AWM Author Talks

This week, Mike Thomas, co-author of the Johnny Carson biography Carson the Magnificent, sits down with Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune to discuss the highly anticipated biography—twenty years in the making—of the entertainer who redefined late-night television and reshaped American culture. Thomas—who finished the project Bill Zehme started after Bill's passing—shares insights into the reporting process, picking up where Zehme left off, and the influence of Carson on today's comedy.This conversation originally took place November 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Carson the Magnificent:In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he’d granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than showbiz legend. Shortly after Carson’s death in 2005 and urged on by many of those closest to Carson, Zehme signed a contract to do an expansive biography. He toiled on the book for nearly a decade—interviewing dozens of Carson’s colleagues and friends and filling up a storage locker with his voluminous research—before a cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatments halted his progress. When he died in 2023 his obituaries mentioned the Carson book, with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman calling it "one of the great unfinished biographies."Yet the hundreds of pages Zehme managed to complete are astounding both for the caliber of their writing and how they illuminate one of the most inscrutable figures in entertainment history: A man who brought so much joy and laughter to so many millions but was himself exceedingly shy and private. Zehme traces Carson’s rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to a Navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show—which he transformed, along with the entirety of American popular culture, over the next three decades. Without Carson, there would be no late-night television as we know it. On a much more intimate level, Zehme also captures the turmoil and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, troubles with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child.In one passage, Zehme notes that when asked by an interviewer in the mid-80s for the secret to his success, Carson replied simply, "Be yourself and tell the truth." Completed with help from journalist and Zehme’s former research assistant Mike Thomas, Carson the Magnificent offers just that: an honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was.MIKE THOMAS is the author of two critically acclaimed books, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater and You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman. He spent more than fourteen years as an arts and entertainment features writer at the Chicago Sun-Times and is a regular contributor to Chicago magazine. He lives in Chicago with his family.Born and raised and still living in Chicago, RICK KOGAN has worked for the Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune, where he currently is a columnist. Inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2003, he...

This is our 200th episode! To celebrate the occasion, we’ve gone back in the vault for highlights from the ten most listened-to episodes of the past one hundred. So, that is episodes 101 through 199. Enjoy these top ten clips, and listen to the full episodes wherever you get your podcasts. We have included the episode numbers so you can more easily find them.Listen to the full episodes below:David W. Blight — The Legacy of Frederick Douglass (Ep. 111)Elie Mystal — Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution (Ep. 129)Comedy Writing Panel — Cristela Alonzo, Karen Chee, Peter Gwinn, Alexandra Petri & Peter Sagal (Ep. 125)Kim Michele Richardson — The Book Woman's Daughter (Ep. 105)Aaron Sorkin — To Kill A Mockingbird Play (Ep. 101)Leonard Moore — Teaching Black History to White People (Ep. 126)Ross Gay — Inciting Joy: Essays (Ep. 117)Joy Harjo & Marie Arana — U.S. Poet Laureate and Literary Director of the Library of Congress (Ep. 113) Imani Perry & Dawn Turner — South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (Ep. 119)Ashley C. Ford & Eve L. Ewing — Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir (Ep. 130)AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME

Two bestselling authors — Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy) and Lydia Millet (We Loved It All) — discuss the process and craft of writing a memoir with book critic Donna Seaman. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEA Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung — A searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost.We Loved It All: A Memory of Life by Lydia Millet — This lucent anti-memoir from celebrated novelist Lydia Millet explores the pain and joy of being a parent, child, and human at a moment when the richness of the planet’s life is deeply threatened.NICOLE CHUNG’S A Living Remedy was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen outlets. Her 2018 debut, All You Can Ever Know, was a national bestseller and finalist the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Time, the Atlantic, GQ, the Guardian, and Slate. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in the Washington, DC area.LYDIA MILLET has written more than a dozen novels and short story collections, including Dinosaurs (2022) and A Children’s Bible, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction and one of The New York Times Book Review’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Millet has won fiction awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PEN-Center USA and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; since 1999 she has also worked as a writer and editor at the Center for Biological Diversity. We Loved It All is her first work of nonfiction.DONNA SEAMAN is Editor, Adult Books for Booklist. A recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award, Seaman is a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, a frequent presenter at various literary events and programs, and an adjunct professor for Northwestern University’s MA in Writing and MFA in MFA in Prose and Poetry Programs. Seaman’s author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists.

This week, historian and biographer Paul Hendrickson discusses writing about his own family's history and his recent book Fighting the Night: Iwo Jima, World War II, and a Flyer’s Life, the profoundly moving story of his father's wartime service as a night fighter pilot, and the prices he and his fellow soldiers paid for their acts of selfless, patriotic sacrifice. Paul is joined by book critic Elizabeth Taylor. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Fighting the Night:In the fall of 1944, Joe Paul Hendrickson, the author's father, kissed his twenty-one-year-old wife and two baby children goodbye. The twenty-five-year-old first lieutenant, pilot of a famed P-61 Black Widow, was leaving for the war. He and his night fighter squadron were sent to Iwo Jima, where, for the last five and a half months of World War II, he flew approximately seventy-five missions, largely in pitch-black conditions. His wife would wait out the war at the home of her small-town Ohio parents, one of the countless numbers of American family members shouldering the burden of being left behind.Joe Paul, the son of a Depression-poor Kentucky sharecropper, was fresh out of high school in 1937 when he enlisted in mechanic school in the peacetime Army Air Corps. Eventually, he was able to qualify for flight school. After marriage, and with the war on, the young officer and his bride crisscrossed the country, airfield to airfield, base to base: Santa Ana, Yuma, Kissimmee, Bakersfield, Orlando, La Junta, Fresno. He volunteered for night fighters and the newly arrived and almost mythic Black Widow. A world away, the carnage continued. As Paul Hendrickson tracks his parents' journey, together and separate, both stateside and overseas, he creates a vivid portrait of a hard-to-know father whose time in the war, he comes to understand, was something truly heroic, but never without its hidden and unhidden psychic costs.Bringing to life an iconic moment of American history, and the tragedy of all wars, Fighting the Night is an intense and powerful story of violence and love, forgiveness and loss. And it is a tribute to those who got plunged into service, in the best years of their lives, and the sacrifices they and their loved ones made, then and thereafter.PAUL HENDRICKSON is a three-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a winner in 2003 for his book Sons of Mississippi. The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War was a 1996 finalist for the National Book Award. Hemingway’s Boat was a New York Times best seller. He has been the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lyndhurst Foundation, and the Alicia Patterson Foundation. Since 1998, he has been on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and for two decades before that, he was a staff writer at The Washington Post. He lives with his wife, Cecilia, outside Philadelphia and in Washington, DC.ELIZABETH TAYLOR, Literary Editor at Large of the Chicago Tribune, has served as President of the NBCC. The co-author of American Pharaoh, she edited both the Books and Sunday Magazine sections of the Chicago Tribune, and was a national correspondent for Time magazine, based in New York and then Chicago.

This week, author Rebecca Siegel offers media literacy advice and discusses her book Loch Ness Uncovered: Media, Misinformation, and the Greatest Monster Hoax of All Time, an extensively researched, myth-busting account of the world's most famous monster hoax—the Loch Ness Monster—and a cautionary tale on the dangers of misinformation. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Loch Ness Uncovered:In 1934, a man was walking by a lake in the Scottish Highlands when he saw a long-necked creature swimming in the water. He grabbed his camera and snapped a photo. When the photo landed on the front page of the Daily Mail, it shattered the belief that paranormal creatures were pure fiction. But amid the monster-hunting craze, complex conspiracies soon emerged. The Loch Ness Monster became more than a mysterious sea creature—it became a phenomenon that caused people to question their assumptions and dig for the truth.Meticulously researched through primary sources and in-depth interviews with key figures, Loch Ness Uncovered is the fascinating true story of the conspiracy that sparked intrigue worldwide. Complete with archival images, an engaging narrative, and a guide to media literacy, here is a nonfiction book that will transport young readers to the thrilling world of monster mania.REBECCA SIEGEL has worked in children’s publishing for 18 years. Three of her books have received Starred Reviews in Booklist, including To Fly Among the Stars (Scholastic 2020), which was also named a Mighty Girl’s Book of the Year, and one of the National Science Teaching Association’s Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students. Another recent title, Mayflower (Quarto 2020) was named a 2021 EUREKA! Children’s Honor Book. Rebecca has two books publishing in 2024: Loch Ness Uncovered (Astra Young Readers) and The United States Book (Welbeck). Rebecca lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two daughters.

This week, acclaimed writers Renée Watson and Jabari Asim talk about Watson’s novel, skin & bones, as well as writing Black history and moving from writing for children to adults. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout skin & bones:From the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a soulful and lyrical novel exploring sisterhood, motherhood, faith, love, and ultimately what gets passed down from one generation to the next.At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life—between wine nights with her two best friends and her wedding just weeks away, she's happy in love and in friendship until a confession on her wedding day shifts her world.Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love while struggling to do so herself. Lena questions everything she's learned about dating, friendship, and motherhood, and through it all, she works tirelessly to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, sidestepping her well-meaning co-workers that don't understand that their good intentions are often offensive and hurtful.Through Watson's poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.RENÉE WATSON is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Over the past decade she has authored fifteen young adult books, which have collectively sold more than a million copies. She received a Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor for Piecing Me Together and high praise for 1619 Project: Born on the Water. Watson is on the Council of Writers for the National Writing Project and is a member of the Academy of American Poets’ Education Advisory Council. She is also a writer-in-residence at The Solstice Low-Residency MFA Creative Writing Program. Renée splits her time between New York City and Portland, Oregon.JABARI ASIM is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. He directs the MFA program in creative writing at Emerson College, where he is also the Elma Lewis Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice. His nonfiction books include The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why; What Obama Means: For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future; Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice, and Life; and We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival. His books for children include Whose Toes Are Those? and Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis. His works of fiction include A Taste of Honey, Only the Strong, and Yonder.

This week, scholar Marilyn Sanders Mobley visits the AWM to discuss her book Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing, which Henry Louis Gates, Jr. calls a "powerful and learned meditation, and one that deserves a prominent place in the field of Morrison studies." Mobley is joined in conversation by poet Parneshia Jones. This conversation originally took place October 15, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing:Toni Morrison’s readers and critics typically focus more on the “what” than the “how” of her writing. In Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing, Marilyn Sanders Mobley analyzes Morrison’s expressed narrative intention of providing “spaces for the reader” to help us understand the narrative strategies in her work.Mobley’s approach is as interdisciplinary, intersectional, nuanced, and complex as Morrison’s. She combines textual analysis with a study of Morrison’s cultural politics and narrative poetics and describes how Morrison engages with both history and the present political moment.Informed by research in geocriticism, spatial literary studies, African American literary studies, and Black feminist studies at the intersection of poetics and cultural politics, Mobley identifies four narrative strategies that illuminate how Morrison creates such spaces in her fiction; what these spaces say about her understanding of place, race, and belonging; and how they constitute a way to read and re-read her work.MARILYN SANDERS MOBLEY is Emerita Professor of English and African American Studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of Folk Roots and Mythic Wings in Sarah Orne Jewett and Toni Morrison: The Cultural Function of Narrative and a spiritual memoir, The Strawberry Room, and Other Places Where a Woman Finds Herself.PARNESHIA JONES studied creative writing at Chicago State University and earned an MFA from Spalding University. Her first book Vessel (2015) was the winner of the Midwest Book Award and featured in O, The Oprah Magazine as one of 12 poetry books to savor for National Poetry Month. Her poems have been published in anthologies such as The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007), Poetry Speaks Who I Am (2010), and She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems (2011), edited by Caroline Kennedy. Jones serves on the boards of Cave Canem and the Guild Complex and the advisory board for UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry. She is the director of Northwestern University Press.

This week, in honor of Indigenous People’s Day, scholars Rose Miron and Jean O'Brien discuss the power and importance of indigenous storytelling, activism, history, and memory; as well as Miron’s book Indigenous Archival Activism: Mohican Interventions in Public History and Memory.This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout Indigenous Archival Activism:Who has the right to represent Native history?The past several decades have seen a massive shift in debates over who owns and has the right to tell Native American history and stories. For centuries, non-Native actors have collected, stolen, sequestered, and gained value from Native stories and documents, human remains, and sacred objects. However, thanks to the work of Native activists, Native history is now increasingly being repatriated back to the control of tribes and communities. Indigenous Archival Activism takes readers into the heart of these debates by tracing one tribe's fifty-year fight to recover and rewrite their history.Rose Miron tells the story of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation and their Historical Committee, a group of mostly Mohican women who have been collecting and reorganizing historical materials since 1968. She shows how their work is exemplary of how tribal archives can be used strategically to shift how Native history is accessed, represented, written and, most importantly, controlled. Based on a more than decade-long reciprocal relationship with the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, Miron's research and writing is shaped primarily by materials found in the tribal archive and ongoing conversations and input from the Stockbridge-Munsee Historical Committee.As a non-Mohican, Miron is careful to consider her own positionality and reflects on what it means for non-Native researchers and institutions to build reciprocal relationships with Indigenous nations in the context of academia and public history, offering a model both for tribes undertaking their own reclamation projects and for scholars looking to work with tribes in ethical ways.DR. ROSE MIRON is the Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago and Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern University. Her research explores Indigenous public history and public memory within the Northeast and the Great Lakes regions. She holds a BA in History and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota.JEAN O’BRIEN (citizen, White Earth Ojibwe Nation) is Regents Professor and McKnight Distinguished University Professor of History at University of Minnesota. O’Brien is a scholar of American Indian and Indigenous history. Her scholarship has been especially influential regarding New England’s American Indian peoples in relation to European colonial settlement. O’Brien’s works include: Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650-1790, in which she demonstrates the persistence of Indians in the face of market economies that first commodified, and then slowly alienated their lands; Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England

This week, investigative journalists Shawn Cohen and Philip Eil share insights into their reporting processes, interviewing techniques, and writing true crime with honesty and sensitivity. Moderated by journalist Evan F. Moore. They also discuss their latest books:College Girl, Missing: The True Story of How a Young Woman Disappeared in Plain Sight by Shawn Cohen. "She visited friends. She walked to a bar. She was right there…until she was gone. Investigative journalist Shawn Cohen breaks more than a decade of silence as he pursues the truth: what really happened to Lauren Spierer?"Prescription for Pain: How a Once-Promising Doctor Became the “Pill Mill Killer” by Philip Eil. "An obsessive true crime investigation of a bizarre and unlikely perpetrator, who’s serving the opioid epidemic’s longest term for illegal prescriptions—four life sentences."This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the panelists:SHAWN COHEN is an investigative journalist specializing in crime and law enforcement reporting. He is currently working for the Daily Mail as a senior reporter on its exclusives team, breaking news on national stories. He has twenty-eight years of front-line experience covering everything from small-town murders and police corruption to Hurricane Katrina and mass shootings.PHILIP EIL is an award-winning freelance journalist based in his hometown, Providence, Rhode Island. He is the former news editor of the alt-weekly newspaper, The Providence Phoenix. Since the paper’s close in 2014, he has contributed to The Atlantic, Men’s Health, the Boston Globe, Huffington Post, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among other outlets. He has also taught writing and journalism classes at Brown University, Columbia University’s School of the Arts, and the Rhode Island School of Design. He holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the Columbia University School of the Arts. This is his first book.EVAN F. MOORE is a Chicago-based writer whose work over time consists of topics at the intersection of sports, race, entertainment, news, and culture. Evan, an adjunct community journalism professor at DePaul University, is the co-author of the critically-acclaimed book, Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. Evan, who has won several journalism awards and nominations, is also a member of the Harold Washington Literary Award committee.

This week, prominent writers and game designers discuss crafting game narrative and representation within gaming communities. Featured panelists are Keith Ammann, Derek Tyler Attico, Keisha Howard, and Samantha Ortiz. Moderated by Carly A. Kocurek. Learn more about them below.This episode is presented in conjunction with our special exhibit Level Up: Writers & Gamers, on display now through May 2025 at the American Writers Museum. Level Up explores the role of narrative and storytelling in gaming, from the 1970s to today. Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Level Up enriches visitors' understanding of writing through fun and interactive formats, inspires young people to try a new form of writing, and encourages exploration of the worlds created through games. Join the adventure today!This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the panelists:KEITH AMMANN is an ENNIE Award–winning writer based in Chicago. He’s the author of several books of advice for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons players, including The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters, MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing, and most recently How to Defend Your Lair, all published by Saga Press, and has written the blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing since 2016. He’s been a role-playing gamer and game master for more than thirty years. He likes to play outwardly abrasive helpers, out-of-their-element helpers, and genuinely nice, helpful helpers. Mostly, though, he plays non-player characters. And monsters.DEREK TYLER ATTICO is a science fiction author, essayist, and photographer. He won the Excellence in Playwriting Award from the Dramatist Guild of America. Derek is also a two-time winner of the Star Trek Strange New Worlds short story contest, published by Simon and Schuster. He is the author of the bestselling, critically acclaimed Star Trek Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko from Titan Books. With a degree in English and History, Derek is an advocate of the arts, human rights, and inclusion. He can be found at DerekAttico.com and on social media platforms under the handle @Dattico.KEISHA HOWARD is best known as the creator of Sugar Gamers, the world’s longest-running gaming & tech community geared toward inclusivity. What began as a multicultural gamer group is now an award-winning organization that supports it’s inclusive membership in finding their place in the rapidly growing industry, facilitating Sugar Gamers’ evolution from video game enthusiasts to game developers, writers, testers, voice and mo-cap actors, artists and designers. A consummate futurist, Keisha recognizes the potential for video games to transcend their role as entertainment and become a mechanism for inspiration and social change. As a true “geek of all trades” and first-wave gaming and esports influencer, Keisha’s experience spans from introducing game design/media literacy to underprivileged youth, such as her partnership with Adidas and the NBA on tech advocacy activations, to consulting Microsoft’s XBOX division as well as Logitech, Google, and Meta on Inclusive Game Strategy. A two-time TEDx Speaker, she is infectiously passionate and authentically plugged-in to the worl...

This week, we discuss the threat censorship poses to democracy as part of Banned Books Week, an annual event that highlights the value of free and open access to information. Presented by the American Library Association, this panel includes Heather Booth, Anna Claussen, Sara Paretsky, and Donna Seaman. The following conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the speakers:HEATHER BOOTH is the Audiobooks Editor for Booklist and a reader’s advisory librarian at the Helen Plum Library in Lombard, IL. She is also serving her third term as a trustee at the Westmont Public Library. Booth, the mother of two teens, has focused on teen services, and has been involved in facing book challenges and preserving our freedom to read.ANNA CLAUSSEN is the Policy and Outreach Coordinator – Libraries for the Illinois Secretary of State.A Chicago-based author, SARA PARETSKY is one of only four living writers to have received both the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. Her latest V. I. Warshawski novel is Pay Dirt. Paretsky is an ardent freedom of speech advocate.DONNA SEAMAN is the Editor-in-Chief for Booklist. A recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award, Seaman is a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum and an adjunct professor for Northwestern University’s MA in Writing and MFA in Prose and Poetry Programs. Seaman’s author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists. River of Books: A Life in Reading, will be out fall 2024.

This week, to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, hear from Marie Arana, the Literary Director of the Library of Congress. Joined by author Juan Martinez, Arana discusses the importance of preserving and uplifting Latino history and her new book LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority.This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout LatinoLand:"A perfect representation of Latino diversity" (The Washington Post), LatinoLand draws from hundreds of interviews and prodigious research to give us both a vibrant portrait and the little-known history of our largest and fastest-growing minority, in "a work of prophecy, sympathy, and courage" (Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author).LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana's life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise twenty percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage.But Latinos are not a monolith. They do not represent a single group. The largest groups are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Cubans. Each has a different cultural and political background. Puerto Ricans, for example, are US citizens, whereas some Mexican Americans never immigrated because the US-Mexico border shifted after the US invasion of 1848, incorporating what is now the entire southwest of the United States. Cubans came in two great waves: those escaping communism in the early years of Castro, many of whom were professionals and wealthy, and those permitted to leave in the Mariel boat lift twenty years later, representing some of the poorest Cubans, including prisoners.As LatinoLand shows, Latinos were some of the earliest immigrants to what is now the US—some of them arriving in the 1500s. They are racially diverse—a random infusion of white, Black, indigenous, and Asian. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, they are becoming increasingly Protestant and Evangelical. They range from domestic workers and day laborers to successful artists, corporate CEOs, and US senators. Formerly solidly Democratic, they now vote Republican in growing numbers. They are as culturally varied as any immigrants from Europe or Asia.Marie Arana draws on her own experience as the daughter of an American mother and Peruvian father who came to the US at age nine, straddling two worlds, as many Latinos do. "Thorough, accessible, and necessary" (Ms. magazine), LatinoLand unabashedly celebrates Latino resilience and character and shows us why we must understand the fastest-growing minority in America.MARIE ARANA is a Peruvian-American author of nonfiction and fiction as well as the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress. She is the recipient of a 2020 literary award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Among her recent positions are: Director of the National Book Festival, the John W. Kluge Center’s Chair of the Cultures of the Countries of the South, and Writer at Large for the Washington Post. For many years, she was editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s book review section, Book World. Marie has also written for the New York Times, the National Geographic, Time Mag...

This week, we celebrate the legacy of Lorraine Hansberry with J. Nicole Brooks, Natalie Y. Moore, and Ericka Ratcliff. This conversation originally took place August 22, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.This program is presented in partnership with the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative, which was created by The Lillys (conceived by Lynn Nottage and Julia Jordan) to honor Lorraine Hansberry’s legacy through the tour and permanent placement of a figurative sculpture of the playwright, while investing in those following in her footsteps through the creation of a fellowship which supports the living expenses of women and non-binary writers of color during their pursuit of graduate degrees.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the panelists:J. NICOLE BROOKS is an actor, author and director. Selected acting credits include Lottery Day (Goodman Theatre, New Stages Festival), Beyond Caring, Death Tax, and RACE (Lookingglass Theatre Company), Immediate Family (Center Theatre Group) and House Home (Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, China). Directing credits include Mr. Rickey Calls A Meeting, Thaddeus & Slocum: A Vaudeville Adventure and Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten. Brooks is author of HeLa, Fedra Queen of Haiti, Black Diamond, and 3 Weeks With Her Honor Jane Byrne. Television credits including recurring roles on Showtime’s The Chi and Comedy Central’s South Side. She is a multi-award winning artist honored by 3Arts, TCG Fox Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Black Ensemble Theatre Playwright of the Year, LA Ovation and Black Theatre Alliance. She is an ensemble member of Lookingglass Theatre Company.NATALIE Y. MOORE is an award-winning journalist based in Chicago, whose reporting tackles race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Natalie’s acclaimed book The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation received the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and was Buzzfeed’s best nonfiction book of 2016. She is the author of the play The Billboard, set in Chicago. She is also co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang and Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation.ERICKA RATCLIFF works to amplify the mission of Congo Square by celebrating the complexities of Black life and culture on stage. She is a member of The Chicago Women In Philanthropy, Women’s Leadership Mentoring Program (WLMP), the 2023 Points of Light Conference Host Committee, and artEquity’s BIPOC Leadership Circle. Ericka is a nominee for Broadway World Chicago’s 2022 Regional Awards for “Best Direction of a Play” for her work on What To Send Up When It Goes Down and was recently featured in NewCity Magazine for her accomplished work in theatre. She is an artistic associate with Lookingglass Theater and was a recipient of the Chicago 3Arts Make A Wave Award in 2017.

This Labor Day, we take a look at writing labor history with Steve Watkins, author of The Mine Wars: The Bloody Fight for Workers’ Rights in the West Virginia Coalfields, a riveting true story of the West Virginia coal miners who ignited the largest labor uprising in American history. Watkins is joined by labor historian Rosemary Feurer. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout The Mine Wars:In May of 1920, in a small town in the mountains of West Virginia, a dozen coal miners took a stand. They were sick of the low pay in the mines. The unsafe conditions. The brutal treatment they endured from mine owners and operators. The scrip they were paid-instead of cash-that could only be used at the company store.They had tried to unionize, but the mine owners dug in. On that fateful day in May 1920, tensions boiled over and a gunfight erupted-beginning a yearlong standoff between workers and owners.The miners pleaded, then protested, then went on strike; the owners retaliated with spying, bribery, and threats. Violence escalated on both sides, culminating in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in United States history.In this gripping narrative nonfiction book, meet the resolute and spirited people who fought for the rights of coal miners, and discover how the West Virginia Mine Wars paved the way for vital worker protections nationwide. More than a century later, this overlooked story of the labor movement remains urgently relevant.STEVE WATKINS is an award-winning author of twelve books for young readers, including Down Sand Mountain, which won the 2009 Golden Kite Award for young adult fiction. He also writes books for grown-ups, and won a Pushcart Prize for one of the stories in his collection My Chaos Theory. He is co-editor of the online ideas and features magazine Pie & Chai, a former English professor at the University of Mary Washington, a longtime yoga instructor, and father of four daughters. He and his family live in Fredericksburg, VA.ROSEMARY FEURER’S research and teaching interests focus on understanding the political economy of social conflict. She focuses on labor movements and conflict within the context of U.S. capitalist development spatially, socially and economically during the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Her new work follows the story that made for violent conflict in Illinois and also helped to make it the strongest unionized state in the nation, tentatively entitled The Illinois Mine Wars, 1860-1930. It covers the epic conflicts that helped to define Illinois as one of the strongest labor states in the nation. She is also working on a new biography of Mother Jones, the renowned labor activist and agitator of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. She has always connected her research to public history projects, including tours, electronic media, oral history and video production. Feurer is the author of Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism and Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950.

This week, biographers and novelists share what it is like to write about other writers. Mary V. Dearborn covers Carson McCullers, George Getschow covers Larry McMurtry, Harold Holzer covers Abraham Lincoln, and Monika Zgutsova covers Véra Nabokov. Moderated by Peter Coviello. This conversation took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME The books: Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn — The first major biography in more than twenty years of one of America’s greatest writers, based on newly available letters and journals. Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry edited by George Getschow — A collection of essays that offers an intimate view of Larry McMurtry, America's preeminent western novelist, through the eyes of a pantheon of writers he helped shape through his work over the course of his unparalleled literary life. Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration by Harold Holzer — From acclaimed Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, a groundbreaking account of Lincoln's grappling with the politics of immigration against the backdrop of the Civil War. A Revolver to Carry at Night by Monika Zgustova — A captivating, nuanced portrait of the life of Véra Nabokov, who dedicated herself to advancing her husband’s writing career, playing a vital role in the creation of his greatest works. Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things by Peter Coviello — Essays considering what it means to love art, culture, and people in an age of accelerating disaster. The writers: MARY V. DEARBORN holds a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. She is the author of seven books—among them, Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim and Ernest Hemingway. Dearborn has been a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in Buckland, Massachusetts. GEORGE GETSCHOW is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for distinguished writing about the underprivileged. He has earned numerous other awards for his writing and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2012 for "distinctive literary achievement." Today, as director of the Archer City Writers Workshop, he helps organize and conduct annual writing workshops in Archer City for professional writers and college and high school students from across the country. HAROLD HOLZER is the recipient of the 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize. One of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, Holzer was appointed chairman of the US Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by President Bill Clinton and awarded the National Humanities Medal by...

This week, dive into the New Fiction panel from the American Writers Festival, recorded live on May 19, 2024. Four novelists — Donna Hemans, Jessica Shattuck, Yukiko Tominaga, and Michael Zapata — discuss their craft, process, and recent novels: The House of Plain Truth by Donna Hemans — A lyrical, lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home. Last House by Jessica Shattuck — A sweeping story of a nation on the rise, and one family’s deeply complicated relationship to the resource that built their fortune and fueled their greatest tragedy. See: Loss. See Also: Love. by Yukiko Tominaga — A tender, slyly comical, and shamelessly honest debut novel following a Japanese widow raising her son between worlds with the help of her Jewish mother-in-law as she wrestles with grief, loss, and—strangest of all—joy. The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata — The mesmerizing story of a Latin American science fiction writer and the lives her lost manuscript unites decades later in post-Katrina New Orleans. About the writers: DONNA HEMANS is the author of the novels River Woman and Tea by the Sea. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Slice, Shenandoah, Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine and Crab Orchard Review. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Media Studies from Fordham University and an MFA from American University. She lives in Maryland and is the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers. JESSICA SHATTUCK is the New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the Castle; The Hazards of Good Breeding, a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award; and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Glamour, Mother Jones, and Wired, among other publications. YUKIKO TOMINAGA was born and raised in Japan. She was a finalist for the 2020 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, selected by Roxane Gay. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Bellingham Review, among other publications. She also works at Counterpoint Press where she helps to introduce never-before-translated books from Japan to English language readers. See: Loss. See Also: Love. is her first book. MICHAEL ZAPATA is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is a recipient of a Meier Foundation Artist Achievement Award. He is on the faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.

Ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, media historian Heather Hendershot discusses her book When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America, a riveting, blow-by-blow account of how the network broadcasts of the 1968 Democratic Convention shattered faith in American media. She sits down with historian Kevin Boyle to discuss these themes and shows how this historic moment has lead to our current media ecosystem and where we go from here. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. About the writers: HEATHER HENDERSHOT is the Cardiss Collins Professor of Communication Studies and Journalism at Northwestern University. Her most recent books are When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America and Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line. KEVIN BOYLE is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University. Years ago, he stumbled across an obscure photo of a Chicago neighborhood celebrating the Fourth of July 1961. From that image – and the story it tells – he’s built The Shattering, his new history of the 1960s. His previous book, Arc of Justice, won the National Book Award for non-fiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He’s also the author of The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1948-1968 and co-author of Muddy Boots and Ragged Aprons. His essays and reviews have appeared in The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, and other newspapers and magazines. He and his wife, Victoria Getis, now live in Evanston, IL with their manic one-year old Australian shepherd and, from time to time, with their marvelous daughters, Abby and Nan.

This week, we chat with members of the Ardent Dance Company about their upcoming ballet POE, based on the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. Justine Kelly is the Artistic Director of Ardent Dance Company and Ben Locke is a dancer who plays the role of Poe in the upcoming show. You can learn more about Kelly and Locke below. You can see Ardent Dance Company perform POE at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts on August 23rd and 24th at 7:30 pm, and August 25th at 3:00 pm. Learn more and get tickets here. Justine and Ben are interviewed by Nate King, Digital Content Associate at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place July 23, 2024 and was recorded live via Zoom. About our guests: JUSTINE KELLY, originally from the DMV area, grew up with the Cecchetti method under the training of her mother, Cynthia Kiehnau. She has worked professionally with many DMV-based companies including Lindsay Taylor Dance, Maryland Youth Ballet, Virginia Civic Ballet and Bowie Contemporary Dance Company and has received training from Pam Moore, Rosemary Floydand, and Sonia Cromiller. Justine moved to Chicago in 2012 and founded Ardent Dance Company in 2016 to reimagine classical and historical literature as full-length contemporary works. Working with over 100 professional dancers nationwide and in Chicago to help create Ardent’s shows, Justine is very grateful for all the dancers who have worked so hard these past few months. It is the countless hours of time, sweat, and dedication that allows Ardent to be vulnerable, be dramatic, and laugh together to create these stories. BEN LOCKE has been dancing with Ardent for over seven years, appearing in shows like Dracula, Les Mis, Pandora's Box, Poe and more. He has a double degree in Theatre and Human Services from Millikin University and is currently getting his graduate degree in TV/Film Writing at Boston University. Outside of dance, Ben is an actor, director, writer and casting director. His hope is to make the arts equitable and accessible for all. His plays can be found at The New Play Exchange.

This week, speculative fiction writers Darcie Little Badger, Michi Trota, and Suzanne Walker discuss their work, crafting other worlds with writing, and the science fiction genre at large. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About the writers: DARCIE LITTLE BADGER is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in TIME as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, received the Newbery Honor, was a LA Times Book Prize Finalist, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Darcie is married to a veterinarian named Taran and splits time between California and Texas. MICHI TROTA is a five-time Hugo Award-winning Filipino American writer, editor, and narrative expert. Her work explores how to use empowerment, representation, and storytelling to attain collective liberation and to dismantle oppressive institutions, not just survive them. She is the Executive Editor at the environmental justice and advocacy nonprofit Green America and her publications include the Wing Luke Museum 2018-19 exhibit Worlds Beyond Here: Expanding the Universe of APA Science Fiction and Chicago Magazine, and she’s been featured in The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and CNN: Philippines. She is also a member of the Filipino Young Leaders Program 2022 Immersion cohort and a fire performer with Raks Geek/Raks Inferno Fire+Bellydance. SUZANNE WALKER is a Chicago-based writer and editor. She is co-creator of the critically acclaimed, award-nominated graphic novel Mooncakes. Her short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld and Uncanny Magazine, and the Star Wars anthology From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi. Her nonfiction works have appeared in a diverse array of publications, StarTrek.com, and academic anthologies. She has spoken on panels at numerous conventions on a variety of topics. She is a scholar of medieval Italian longsword and enjoys aerial silks, figure skating, and baseball. You can find her on Twitter or Instagram at @suzusaur.

This week, tune into the panel discussion Making Up True Stories: Novels and Books About Real People. Our featured writers are Amanda Flower, Sarah James, Brianna Labuskes, and Brianna Madia. Moderated by Dipika Mukherjee. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the 2024 American Writers Festival. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About the writers: AMANDA FLOWER is the USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning mystery author of over twenty-five novels, including the nationally bestselling Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series, the Amish Matchmaker Mysteries, the Emily Dickinson Mysteries, the Katharine Wright Mysteries, and several series written under the name Isabella Alan. An organic farmer and former librarian, Amanda lives in Northeast Ohio and can be found online at AmandaFlower.com. SARAH JAMES is the international bestselling author of The Woman with Two Shadows and Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen. Her work has appeared in Baseball Prospectus, Pittsburgh City Paper, Reductress, and more. Sarah is a graduate of the MFA Writing for Screen and Television program at USC and currently lives in Los Angeles. BRIANNA LABUSKES is the Washington Post bestselling author of The Lost Book of Bonn, The Librarian of Burned Books as well as eight thrillers. For the first decade of her career, Brianna worked as a journalist for national news organizations covering politics and policy. BRIANNA MADIA has lived a life of relentless intention, traveling the deserts of the American West in an old Ford van. She made a name for herself on social media with her inspiring captions-cum-essays about bravery, identity, nature, and subverting expectations. She lives in Utah with her four dogs. Her first book, Nowhere for Very Long, was a New York Times bestseller. Never Leave the Dogs Behind is her second book. DIPIKA MUKHERJEE’S collection of travel essays, Writer’s Postcards (Penguin), was published in October 2023. Her work is included in The Best Small Fictions 2019 and appears in World Literature Today, Asia Literary Review, Del Sol Review, and Chicago Quarterly Review, Newsweek, Los Angeles Review of Books, Hemispheres, Orion and more, and she has been translated into French, Portuguese, Bengali and Mandarin Chinese. She is the author of the novels Shambala Junction (Aurora Metro, winner of the Virginia Prize f...