Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Walter Mosley in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded March 5, 2025 discussing his two most recent novels, “Been Wrong So Long It Looks Like Right,”  a Joe King Oliver novel, and “Farewell, Amethystine,” an Easy Rawlins novel.

Today, Walter Mosley is one of America’s leading authors. He is best known for his series of mystery novels featuring the characters of Easy Rawlins and Mouse. To date, there are now twenty non-series novels by Walter Mosley, the most recent titled Touched, published in 2023, Along with three Fearless Jones novels, six Leonid McGill mysteries, three Socrates Fortlow books, three books in the Crosstown to Oblivion series, three books in the King Oliver series, plus two graphic novels, two plays, and six works of non-fiction. Always Outnumbered became a television film in 1998 starring Laurence Fishburne, and a TV miniseries titled The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, based on Walter Mosley’s book, starring Samuel L. Jackson, on Apple+. At present, an adaptation of his novel The Man in My Basement is in post-production.

Ann Patchett Wikipedia page.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

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The post March 27, 2025: Walter Mosley: The Easy Rawlins and King Oliver novels. appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Anthony Lewis (1927-2013) discussing “Freedom for the Thought that We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment,” with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded February 4, 2008 in the KPFA studios.

In his long career, Anthony Lewis spent time as the Washington Bureau chief of the New York Times, was the author of “Gideon’s Trumpet,” about a Supreme Court case that led to free legal counsel for indigent defendants, and spent several years as an op-ed writer for the Times. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for reportage, and wrote five books alone and two books with a co-author. In this segment from a longer interview, he delves into the history of the First Amendment, and freedom of speech in the United States.

Review of “Art” at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through April 12, 2025.

Review of “Nobody Loves You” at ACT Toni Rembe Theatre through March 30, 2025.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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

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The post March 20, 2025: Anthony Lewis – Martin Amis appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Todd Haynes, independent filmmaker, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded February 27, 2025.

The director of ten feature length films, Todd Haynes is an independent film-maker with his roots in New Queer Cinema. After coming to the attention of the film community with his short film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, in which the “actors” were Barbie Dolls, he achieved fame with his first feature, Poison, which told three stories in different ways, all of which commented on the AIDS epidemic. He followed that with the much-lauded Safe, and then moved on to mainstream success with the lush melodrama, Far from Heaven.

His later films include Velvet Goldmine, focusing on the glam rock era, I’m Not There, in which several actors portrayed Bob Dylan, Carol, Dark Waters, Wonderstruck, and his latest film, May December (Netflix). His documentary, Velvet Underground, is available on Apple Plus. Along the way there was a miniseries, Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet, on HBO (streaming on MAX). All his films are available streaming.

The films of Todd Haynes will be shown in a retrospective, “Todd Haynes: Far From Safe,”  through April 12th at BAMPFA, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Special thanks to AJ Fox and the staff at Pacific Film Archive. Complete Interview

Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian author of “Americanah” and four other novels, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, June 5, 2013.

She has written five novels, two collections of short stories, one memoir, and many articles and short stories for many newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. She is widely regarded as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature.

Her latest novel, “Dream Count” has just been published. Complete Interview

Review of “Uncle Vanya” at Berkeley Rep Peets Theatre through March 23, 2025.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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

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The post Todd Haynes, Independent Filmmaker / Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian author appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s episode of Bookwaves/Artwaves is preempted by special programming for KPFA’s 2025 Winter Fund Drive.

To support KPFA’s mission, please donate here or call (800) 439-5732.

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The post Special Fund Drive Programming – Bookwaves/Artwaves – February 20, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Tom Robbins (1932-2025, author of the classic novels “Another Roadside Attraction” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in the KPFA studios on May 15, 2000 while on tour for the novel “Fierce Invalids, Home from Hot Climates.”

Tom Robbins, who died on February 9, 2025 at the age of 92,  was the considered the leading chronicler of the sixties vibe. Over the course of his long life, he only wrote eight novels, one collection of short stories and a memoir over the course of his long life, but he is recognized as one of the most important voices of mid to late twentieth century America. Among his novels are Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which became a film by Gus Van Sant, Still Life with Woodpecker and Jitterbug Perfume.

Tom Robbins would only write one more novel after Fierce Invalids, Titled Villa Incognito, it was published in 2003. A collection of his short writings, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, was published in 2003, and a memoir, Tibetan Peach Pie: A true Account of an Imaginative Life, was published in 2014. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is the only one of his books to be adapted for film. Photo: Creative Commons,

Margot Livesey, author of the novel, “The Road from Belhaven,” now just out in trade paperback, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California.

Margot Livesey is the author of ten novels, including “The Missing World,” “Mercury” and “The Boy in the Field,” which range from literary novels to psychological thrillers. Born and raised in Scotland. she currently teaches at the Iowa Writers Workshop.

“The Road from Belhaven” is set in the late 1800s in rural Scotland and Glasgow, and concerns a young woman artist with second sight who finds herself in difficult circumstances. It’s based on stories of Margot Livesey’s great grandmother as told by her grandmother and relatives in Australia.

Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli and the folks at Book Passage Bookstore. Photo: Richard Wolinsky. Complete Interview.

Review of “The Thing About Jellyfish” at Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre through March 9, 2025.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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

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The post February 13, 2025: Tom Robbins / Margot Livesey appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

China Mieville, author of the Hugo Award winning novel, “The City and the City,” and the classic “Perdido Street Station,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky in this archive interview recorded September 1, 2002.

China Mieville is a British author of weird fantasy and science fiction, and a leftist political activist in Britain. Born in 1972, he began his literary career with an urban fantasy novel, King Rat, and followed it up with a novel considered now one of best fantasy works of the 20th Century, Perdido Street Station in 2000. This interview with China Mieville at the 60th World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose on September 1, 2002, shortly after the publication of his follow-up to Perdido Street Station, The Scar.

Since then, China Mieville wrote a third novel set in that same Bas Lag universe as Perdido Street Station, Iron Council, published in 2004, and then moved on to other worlds with six stand alone novels, the most recent being a collaboration with Keanu Reaves titled The Book of Elsewhere, set in the BRZRKR comic book universe, published in 2024. A new novel is expected some time in 2025. his novel, The City and the City, which tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2010, was adapted for television by the BBC in 2018 and is now available streaming on Amazon Prime. Remastered and edited in January 2025 by Richard Wolinsky. Complete Interview

Eddie Muller, dubbed the “Czar of Noir” has written three books on film noir and hosts a weekly Noir film festival on Turner Classic Movies every weekend. He discusses 1951 film version of Richard Wright’s classic novel, “Native Son,” fllmed in Argentina and recently restored, which is now available to stream on the Criterion app as well as the free library apps, Kanopy and Hoopla, and can be rented via Apple+.

In this interview with host Richard Wolinsky, he discusses the film, as well as noir film and international noir, with sidetracks into the French New Wave and other topics.

Complete Interview.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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

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The post February 6, 2025: China Mieville – Eddie Muller appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Lance Gardner,  Artistic Director of Marin Theatre since October, 2023, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

A long-tme Bay Area actor, Lance Gardner came to Marin Theatre after a stint as a live event producer at KQED, and as Chair of the Board of Aurora Theatre. In this interview, he discusses the theatre’s fiscal health, how he hopes to increase the audience, along with details of the various upcoming shows.

Lance Gardner has earned dozens of theatre credits over the last 20 years, including six mainstage shows and a school tour at Marin Theatre Company. He has also performed in multiple shows at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Magic Theatre, TheatreWorks, and more. Complete Interview.

Mickey Spillane (1918-2006), author of the classic crime novels, “I, The Jury” and “Kiss Me Deadly,” in conversation in 2003 with Richard A. Lupoff, introduced by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff.

In this recently discovered recording, best-selling crime/noir novelist Mickey Spillane discusses his career as a professional writer and gives advice to writers. In the introduction, Richard A. Lupoff, the late co-host of KPFA’s Probabilities, details how the interview came to be. This was the last interview conducted by Richard A. Lupoff for KPFA.

Mickey Spillane Wikipedia page.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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

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The post January 30, 2025: Lance Gardner – Mickey Spillane appeared first on KPFA.

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Susanna Clarke, author of the classic fantasy novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, interviewed September 12, 2005 in the KPFA studios.

​​​​​Back in the fall of 2004, a new fantasy novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by a newcomer, Susannah Clarke, became an instant classic, finding its way to best-seller lists in the U.K. and United.States, and winning the Hugo Award for 2004’s best novel at the 2005  World Science Fiction Convention.

This interview with Susannah Clarke was recorded while on tour for the paperback edition of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and has not aired in two decades.

Both Christopher Hampton and Julian Fellowes took stabs at writing a film adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but both were unable to translate the very long novel into a screenplay, and then New Line cancelled the project. It was eventually developed into a seven -part miniseries for the BBC, and aired in both the United States and Britain in 2015. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

After the publication of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and the awards, Susannah Clarke continued to work on the sequel, set in the same universe a few years later, but became bogged down, almost sentence by sentence, as chronic fatigue syndrome took its toll. By 2015, after visiting the set of the BBC production, she decided to go another route, and went back to another manuscript that likely pre-dated her best-seller. That novel, Piranesi, was published to mostly favorable reviews in 2020. She is now working on a third novel. Complete Interview.

Dawn Porter, documentary filmmaker, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded September 11, 2023.

Dawn Porter’s work has appeared on ESPN, HBO, Netflix, PBS and other streamers. Her film Trapped, focusing on abortion clinics in the South, won a special prize at Sundance in 2016 along with a Peabody Award. Her 2013 documentary, Gideon’s Army, her first film, focusing on public defender attorneys in the South, is now part of the US Deparment of State’s American Film Showcase.

She is also the director of John Lewis: Good Trouble, which focuses on the late Congressman and activist. Her recent projects are The Lady Bird Diaries, which was shown at SXSW Film Festival and the four part documentary series, Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, both of which can be found streaming on various platforms. Other recent projects include the short film Bree Wayy, about the life of Brionna Taylor, Luther: Never Too Much, about the late singer/songwriter Luther Vandross, and The Sing Sing Chronicles, about men wrongly incarcerated in Sing Sing prison. Special thanks to A.J. Fox and Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archives. Complete Interview.

Review of Hershey Felder’s “Rachmaninoff and the Tsar” at TheatreWorks Mountain Viow Center for the Performing Arts through February 9, 2025.

Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links

Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors’ positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended.

Book Stores

Live Theater Companies

Misc. Listings:

Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog.

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

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The post January 23, 2025: Susanna Clarke – Dawn Porter appeared first on KPFA.