Writers on Writing Podcast
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Writers on Writing is an original XM show hosted by Josephine Reed, Program Director of Sonic Theater (XM 163), XM's channel dedicated to books, dramas, detective stories, contemporary radio theater and comedy. You'll hear world famous novelists, historians, playwrights, poets and biographers talk about the art and craft of writing. It's a behind the scenes look at what goes on between the covers of today's top sellers and tomorrow's classics. Amy Tan, Alice McDermott, Frank McCourt, and Jeffrey Deaver are just some of the featured writers you'll hear on this weekly program. This show airs on XM's Sonic Theater every Monday at 3pm ET. Go to http://www.xmradio.com for more information.
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Writers on Writing Episode 42: Betsy Carter
XM Radio
Author: XM Radio
Thu, Oct 30, 2008
At two, Delores's mother dropped her into the shallow end of a lake, trusting instinct would teach her daughter to swim. From then on, the water is where Delores Walker feels most at home. Now, at seventeen, she's boarding a Greyhound bus leaving the Bronx for sunny Wicki Wachee Springs. It's the 1970s, and these roadside attractions are beginning to lose their audiences to Disney. That's the story of Swim to Me a novel by Betsy Carter. Betsy is the author of the memoir Nothing to Fall Back On, which was a national bestseller. She is also a contributing editor to O, The Oprah Magazine. Betsy joins Josephine to talk about Swim to Me.
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Writers on Writing Episode 41: Paul Krugman
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Author: XM Radio
Wed, Oct 22, 2008
Princeton professor Paul Krugman recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Although The Nobel Committee stressed that it gave Krugman the award for his academic work, most of us recognize his name from the NY Times column, which has been quite critical of the Bush administration. Paul Krugman is also the author of a book, recently released in paperback called, The Conscience of a Liberal. According to Krugman, America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. But now he says, the tide may be turning, and in, The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman gives us a history of political movement and a blueprint for a progressive resurgence. Josephine Reed spoke to Paul Krugman when his book was first published and, in celebration of his Nobel Prize for economics, we're airing the interview.
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Writers on Writing Episode 40: Luanne Rice
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Author: XM Radio
Thu, Oct 16, 2008
Luanne Rice has written over twenty novels, many of them bestsellers. Her recent book Light of the Moon illustrates why Luanne Rice is so compelling. She looks at the enduring themes of love and family, but the romances are between grown-ups who have histories and issues to contend with; parents and children may adore one another, but their relationships are complicated. In other words, her characters are realistic and we care about what happens to them.
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Writers on Writing Episode 39: Jon Katz
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Oct 03, 2008
Sometimes, Josephine believes that Jon Katz is the official author for animal lovers, especially those who love dogs. Since 2001, Jon Katz has written six books about dogs, farm animals and rural life. Readers have followed his transformation from a suburban New Jersey dog owner to steward of an 1862 farmhouse in the mountains of NY. In Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm, Jon gives us a wonderful memoir about living the life he dreamed of on his farm with his animals.
Jon and Josephine talk about Dog Days, Bedlam Farm, and animals.
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Writers on Writing Episode 38: Robert Crais
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Sep 26, 2008
It's always good news when Robert Crais delivers another Elvis Cole novel. Cole is a private investigator working in Los Angeles. He and his side kick, Joe Pike, are interesting and satisfying characters: eccentric, smart, and believable. Crais is a vivid storyteller with complex plots and psychological character profiles. Crais has won many awards for his books, including the 2008 Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller, the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, the Anthony and the Macavity Award. He talks to Josephine about his latest book, Chasing Darkness.
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Writers on Writing Episode 37: George Pelecanos
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Sep 19, 2008
George Pelecanos owns the literary streets, whether as a writer/producer of the acclaimed series The Wire or as the award-winning author of several bestselling series of novels set in and around Washington, D.C., books like Hard Revolution or The Night Gardener. His recent book, The Turnaround returns to that familiar DC terrain, a DC where blacks and whites have a conflicted past that carries over into the present. In 1972, three white kids high and restless drive into a black neighborhood looking for trouble and they find more than they bargained for. Now, thirty-five years later, we find these men are still coping with the repercussions of that night. Josephine Reed talks to George Pelecanos about The Turnaround, the streets of Washington DC, and The Wire.
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Writers on Writing Episode 36: Brad Meltzer
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Sep 12, 2008
Brad Meltzer is the author of six best-selling novels of suspense. They might be novels, but they are filled with meticulous research and often weave real-life events into their plots. So we found out about the inner workings of the Supreme Court in The Tenth Justice and the history of the masons in The Book of Fate. Brad's latest book is called The Book of Lies. In the Book of Lies, Meltzer examines not only the origins of Superman but interweaves this with the story of the world's first murderer, Cain. Brad Meltzer and Josephine talk about The Book of Lies, Superman, and heroes.
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Writers on Writing Episode 35: Andre Dubus
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Sep 05, 2008
Josephine Reed talks to Andre Dubus III, author of the House of Sand and Fog, about his latest book, The Garden of Last Days. One early September night in Florida, a stripper brings her three-year-old daughter to work. Except that April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Andre Dubus combines these elements to create a relentless, raw, and passionate novel, The Garden of Last Days, which is set in the seamy underside of American life right before 9-11.
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Writers on Writing Episode 34: John Berendt
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Aug 29, 2008
Thirteen years ago, John Berendt exploded into the literary scene with his bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a compelling and atmospheric look at Savannah, its eccentricities and a murder. The years past and people wondered what would John Berendt do next? Could he top Midnight? Well, he could and he did. The City of Falling Angels marked John's thrilling return to the literary stage. The City in question is Venice, with its romantic canals, great architecture and storied past. But John Berendt documents the private Venice, the city that the locals know, and most of us never will glimpse. Josephine Reed spoke to John Berendt about The City of Falling Angels and the romance and eccentricities of Venice.
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Writers on Writing Episode 33: David Freedman
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Aug 22, 2008
In A Perfect Mess, Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman overturn the accepted wisdom that tight schedules, organization, neatness, and consistency are the keys to success. Drawing on examples from business, parenting, cooking, the war on terrorism, retail, and even the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abrahamson and Freedman demonstrate that moderately messy systems use resources more efficiently, and yield better solutions. Josephine Reed interviews co-author, David Freedman about the benefits of mess.
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Writers on Writing Episode 32: Rudolfo Anaya
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Aug 15, 2008
Bless Me Ultima is Rudolfo Anyaya's coming-of-age story set in post World War 2 New Mexico. Published in 1972, it is considered one of the first expressions of Chicano literature. It's now taught in high schools and colleges across the country. It was also a selection of the Big Read, a national reading program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Josephine Reed speaks to Rudolfo Anaya about Bless Me Ultima, Chicano literature and the Big Read.
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Writers on Writing Episode 31: Alan Furst
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Aug 08, 2008
Josephine talks to Alan Furst, a master of historical spy fiction with finely-detailed, atmospheric books like The Foreign Correspondent and The Polish Officer. His latest novel, The Spies of Warsaw, may be his best achievement to date. The Year is 1937; war is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy in Warsaw, the new military attache, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue as he struggles to learn how the Germans will launch the attack that will undoubtedly come.
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Writers on Writing Episode 30: Anne Perry
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Aug 01, 2008
Author Anne Perry has served us up another atmospheric Thomas Pitt mystery, Buckingham Palace Gardens, with a plot that takes him inside the walls of the famous castle. In Buckingham Palace Gardens, The Prince of Wales has asked four wealthy entrepreneurs to the palace to discuss a fantastic idea: the construction of a 6,000-mile railroad that would stretch the full length of Africa. However, the next morning, a mutilated body of a prostitute hired for a late-night frolic turns up among the queen's monogrammed sheets in a palace linen closet. Thomas Pitt is summoned to resolve the crisis. And The Pitts' cockney maid, Gracie, is also recruited - to act as Pitt's ears and eyes below stairs. It's a story that takes you into the heart of great power with its privileges and limitations. Josephine has a wide-ranging conversation with Anne Perry.
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Writers on Writing Episode 29: Janet Evanovich
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jul 25, 2008
If it's summer, then its time for another Stephanie Plum mystery from Janet Evanovich. Stephanie Plum, a Jersey girl who's a bounty hunter, has a pet hamster, a drop-dead gorgeous cop boyfriend Morelli, a dangerous heavy flirtation with a security expert, an ex-prostitute for a partner, long-suffering parents, and a completely dotty grandmother. In her latest adventure, Fearless Fourteen, Stephanie does a favor for Ranger, agreeing to serve as a body guard to a country rock star who is slightly over the hill. Josephine talks to Janet Evanovich about Stephanie Plum.
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Writers on Writing Episode 28: Nicholas Christopher
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jul 18, 2008
The Bestiary is a novel that is at once a fantastical historical mystery, and a haunting love story. Written by poet and novelist Nicholas Christopher, The Bestiary tells the story of Xeno Atlas who grows up in the Bronx, weaned on his Sicilian grandmother's strange stories of animal spirits. Sent to an isolated boarding school, Xeno turns his early fascination with animals into a personal obsession: his search for the Caravan Bestiary. This medieval text, lost for eight hundred years, supposedly details the animals not granted passage on the Ark. It is a remarkable story, tailor-made for animal lovers and for those who believe the line between the reality and the fantastic is sometimes blurred.
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Writers on Writing Episode 27: Amy Tan
XM Radio
Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jul 11, 2008
Listeners of Sonic Theater are familiar with the program, The Big Read on XM. It's a radio series based on the National Endowment for the Arts national reading program, The Big Read, which encourages communities to come together to read and discuss a single book. Every weekday, "The Big Read on XM" serializes in 30-minute installments classic American novels that have been chosen as Big Read selections - novels like The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Fahrenheit 451, among others. Recently, the Big Read on XM aired Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, which tells the story of four Chinese women who have emigrated to the U.S. and their four Chinese-American daughters. Josephine Reed had a wide-ranging conversation with Amy Tan about her book, her mother, and her career.
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Writers on Writing Episode 26: Russell Banks
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jul 04, 2008
Josephine Reed welcomes Russell Banks an award winning fiction-writer whose books include, The Sweet Hereafter, Rule of The Bone and Affliction. His latest novel is called The Reserve, and it's a richly textured book that's part love story, social history and fast-paced mystery set in the depression of the 1930s. The Reserve is set in the Adirondack Mountains. It's a place where folks vacation in the summer. And, it's there where three lives intersect: a wealthy heiress Vanessa Cole, a local guide Hubert Saint Germaine, and a leftist artist Jordan Groves.
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Writers on Writing Episode 25: Judith Viorst
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jun 27, 2008
Judith Viorst has written over twenty books from poetry collections to books of advice to children's classics. She's probably best-known for Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which spawned many sequels and was based on her youngest son, Alexander. When Alexander, now grown, his wife, and three children move back to the family home while their own house is being renovated, Judith Viorst took a deep breath, focused on the personal growth sure to come, and then wrote a book about the experience. The result is very funny Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific 90 Days. Judith joins Josephine Reed to talk about her book and the family that inspired it.
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Writers on Writing Episode 24: Valerie Boyd
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jun 20, 2008
Valerie Boyd wrote a much acclaimed biography of Zora Neale Hurston, Wrapped in Rainbows The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. In fact, the book won the 2003 Southern Book Critics Circle Award. A founding officer of the Alice Walker Literary Society and a member of the National Book Critics Circle, Valerie Boyd, is currently arts editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She spoke with Josephine about Zora Neale Hurston.
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Writers on Writing Episode 23: Tobias Wolff
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jun 13, 2008
According to the New York Times, Tobias Wolff's first two books proved how the short story can provoke our amazed appreciation. Now, after a ten year absence, Wolff returns with a new collection featuring ten new short stories along with twenty-one of his classics. It's called Our Story Begins. In these stories, Wolff creates in stunning miniatures the passions and vulnerabilities of everyday people. Josephine speaks with Tobias Wolff about Our Story Begins and writing the short story.
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Writers on Writing Episode 22: Michael Lewis
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jun 06, 2008
Author Michael Lewis turned the world of baseball on its head with his book, Money Ball, an examination of how in 2002 the Oakland Athletics achieved a spectacular winning record while having the smallest player payroll of any major league baseball team. In his latest book, The Blind Side: The Evolution of a Game, Lewis moves from baseball into the realm of high school and college football. The Blind Side is the remarkable story of a rising gridiron star, a destitute black teenager, rescued from an extraordinarily disadvantaged youth by a remarkable family and the game of football. Josephine spoke to Michael Lewis about The Blind Side and college sports.
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Writers on Writing Episode 21: Laura Lippman
XM Radio
Author: XM Radio
Fri, May 30, 2008
Tess Monaghan is back! In her latest book, Another Thing to Fall, Laura Lippman gives us her tenth Tess Monghan mystery. Once again, the spotlight is on Baltimore, but this time the spotlight is more than a metaphor. A television series is being filmed in Baltimore, and private detective Tess Monghan gets the assignment of serving as the babysitter/bodyguard of its young female star, Selene Waites. This is not Tess's world. And, these are not her kind of people, with their vanities, their self-serving agendas, invented personas, and their remarkably skewed visions of reality. Josephine spoke to Laura about Another Thing to Fall, Tess Monaghan, and Baltimore.
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Writers on Writing Episode 20: Andrew Carroll
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, May 23, 2008
In 1998, Andrew Carroll founded the Legacy Project, its goal is to remember Americans who have served their nation by preserving their letters for posterity. Since then, tens of thousands of letters have poured in from around the country. Andy published two hundred of them in a collection called War Letters. Now, Andy has published another book of letters, called Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in a Time of War. In Grace Under Fire, Andy picked fifty letters from his massive archive of seventy-five-thousand previously unpublished wartime correspondence about God, religion, and spirituality. Warfare can reveal the worst in human nature, but it can also bring out the best, and these correspondences are a testament to the heroism, compassion, and grace of American troops and their families. Josephine talks to Andrew Carroll about Grace Under Fire.
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Writers on Writing Episode 19: Andrew Bridge
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, May 16, 2008
In his book, Hope’s Boy, Andrew Bridge shows us a foster care system that’s broken, that in its clumsy attempts to save children, all too frequently condemns them to physical and emotional abuse. And he knows this all too well. Andrew himself is the child of a teenage mother who divorced her abusive husband soon after Bridge was born. He lived first with his loving grandmother and then at the age of five was sent across the country to live with his mother. His mother loved him but was unable to care for him as mental illness and poverty took their toll on her. At the age of seven, Bridge was literally dragged away from his mother by police and his stint as a foster child began. But unlike the vast majority of foster children, Andrew Bridge finished high school, went to college, and graduated from Harvard Law School. His life’s work is dedicated to defending children in poverty and in the foster care system. He writes about his experiences and the foster care system movingly and compassionately in his book, Hope’s Boy.
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Writers on Writing Episode 18: Mark Harris
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, May 09, 2008
The 1967 Academy Award nominees for best picture were a classic case of old and new Hollywood meeting at the crossroads. It’s also the subject of a terrific and highly readable book by film critic Mark Harris, called Pictures at a Revolution. Pictures at a Revolution tracks the five nominated movies: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and Doctor Dolittle on their five-year journey from inception to Oscar night. Josephine talks to Mark Harris about these five films and the cultural crossroads they signaled.
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Writers on Writing Episode 17: David Michaelis
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, May 02, 2008
Charles Schulz was the creator of the landmark cartoon strip: Peanuts. For almost 50 years, Schulz, and Schulz alone, drew every line and wrote every word of the cartoon that changed the funny papers. He also maintained that anyone who wanted to know about him as a person could find all the answers in Peanuts. Little did we know how true that was; it took author David Michaelis to show us how much of Schulz was embedded in Peanuts. His biography, Schulz and Peanuts is as an engrossing portrait of our most significant and influential cartoonist. David Michaelis joined Josephine at XM to talk about his book, Schulz and Peanuts.
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Writers on Writing Episode 16: Cal Ripken
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Apr 25, 2008
With the baseball season just underway, and his latest book just out in paperback, Josephine Reed revisits her interview with baseball player and author, Cal Ripken Jr. Cal came into the XM Studios to talk to Josephine about his book, Get in the Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance that Make the Difference, co-written with Donald Phillips. In Get in the Game, Cal gives us a road map to perseverance from a champion. He breaks it down and gives us advice and examples from his own career. Josephine speaks to Cal about his book, his upbringing, and his career.
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Writers on Writing Episode 15: Rabbi Harold Kushner
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Apr 18, 2008
There are no guarantees in life, but it is pretty safe to say that at some point, everyone will experience disappointment with our careers, children, spouses, parents, and of course ourselves. According to Rabbi Harold Kushner, the question is not how to avoid disappointment but rather how to face it when it inevitably crosses our path. That’s the subject of his book, Overcoming Life’s Disappointments. Using Moses’ life as a model, Rabbi Kushner offers practical and spiritual advice about learning from disappointment.
Rabbi Kushner is the author of many books including When Bad Things Happen to Good People and The Lord is my Shepherd. Josephine Reed talks to Rabbi Kushner about Overcoming Life’s Disappointments.
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Writers on Writing Episode 14: Graham Robb
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Apr 11, 2008
In The Discovery of France A Historical Geography, award-winning author Graham Robb talks to Josephine Reed about the rise of modern France. He explains how the country was explored, mapped and colonized. He talks about how France, in essence, became France. Robb is a biographer who has written books on the lives of Balzac, Rimbaud and Victor Hugo. He brings these biographical talents to his historical geography of France with a compelling look at France’s strange landscape and stranger inhabitants that bring the country to life.
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Writers on Writing Episode 13: David Maraniss
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Apr 04, 2008
Josephine Reed talks to David Maraniss about his Pulitzer-Prize winning biography, Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero. Clemente played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was the first Latin player inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. He won four batting titles, and led his team to championships in 1960 and 1971. In fact, he made 3,000 hits over the course of his career. He was a beautiful player, unforgettable to anyone who had seen him, and he carried with him a fierce dignity both on and off the field. David Maraniss puts Clemente’s career and life in perspective and explains why he considers Clemente baseball’s last hero.
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Writers on Writing episode 12: Michael Oren
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Mar 28, 2008
The United States involvement with the Middle East goes as far back in American history as the Louisiana Purchase. For over two hundred years, Americans have had a long and complicated relationship with that region of the world. But according to historian Michael Oren, we have little understanding of our connection to the Middle East. Michael Oren is a senior fellow at the Shalom Center in Jerusalem. In his acclaimed book Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, he gives us an intricate and revealing history of the interaction of Americans with this part of the world.
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Writers on Writing episode 11: Andrea Barrett
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Mar 21, 2008
Andrea Barrett is a novelist who looks at the connection between people and science and/or the natural world. Along the way, she’s given us beautifully crafted novels like the National Book Award winner Ship Fever, the Pulitzer Prize finalist Servants of the Map, and most recently, The Air We Breathe.
The Air We Breathe takes place in America in 1916 in an isolated community in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. There, poor people, mostly immigrants, infected with tuberculosis, fill large public sanitariums.
This is the unlikely setting for The Air We Breathe.
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Writers on Writing Episode 10: Jonathan Eig
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Mar 14, 2008
In April 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of major league baseball. From the moment Robinson put on the uniform of the Brooklyn Dodgers, baseball and the country changed. Writer Jonathan Eig tells us about that pivotal year in his new book Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season.
Eig shows us Robinson in all his complexity and offers fresh insights into the events of that 1947 season when all eyes were on Brooklyn and Jackie Robinson.
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Writers on Writing Episode 9: Pauline Chen
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Mar 07, 2008
One of the best books that Josephine has read in a long time is by transplant surgeon Pauline Chen. Her book Final Exam, A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality is honest, thoughtful and moving. In Final Exam, Pauline writes about her realization that her years of specialized medical training gave her little insight into caring for the dying and her determination to educate herself by remaining opened to her patients’ emotional lives. Final Exam was a surprise bestseller that just came out in paperback where it's getting renewed attention – and it's richly deserved. Josephine believes that she hasn't read a book that conveys more emotional intelligence than Final Exam.
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Writers on Writing Episode 8: Ann Patchett
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Feb 29, 2008
Ann Patchett’s previous novel Bel Canto was one of those rare books that captured the imaginations of critics and public alike. It was a finalist for National Book Award and won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange prize. Six years have passed and her next novel Run is highly anticipated. Run tells the story of a politically-connected Boston family, the Doyles, Bernard Doyle, a former mayor of Boston, his biological son, Sullivan and his two adopted African-American sons, Tip and Teddy. After their mother’s early tragic death, the boys have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father who wants one of his sons to follow him into politics. Set over a period of 24 hours, Run shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from one another, and considers the obligations we owe strangers.
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Writers on Writing Episode 7: William Gibson
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Feb 22, 2008
William Gibson is a literary pioneer with an eye for technological and social change. In Neuromancer, his 1984 science fiction classic, he envisioned both the Internet and virtual reality before either existed. His latest novel Spook Country might be set in the present but make no mistake, it is science fiction. It depicts a world transformed by globalization, by the threat - and memory - of terrorist attacks, and by the presence of proliferating technologies.
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Writers on Writing Episode 6: Stephen Carter
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Feb 15, 2008
Stephen Carter teaches law at Yale University, and he’s written seven books of non-fiction and five years ago he wrote an extraordinary thriller called, The Emperor of Ocean Park. In The Emperor of Ocean Park, Carter gave voice to the black upper class, the elite of what Carter calls the darker nation.
And that’s the same terrain Stephen Carter mines in his latest novel, New England White. He returns to the town of Elm Harbor where the murder of a prominent black professor may be tied to the killing of a young girl some twenty years earlier. At the book’s center is the university president Lemaster Carlyle, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a deputy dean at the divinity school —
African Americans living in “the heart of whiteness.” New England White is a provocative thriller, and Stephen Carter gives us a vivid portrait of the different ways race operates in upper classes.
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Writers on Writing Episode 5: Richard Russo
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Feb 08, 2008
Richard Russo has written six novels and he’s won the Pulitzer Prize for his one, Empire Falls. His recent novel is called Bridge of Sighs, and it is simply one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
Bridge of Sighs tells a deceptively simple story of growing in a small town in upstate NY. It’s narrated by Lou C. Lynch who has the unfortunate nickname of Lucy. He has spent all of his 60 years in upstate Thomaston, married to the same woman Sarah, for 40 of them. Like his late, beloved father, Lou, and against all odds, Lucy is an optimist, and like his father, he doesn’t like change of any sort.
Lucy and Sarah are also preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy, where his oldest friend, Bobby, a renowned painter, has exiled himself far from anything they had known in childhood. In fact, the exact nature of their friendship is one of the many mysteries Lucy hopes to untangle in the "history" he's writing of his hometown and family.
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Writers on Writing Episode 4: Sparky and Rex
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Feb 01, 2008
The Dangerous Book for Dogs: A Parody by Sparky and Rex wants to put the dogginess back in dogs. It looks to reinvigorate lost canine arts by giving us the formal rules of fetch, tips in how to escape humiliating costumes, making your owner look like an idiot, and of course, the time-honored how to pick a pill out of peanut butter.
Although Rex and Sparky wrote The Dangerous book for Dogs: A Parody without authorization, they did have some human help…and it came from folks who have ties to the satirical newspaper, The Onion.
Joe Garden, Janet Ginsburg, Chris Pauls, Anita Sewacki, Scott Sherman and illustrator Emily Flake.
Rex and Sparky had prior commitments but Josephine Reed was able to talk to two of the human contributors, Joe Garden and Janet Ginsburg
Listen to Writers on Writing every Monday at 3 pm eastern on Channel 163.
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Writers on Writing Episode 3: Tom Brokaw
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Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jan 25, 2008
Josephine talks to Tom Brokaw about his book, Boom! In his bestseller, The Greatest Generation, Former NBC News Anchor Tom Brokaw explored what it meant to come of age during the Great Depression and the second world war. Now, in his latest book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, Brokaw has turned his journalist’s eye on another defining moment in America…that tumultuous era of the 1960s.
The voices and stories of both famous people and ordinary citizens come together as Brokaw takes us on a memorable journey through a remarkable time, exploring how individual lives and the national mindset were affected by a controversial era and showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties continue to resound in our lives today. Listen to Writers on Writing every Monday at 3 pm eastern on Channel 163.
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Writers on Writing Episode 2: Elizabeth Gilbert
XM Radio
Author: XM Radio
Fri, Jan 18, 2008
"Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert is funny, compelling, wise, and thoughtful. In her mid-thirties, Elizabeth had given up an unhappy marriage, and ended a tumultuous affair. Finding herself in a deep depression, she travels to three countries to find something from each: in Italy, she searched for pleasure, in India, spirituality, and in Indonesia, balance. She actually found all three and wrote a terrific book about it…. Eat Pray Love. It is memoir about self-discovery that is not narcissistic in the least… I still haven’t figured out how she pulled that off, but you feel as though you’re traveling with a terrific friend who has the ability to see what’s around her. Josephine Reed talks with Elizabeth Gilbert about her book. Listen to Writers on Writing on Sonic Theater, Channel 163, every Monday afternoon at 3 pm eastern.
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Writers on Writing Episode 1: David Ignatius
XM Radio
Author: XM Radio
Mon, Dec 31, 2007
Josephine Reed, Programming Director of XM's Sonic Theater channel, talks to Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius. David has covered the CIA and the Middle East for over 25 years for publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the NY Times. Little wonder that when he turned his pen to political thrillers, he paints an accurate portrait of how the intelligence community works. In fact, the CIA uses his first novel, Agents of Innocence as a text in one of its training courses. Well, David’s latest novel is called Body of Lies, and it manages to combine a thriller that keeps the listener/reader guessing to the very end with an in-depth look at US operations in the middle east. In Body of Lies, David Ignatius creates a scenario in which car bombings riddle major European and Middle eastern cities… the American government and the CIA are struggling to disrupt Al Qaeda before its deadly operations once again reach our shores. David Ignatius stopped by the XM studios where he spoke with Josephine Reed. Listen to Writers on Writing on Sonic Theater, Channel 163, every Monday afternoon at 3 pm eastern.
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