A Novel Idea

Eliot Pattison is the author of gritty mysteries set in the historic past and joins Suzanne Lang for an hour of conversation. His latest novel is Freedoms’s Ghost, a Mystery of the American Revolution, a recent installment into his Bone Rattler series, set in the pre-Revolutionary War Colonial America. Also featured is a 2019 segment with Eliot discussing the tenth and last installment of his “Inspector Shan” series set in Tibet, Bones of the Earth. Eliot Pattison and Suzanne Lang on A Novel Idea, Sunday, November 19 th at 10 am PT on KRCB, 104.9 FM in Sonoma County, streaming and podcasting to the world at krcb.org .

Award winning writer and historian Julia Bricklin joins Suzanne Lang to talk about her most recent book Red Sapphire: The Woman Who Beat the Blacklist , the story of Hannah Weinstein, a left leaning activist who fled to Europe during the McCarthy era, and established Sapphire Films. With little background, she began producing successful television shows, all the while surreptitiously employing blacklisted American writers to provide the scripts. Also featured is the book A Girlhood: Letter to my Transgender Daughter and its author Carolyn Hays in conversation with Suzanne. Carolyn is an award winning author, but chose to publish this book under a pen name to protect her family; her daughter, assigned male at birth, asserted that she was a girl at the age of three and has been living that way ever since. It’s A Novel Idea, Sunday, November 5 th at 10am PT. Broadcasting at 104.9 in Sonoma County, streaming and podcasting at krcb.org .

Esmeralda Santiago, a prolific Puerto Rican author of a series of memoirs, along with nonfiction works, and works for young people joins Suzanne Lang to talk about her life, Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans, and her latest novel Las Madres. Corky Parker, with roots in Public Radio and a successful career with her own media company, buys a small inn on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, and nearly twenty-five years later tells us about her experiences in la Finca -Love, Loss, and Laundry on a Tiny Puerto Rican Island. It is A Novel Idea, Sunday October 29 th , at 10am PT on KRCB 104.9 in Sonoma County, streaming and podcasting at krcb.org .

Story and story-tellers are the link to and legacy of our cultural roots and identity. Suzanne Lang talks with Megan Kamalei Kakimoto on her wrenching and sensational story collection, Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare , which follows native Hawaiians through a contemporary landscape filled with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. Suzanne also talks with Mojgan Ghazirad on her autobiographical coming of age novel, The House on Sun Street , set largely in Tehran during the concussive period of the Iranian Revolution, which changed the lives of women and also of literature.

Writers at different stages and phases of their craft. Suzanne Lang features three novelists at varying stages in their craft. Longtime journalist and South County Notebook columnist for the Petaluma Argus-Courier, Frances Rivetti talks of moving from nonfiction to fiction, as she writes of place. Internationally best-selling author Samantha Downing talks of her latest, a thriller with snark, A Twisted Love Story . Her debut novel was My Lovely Wife , characterized as ”Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. Also featured is a conversation with 16-year-old first time author A.J. Wich on her novel The Amazing Adventures of Ann Turnner. A Novel Idea is heard first, third, and fifth Sundays at 10:00 am PT on KRCB 104.9 .

Marked Women is the focus this time on A Novel Idea. First, Suzanne Lang talks with Laura Maylene Walter on her award-winning novel Body of Stars . Then, it's a conversation with historians Ivy Anderson and Devon Angus on their nonfiction work, Alice: Memoirs of a Barbary Coast Prostitute . It’s A Novel Idea, airing every first, third, and fifth Sunday at 10:00 am PT. Streaming and podcasting at KRCB.org .

Marine mammal researcher and co-founder of the Ocean Conservation Society, Maddalena Bearzi, like many of us, had her work curtailed during the initial shutdown period of the pandemic. But her habit is to observe, and her world did not get smaller, as she found a universe of life right in her own backyard. Her book is Stranded, Finding Nature in Uncertain Times and she joins Suzanne Lang in conversation. Also featured is Greg Sarris, author and Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria with his work Becoming Story, A Journey among Seasons, Places, Trees, and Ancestors. It’s A Novel Idea, Sunday, September 3 rd at 10am PT on KRCB FM, 104.9 in Sonoma County, streaming and podcasting at krcb.org .

True crime and bestselling author Daniel Stashower’s American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper probes the depression era search for the “torso murderer” who left a wake of dismembered bodies in Cleveland Ohio, while also revealing the post-Untouchables life and career of Eliot Ness in his role as Cleveland’s Public Safety Director. Stashower joins Suzanne Lang in conversation! A Novel Idea airs the first, third, and fifth Sundays of each month at 10:00 am PT. Streaming at krcb.org .

A tale of two cities. Suzanne Lang talks with sports executive and author Andy Dolich, who along with journalist Dave Newhouse, authored the book Goodbye Oakland: Winning, Wanderlust, and a Sports Town’s Fight for Survival about the history of professional teams in Oakland California and their sometimes heartbreaking departures from the city and the fans. Also featured is sportswriter Dale Tafoya with his book of triumph and civic pride & perseverance, One Season in Rocket City: How the 1985 Huntsville Stars Brought Minor League Baseball Fever to Alabama. A Novel Idea airs first, third, and fifth Sundays at 10am PT, on KRCB 104.9 FM in Sonoma County. Streaming at krcb.org .

Long time activist for economic and environmental justice, Chuck Collins, brings us his provocative novel of the near future, Altar to an Erupting Sun, which opens with a woman strapping a bomb to herself to blow up an oil executive. Also featured is Hannelore Krollpfeiffer’s book, We Lived in Berlin, a Story about the End of the War, finally translated into English from the original German by our guest Katrin Ciaffa. It is an undistorted look at the realities of two young women during the final days of WWII. It’s a Novel Idea with Suzanne Lang, every first, third, and fifth Sundays at 10:00 am on 104.9 FM in Sonoma County and streaming at krcb.org.