Alberto Urrea is perhaps best-known for his nonfiction.  His memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life, won the 1999 American Book Award and his book The Devil's Highway: A True Story, about a controversial border-crossing, was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.  But Urrea--the author of four novels and a graphic novel, in addition to collections of short stories and poetry--is equally adept at fiction.  In this interview, he discusses the craft of writing and talks about how the research for his novels The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen Of America changed the way he thinks about the intersections of family legend and history.

The author of three chapbooks and five poetry collections, including The Complete Book of Kong, Missouri Poet Laureate William Trowbridge is unafraid of incorporating pop culture in his work, perhaps because he felt deprived of it as a child. In his 2011 collection, Ship of Fool, Trowbridge takes on the Fool archetype, leading his character through humiliations and sufferings with his signature humor. In this interview, he discusses his affinity for complex characterizations and descriptive language and his belief that comedy is as necessary as tragedy in great literature.

For the past 29 years, Rockhurst University has brought poets from around the country to do readings for the Kansas City public as part of the Midwest Poets Series. This year featured three very different poets who live in Missouri, including the state’s first poet laureate, Walter Bargen, who is the author of more than a dozen books; Michelle Boisseau, who teaches at UMKC and along with her four collections of poetry is the co-author of Writing Poems; and poet and translator, Aliki Barnstone, who teaches and edits the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Discover the poetic variety of Missouri in this National Poetry Month special.

The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress is one of the most distinguished appointments for an American poet. From the first consultant in 1937, the poets have represented a wide cross-section of talent and geographies. This program features a little history on the role and some of the poets laureate pulled from our archives, including Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, Maxine Kumin, as well as the current laureate, Philip Levine.

In March 2011, a gathering of State Poets Laureate occurred in Lawrence, Kansas, where current and past holders of the post from states as far-flung as Alaska and Rhode Island gathered to read and talk about their work. This program features excerpts from the first night's reading that was kicked off by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. State Poets Laureate featured from this reading include South Carolina's Marjorie Wentworth, David Romdtvet from Wyoming, Peggy Shumaker of Alaska, Iowa's Mary Swander, Missouri's Walter Bargen and Wisconsin's Marilyn Taylor, and Kansas's first, second, and third laureates, Jonathan Holden, Denise Low, and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. The work of these poets is included in the 2011 book, An Endless Skyway.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan talks with New Letters magazine editor, Robert Stewart, about her experience in that post from 2008 until 2010, and her initiative for community colleges called Poetry for the Mind's Joy. She also discusses her personal approach to poetry and her love of rhyme, and reads from her book, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2011.

One of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement and author of more than 20 books of poetry, prose, and drama, Sonia Sanchez is Philadelphia’s first poet laureate. In this interview, she discusses her 2011 books, I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t and Other Plays, which she collected and edited with Dr. Jacqueline Wood, and a collection of poetry called Morning Haiku. She also talks about how she discovered poetry, her use of Brechtian theatre techniques, and the ways activism has informed her art over five decades.

In this special anthology, we examine how some women writers create art that encourages community and connections across boundaries. Former Santa Fe Poet Laureate Valerie Martinez talks about her work with the nonprofit community organization, Littleglobe, and describes some of the struggles of women across the border in Juarez, Mexico. Iranian memoirist, Azar Nafisi, talks about the women in Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, and novelist Lisa See shares stories from Peony in Love, about Chinese women writers of the 17th century.

In her debut novel, Shame the Devil, Debra Brenegan explores the fascinating true store of Sara Payson Willis, a novelist, journalist, and feminist who wrote under the pseudonym "Fanny Fern" during the 1800s. She describes Fern as a 19th century Oprah, who boasted thousands of fans, outsold Harriet Beecher Stowe and served as literary mentor to Walt Whitman. Brenegan reads from the novel and discusses why she felt compelled to rescue the writer from obscurity and how Fanny Fern overcame poverty and an abusive marriage.

Jeanne Marie Beaumont discusses her three books of poetry, Curious Conduct, Placebo Effects, and the 2010 collection, Burning of the Three Fires. Beaumont talks about her love of collecting and integrating different art forms and describes how she incorporates everyday objects and fairy tale imagery in her work. She also discusses how poets collect sounds, words and images and use them to connect with time and history. She reads from her award-winning poetry, including tributes to Sylvia Plath and Sigmund Freud.

As we cross from Black History Month into Women’s History Month, we go to the archives to revisit a program that examines important African-American writers, beginning with the 18th century’s Phyllis Wheatley and concluding with former U.S. Poet Laureate, Rita Dove. The program also features the late Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as recordings from the Folkways collection called Black American History in Ballad, Song, and Prose.

Poet, literary critic, and scholar, Evie Shockley, reads from her two poetry collections, a half-red sea, and the new black, and talks about how poetic form can bring new meaning to a poem’s subject matter. She discusses how her work pays homage to her literary mentors, yet challenges common notions about historical figures and events and what race in America means to different generations. She also shares how her poetry interweaves the personal and political, as well as the historical and imagined, in meaningful ways that challenge readers to see their heroes in new ways.

Poet Terrance Hayes reads from his 2010 collection, Lighthead, which won the National Book Award and was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He talks about some of the themes in his work dealing with light, shadow, and race, and also reads from his third book, Wind in a Box. He discusses the poetic impulse and how he shapes poetry from life.

Much like the heroine in her coming-of-age novel The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, author Heidi Durrow grew up in a biracial household. She talks about being both African-American and Danish, and how she used her own mixed experience, along with a tragic newspaper story, to create her 2010 novel. Durrow also discusses the years she spent writing the novel, which won the 2008 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an award established by Barbara Kingsolver.

The poet James Richardson has called himself an “accidental aphorist,” but his well-crafted works are no accident. He has received awards from the Poetry Society of America and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His 2004 book, Interglacial: New and Selected Poems and Aphorisms, was National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and his 2010 book By the Numbers: Poems and Aphorisms, was a finalist for the National Book Award. He reads from the latter collection and explains why he thinks it’s crucial to his creative process to take “unproductive, wasted” stretches time between books. He also discusses why he prefers poetry and science fiction to novels.

After recovering from a nearly fatal accident, all Peggy Shumaker wanted to do was read. The poet, and Alaska’s State Writer Laureate, 2010-2012, eventually began to write again, and while she didn’t intend to write a memoir, her book of short pieces, Just Breathe Normally, is like one. Shumaker reads from the book and from her poetry collection, Gnawed Bones. She also discusses how writing allows her to take what she calls a kaleidoscopic look at the “broken shards” of her experience, incorporating her physical recovery from the accident with family memories and ancestral stories.

The Symphony is a poetry collective comprised of John Murillo, Dwayne Betts, Randall Horton, and Marcus Jackson. They first met at Cave Canem, the black writers’ symposium, and discovered they all had a shared love of the late African-American poet Etheridge Knight. The four bonded, kept in touch, and now present readings of Knight’s work, as well as their own. In this recording they read from their books and discuss writing about the African-American male experience, from that of an ex-convict to a magna cum laude graduate.

Fiction writer and Vanderbilt University professor Lorraine Lopez was shocked in 2010, when her book of short fiction, Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, became a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Published by a small press, the book was up against the work of Sherman Alexie, Barbara Kingsolver, and Lorrie Moore. Lopez reads from her now recognized collection and talks about why she truly loves writing short stories, and how it differs from writing novels. Her 2011 releases include The Realm of Hungry Spirits, a novel, and a collection of essays that she co-edited, called The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity.

A Sunday in God-Years takes its title from the notion that inside the long stretch of geologic time, human history happens in the blink of God's eye as he rolls over during a Sunday nap. Michelle Boisseau traced some of her own family history back to a Virginia plantation for her fourth collection that is centered around the long poem, "A Reckoning." Made up of 15 sections, it explores the connections between the heirs of slaveholders and slaves, and the repercussions felt in today's society.

Robert Bly, the preeminent poet, translator, and cultural commentator, reads from his 2011 poetry collection, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey. Winner of a National Book Award and two Guggenheims, Bly has published over twenty collections of poetry, and is highly regarded as a great translator of international poetry. In this recording of his reading at Rockhurst University’s Midwest Poets Series, he performs with sitartist David Whetstone and also reads from My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy: Poems, his own adaptation of the Mideastern ghazal form in three-line stanzas.

Another holiday favorite, this highly anthologized short story is read by the late author Grace Paley. "The Loudest Voice" is an amusing tale about a little Jewish girl, chosen to play the lead in her school’s Christmas pageant, and her family’s reactions. Despite the story’s popularity, Grace Paley’s 1998 reading of it for New Letters on the Air was the first ever recorded.

Welsh actor Simon Harrald reads this Christmas classic by the poet Dylan Thomas, evoking the holiday sights, smells and adventures the writer experienced in the early part of the 20th century. Originally written for BBC radio, where Dylan Thomas once worked, this nostalgic look back at what seemed to be a simpler time has become a holiday favorite.

In this interview before an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, Christie Hodgen talks about her novels, Hello, I Must Be Going and Elegies for the Brokenhearted, which are populated by heartbreaking yet funny characters. Both books began as short stories so Hodgen discusses the craft of writing short and long-form fiction and why, despite her own happy childhood, her work often deals with dysfunctional families, handled with her trademark humor. She also talks about commonalities she shares with her father, poet John Hodgen.

For Thanksgiving weekend, we revisit Michael Chabon, who shares stories about family and food. Since winning the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, an epic novel that brings together the creation of Superman, Jewish myths, and forbidden love, Michael Chabon has written novels that bring science fictional elements to literary fiction. He talks about his book of essays on his creative process, called Maps and Legends, and his 2009 memoir, Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son.

Wayne Miller calls himself an “obsessive reviser” who tries editors’ patience; ironic given that he edits Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing at the University of Central Missouri, where he also directs the Creative Writing program. Miller reads from his 2011 collection, The City, Our City, and talks about how history and war shape culture and language. He also discusses the art of translation and what it can teach young poets, and shares award-winning poems from his 2006 book, Only the Senses Sleep, and his 2009 collection, The Book of Props.

Born Ramon Lofton, the poet and fiction writer took the name “Sapphire” because of its folkloric associations with beautiful, sexually empowered African-American women in literature, but also to challenge perceptions of the sassy archetype. Best-known for her 1996 novel Push, which became the award-winning 2009 film, Precious, Sapphire has also written books of poetry and prose, including American Dreams and Black Wings and Blind Angels: Poems. Sapphire's 2011 novel, The Kid, follows the son of Clarice “Precious” Jones. She reads from the book and discusses why she takes on the gritty subject matter of violence, racism, and poverty, and how language and literacy have been redemptive in her own life and the lives of her characters.

Winner of a 2011 Clarion Award for radio from the Association for Women in Communications, New Letters on the Air features poems from When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women. Edited by poet Andrea Hollander Budy, the book features 460 poems by 96 contemporary female poets. Four of those poets, Budy, Robin Behn, Michelle Boisseau, and Jo McDougall, were recorded at the Writers Place in Kansas City. The award-winning program also features archived New Letters on the Air recordings of Alice Friman and Dorianne Laux reading poems included in the highly praised anthology.

Japanese poet and fiction writer Mariko Nagai has lived all over the globe, from Brussels, Belgium, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and her work includes characters equally diverse. Her 2007 book of poetry, Histories of Bodies, winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, explores different types of love and desire. In her 2010 short story collection, Georgic, winner of the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize, Nagai draws from history to depict characters facing extreme adversity. She talks about her work and reads from both books, including a Pushcart Prize-winning story originally published in New Letters magazine.

The author of three chapbooks and five poetry collections, including The Complete Book of Kong, Missouri poet William Trowbridge is unafraid of incorporating pop culture in his work, perhaps because he felt deprived of it as a child. In his 2011 collection, Ship of Fool, Trowbridge takes on the Fool archetype, leading his character through humiliations and sufferings with his signature humor. In this interview, he discusses his affinity for complex characterizations and descriptive language and his belief that comedy is as necessary as tragedy in great literature.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson talks about her 2010 debut book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, winner of both the National Book Award and the Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. She discusses writing the book, now out in paperback, which stems from over 1,200 interviews and chronicles the movement of African-Americans from 1915-1970, from the Jim Crow south to the urban North and West. She reads passages from the book, including one that reveals her own family’s experience migrating north to uncertain futures and possibilities.

Poet Ada Limon’s world changed when she won two book prizes in 2005: the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize for a collection that became her 2006 book, Lucky Wreck, and the Pearl Poetry Prize for what became her 2007 book, This Big Fake World. A California native who lived and worked in New York City for years, Limon draws inspiration from the Sonoma Valley of her childhood, the mythologies of her Mexican grandfather’s Churascan tribe, and the visual arts. She discusses her time working for magazines, and how copywriting and poetry work together for her, and reads from her 2010 book, Sharks in the Rivers.

Born in a small Arizona border town to a Mexican father and English mother, Alberto Rios is often recognized as Arizona's unofficial poet laureate. As a child he once lost the ability to speak in Spanish for several years after being punished by teachers for using the language, but today has become an honored poet in both Spanish and English. His poetry and short fiction have received numerous awards and are often anthologized. He reads from his memoir, Capirotada, selected as the One Book Arizona choice for 2009, and his tenth book of poetry that was published that same year, The Dangerous Shirt.

Fiction writer Jaimy Gordon worked on her novel, Lord of Misrule, set on a West Virginia horserace track, for over a decade before it was published in November 2010. That same month, the novel became the dark horse of the literary world by winning the 2010 National Book Award. Gordon reads from the novel and talks about the craft of writing and some of the similar threads that weave through her six books, and why this particular novel took so long to finish.

Poet, literary critic, and scholar, Evie Shockley, reads from her two poetry collections, a half-red sea and the new black, and talks about how poetic form can bring new meaning to a poem’s subject matter. She discusses how her work pays homage to her literary mentors, yet challenges common notions about historical figures and events and what race in America means to different generations. She also shares how her poetry interweaves the personal and political, as well as the historical and imagined, in meaningful ways that challenge readers to see their heroes in new ways.

The American Library Association designates September as library card sign-up month for students, so we’ve created this audio anthology of poets, novelists, and memoirists, who talk about how they found inspiration and refuge in the libraries of their youth. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Junot Díaz, Esmeralda Santiago, E.L. Doctorow, Anne Lamott and others tell stories about the importance of libraries to their development as writers and to our culture as a whole.

Peter Balakian, a poet of Armenian descent, discusses his 2010 work, Ziggurat, with former New Letters on the Air host, Rebekah Presson Mosby. The book is a poem in 45 sections that attempts to describe and map the thoughts that enter and leave a character's mind as he rides beneath Manhattan on the A-Train. It touches on everything from soul music to the war in Iraq, and gives a semi-autobiographical account of a mail runner in the World Trade Center in the early 1970s.

From his first novel, Prague, which became an acclaimed best-seller in 2002, to his most recent novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Phillips has been writing widely varied novels about subjects that naturally pique his interest. In this interview at the Kansas City Public Library, Phillips discusses the challenges of being a full-time writer, and how he weaves metafictional elements into his newest novel (featuring a main character named Arthur Phillips), and the challenges of writing in the voice of William Shakespeare.

Anne Fortier is the latest in a long line of writers who draw on the legend of the doomed lovers, best known as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In her novel Juliet, recently released in paperback, Fortier follows a descendant of Giulietta Tolomei, who uncovers eerie parallels between her life and that of the “real-life” Juliet. Fortier, who was raised in Denmark, talks about writing this novel in English as opposed to her native Danish, and reflects on bilingualism and her approach to writing adventure stories.

A poet who admits that "90% of his time" is taken up by his day-job, oncologist C. Dale Young talks with New Letters editor, Robert Stewart, about the tradition of the physician-poet.  Also the poetry editor of the New England Review, Young discusses how the act of writing a poem is a political act, and what separates it from propaganda.  He reads from his second book, the 2007 collection, The Second Person, and his 2011 book, Torn.

In this interview in front of an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, Marilynne Robinson, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and more recently the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction, discusses her classic 1980 novel, Housekeeping, as part of the NEA's Big Read program. She also reads from her most recent novel, Home, which is a sequel of sorts to the Pulitzer-winning Gilead.

A finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his fourth novel, The Surrendered, Chang-rae Lee spent 12 years writing this story that is set partially during the Korean War.  It presents a harrowing view of the savagery of war, and draws on some his father's stories. Lee was born in Korea and came with his family to the U.S. when he was three years old.  A graduate of Yale, he won six awards for his 1995 debut novel, Native Speaker.  He teaches creative writing at Princeton, and talks about writing in first versus third person.

Lisa See’s runaway best-selling novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, is now a summer 2011 movie.  In this archive interview, See discusses the female characters in this novel and in Peony in Love, both set in imperial China, in the 17th and 19th centuries respectively.  Discover how these characters—and their real-life historical inspirations—dealt with life in a male-dominated, oppressive culture.  See talks about the importance of history in shaping her fiction. 

Richard Russo, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Empire Falls, describes his writing process as “hiking without knowing where your trails are going.”  As a “late-career novelist,” he learned that when he runs out of experience, he reads the terrain and weaves a story from the clues he can see ahead.  Russo reads from his two very different novels, the epic Bridge of Sighs (2007) and the comic That Old Cape Magic (2009) and discusses his approach to writing everything from screenplays to short stories. 

Author Jenna Blum’s first novel, Those Who Save Us, is a book about Nazis and the Holocaust, and it gained popularity by word of mouth.  She talks about the power of book clubs, and shares some insight into her New York Times bestseller.  She also discusses her newest novel, The Stormchasers, released in paperback in 2011, which explores a character with bipolar disorder.  Whether it’s Nazis, mental illness, or severe weather, Blum is interested in situations which allow her to explore characters who overcome great obstacles.

For the American holiday, we present W.S. Merwin, who became the 17th U.S. Poet Laureate in 2010.   With a career spanning more than 60 years, Merwin has won nearly every major literary honor, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice--in 1971 and again in 2009. In this archive interview, poet and scholar, H. L. Hix, author of Understanding W.S. Merwin, talks with the poet about how his work is influenced by environmental activism. A long-time resident of Hawaii, Merwin's interest in the preservation of the islands' ecology and culture are evident in readings from his 1999 book, The River Sound, as well his 1998 novel-in-verse, The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, a fact-based fictional tale of Hawaii's tragic 19th century history.

Author Heidi Durrow, much like the heroine in her coming-of-age novel The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, grew up in a bi-racial household. She talks about being both African-American and Danish, and how she used her own mixed experience along with a tragic newspaper story to create this 2010 novel. Durrow also discusses the years she spent writing this novel that ended up winning the Bellwether Prize for Literature and Social Change in 2008, an award established and made by Barbara Kingsolver.

For Father's Day, we'll feature father/daughter poets Willis Barnstone and Aliki Barnstone, who talk about how they influence each other's work.  Aliki's first book was published before her father's, when she was only 12 years old, but his books of poetry and translations now far outnumber hers.  They read one of their earliest collaborations, published in New Letters magazine in 1977, and Aliki reads from her 2011 book, Bright Body, and her 2009 collection of new and selected poems, Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak, while Willis reads from Life Watch and one of his 501 Sonnets from The Secret Reader.

The Poet Laureate of Missouri, David Clewell, has only ever wanted to be a poet--not a novelist, or an essayist, or any other kind of writer. However, he is a proponent of creating characters, fictionalizing people from his life-- the girl who got away, the conspiracy theory-loving Uncle Bud, or the father, angry with Orson Welles for getting the best of him. In this program, David Clewell reads from his two most recent books, the 2011 collection, Taken Somehow By Surprise, and his 2003, The Low End of Higher Things.  He talks about his interest in intertwining high and low culture, and his role as his state’s poetry overlord.

Sara Gruen's first two published books, Riding Lessons and the sequel Flying Changes, were billed and marketed as mass-market "women's fiction." She broke that genre mold with her 2006 novel Water for Elephants, that was adapted into a major motion picture and released in April, 2011. Gruen talks about finding the voice for the 90-year-old man who spent his early life as a veterinarian for a traveling circus, the newspaper photograph that inspired the story, her extensive research on circuses, and how she confined herself to a closet to write this book.  Her 2010 novel, Ape House, is now out in paperback. 

A veteran of the Iraq War, Brian Turner brings the realities of battle and its impact on soldiers to life in his two books of poetry: Here, Bullet, his debut collection that won several awards, including the 2007 Poets Prize, and Phantom Noise, his critically acclaimed 2010 book. He talks about his work with New Letters magazine editor, Robert Stewart, and shares how poetry helped him survive as an infantry team leader in Iraq.

In this interview before an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, Christie Hodgen talks about her novels that are populated by heartbreaking, yet funny characters: Hello, I Must Be Going and Elegies for the Brokenhearted. Both books began as short stories, so Hodgen discusses the craft of writing short and long-form fiction, and why, despite her own happy childhood, her work often deals with dysfunctional families, though handled with her trademark humor. She talks about commonalities she shares with her father, poet John Hodgen.

Poet Terrance Hayes reads from his 2010 collection, Lighthead, which won the National Book Award and was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He talks about some of the themes in his work dealing light, shadow, and race, and also reads from his third book, Wind in a Box.  He discusses the poetic impulse and how he shapes poetry from life.

Beth Ann Fennelly has written four books of poetry in the last decade, working in creative partnership with her husband, novelist Tom Franklin. Born in New Jersey and raised in Illinois, she talks about her relocation to Mississippi and how the south now reverberates in her work. She also discusses her life as a poet, teacher, and now mother, and reads from her books of poetry, Tender Hooks, Open House, and Unmentionables, as well as her non-fiction book, Great With Child: Letters to a Young Mother.

When Kay Ryan talked with New Letters editor Robert Stewart, he gave her a self-described "debriefing" to talk about the experience of being United States Poet Laureate from 2008-2010.  Ryan reads from The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2011.  She discusses the mechanics of poetry, as well as her love of riding mountain bikes on the trails near her home in Marin County, California. 

In March, 2011, a gathering of State Poets Laureate occurred in Lawrence, Kansas, where current and past holders of the post from states as far-flung as Alaska and Rhode Island gathered to read and talk about their work. This program features excerpts from the first night's reading that was kicked off by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. State Poets Laureate featured from this reading include South Carolina's Marjorie Wentworth, David Romdtvet from Wyoming, Peggy Shumaker of Alaska, Iowa's Mary Swander, Missouri's Walter Bargen and Wisconsin's Marilyn Taylor, and Kansas's first, second, and third laureates, Jonathan Holden, Dennis Low, and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. The work of these poets is included in the 2011 book, An Endless Skyway. 

After meeting at Cave Canem, the black writers’ symposium, John Murillo, Dwayne Betts, Randall Horton, and Marcus Jackson discovered they all had a shared love of the late African-American poet Etheridge Knight.  The four bonded, kept in touch, and formed their own poetry collective called “The Symphony.”  Each poet of the collective reads from his work, and discusses writing from the perspective of the African-American male experience.

Prolific poet Anne Waldman is younger than the Beat Generation, but she did know many of its prominent voices.  She talks about her life-long friendship with Allen Ginsberg, and their role in founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.  This other half of the 2010 interview at the Associated Writing Programs conference features two poems from her 2011 release of Iovis III in the book The Iovus Trilogy, included in the musical recording by her son, Ambrose Bye called Matching Half.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land..." The famous words of poet T.S. Eliot prompted us to mix this anthology of American poets, who examine the mysteries of love in various forms. Listen to former Poets Laureate Billy Collins, Charles Simic, Rita Dove, Donald Hall and Kay Ryan, whose poetry initiative is with community colleges. We also hear from poets Randall Mann, Debra Marquart, Elizabeth Alexander, Alberto Rios, and Claudia Emerson who offer their poetic insights into the ambiguous and enticing world of love, on The Cruelest Month, a finalist for the New York Festivals International Radio Award. Find out how to celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Growing up in bayou country, the poet Martha Serpas became attached to the landscape and to the culture of southern Louisiana. Not surprisingly, poems about the environment and the endangered Gulf shores permeate her work, including her 2006 collection, The Dirty Side of the Storm, and her earlier book, Côte Blanche. Raised Roman Catholic, Serpas also discusses the role religion plays in her work and in her life as a lesbian and a hospital chaplain. Her poetry is included in the environmental documentary film, Veins in the Gulf. Serpas recommends the LA Gulf Response Coalition to anyone interested in helping with environmental issues in Louisiana.

Gjertrud Schnackenberg is the author of six poetry collections, including the 2010 book Heavenly Questions, and she reads from this elegiac tribute to her late husband.  Frequently cited by other prominent poets as their favorite poet, Schnackenberg discusses the technicalities of poetry, including rhyme, rhythm, iambic pentameter, and her particular love for the semicolon with New Letters magazine editor Robert Stewart. She also reads her earlier well-known poem "Supernatural Love."

The recipient of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, Anna Quindlen had a long career in journalism and writing syndicated columns, especially the 1980s series "Life in the 30s," which led her to becoming an unintended voice of the baby boom generation. Quindlen moved away from journalism to write fiction full-time in 1995, and developed a successful career as a novelist. She discusses her journalistic roots and the family dynamics at play in her 2010 novel, Every Last One.

Marjorie Agosin has always felt outside of her culture. Born to Chilean parents in Bethesda, Maryland, she was actually raised in Chile until political instability forced the family to return to the United States. As a blonde-haired, blue eyed Jewish girl with a thick Spanish accent, Marjorie Agosin encountered difficulties transitioning into the North American culture, and talks about how that shaped her poetry and prose.  She discusses why she continues to write in Spanish and reads from translations of her recent books, Of Earth and Sea: A Chilean Memoir and her sensual 2010 book-length poem, The Light of Desire, her tribute to Israel.

Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for her narrative nonfiction.  She talks about taking a 15-year-long break from journalism to write this book that stemmed from over 1,200 interviews with many generations of African-Americans, and show she became interested in the topic because of her family’s own experience migrating from the Jim Crow South to unknown and uncertain futures and possibilities in the urban North and West. 

In this public reading entitled "Love Letters to Generations" Angela Jackson shares some of her work from the last two decades. A poet and dramatist, she reads from her first novel that has been 40 years in the making, Where I Must Go, published in 2009. She also reads from her poetry books, Dark Legs and Silk Kisses: The Beatitudes of the Spinners (winner of the 1994 Carl Sandburg Award) and the more recent books, And All These Roads Be Luminous and The Man with the White Liver.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, husband and wife poets, Terrance Hayes and Yona Harvey talk about their work and how they balance their creative lives and family. Hayes reads poems from his 2010 collection, Lighthead, which won the National Book Award in November, while Harvey shares work from her forthcoming book, Hemming the Water. Unsentimental, yet poignant, these poems enlighten the creative process.

To kick off Black History Month, we turn to our extensive archive to present this look back at the legacy of the legendary poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917- 2000). The first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize for her 1949 poetry collection, Annie Allen, Brooks went on to influence generations of poets. In this compilation made from 1984 and 1988 recordings, Brooks reads from her works, including her famous "We Real Cool" poem, and talks about her childhood, her decision to leave Harper & Row for a black publishing company, and the recognition of her own mortality.

Kazim Ali, a poet of Indian heritage, talks about his Muslim faith and its influences on his work, and ways in which views of biblical characters vary in Islam. A poet who is interested in autobiographical poetry, his work builds musical narratives that weave in historical references and geography. He discusses the similarity between the Persian poet Rumi and Emily Dickinson and reads from his two books, Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities and The Far Mosque.

Fresh from a painful divorce, travel writer Maria Finn sought solace in something that made her happy: tango lessons. In her 2010 memoir, Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home, Finn recounts how tango slowly took over her life, until a trip to the birthplace of the dance, Buenos Aires, gave her the confidence to open her heart again. Finn discusses how she mingles memoir with history to create her non-fiction.

In this conversation at the Kansas City Public Library, Scottish-born fiction writer Margot Livesey talks about her seventh book of fiction, The House on Fortune Street. This contemporary novel about four Londoners, told from the four distinct points of view, is filled with entertaining references to literary works such as Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. Livesey reads from the novel, and talks about her approach to crafting this intricate and engaging fiction, and how it compares to her earlier books, like Eva Moves the Furniture.

"Acedia" was a once-common notion--one of the "eight bad thoughts"--but it was folded into sloth as one of the seven deadly sins and vanished from common use. Poet Kathleen Norris, author of Dakota: A Spiritual Memoir and The Cloister Walk, spent time researching acedia, the state of not caring about anything. She describes her own struggle with this negative emotion that differs from depression and explores the word in her non-fiction book, Acedia and Me.

Novelist, playwright, journalist and screenwriter, Mitch Albom has written six books, including the international bestseller, Tuesdays with Morrie.  With his most recent book, Have a Little Faith, he returned to nonfiction, tracing the stories of two very different men--one, an impoverished African-American urban pastor and the other, a suburban Jewish Rabbi--and what he learned from both of them about faith and belief. Albom reads from the book, and talks about A Hole in the Roof Foundation that it benefits.  He also discusses writing in the many different genres, and even sings one of his songs from Christmas in Detroit, a CD collection that also benefits the homeless. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning short story writer, Robert Olen Butler follows his recent story collections, Intercourse and Severance: Stories, with his novel, Hell. Making humorous bows to Dante and Virgil, Butler follows a TV newsman on his pursuit of a breaking story about Satan through this underworld inhabited with characters ranging from Henry the VIII's Anne Boleyn to George Bush. He reads from the book and also talks about his views on the creative process, which are included in his non-fiction book, From Where You Dream.

A veteran of the Iraq War, Brian Turner brings the realities of battle and its impact on soldiers to life in his two books of poetry.  His debut collection, Here, Bullet, won several awards including the 2007 Poets Prize, and his 2010 book, Phantom Noise, has been highly acclaimed.  He talks about his work with New Letters magazine editor, Robert Stewart, and shares how poetry helped him survive as an infantry team leader in Iraq.

Anne Fortier is the latest in a long line of writers who draw on the legend of the doomed lovers, best known as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  In her novel Juliet, Fortier follows a descendant of Giulietta Tolomei, who uncovers eerie parallels between her life and that of the “real-life” Juliet.  Fortier, who was raised in Denmark, talks about writing this novel in English as opposed to her native Danish, and reflects on bilingualism and her approach to writing adventure stories.

Chosen by Publisher's Weekly as one of the Best Books of 2009, How to Sell is a funny exposé novel about the jeweler's trade, in which author Clancy Martin worked for many years before eventually becoming an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Martin talks with New Letters on the Air's Max Mosley about writing this coming-of-age story about a 16-year-old Canadian high school drop-out, and how he weaves philosophy and autobiography into this novel that has just been released in paperback.

Richard Russo, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Empire Falls, describes his writing process as “hiking without knowing where your trails are going.”  The author returned to New Letters on the Air to talk about everything from writing screenplays to writing novels and short stories.  As, in his words, a “late-career novelist,” he learned that when he runs out of experience, he reads the terrain and weaving a story from the clues he can see ahead.  Russo reads from his newest novels, Bridge of Sighs and That Old Cape Magic.

Author Jenna Blum’s first novel, Those Who Save Us, a book about Nazis and the Holocaust, gained popularity by word of mouth and through the power of bookclubs.  She talks about the power of book clubs, and shares some insight into the New York Times bestseller.  She also briefly discusses her newest novel, The Stormchasers, which features a character with bipolar disorder.  Whether it’s Nazis mental illness and severe weather, Blum is interested in situations which allow her to explore characters who overcome great obstacles.

Irish-born author Joseph O'Neill discusses his latest novel, Netherland, which has been favorably compared to The Great Gatsby, winning the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. Set in New York City immediately after 9/11, the novel details how two men, a Dutch financial analyst and a Trinidadian entrepreneur, bond over the love of cricket. Raised in Holland from the age of 12, O'Neill currently resides in New York's Chelsea Hotel with his family. He discusses how he uses such details in his writing, and how his fiction was influenced by an early love of poetry.

In this interview in front of an audience at the Kansas City Public Library, Marilynne Robinson, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, and most recently the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction, discusses her classic 1980 novel Housekeeping, which was part of the NEA’s Big Read program. 

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky discusses his new book of prose, Thousands of Broadways: Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town.  Raised in Long Branch, New Jersey, where his family has a long history, Pinsky examines American small town life, and how it plays in literature, such as in Faulkner's The Hamlet. He also reads some poetry, talks about his book, The Sounds of Poetry, and gives an update on his Favorite Poem Project that was developed during his poet laureateship:  www.favoritepoem.org.

W.S. Merwin begins his term as the 17th U.S. Poet Laureate with a reading at the Library of Congress this month, and we revisit an archive conversation with him.  With a career spanning more than 60 years, Merwin has won nearly every major literary honor, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice--in 1971 and again in 2009.  Poet and scholar, H. L. Hix, author of Understanding W. S. Merwin (Understanding Contemporary American Literature), talks with the poet about how his work is influenced by environmental activism. A long-time resident of Hawaii, Merwin's interest in the preservation of the islands' ecology and culture are evident in readings from his 1999 book, The River Sound: Poems, as well his 1998 novel-in-verse, The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, a fact-based fictional tale of Hawaii's tragic 19th century history.