Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

In 1916 Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, childhood friends and Smith College graduates, left their affluent lives in Auburn, New York, and went off to teach the children of homesteaders in a remote schoolhouse on the Western Slope of Colorado. Dorothy Woodruff was the grandmother of New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden. Nearly 100 years later Wickenden found the detailed, colorful letters the two women wrote to their families and set out to discover what two intrepid Eastern women found when they went West.

Before joining the New Yorker in 1996, Dorothy Wickenden was national affairs editor at Newsweek (1993-1995)and was the longtime executive editor at The New Republic. She has also written for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.

Recorded On: Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Equal parts investigative legal history and compelling detective tale, Flagrant Conduct is the still-untold story of Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark Supreme Court decision that promises to be the Brown v. Board of gay rights. From the 1998 arrest of Houston defendants John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, charged with sodomy in Lawrence's own bedroom, to the stirring Supreme Court ruling five years later, Flagrant Conduct is an insightful work of formidable scholarship.

Drawing from dozens of new interviews that yield surprising new evidence, Dale Carpenter reexamines the motives of almost every character involved, from the arresting police officers to the brilliant gay-rights attorneys, whose maneuuverings brought the case to national attention, to the nine Supreme Court justices, whose predispositions are on full display. With the legal battle over gay marriage looming, this first complete history of Lawrence v. Texas, which expanded the legal rights of millions of gay and lesbian Americans, could not be timelier.

Dale Carpenter is the Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnnesota Law School.

Presented in partnership with ACLU of Maryland.

Recorded On: Thursday, March 15, 2012

Jane Satterfield is the author of two poetry collections: Assignation at Vanishing Point and Shepherdess with an Automatic. Among her awards are an N.E.A. Fellowship and the Faulkner Society Gold Medal, as well as residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A new manuscript, Her Familiars, was a finalist for this year’s National Poetry Series, and her poem, “The War Years,” won the 2011 Mslexia Poetry Competition.

Ned Balbo received the 2010 Donald Justice Prize for The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems. His previous books are Lives of the Sleepers, Galileo’s Banquet, and the chapbook Something Must Happen. He has received three Maryland Arts Council grants, the Robert Frost Foundation Poetry Award, and the John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize. He teaches at Loyola University Maryland.

Virginia Crawford, Poet-in-Residence with the Maryland State Arts Council, teaches through the Artists-in-Education program. Her first collection of poems, Touch, was featured on WYPR’s Maryland Morning. Her poems have appeared in Gargoyle, The Mas Tequila Review, The Potomac: A Journal of Poetry and Politics, and others.

Sam Schmidt's first collection of poems, Suburban Myths, comes out this year. His work has appeared in the Maryland Poetry Review, Black Moon, the Dancing Shadow Review, the Potomac Review, and Gargoyle. With his wife, he coedited the anthology, Poetry Baltimore: Poems about a City. He founded WordHouse, Baltimore's newsletter for writers.

Read poems by Jane Satterfield.

Read poems by Ned Balbo.

Read poems by Virginia Crawford.

Recorded On: Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Undoubtedly the most influential advocate for birth control even before the term existed, Margaret Sanger ignited a movement that has shaped our society to this day.Her views on reproductive rights have made her a frequent target of conservatives and so-called family values activists. Yet lately even progressives have shied away from her, citing socialist leanings and a purported belief in eugenics as a blight on her accomplishments. In this new biography, historian Jean H. Baker rescues Sanger from such critiques and restores her to the vaunted place in history she once held.

Trained as a nurse and midwife in the gritty tenements of New York's Lower East Side, Sanger grew increasingly aware of the dangers of unplanned pregnancy, both physical and psychological. Following a botched abortion and the death of the mother, Sanger quickly became one of the loudest voices in favor of sex education and contraception. The movement she started spread across the country, eventually becoming a vast international organization with her as its spokeswoman.

Jean H. Baker is the author of Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists and many other books on American history. She is professor of history at Goucher College.

Recorded On: Monday, March 12, 2012

In 2008 Peggielene Bartels received a call from a cousin in Ghana: her uncle had died, and Peggielene was now the King of Otuam, a fishing village with 7,000 residents. King Peggy chronicles the astonishing journey of a middle-aged secretary in Washington, DC, struggling to make ends meet, who suddenly finds herself responsible for the future of a town half-a-world away.

Recorded On: Sunday, March 11, 2012

A panel of four women writers from across the globe discusses the intersection of place, time and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation will be moderated by Linda A. Duggins, Hachette Book Group.

Leila Cobo, a Fulbright scholar from Cali, Colombia, is a novelist, pianist, TV host, and executive editor for Latin content and programming for Billboard. She is considered one of the country's leading experts on Latin music. She is the author of Tell Me Something True. Her second novel, The Second Time We Met (Grand Central Publishing), will be released February 29, 2012. (www.leilacobo.com)

Jacqueline Luckett is the author of Searching for Tina Turner and the newly published Passing Love (Grand Central Publishing). She participated in the Voices of Our Nations (VONA) writing workshops and, in 2004, formed the Finish Party along with seven other women writers-of-color. (www.jacquelineluckett.com)

Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, including Sugar and Glorious. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. In her new novel, Gathering of Waters (Akashic Books), McFadden brings her own vision to the story of Emmett Till and the town of Money, Mississippi. (www.bernicemcfadden.com)

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning (Feminist Press) is a National Book Critics Circle finalist, an Asian American Literary Award finalist, a Grub Street National Book Award winner, and a Dayton Literary Peace Prize nominee. Her first novel, Why She Left Us, won the American Book Award. She is associate editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City and is on the faculty of the Goddard MFA in Creative Writing program. (www.r3reiko.com)

Presented in partnership with the Antigua & Barbuda International Literary Festival. Media sponsor: The Baltimore Times.

Recorded On: Saturday, March 10, 2012

Enjoy the sounds of music from long, long ago, as talented young musicians perform works from the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras on faithful reproductions of period instruments.

Recorded On: Saturday, March 10, 2012

What was he like? Jack Kennedy said that the reason people read biographies was to answer that question. Chris Matthews has devoted years studying the life of Jack Kennedy. to find out what he was like. From interviews with prep school classmates and college friends to war buddies and political associates, Matthews gives us an intimate picture of John F. Kennedy's coming-of-age. "In searching for Jack Kennedy," writes Matthews, "I found a fighting prince never free from pain, never far from trouble, never accepting the world he found, never wanting to be his father's son. He was a far greater hero than he ever wished us to know."

Chris Matthews is the host of MSNBC's Hardball and NBC's The Chris Matthews Show. His bestselling books include Hardball; Kennedy & Nixon; Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think; and American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions.

Recorded On: Thursday, March 8, 2012

Grocery prices and the forsaken foods at the back of your refrigerator seem to increase weekly. After reading American Wasteland, you will never look at your shopping list, refrigerator, plate or wallet the same way again. Jonathan Bloom wades into the garbage heap to unearth what our squandered food says about us, why it matters, and how you can make a difference starting in your own kitchen -- reducing waste and saving money. Interviews with experts such as chef Alice Waters and food psychologist Brian Wansink, among others, uncover not only how and why we waste, but, most importantly, what we can do about it.

Jonathan Bloom is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University.

Presented in partnership with United Way of Central Maryland, Wesleyan University, and JHU Center for a Livable Future.

Recorded On: Monday, March 5, 2012

The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols and their interconnection in the history and souls of black folk.

In a work that spans social history, theology, and cultural studies, Professor Cone explores the message of the spirituals and the power of the blues; the passion and death of Emmet Till and the engaged vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. He invokes the spirits of Billie Holiday and Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Wells, and the witness of black artists, writers, preachers, and fighters for justice. And he remembers the victims, especially the 5,000 who perished during the lynching period. Through their witness he contemplates the greatest challenge of any Christian theology -- to explain how life can be made meaningful in the face of death and injustice.

James H. Cone, Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians in America. His books include A Black Theology of Liberation, The Spirituals & the Blues, God of the Oppressed, and Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare.

Recorded On: Thursday, March 1, 2012