Free Library Podcast

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition, and Dr. Anthea Butler, Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought and Chair of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Introduced by legendary poet, Sonia Sanchez

Nikole Hannah-Jones won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on The 1619 Project, a continuing initiative started byThe New York Times Magazine to reexamine United States history through the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans. The co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, Hannah-Jones has earned, among many other honors, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards, three National Magazine Awards, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. She was recently was named the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University. Interweaving 18 essays with 36 works of fiction and nonfiction by a group of writers of diverse backgrounds, skills, and experiences, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a greatly expanded exploration of the continuing legacy of slavery in our cultural, political, and legal institutions. (recorded 11/17/2021)

In conversation with Orly Lobel, author of You Don't Own Me: The Court Battles that Exposed Barbie's Dark Side

Specializing in intellectual property and science policy, Jorge L. Contreras is a professor of law and ethics of human genetics at the University of Utah. His more than 100 scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as Science, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, and Nature, and he has been featured on BBC Radio, NPR, and PRI, among other media outlets. A member of the Advisory Board of the American Antitrust Institute, Contreras has served on several other high-level governmental, research, and legal boards. The Genome Defense follows the intense high-stakes courtroom fight undertaken by ACLU lawyers, activists, and scientists against biotech companies seeking to patent the very material that makes us who we are.

Orly Lobel is the award-winning author of several books and numerous articles. She is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego and received her doctoral and law degrees from Harvard University. She is a prolific speaker, commentator, and scholar who travels the world lecturing about policy and industry. (recorded 11/18/2021)

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition

Jonathan Karl is the author of Front Row at the Trump Show, an instant New York Times bestseller that peered behind the scenes into President Trump and his allies' unprecedented actions. The chief White House correspondent and chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, Karl has written extensively about Trump's presidency., Karl has also covered some of D.C.'s most important beats, including four presidential administrations, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the State Department. He was the president of the White House Correspondents' Association from 2019 to 2020 and has earned the Walter Cronkite Award for National Individual Achievement, an Emmy Award, and the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award, the highest honor for Congressional reporting. In Betrayal, Karl recounts the chaotic events that followed the 2020 presidential election and the former president's stunning downfall. (recorded 11/22/2021)

In conversation with Trapeta B. Mayson

Chronicling African American family life and women through 14 celebrated poetry collections, Lucille Clifton won the National Book Award and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and is the only author ever to have two books of poetry nominated in the same year for the Pulitzer Prize. She also authored scores of children's books, served as the Poet Laureate of Maryland, and earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets. Originally published 34 years before her 2010 death, Generations is a memoir that traces Clifton's family's history from Buffalo, New York back to the Jim Crow South and the slave trade, all the way to the women of the Dahomey people of West Africa.

Generations is prefaced by an all-new forward from Tracey K. Smith. A former two-term United States Poet Laureate, she is currently the chair of Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She is the author of four books of verse, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Life on Mars, as well as the memoir Ordinary Light.

In conversation with Trapeta B. Mayson, Philadelphia Poet Laureate and the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies.

(recorded 11/16/2021)

In conversation with Marsha Levick, cofounder, deputy director, and chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center

The Blume Professor of Law and director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at the Georgetown University Law Center, Kristin Henning represents young people in Washington, D.C.'s Superior Court and conducts nationwide training of criminal justice institutions across the U.S. on the intersection of race, adolescence, and policing. She is the former lead attorney of the Juvenile Unit at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia and serves on the board of directors for the Center for Children's Law and Policy. In The Rage of Innocence, Henning exposes the day-to-day but widely hidden ways in which discriminatory and aggressive policing traumatizes Black children and leads them to fear, resist, and resent the police.

Marsha Levick is the cofounder, deputy director, and chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, the oldest public interest law firm for children in the United States. For more than 35 years, Ms. Levick has been an advocate for children's and women's rights, earning recognition as a national leader in juvenile law. Ms. Levick has authored or co-authored numerous briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and many federal and state courts, contributing to cases including Roper v. Simmons, striking the juvenile death penalty; Graham v. Florida, striking juvenile life without parole sentences for non-homicide crimes; JDB v. North Carolina, requiring consideration of youth status in the Miranda custody determination; and Miller v. Alabama, striking mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences in homicide cases. (recorded 11/15/2021)

Ellis Wachs Endowed Lecture

In conversation with Michael Smerconish

A national political reporter at The Washington Post, Bucks County's own Robert Costa has earned a wide readership and praise from fellow journalists for his deeply sourced and well-founded reporting. He previously wrote for National Review, was the moderator and managing editor for PBS's Washington Week, and served as a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. Co-authored with investigative journalist and bestselling writer Bob Woodward, Peril utilizes hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents to delve into the difficult transfer of power from the Trump administration to the Biden presidency and the resulting crisis for U.S. democracy.

Michael A. Smerconish is the host of The Michael Smerconish Program on SiriusXM POTUS Channel 124, the host of CNN's Smerconish on Saturday mornings, a Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, and a New York Times bestselling author. (recorded 11/12/2021)

Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them, ''a startling debut collection'' (The New York Times) of short stories was a Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, the 2009 Oprah Book Club Selection, and was translated in to 12 languages. It was named to several publications' ''best of the year'' lists and earned the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Open Book Award, among other honors. A professor in the University of Florida's MFA writing program and the recipient of many literary fellowships, Akpan has published stories and autobiographical work in The New Yorker, the Nigerian edition of The Guardian, and the Hekima Review, among other places. His debut novel tells the satirical story of a Nigerian editor who experiences racism and feelings of white cultural superiority underneath the façade of the Manhattan publishing industry. 

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of the ''quirky, compelling'' and ''polished debut'' (Dallas Morning News) story collection Night at the Fiestas, winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. A professor of creative writing at Princeton University, she has earned the ''5 Under 35'' award from the National Book Foundation, the Rome Prize, and a Stegner Fellowship. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The O. Henry Prize Stories anthology, among other places. The Five Wounds, Quade's debut novel, finds five generations of a New Mexican family converging in the year following an unexpected birth. (recorded 11/10/2021)

In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition

Pine Tree Foundation Endowed Lecture

The New York Times's Supreme Court correspondent for nearly three decades, Linda Greenhouse won the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the United States's highest judicial branch. She is the author of Becoming Justice Blackmun and The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction, and the co-author of The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, her other journalistic honors include the John Chancellor Award, the Goldsmith Career Award, and the Radcliffe Institute Medal. In Justice on the Brink, Greenhouse offers a sobering account and inside analysis of the year in which the sitting membership of the Supreme Court transitioned into a rightwing super-majority.

(recorded 11/9/2021)

In conversation with David Fricke, senior editor for Rolling Stone and SiriusXM host

One of Rolling Stone's ''100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time'', Robby Krieger is best known as a member of the legendary rock band The Doors. He wrote or co-wrote some of the group's biggest commercial hits, including ''Light My Fire,'' ''Touch Me,'' ''Love Me Two Times,'' and ''Love Her Madly.'' While The Doors have sold over one hundred million albums worldwide, inspired Oliver Stone's popular biopic feature film, and have received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, Krieger has also become a Grammy-nominated solo artist, an accomplished painter, and he is the co-founder of the annual Medlock-Krieger Rock & Roll Golf Classic & All-Star Concert. In Set the Night on Fire, Krieger, the notoriously reserved musician describes his childhood, The Doors' triumphs and tragedies, and the frank details of his personal struggles. (recorded 11/8/2021)

In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award-winning journalist and broadcaster

Currently Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, Huma Abedin began as an intern for the former first lady in 1996. In the interim she has served in the U.S. Senate as senior advisor to Senator Clinton, worked as traveling chief of staff for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, was the deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Department of State, and was vice chair of Hillary for America in 2016. In her candid new memoir, Abedin tells the story of her upbringing in the United States and Saudi Arabia by Indian and Pakistani parents, her heartbreaking marriage to Anthony Weiner and their shared love for their son, and some of her most extraordinary career experiences. (recorded 11/5/2021)