Dialogue with Marcia Franklin

Marcia Franklin continues her conversation with Boise-based outdoor writer Michael Lanza, focusing on tips for hiking and camping, including some of the best gear and small essentials to pack. The two also talk about ways to keep safe in the backcountry.

Lanza, the former Northwest editor for Backpacker magazine, has written three books about hiking, as well as many articles chronicling his worldwide adventures hiking, climbing, skiing and paddling.

"Before They're Gone," his book about his family's adventures hiking through some of the national parks in America most threatened by climate change, won an honorable mention in the National Outdoor Book Awards.

Lanza also runs the website thebigoutside.com, which was chosen by USA Today readers as one of the top 10 hiking and outdoors blogs.

Originally aired: 08/07/2015

Marcia Franklin talks with Idaho outdoor writer and photographer Michael Lanza about some of the best backcountry trips in our region. Lanza, the former Northwest editor for Backpacker magazine, has written three books about hiking, as well as many articles chronicling his worldwide adventures backpacking, climbing, skiing and paddling.

"Before They're Gone," his book about his family's adventures hiking through some of the national parks in America most threatened by climate change, won an honorable mention in the National Outdoor Book Awards. Franklin talks with him about why he wanted to write the book, and what it was like to backpack with his young children. Lanza also runs the website thebigoutside.com, which was chosen by USA Today readers as one of the top 10 hiking and outdoors blogs.

Originally aired: 07/10/2015

Ernest Hemingway spent the last years of his life in Ketchum, where he died in 1961. To commemorate his life and writing on the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Idaho Humanities Council in 1999 invited several noted Hemingway scholars to Sun Valley to work with Idaho teachers. Marcia Franklin talks with four scholars about Hemingway; the discussion includes his style, his personal life and the influence of Idaho on his work.

Originally aired: 12/23/1999

Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry hams it up with host Marcia Franklin at the 2014 Sun Valley Writers' Conference. The two talk about Barry's various misadventures in the Gem State, including tree-climbing, snowmobiling and trout fishing—and what he thinks the new motto for Idaho should be. They also discuss Barry's partnership with Ridley Pearson on the Peter and the Starcatchers book series.

Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter.

Originally Aired: 11/21/2014

The interview is part of Dialogue's series "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference" and was taped at the 2014 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

Marcia Franklin talks with maritime writer and historian Nathaniel Philbrick, the speaker at the 2013 Idaho Humanities Council Distinguished Humanities Lecture. Philbrick is the author of numerous books, including most recently "Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution," which looks at the deadliest battle of the American Revolution and how it influenced the birth of our country.

A sailor, Philbrick is also known for his book, "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex," which introduced readers to the true story behind Herman Melville's Moby Dick. It won the National Book Award in 2001, and was the basis for an American Experience documentary on PBS in 2011.

Originally aired: 10/18/2013

Sarah Broom unpacks her National Book Award-winning memoir, "The Yellow House," which chronicles the devastating effects that decades of neglect and bureaucratic amnesia have had on her childhood neighborhood of New Orleans East. The book also pays homage to the house she and her 11 siblings grew up in, which was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, but which lives on in Broom's prose.

Originally Aired: 12/24/21

The interview is part of Dialogue's series, "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference," and was taped at the 2021 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

Marcia Franklin interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson about her book, The Warmth of Other Suns. The work, about the Great Migration of African-Americans from the south to other parts of the country, took Wilkerson 15 years to research and write. They discuss the reasons for the migration, its influence on the country, and how the book's success has affected Wilkerson.

Originally Aired: 10/16/14

In this episode, host Marcia Franklin talks with Dr. Abraham Verghese about his latest blockbuster novel, The Covenant of Water. The epic, which includes a mystery at its core, covers more than 70 years in the intertwined lives of families in the Indian state of Kerala. Verghese discusses the ties the story has to his own family history and shares his joy of writing.

Originally Aired: 12/01/2023

The interview is part of the series "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference" and was taped at the 2023 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.

Marcia Franklin talks with Emily Ruskovich, the author of Idaho: A Novel. In 2019, the novel won the Dublin Literary Award, worth more than $100,000. Ruskovich reflects on what it has been like to win the award. The two also discuss the plot of Idaho, whose setting is based on the landscape of Ruskovich's childhood in northern Idaho.

Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter.

Originally Aired: 11/1/2019

In this episode, host Marcia Franklin speaks with writer Mohsin Hamid about his latest novel, The Last White Man. The story follows the transformation of a man who wakes up one day to find that his skin color has changed.

Hamid, who often incorporates his own multicultural background into his work, talks with Franklin about how his life changed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and how he aims with his writing to "imagine the world into a better place."

Originally Aired: 12/29/2023

The interview is part of the series "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference" and was taped at the 2023 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.