Ohio State Professor Nick White had a secret, one he didn’t want to tell himself or anyone else: he was gay. But, like most secrets, it eventually came to light, for him in a surprisingly hopeful way. The protagonist of his new novel travels a similar path but with a much more tragic outcome, being sent to a conversion camp as a youth. Listen in to hear more about the book and Nick White’s life.

A nightmare scenario: cheap Nordic prices and a wild population. Join us.

Columbus comedian Leslie Battle is no stranger to struggle. What makes her special is the ability to make others laugh with her at life’s trials and oddities. Listen in as we discuss the decidedly unfunny event that led her to comedy, why her son’s friends may see her in a new light, and what unexpected crowd she scores big with.

Ohio State University Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Theatre Jennifer Schlueter is a playwright and her latest, Patience Worth, premiered in March in St Louis and will have a two-day run on May 19-20 at Ohio State.

We talked recently about the play, its background, and how historical documents can tell their own stories, sometimes with just a little technological boost.  Listen in to get the full story of a Ouija board psychic and the character who spoke to her.

Life is made up of surprising coincidences. Examples: Colson Whitehead was awarded the  2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction on April 11  for his book Underground Railroad, and he’s in Columbus on April 28 with the Bexley Library.

AND he’s this week’s guest on Craft. Wild, huh?

When I spoke with him, Colson had not yet been awarded the prize but he had already garnered plenty of awards and impressive sales. Listen in to hear what it’s like to carry a big book secret (“Psst, Colson: Oprah picked your book for her book club but don’t tell anyone for a few months”) and why he waited for years before beginning to write this book.

Character riggers create digital puppets for animation, the code that brings to life your favorite personalities like Po in Kung Fu Panda or Toothless in How To Train Your Dragon.

Cara Malek worked as a rigger on both of these films and will share her experiences on April 23 as part of Science Sundays at the Ohio State University.

Listen in to hear how Cara and her team overcame technical hurdles like how to “zip” together the two-headed Hideous Zippleback dragon (Barf and Belch) in How To Train Your Dragon or whether Shrek’s bodily odors should be colorless or not (we aim high on this podcast, people).

What drives an assassin? What makes someone break past societal barriers and kill a president?

Jennifer Chiaverini , author of Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker, The Spymistress, and Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule, explores this territory in Fates and Traitors, a fictional history of John Wilkes Booth, before and after the assassination of President Lincoln. She focuses on four of the women closest to Booth: his mother, sister, secret fiance, and Confederate confidant.

Chiaverini will be a guest author in Columbus for the Ohioana Book Festival on April 8, 2017.

I enjoy talking to illustrators because I’m fascinated with how their brains are wired so differently from mine. I can draw a stick figure and a smiley face. Beyond that, my drawings look like a toddler accidentally got ahold of a pencil.

C.F. Payne has never had this problem. You’ve probably seen his illustrations on the covers of magazines like Time, MAD, the New York Times, and Reader’s Digest, among others. His latest is the illustration for the book Miss Mary Reporting. 

Listen in for his process when he gets an illustration commission and how the body in the illustration may or may not be that of the person he is drawing.

Too late I realized that I should have asked him to draw my head on Liam Hemsworth’s body.

CF Payne will be a guest at the 2017 Ohioana Book Festival on April 8th.

Junk.

Most likely it’s what you think you need to throw away.

But for the organizers of Junk Bash, it’s something to be treasured. According to Mercantile Fairs Director of Operations and Outreach Suzanne Perreault, Junk Bash brings together people with a very different definition of junk.

“When we say it’s junk, we mean it’s something we want to reclaim,” Perrault says, redefining junk as something precious and useful.

Junk Bash will take place on March 24th and 25th at the newly built Cardinal Hall the Ohio State Fairgrounds. Junk Bash will feature a number of Columbus area crafters and reuse experts like the Ohio Creative Collective, and Baskets by Viva, Nadderdoodle, Wicked Stitch of the West, and Elemental Carbon.

When author and documentary filmmaker e.E. Charlton-Trujillo decided to go on a book tour a few years ago, she also took along all the equipment to make a video. This was second nature to her because of her experience, but this time the focus was on the students that she was working with. The result was the documentary At-Risk Summer.

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo will be a featured guest at the 2017 Ohioana Book Festival on April 8th, where you can ask her all kinds of questions about her book and the video and how difficult it is to do a cross-country book tour while making a documentary with well-known writers at the same time.