KPFA - Bookwaves/Artwaves

Links to announced on-line and streaming local theatre & book events

Heather Cox Richardson, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Heather Cox Richardson is a noted historian, a Professor of History at Boston College, specializing on the Civil War and reconstruction – but in the past year she’s taken on a different role, chronicling America’s daily political life in a series of commentaries titled Letters from an American, which can be found on her Facebook page, as well as at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com. Earlier this year, she released a book titled How the South Won the Civil War, subtitled Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing fight for the soul of America.

This interview with Heather Cox Richardson was recorded via zencastr.com on the morning of Friday, September 11, 2020. She discusses her daily column and how it came to be written, elements in her book, and of course, current events.

Complete 62-minute interview.

Laurel Ollstein, whose latest play, “Pandora,” will be streaming on the theatreworks.org website from September 24, 6 pm – Septembre 28, 6 pm, is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky.

Laurel Ollstein is also the author of “They Promised Her the Moon,” which was produced at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and shut down prematurely due to the pandemic. She has been a theatre and television actress, short story writer and director over the course of her career, and worked with Tim Robbins’ Actors Gang in Los Angeles for fifteen years.

This latest project is a theatrical retelling of the myth of Pandora, the first human woman in Greek Mythology, who was said to have opened a box which allowed all the ills of the world to escape. The production, recorded in Zoom toward the end of May, 2020, is a workshop reading featuring actors from the Bay Area and beyond, and is directed by Giovanna Sardelli, is free on-line with registration.

:Special thanks to Richard Lavin for his assistance in post-production. Complete 34-minute podcast interview.

Announcement Links

Book Passage. Conversations with authors, all at 4 pm Pacific: Ayad Akhtar on Saturday September 19 at 4 pm, Wade Davis Sunday September 20 also at 4 pm, Al Sharpton, Thursday October 1 at 5:30 pm.

San Francisco Playhouse The Zoomlet play Monday September 21 at 7 pm is The Logic by Will Arbery.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theatre venue to this list, please write [email protected].

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – Sept. 17, 2020: Heather Cox Richardson – Laurel Ollstein appeared first on KPFA.

Links to announced on-line and streaming local theatre & book events

Novelist and essayist Jonathan Safran Foer discusses his book, “We Are The Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast,” just out in trade paperback, with host Richard Wolinsky.

The author of three acclaimed novels, Jonathan Safran Foer has also written “Eating Animals,” a treatise on the evils of factory farming. This new book talks about changing one’s diet, cutting one’s carnivore diet, as a personal step in limiting your carbon footprint, i.e. removing meat, fish and dairy products from breakfast and lunch. Complete interview

Hershey Felder, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, 2013. George Gershwin Alone will be performed live from Florence, Italy on Sunday September 13, 2020 at 5 pm Pacific. For tickets and information, go to Berkeley Rep or TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.

Hershey Felder has made a career of creating solo shows in which he portrays different composers performing their work on piano. His first show, George Gershwin Alone, began in 1999 at a Los Angeles workshop. He later went on to portray Leonard Bernstein, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy, and Ludwig Beethoven.

This interview was recorded in the offices of Berkeley Rep on April 12, 2013, during the run of George Gershwin Alone. Photos: Hershey Felder Presents.

Announcement Links

Book Passage. Conversations with authors, all at 4 pm Pacific: mystery writer Rhys Bowen, today, Bill Petrocelli, author of Electoral Bait and Switch: How the Electoral College Hurts Voters, Saturday September 12, Clarissa Ward Sunday September 13, Dr. David D. Burns on depression Tuesday September 14 and Sue Miller Wednesday September 15, again all at 4 pm Pacific. And Chasten Buttegieg in conversation with Andrew Sean Greer Tuesday September 15, 5:30 pm

San Francisco Playhouse Tonight at 7 pm: Fireside chat with playwright Cleavon Smith, The Zoomlet play Monday September 14 at 7 pm is A Broken String by Lynn Kauffman

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write [email protected].

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The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – Sept. 10, 2020: Jonathan Safran Foer – Hershey Felder appeared first on KPFA.

Links to announced on-line and streaming local theatre & book events

Gail Sheehy, one of America’s most distinguished journalists, known for her incisive profiles in the New Yorker and other magazines, died on August 24, 2020 of complications from pneumonia, possibly brought on by Covid-19. She was 83.

One of the founders of the New Journalism, Sheehy’s book, Passages, a kind of road map of life from our twenties to old age, is considered one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.

In this interview with host Richard Wolinsky, conducted at Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California on September 24, 2014, she talks about what would be her final book, Daring: My Passages, which takes us from her days at New York Magazine through her years as a freelance journalist, focusing on the personalities of the people she’s interviewed over the years as well as on her personal life.

Gail Sheehy Wikipedia page

Madhuri Shekar‘s play, “In Love and Warcraft” will be seen in live performance as part of ACT’s InterAct Home Initiative, September 4-12, 2020, and then streaming September 18-25. She is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

“In Love and Warcraft” concerns a young woman who spends much of her time in the World of Warcraft game, and on the side writes love letters for her friends. Along the way, she discovers she has feelings for one of her clients.

Madhuri Shekar’s other plays include “House of Joy,” which played at Cal Shakes last summer, along with “A Nice Indian Boy,” “Queen,” and “Dhaba on Devon Avenue,” which was having its premiere at the New Victory Theatre in Chicago and was shut down due to the novel corona virus.

Her web TV series, “Titus and Andronicus” can be found on You Tube. She was part of the writers’ room of Joss Whedon’s new series, “The Nevers,” which will have its premiere on HBO.

Born in California, she spent most of her formative years in Chenmai, India, and currently lives in New Jersey.

Headshot: Ganesh Toasty. Horizontal photo: Niyantha Shekar

Announcement Links

Book Passage.Ticketed events are Louise Penny, Saturday September 5 at noon Pacifica time, and Jodi Pico on Sunday September 6 at 4 pm Pacific. Carl Hiaasen in conversation with Dave Barry, Tuesday September 8, 4 pm. Chasten Buttegieg in conversation with Andrew Sean Greer Tuesday September 15, 5:30 pm

San Francisco Playhouse ADDED SEPT 4: Monday September 7, 7 pm. Two Pigeons Talk Politics by Lauren Gunderson. Virtual table read. Free with registration. Thursday September 3 at 7 pm: Fireside chat with Susi Damilano and Stacey Ross.

The Marsh: Class Performances. David Ford’s class members perform 20-minute monologues live streamed, next Monday September 7 and Tuesday September 8 at 7:30 pm.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theatre venue to this list, please write [email protected].

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The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – September 3, 2020: Gail Sheehy – Madhuri Shekar appeared first on KPFA.

Links to announced on-line and streaming local theatre & book events

Roger Kahn, who died on February 6, 2020 at the age of 92, was one of the icons in the world of baseball writing. His classic “The Boys of Summer,” about his relationship with his father and their united love for the Brooklyn Dodgers, is one of the greatest baseball books of all time. He started his career in journalism in 1948 as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune and within four years was covering the Dodgers for that newspaper. He moved over to Newsweek in 1956 and the Saturday Evening Post in 1963 as he revved up his career writing both fiction and non-fiction books, mostly but not exclusively about baseball, and the ups and downs of his own life.

On October 13, 1993, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky sat down for an extended interview with Roger Kahn about his book, “The Era: 1947-1957, when the Yankees, the Giants and the Dodgers Ruled the World. “ It turned out he was a marvelous raconteur, as well as a keen historian of racism in the sport. In fact, his final book, published in 2014, was titled “Rickey and Robinson: The True, Untold Story of the Integration of Baseball.”  (Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson).

Dick Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky would interview Roger Kahn once more, in 1998, but that interview focused not on baseball but on a biography of boxer Jack Dempsey. After this interview, Roger Kahn would go on to write six more books, including not only the history of the early days of integration, and the biography of Dempsey, but a memoir of the people he met, a book about the view from the pitching mound, and a history of the New York Yankees improbable run for the pennant in 1978.

Digitized, remastered and re-edited in 2020 by Richard Wolinsky. This interview has not aired since its original broadcast.

This program was uploaded before the cancellation of several major league games protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Digitized, remastered and re-edited in August, 2020 by Richard Wolinsky. This interview has not been aired since its original broadcast.

Complete 68-minute Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Announcement Links

Book Passage. Conversations with Authors features Ursula Hegi on Saturday August 29, Pramala Jayapal and Sunday August 30, both at 4 pm Pacific time.

Theatre Rhino Live Thursday performance conceived and performed by John Fisher on Facebook Live and Zoom at 8 pm Thursday August 27 is Saint John Fisher.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theatre venue to this list, please write [email protected].

The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – August 27, 2020: Roger Kahn and the Boys of Summer appeared first on KPFA.

Links to announced on-line and streaming local theatre & book events

Tony Horwitz (1958 – May 27, 2019) discusses his most recent book, “Spying on the South,” now out in trade paperback, with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded May 17, 2019.

The author of several books that combine scholarship, history and travel, Tony Horwitz was a one of a kind author. In “Confederates in the Attic,” he looked at Civil War re-enactors in the Deep South. In “Blue Latitudes,” he followed the path of explorer James Cook, visiting islands in the Pacific Ocean. And in “Spying on the South,” now his final book, he follows the path of the young Frederick Law Olmstead, later to design Central Park, as he went down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers all the way to the Mexican border, seeing how a century and a half has changed the landscape and the people.

Ten days after this interview was conducted, Tony Horwitz died of a heart attack in Washington D.C., in the middle of his book tour.

An extended 49-minute version of this interview can be found as a Radio Wolinsky podcast.

Mavis Gallant, who died in 2014 at the age of 91, was a Canadian short story writer who spent most of her life in France. During her lifetime, she had 118 stories in the New Yorker, which made her one of that magazine’s most published writers. Along the way she did write two novels, but it was because of her shorter fiction that she was very much a writers’ writer.

A very private person, she only rarely gave interviews – but she did go on a book tour for her short story collection, Across the Bridge, and it’s then, on October 6, 1993, that Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky had a chance to speak with her.

Wikipedia notes that her subject was frequently fascism, in particular about what she called “the small possibilities in people” which leaned them toward fascism. In a roundabout way, she discusses that in this interview.

New York Review Books Classics has published several volumes of her stories, most notably The Collected Stories, which features fifty two examples of her best work, and Paris Stories, curated by Michael Ondaatje. Across the Bridge is available in an e-book edition from Amazon.

Digitized, remastered and re-edited in August, 2020 by Richard Wolinsky

Extended 51-minute Radio Wolinsky podcast.Transcript of a 1999 Paris Review interview with Mavis Gallant.

Announcement Links

Book Passage. Conversations with Authors features Susan Minot on Saturday August 22, David Sibley on Sunday August 23, and Akwaeki Emezi on Wednesday August 26, all at 4 pm Pacific.

Theatre Rhino Live Thursday performance conceived and performed by John Fisher on Facebook Live and Zoom at 8 pm Thursday August 20 is Dickens.

If you’d like to add your bookstore or theatre venue to this list, please write [email protected].

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The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – August 20, 2020: Tony Horwitz – Mavis Gallant appeared first on KPFA.