Arts & Letters

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with memoirist Michelle Kuo . Reading With Patrick , published by Random House, is about a teacher, a student, and a life-changing friendship. This episode “The Delta, Full of Stars” chronicles Kuo’s story of moving to Helena, Arkansas for Teach for America to work at an alternative school, Stars Academy School. Kuo forms a bond with a student named Patrick, and she helps him discover the joys of reading and writing. Like many young teachers, Kuo

Listen to the episode: On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with writer Stewart O'Nan about his historical novel, West of Sunset . Published by Viking, the novel is a fictional account, beginning in 1937, of the last three years of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald's life. It weaves a tale of his notorious romp through Hollywood; his affair with gossip columnist, Sheilah Graham; his attempts to salvage his writing career; and whatever was left of his marriage to Zelda, locked away in an

Listen to the episode On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with writer and University of Arizona associate professor Cristina Devereaux Ramírez about her book Occupying Our Space: The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists and Activists, 1875-1942 , published by The University of Arizona Press. In the book, Ramírez sheds new light on the contributions of Mexican women journalists and activists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marked as the zenith of

Listen to the episode: On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with Scottish writer Brian Conaghan. His novel for young adults, The Bombs That Brought Us Together, published by Bloomsbury, is an all-to-relevant fable about language and loss, regimes and refugees and the forging of a common ground in the midst of real and perceived intractable differences between Old Country and Little Town. "When the bombs came, just before midnight like the news guy said, I was underneath [huge blankets]

Listen to the episode Welcome to Hickory Ditch, Arkansas, 2012 ". . . where nothing ever stops or happens but just hangs somewhere in the middle. . . Hickory Ditch, Arkansas--a city full of human-shaped mosquitoes suspended in amber." On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with writer and University of Central Arkansas Alumnus Chase Night. His book for young adults, Chicken, published by Asymmetrical Press is based on a reality of the thousands of disenfranchised flesh-and-bloo d

Listen to the episode On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with writer, actor, and folksinger Willi Carlisle and director and designer Joseph Fletcher. Their one-man operetta There Ain't No More! Death of a Folksinger chronicles an aging folksinger's last performance in front of an audience. Throughout the performance, this raconteur called "Our Hero" delights the audience with off-color jokes and stories from his past. "And because the present is a gift, I encourage you to turn to the

Listen to the program The Dark Lyricism of Arkansas poet Greg Brownderville On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with poet Greg Alan Brownderville , who discusses his latest collection, A Horse With Holes in It, published by LSU Press . This collection is interwoven with humor, compelling imagery and dark lyricism. "I wrote it in a blur, in a psychic state resembling trance, which is appropriate, given that spirit possession is at the heart of the collection. I accepted that it would

Listen To The Interview Hot Springs singer songwriter Ryan Sauders and guitarist Keith West sat down with J. Bradley Minnick, host of KUAR's Arts & Letters, to discuss a very difficult subject: suicide of loved ones and how it permeates much of Ryan's lyrics and music.

Listen To The Episode On this episode of Arts & Letters, we speak with artist Robert McCann who talks about his paintings, which interrogate the drama that is entertainment culture and place us smack down between studio wrestling and external ideas of contemporary spaces. McCann's paintings explore popular culture, history and mythology by stitching together stories and characters from the world of “the golden age” of studio wrestling to external ideas of contemporary spaces: the stage set

Listen to the Episode On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with Trenton Lee Stewart, author of the bestselling The Mysterious Benedict Society series. His newest book The Secret Keepers, published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers , is a mystery involving time, directions, smoke, poetry and riddles and at its core is about hiding in plain sight. Today [Reuben Pedley] wanted to strike out into new territory, and there was no time to waste. Eleven years had passed since the