New Letters on the Air
program schedule

English writer Sarah Dunant has a certain degree of recognition in her home country, hosting a nightly television talk show television on the BBC, and working as a radio reporter for years.  Her fame in America, though, rests on her historical fiction, The Birth of Venus, and In the Company of the Courtesan. Her newest novel, the third in this triptych of fiction about Renaissance Italy, gives a glimpse into life at the convent. Dunant talks about the meticulous research she does for every novel, and also about how her early experience with crime fiction taught her how to write novels.

Growing up on a North Dakota farm, Debra Marquart couldn't wait to leave.  Now, she returns to the place repeatedly in her fiction, essays and poetry.  A multi-genre writer, Marquart has led a life influenced by music and sound, dropping out of college to join a rock band in the ‘70s.  She reads from The Hunger Bone: Rock and Roll Stories, From Sweetness (poems) and The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere (essays). 

In honor of the start of her second year as the 16th U.S. Poet Laureate, we present this encore interview with Kay Ryan.  Sometimes seen as a poetry outsider, the California poet has spent her life teaching remedial English in Marin County, rather than making her living in the academic world of creative writing.  Known for her compact poems that revel in word play, philosophy, and humor, Ryan reads from two of her books, The Niagara River and Say Uncle, and talks about what led her to poetry and the influence of her recently deceased partner, Carol.

Born in a small Arizona border town to a Mexican father and English mother, Alberto Rios has become internationally recognized as one of today’s most talented Latino writers. As a child he once lost the ability to speak in Spanish for several years after being punished by teachers for using the language, but today has become one of the most honored poets in both Spanish and English. His poetry and short fiction have received numerous awards and are often anthologized. Most recently his memoir, Capirotada, was selected as the One Book Arizona choice for 2009, and his newest book of poetry is The Dangerous Shirt.

Continuing our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we go back to our archives for this 2005 conversation with fiction writer and poet, Gary Soto. He talks about growing up as a poor Mexican-American kid in Fresno, California, and how he discovered the power of poetry as a young man. The author of more than 70 books, Soto talks about why he now focuses on writing books for children and young adults. He reads from his poetry collection One Kind of Faith, and his book of essays, The Effects of Knut Hamson on a Fresno Boy, his novel Amnesia in a Republican County, and his latest collection of short stories, Help Wanted.

Winner of the 2009 Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Linda Rodriguez talks about her debut poetry collection, Heart's Migration, which has been in the works for over 20 years.  The award, which was founded by Sandra Cisneros to recognize exceptional writing talent and dedication to nurturing the creativity of others, is presented by the Macando Foundation.  Linda Rodriguez also talks about her involvement with the Latino Writers Collective in Kansas City, where pieces of her manuscript were encouraged and developed.

Sandra Cisneros

For Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15- October 15), Latina author Sandra Cisneros discusses her groundbreaking classic novel, The House on Mango Street, which was released in a special 25th anniversary edition in 2009 with a new forward essay by Cisneros. The founder of the Macondo Foundation to foster creativity among socially-engaged writers, Cisneros talks about her own growth as a writer of fiction, essays and poetry, and reads from this early work as well as from her more recent novel, Caramello, and her poetry collection, Loose Woman.

"American Sanctuaries"

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

Robert Olen Butler

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

Hilda Raz

A literary editor since she graduated from college, Hilda Raz became a public poet after she was sent by Prairie Schooner to the Breadloaf writing conference to represent the magazine, and there, found her own poetic voice as well.  Raz talks about balancing the roles of editing, teaching and writing, and her books that record her experiences with motherhood, surviving breast cancer and coming to terms with her child's transsexuality. She reads from her books All Odd and Splendid, What Happens, and Trans.

Tobias Wolff

Old School, the 2003 novel by Tobias Wolff that was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award, is a selection for the National Endowment for the Arts program "The Big Read."  Wolff talks with Angela Elam about this book in front of an audience at the Kansas City Public Library where his appearance concludes the city-wide read of Old School. They also discuss fiction writing and his 2009 book, Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories.

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang, author of the poetry collections Circle and Salvinia Molesta, discusses her poetry with New Letters editor Robert Stewart. Chang, who works as a business journalist, talks about mixing her "practical" business role with the imaginative role as a poet, and talks about how being the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants influences her work.

David Kirby

David Kirby, a nationally renowned poet who has spent his career teaching at Florida State University, is constantly on the move in his work and is known for his comic poetry.   In this program, he reads from his latest book The House on Boulevard Street—a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award in poetry—and discusses life in the "pobiz" (poetry business) and the relevance of history and pop culture in his work, with influences ranging from Dante to Dagwood.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

A first generation American poet and 2009 NEA fellow, Aimee Nezhukumatathil discusses her two books of poetry:  the multi-award winning Miracle Fruit and At the Drive-in Volcano.  She talks about writing poetry with a comic eye, and discusses the poetic form for which she named her dog, Villanelle.  Her unique ethnic heritage—her father is from India and her mother from the Philippines—along with her interest in environmental writing  are creative influences in her work.

Frank McCourt

New Letters on the Air says goodbye to Frank McCourt, the author of a trilogy of memoirs, including his bestselling debut book,  Angela’s Ashes.  In this 1997 interview, the year he won the Pulitzer Prize for this book that recounts his outwardly tragic childhood with great Irish humor, McCourt talks about the importance of writing and how 30 years as a high school teacher led to this publication at age 66.   Frank McCourt died on Sunday, July 19, 2009.

Annie Barrows

Known for her Ivy + Bean series of children's books, Annie Barrows never dreamed the outcome of the request of her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer, to revise Shaffer's manuscript for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Barrows talks about the two stories involved in the writing of this book: one of the English islanders living through German occupation during World War II and the other of her aunt's 20-year passage from inspiration to book creation. Barrows tells New Letters' Danette Alexander about her role in the book's completion and reads from the best-selling novel.

James Still

Like the playwright, William Inge, who came from Independence, James Still comes from another small town in Kansas--Pomona. In this interview, Still talks about his beginnings, and how that led to writing over 15 plays, including The Heavens are Hung in Black, commissioned by Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. to premiere in 2009 on the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Currently the playwright-in-residence at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Still reads from Iron Kisses and his other 2009 play, The Velvet Rut, which premiered at The Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City.

Robert Dana

Former poet laureate of Iowa, Robert Dana, reminisces about attending the Iowa Writers Workshop after World War II, and being in a class with poets Donald Justice and Henri Coulette.  He reads poems in memoriam to those writers from his 2008 collection The Other, and talks about the influences of languages he heard growing up in immigrant and working-class areas of Boston and small towns in New England.

Erik Larson

Bestselling author Erik Larson discusses two of his nonfiction books: Devil in the White City (which juxtaposes the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and the nation's first serial killing) and Thunderstruck! (that deals with the invention of radio and England's second-most famous murder). In this conversation with New Letters' Dennis Conrow, Larson reveals how he uses historical facts to create a novelistic approach to writing nonfiction.

Mia Leonin

Born and raised in the Arkansas Ozarks, C.D. Wright now lives and teaches in Rhode Island, where she served as the state poet laureate from 1994-99.  The author of over a dozen collections of poetry and prose discusses her more recent books, Steal Away: Selected and New Poems;  her collection of writings on poetry, Cooling Time: An American Vigil; and her 2008 book, Rising, Falling, Hovering.  She talks about the experience of discovering hidden writers in the backwoods of Arkansas and her collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster on the book, One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana

Junot Diaz

In honor of Caribbean-American Heritage Month, New Letters on the Air presents an encore interview with Junot Diaz. He won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his second book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.   He discusses this novel, as well as how genre fiction reveals the deepest fears and dreams of culture at large, and talks about how his early childhood in the Dominican Republic and New Jersey influenced the creation of his characters in both his award-winning novel and his short story collection, Drown. 

Gearoid Mac Lochlainn

Irish poet Gearoid Mac Lochlainn is the author of three books of poetry in Gaelic and a bilingual collection in English called Stream of Tongues. In this interview, he talks about writing in both languages and the musicality of writing in Gaelic. Also a musician and radio producer, Mac Lochlainn discusses how sound plays into his composition, and we hear some of his own sound productions.

Andrew Hudgins

The author of After the Lost War: A Narrative about the Confederate soldier and poet Sydney Lanier, Andrew Hudgins still bears the marks of his southern Baptist military upbringing in his work. He talks about parts of his childhood reflected in his collection, Ecstatic in the Poison, a lyrical look at middle-class America.  Hudgins, who teaches at Ohio State University, reads various poems and talks about the writing life within academia.

Kurt Andersen

Co-founder of the infamous and now defunct Spy magazine, Kurt Andersen is a long-time journalist, who's also written fiction and essays and is now known as the host of the public radio program Studio 360. He discusses the sometimes alternating demands of interviewing creative people and being creative in his own right and reads from his novel Heyday. He also talks about his earlier novel Turn of the Century.

Lisa See

Our recognition of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month features Lisa See, the author of the bestselling novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and the soon to be released Shanghai Girls. In this interview, she talks about her first book, On Gold Mountain, her family memoir about life in Los Angeles' Chinatown, where her Chinese great-grandfather founded a very successful curio shop and married a woman of European descent to begin his American family.  See also discusses her 2007 novel, Peony in Love, loosely based on the 17th century Chinese opera The Peony Pavilion, about a girl who starves herself rather than face an arranged marriage.

Helena Maria Viramontes

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, Helena Maria Viramontes reads from her 2007 novel, Their Dogs Came With Them, a book that offers a profoundly gritty portrait of everyday life in the Mexican-American barrios of East Los Angeles in the 1960s. She discusses her fiction and her earlier books, Under the Feet of Jesus and The Moths and Other Stories. Viramontes teaches English at Cornell University, and in 2006, she won both the Luis Leal Award and the John Dos Passos Award for Literature.

Cave Canem Poets

To end National Poetry Month, we will finally air the often promised show with Cave Canem founders Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady who talk about their goal of providing a safe space for African-American poets. Recorded at the University of Georgia's Cave Canem Symposium in 2008, they are joined on stage for conversation and poetry by Opal Moore, Kyle Dargan, and Nikki Finney, the editor of The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (Cave Canem Anthology).  The other poet was Sean Hill, who was recently featured on our show, and can be heard here.   

Paul Muldoon

Paul Muldoon, the poetry editor for The New Yorker, talks about his own rejection from the magazine in his earlier days.  This Irish author of ten collections of poetry reads from his work that includes formal poems about made-up words along with tributes to musicians such as the Beatles and Warren Zevon.  We'll also hear a bit of music from Muldoon's own rock band, Rackett.

Kay Ryan

Named the 16th U.S. Poet Laureate in the fall of 2008, Kay Ryan is sometimes seen as a poetry outsider.  Rather than making her living in the academic world of creative writing, this California poet has spent her life teaching remedial English in Marin County, while writing small, compact poems that revel in word play, philosophy, and humor.  She reads from two of her books, The Niagara River and Say Uncle, and talks about what led her to poetry and the influence of her recently deceased partner, Carol.

Charles Simic

U.S. Poet Laureate in 2007-08, Charles Simic is known for his surreal, humorous poetry.  Born in Serbia in 1938, Simic immigrated to the United States when he was 16.  He talks with New Letters editor Robert Stewart about his more recent work, and the strange experience of gaining national attention as the poet laureate.  He reads from his 2008 collection, The Monster Loves His Labyrinth, and other books.

Jaimee Wriston Colbert

The author of three books of fiction, Colbert talks about her most recent collection of linked stories, Dream Lives of Butterflies.  A native of Hawaii, Colbert was educated in Seattle and New England, and currently lives and teaches in Binghamton, NY.  She talks about how place influences her fiction, particularly this book, which is set in St. Louis, where Colbert lived briefly as a visiting writer, and was inspired by the people in her apartment building.  

Azar Nafisi

Growing up in pre-revolutionary Iran, Azar Nafisi did not have a particularly happy family life.  In her new memoir, Things I Have Been Silent About, she examines the growing pains of her family as well as the Iranian culture that led to the 1978 Islamic Revolution, and how those events helped shape her life. She also discusses how she's grown as a writer since her first book, Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Leslie Adrienne Miller

Poet Leslie Adrienne Miller became fascinated by 17th century medical illustrations, which encouraged myths and ignorance surrounding female anatomy in scientific literature up to the early 20th century.  She uses these themes in her poetry collection The Resurrection Trade, and discusses what it was like to become a first-time mother at age 45.  She also reads from Eat Quite Everything You See. 

Debra Marquart

Growing up on a North Dakota farm, Debra Marquart couldn't wait to leave.  Now, she returns to the place repeatedly in her fiction, essays and poetry.  A multi-genre writer, Marquart has led a life influenced by music and sound, dropping out of college to join a rock band in the ‘70s.  She reads from The Hunger Bone: Rock and Roll Stories, From Sweetness (poems) and The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere (essays). 

Elizabeth Alexander

The woman chosen to write a poem for the Inauguration of President Obama, Elizabeth Alexander talks about her most recent collection, American Sublime, and how she intertwines history with personal stories in her poetry.  This fourth collection of her work captures African-American voices and traditions from slavery to the present. 

Stanley E. Banks

Stanley E. Banks' poetry explores the segregated Kansas City of his youth and some of the difficulties of growing up in his black neighborhood. In this program, he discusses how he overcame racial prejudice to find success in the unlikely arena of poetry. A literary child of the earlier Missouri poet, Langston Hughes, Banks reads from Blue Beat Syncopation, the collection that captures the first 25 years of his career.

Claudia Rankine

Jamaican-born poet Claudia Rankine's work "goes directly to the objective of literary writing--to write a book that is deeply interesting despite the expectations that received forms give us," according to interviewer and New Letters editor Robert Stewart. The two discuss her early collection Plot and her multi-genre book, Don't Let Me Be Lonely, that combines prose and poetry with incongruous illustrations.

Sean Hill

Sean Hill, a native of Milledgeville, Georgia, is the author of the poetry collection Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. An homage to African-American life in the segregated South, the poems create a call and response across six generations of the fictional Silas Wright family. Hill discusses how he weaves history, fiction and his own family into this debut book.   

Remembering John Updike

A master of twentieth century American prose, John Updike died on January 27, 2009.  This week on New Letters on the Air, we remember his life with a 1998 interview with former New Letters editor Jim McKinley.  In this interview, Updike talks about his devotion to his legendary characters Henry Bech and Rabbit Angstrom, reflects on his humble origins in "the hinterlands of Pennsylvania," and examines his life as a man of faith.

Thomas Gibbons

This Philadelphia playwright talks about his trilogy of plays that deal with racial issues in America. The author of dozen dramas, Gibbons uses real life events as the basis of his fictional works. He reads from A House with No Walls and Permanent Collection, and talks about how the shaping of the plays were influenced with the rolling premiers of these works in five different theatres across the country.

Kai Wright and The African-American Experience

Editor of the 2009 collection, The African-American Experience: Black History and Culture Through Speeches, Letters, Editorials, Poems, Songs, and Stories, Kai Wright talks specifically about the great speeches in American history, including those of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr and Barack Obama. This chronologically ordered book deals with American life from the earliest slaves brought by the Spanish in the16^th century to the speech on race by the first African-American to be elected President of the United States.

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang, author of the poetry collections Circle and Salvinia Molesta, discusses her poetry with New Letters editor Robert Stewart. Chang, who works as a business journalist, talks about mixing her "practical" business role with the imaginative role as a poet, and talks about how being the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants influences her work.

M.T. Anderson

Young adult writer M. T. Anderson, author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing (listed by Amazon in their top 20 books of 2008), talks about his immersion into 18th century literature in preparation for writing this National Book Award-winning novel. Anderson also discusses the importance of language, and how it shapes our reality, as well as the need for books written exclusively for teenagers, and how that is distinguished from writing for adults.

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