Free Library Podcast

In conversation with Adam Kirsch 

Recognized for their ''signature blend of tragedy and spirituality'' (The Washington Post), Dara Horn's novels include In the Image, The World to Come, and A Guide for the Perplexed. One of Granta's Best Young American Novelists, Horn is the recipient of two National Jewish Book Awards, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, among other honors. She is a former teacher of Jewish literature and Israeli history at Harvard University, Sarah Lawrence College, and City University of New York, a contributor to The Atlantic and The New York Times, and the author of the bestselling nonfiction ebook The Rescuer. Based on research, family history, and world travel, Horn's latest book examines the contradictory cultural fascination with Jewish death that exists next to a lack of respect for Jewish life.

An editor at The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Review section and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, Adam Kirsch is the author of several books of poetry and criticism, including The Thousand Wells, Who Wants to Be a Jewish Writer?, and The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People and Their Books in the Twentieth Century. (recorded 9/23/2021)

In conversation with Andrew Ervin

A ''genuine artist ... who can render the intricate dazzle of it all and at the same time plumb its philosophical implications'' (Esquire), Richard Powers won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, a tale of activism, the natural world, and people's connection to trees. His other novels include The Echo Maker, a story of the brain, mass migrations, and car accidents; Orfeo, the narrative of a falsely accused amateur scientist/composer; and Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, in which a WWI-era photo sends the men on very different quests. Powers has earned the National Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Lannan Literary Award, and two Pushcart Prizes.  Bewilderment follows a widower astrobiologist dealing with both the mysteries of the cosmos and the troubles befalling his young son.

Andrew Ervin is a writer and critic and author of Extraordinary Renditions, Burning Down George Orwell's House, and Bit by Bit: How Video Games Transformed Our World. He teaches part-time in the MFA program at Temple University and for the School of Interactive Games and Media at Rochester Institute of Technology. (recorded 9/22/2021)

Celebrated for ''his courage and his convictions'' in tackling sensitive issues, Randall Kennedy is ''a member of that small coterie of our most lucid big thinkers about race'' (The Washington Post). The Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, he formerly held positions at the United States Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, where he clerked for Thurgood Marshall. His many books include Interracial Intimacies, The Persistence of the Color Line, For Discrimination, and Sellout. In Say it Loud!, Kennedy offers a collection of provocative essays about George Floyd, birtherism, Clarence Thomas, antiracism, and more.

(recorded 9/21/2021)

In conversation with Danielle Evans

Pulling the delicate threads of ''fear and vulnerability, joy and passion, the capacity for love and pain and grief'' (The Washington Post), Alice McDermott's fictional narratives explore intersecting stories of familial love, Irish American culture and assimilation, and the lessons of adulthood. Her novels include Someone; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; That Night; At Weddings and Wakes; and After This, all of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. For more than 20 years McDermott was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and on the Sewanee Writers Conference faculty. She has contributed writing to The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Times, among many other periodicals. In What About the Baby?, McDermott shares a collection of essays inspired from a lifetime of reading, writing, and teaching literature.

Danielle Evans is the author of the story collections The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, winner of the PEN America PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Paterson Prize, and a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 selection. She teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. (recorded 9/20/2021)

In conversation with Imani Perry

A longtime activist for justice and equity, Tarana Burke founded the Me Too movement in 2006 as a way for women to come together in their shared experiences of sexual violence. She is the senior director of the advocacy group Girls for Gender Equity, founded the Just Be nonprofit organization, worked at Art Sanctuary Philadelphia, and has collaborated with many other groups to hold workshops and create initiatives around issues of sexual violence, discrimination, and economic justice. The recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Courage, a VH1 Trailblazer Award, and the Sydney Peace Prize, she was one of TIME magazine's 2017 Persons of the Year and one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2018. Unbound is a memoir of Burke's journey from childhood trauma to the role of empathetic, empowered advocate for worldwide social change.

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies and faculty associate in the Program in Law and Public Affairs and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Princeton. She is the author of six books, most recently the award-winning titles, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons and Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry. (recorded 9/17/2021)

In conversation with Angie Martinez

Over the years Gabrielle Union has been a tireless advocate for the marginalized and the victimized, and fans around the world have watched her both on and off screen stand up to and speak out against injustice, in its myriad forms. With her newest book, You Got Anything Stronger?, Gabrielle is at her most vulnerable. Life happens with all its plot twists, and Gabrielle is opening up about everything from her surrogacy journey to navigating married life to aging and leveling up in your career. This will be a memorable afternoon of conversation that will leave guests feeling empowered and inspired. 

Angie Martinez is recognized as one of the most influential personalities in popular culture and multimedia. Angie's nearly twenty years of on-air hosting experience has led her to become the media trailblazer that she is today: multimedia host, spokeswoman, actress, recording artist, entertainment personality, author, and philanthropist.

(recorded 9/15/2021)

In conversation with Luis J. Rodríguez

"Not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one" (The New York Times Book Review), Sandra Cisneros explores the themes of place, identity, and working-class culture in her novels, poems, and short stories. Her bestselling books include The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, and Loose Woman. She is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, and numerous fellowships and honorary doctorates, among other honors. Cisneros is also the founder of the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, nonprofit organizations dedicated to encouraging emerging writers. Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo is a story about a young woman who leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to find literary success in Paris.

A significant figure in Chicano literature, Luis J. Rodríguez is a poet, novelist, critic, and journalist. He is the founder of the Tia Chucha Press, the recipient of the Carl Sandberg Literary Award, and was the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate. (recorded 9/14/2021)

Colm Tóibín's ''audacious, profound, and wonderfully intelligent'' (The Guardian) work includes an impressive list of novels, short stories, essays, plays, poetry, and criticism. His novels The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, and The Testament of Mary were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Brooklyn was adapted into the popular BAFTA Award–winning film of the same name. He is recipient of an Irish PEN Award, and is currently the Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. In The Magician, Tóibín joins research with imagination to present a fictionalized portrait of legendary German author Thomas Mann and his family amidst the violence of early 20th century Europe.

(recorded 9/14/2021)

Christopher Emdin is the author of The New York Times bestseller For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too, a combination of theory, research, and practical application that offers a helpful approach to teaching in urban classrooms of color. Also the author of Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation, he created the #HipHopEd social media movement and the Science Genius B.A.T.T.L.E.S. program, which uses rap to engage students with science. Emdin is a professor of science education at Columbia University, where he is associate director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education and director of the Science Education program. His latest book offers a radical, new educational model based on empowering students through the celebration of their unique identities.

(recorded 9/13/2021)

In conversation with Lorene Cary, author of the memoirs Ladysitting  and Black Ice, three novels, and a book for young readers. She teaches at University of Pennsylvania and has written a one-act opera of Ladysitting and a play, My General Tubman.

After a 20-year career as a journalist, working at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Tribune, and then as a corporate executive, Carole Hopson followed her dream to become a pilot. Based in Newark, NJ, Hopson currently flies the Boeing 737 for United Airlines as a first officer. Her debut fiction, A Pair of Wings: A Novel Inspired by Pioneer Aviatrix Bessie Coleman, an Oprah Daily best pick for July 2021, is about the exciting life of Queen Bess.

Books available through the Joseph Fox Bookshop

(recorded 8/12/2021)