The National Writers Series Podcast

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Jeannette Walls Discusses "Hang the Moon" Jun 09, 2023

Show notes

Meet Jeannette Walls, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle, her unforgettable childhood memoir that sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. Walls talks about her writing life and newest novel, Hang the Moon, with guest host Susan Odgers. Her highly anticipated novel follows the journey of Sallie Kincaid, a feisty and fearless, terrified and damaged young woman who refuses to be corralled in her small Virginia town during the Prohibition era. Sallie is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie is her father’s daughter, sharp-witted and resourceful, Eddie is his mother’s son, timid and cerebral. When Sallie tries to teach young Eddie to be more like their father, her daredevil coaching leads to an accident, and Sallie is cast out. Nine years later, Sallie returns, determined to reclaim her place in the family. That’s a lot more complicated than she expected. Sallie confronts the secrets that hide in the shadows of the Big House, navigates the factions in the family and town, and finally comes into her own as a bold, sometimes reckless bootlegger.

Ross Gay Discusses His New Book of Essays, "Inciting Joy" May 16, 2023

Show notes

The National Writers Series is pleased to partner with Interlochen Center for the Arts for An Evening with Ross Gay. NWS will livestream the event from Interlochen's Corson Auditorium. NWS and Interlochen Center for the Arts welcome Ross Gay who will discuss his latest book, Inciting Joy. Throughout the book, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also how we expand it. In an era when divisive voices take up so much air space, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love? Full of energy, curiosity, and compassion, Inciting Joy is essential reading from one of our most brilliant writers. Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He has released a new collection of essays, Inciting Joy. To ensure broad access to the transformative Interlochen experience, a portion of the proceeds from this event supports student scholarships. Guest Host Ari Mokdad is the National Writers Series new education director. She's a Detroit-born choreographer, creative writer, and passionate educator. Ari holds a Master of Arts in English from Wayne State University and three Bachelor of Arts degrees in dance, English and writing from Grand Valley State University. Ari will receive a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College and participate in the Centrum Artist Residency in 2022. She lives with her husband in Traverse City on the ancestral and unceded land of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Pottawatomie people, The People of the Three Fires.

Dan Egan, author of “The Devil’s Element, Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance” Mar 31, 2023

Show notes

On March 10, New York Times Bestselling Author Dan Egan visited the City Opera House in Traverse City. He presented his new book, “The Devil’s Element, Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance.”

Environmental reporter, Patrick Shea, was the guest host. Patrick works for Interlochen Public Radio, an NPR affiliate in northern Michigan.

Egan writes about phosphorus, the source of great bounty―and now great peril―all over the world. Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.” He describes the race to mine it from the fabled guano islands to the far Pacific to the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. He reports on how our overreliance on phosphorus is today causing toxic “dead zones” in waterways from the Florida Everglades to the Mississippi River Basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. And he explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide―which risks rising conflict and even war.

Alvin Hall's "Driving the Green Book" Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

With "DRIVING THE GREEN BOOK: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance" join award-winning broadcaster Alvin Hall on a journey through America’s haunted racial past using "The Green Book" as your guide.

For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers encountered locked doors, hostile police, and potentially violent encounters almost everywhere, in both the South and the North. From 1936 to 1967, millions of people relied on The Negro Motorist Green Book, the definitive guide to businesses where they could safely rest, eat, or sleep.

Most Americans only know of the guide from the 2018 Green Book movie or the 2020 Lovecraft Country TV show. Alvin Hall set out to revisit the world of "The Green Book" to instruct us all on the real history of the guide that saved many lives. With his friend Janée Woods Weber, he traveled from New York to Detroit to New Orleans, visiting motels, restaurants, and stores where Black Americans once found a friendly welcome. They explored historical and cultural landmarks, from the theatres and clubs where stars like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Aretha Franklin performed to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Along the way, they gathered memories from some of the last living witnesses for whom The Green Book meant survival—remarkable people who not only endured but rose above the hate, building vibrant Black communities against incredible odds.

"DRIVING THE GREEN BOOK" is a standalone book, not a companion book to Hall’s award-winning podcast series. The book contains more contextual information as well as truly moving stories and personal recollections. Reading this book will expand readers’ understanding of America’s racial history and its connections to incidents, proposed legislations, and policy issues very much in the news today.

Containing 25 outstanding black and white photos and ephemera, "DRIVING THE GREEN BOOK" is a vital work of national history that navigates the astounding, heartfelt, and disturbing past of the United States.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ALVIN HALL is an award-winning television and radio broadcaster, author, political activist, and renowned financial educator. His numerous radio programs include The Tulsa Tragedy That Shamed America (2021, BBC Radio 4), The Green Book (2016, BBC Radio 4), and Jay-Z: From Brooklyn to the Board Room (BBC Radio 4). For five years on the BBC, he hosted the highly rated and award-winning series, Your Money or Your Life, on which he offered both practical financial and psychological advice. https://alvinhall.com/

Nina Totenberg, author of "Dinners with Ruth" Feb 10, 2023

Show notes

Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly fifty years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Four years before Nina Totenberg was hired at NPR, where she cemented her legacy as a prizewinning reporter, and nearly twenty-two years before Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, Nina called Ruth. A reporter for The National Observer, Nina was curious about Ruth’s legal brief, asking the Supreme Court to do something revolutionary: declare a law that discriminated “on the basis of sex” to be unconstitutional. In a time when women were fired for becoming pregnant, often could not apply for credit cards or get a mortgage in their own names, Ruth patiently explained her argument. That call launched a remarkable, nearly fifty-year friendship.
Dinners with Ruth is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers. It is also an intimate memoir of the power of friendships as women began to pry open career doors and transform the workplace. At the story’s heart is one, special relationship: Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood. During the devastating illness and eventual death of Nina’s first husband, Ruth drew her out of grief; twelve years later, Nina would reciprocate when Ruth’s beloved husband died. They shared not only a love of opera, but also of shopping, as they instinctively understood that clothes were armor for women who wanted to be taken seriously in a workplace dominated by men. During Ruth’s last year, they shared so many small dinners that Saturdays were “reserved for Ruth” in Nina’s house.

Keith Gave and Tim Rappleye, authors of "A Miracle of Their Own" Jan 19, 2023

Show notes

Sports journalists Keith Gave and Tim Rappleye teamed up to write A Miracle of Their Own: A Team, A Stunning Gold Medal and Newfound Dreams for American Girls. Gave and Rappleye's book is a riveting tale about Team USA's stunning Olympic win against the Canadian women's hockey team in 1998, when they captured the coveted gold medal, inspiring little girls everywhere to play a game of their own. As a special treat, 1998 Olympian Lisa Brown-Miller joined the co-authors on stage to talk about her memories of the game. She was unknowingly pregnant with her first child, stood a diminutive five-foot-one, and, at age 31, was the team's oldest player. Yet she scored once during the winning game while adding two assists.

Anna Quindlen, Author of "Write for Your Life" Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

On December 13th, the National Writers Series welcomed Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author Anna Quindlen to help answer some very important questions: What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, and humanity?

In her lyrical new book Write for Your Life, the answer is clear: Through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more themselves. Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling.

Author Alice Wong's book "Year of the Tiger" Dec 08, 2022

Show notes

Alice Wong's book, Year of the Tiger, highlights her life as an Asian American disabled activist, community organizer, media maker, and dreamer. She writes about her continued fight for disability justice, struggles with health insurance and bureaucracy.
Author Stephanie Foo discusses Alice's book on her behalf.

Margo Price, Author of "Maybe We'll Make It" (2022) Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

On October 20th, 2022, Grammy-nominated musician, singer, songwriter, performer, Live Aid board member and author Margo Price joined the National Writers Series for a conversation about her new memoir: Maybe We'll Make It.

Recorded live at the State Theater in downtown Traverse City, this conversation (guest hosted by NWS communications director Karl Klockars) covers her childhood, her struggles to make it in the music industry, how she approached writing a book versus her music, and we even got to hear a few songs from Margo as well.

Jerry Dennis ("The Living Great Lakes"), Dave Dempsey ("Great Lakes for Sale") and Senator Debbie Stabenow (August 2022) Oct 11, 2022

Show notes

On August 25th, 2022, two of Michigan’s greatest environmental authors—Dave Dempsey and Jerry Dennis—joined us on the NWS stage to talk about protecting the Great Lakes, the threats our water supply are facing, the dangers of climate change to our natural surroundings, and other topics covered in their books Great Lakes for Sale, Up North in Michigan and The Living Great Lakes.

In Great Lakes for Sale, updated in 2021 by author Dave Dempsey, we see how our Great Lakes are in danger of being privately exploited on a large scale by those with priorities other than stewardship. The Great Lakes are once again a target for the drought-ridden West, which is facing climate change, massive fires, and shrinking water supplies. And in a potentially far bigger threat, Wall Street is creating markets that could lead to the trading of freshwaters as a commodity like corn or oil. Great Lakes for Sale is an important part of the effort to remind people why the commercialization of Great Lakes water is a dangerous—and constant—threat.

Similarly, Jerry Dennis’s new book of essays, Up North in Michigan, looks at northern Michigan in a state of change. Over the past half-century, Michigan’s landscape has been bulldozed, subdivided, and built upon. Climate change warms the water of the Great Lakes at an alarming rate—Lake Superior is now the fastest-warming large body of fresh water on the planet—creating increasingly frequent and severe storm events, altering aquatic and shoreline ecosystems, and contributing to further invasions by non-native plants and animals.

What can we do about the threats facing the Great Lakes? How can we protect the waters that surround our Pleasant Peninsula? And how can we ensure the security of our drinking water and aquatic industries for generations to come? Listen now to learn more.

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