KPFA - Bookwaves/Artwaves

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.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

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.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Vernor Vinge (1944-2024), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in the KPFA studios, May 7, 1992 while on tour for his novel, “A Fire Upon the Deep,” which would be a co-winner of the Huge Award for Best Novel at the 1993 World Science Fiction Convention.

​​​​​Vernor Vinge, who died on March 20th, 2024 at the age of 79 was one of the masters of late twentieth century and early 21st century science fiction. He won five Hugo Awards, three for Best Novel and two for best novella, and is credited as the first science fiction writer to offer a fictional cyberspace, a few years before William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Over all, Vernor Vinge wrote eight novels and had five published collections of his writings. His final novel, The Children of the Sky, was published in 2011.

A prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep titled A Deepness in the Sky, was published in 1999, and a sequel, The Children of the Sky, his last novel, was published in 2011. To date, none of his stories have been adapted for either television or film. Vernor Vince retired from teaching in 2000 to become a full-time writer.

In this interview, he goes into detail about what are now the early days of life on the internet, and discusses his early writing about cyberspace, and about singularities. There are also comments about what the future holds, a future we now are experiencing.

This interview has not aired in over thirty years, and was digitized, remastered and edited in January 2025 by Richard Wolinsky. Complete Interview.

Margaret Atwood, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios June 10, 2003 while on tour for the novel “Oryx and Crake.”

One of the most distinguished authors writing today, Margaret Atwood is best known for her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and well as several other novels, short stories, poems, essays and political commentary.

In this interview from 2003, she discusses her science fiction novel “Oryx and Crake,” first of what later became a trilogy including ‘Year of the Flood” and “Maddadam,” along with her work on a collection of speeches and essays, “Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing.”

This is the fifth of eight interviews with Margaret Atwood conducted between the years 1989 and 2013. Complete Interview

Review of the national touring company production of “Some Like It Hot” at BroadwaySF Orpheum Theatre

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]

.

The post January 16, 2025: Vernor Vinge – Margaret Atwood appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Originally scheduled on January 2nd but delayed due to technical issues.

Walter Mosley in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded June 23, 1996 in the KPFA studios while on tour for the novel, “A Little Yellow Dog.” He also discusses his first mainstream novel, “RL’s Dream” and the film version of “Devil in a Blue Dress.”

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.

Devil In A Blue Dress, is to date, the only Easy Rawlins mystery adapted for film.  In 2022, Samuel L. Jackson starred in a TV miniseries titled The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, based on Walter Mosley’s book, and primarily written by Walter Mosley. At present, an adaptation of his novel The Man in My Basement is in post-production. The next Easy Rawlins novel, Farewell Amethystine was published in June 2024.

This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in December, 2024 by Richard Wolinsky. It has not been heard in 25 years. This is the second of five interviews, to date, with Walter Mosley. Complete Interview.

Tony Hillerman (1925-2008), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded January 30, 1997 while on tour for his Leaphorn/Chee novel, “The Fallen Man,” the twelfth book in the series.

Hillerman, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, wass a  master of the detective genre and an important writer in detailing life on the Navajo reservation. His several novels featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have been acclaimed for their accuracy and for their ability to combine Navajo history and thought into strong plot-driven novels.

There are four interviews with Tony Hillerman in the Probabilities and Bookwaves archive.  This third interview, was recorded on January 30th, 1997 in the KPFA studios while he was on tour for his novel, The Fallen Man, the twelfth in the Leaphorn Chee series. Iin the interview, he also discusses his 1995  stand-alone novel, Finding Moon,

This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in November, 2024, and not heard for over a quarter century.

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]

.

The post January 9, 2025: Walter Mosley – Tony Hillerman appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

This is a repeat of the December 26, 2024 program due to technical issues.

Science fiction and fantasy author and political activist Terry Bisson (1942-2024), who died on January 10, 2024 at the age of 81, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded January 2, 2013 following the paperback reprint of the novel, “Any Day Now.”

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short story,”Bears Discover Fire,” Terry Bisson wrote seven stand-alone novels, several collaborations in different mediums, six collections of short stories, six film novelizations and three works of non-fiction. Along with his books and short stories, he wrote Locus Magazine’s This Month in History series for two decades. In his later years, he was a frequent host of the popular SF in SF series of interviews and readings in San Francisco.

His other works include a biography of Mumia Abu-Jabal, titled “On a Move,” and a wide variety of novels from the Star Wars series to the completion of a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In the interview, he discusses his political work as well as his work as a writer and editor. Complete Interview.

Roger Ebert (1942-2013) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded while on tour for “The Great Movies II,” conducted in the KPFA studios on March 3, 2005.

Roger Ebert, who died of cancer on April 4, 2013, was probably America’s best known film critic. Film critic for the Chicago Sun Times from 1967 until his death, his television career began on PBS in 1975, co-hosted with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. Through several iterations, Ebert and Siskel worked together until Siskel’s death in 1999. Roger Ebert continued on TV with several co-hosts until he paired with Richard Roeper until retiring from television in 2007.

Along the way, Roger Ebert wrote several books, including his four book Great movies series, a best selling memoir, Life Itself, various yearly guides, and several collections of his reviews. His website, rogerebert.com,  is still a leading compendium of new and old reviews.

In this interview, he talks about his latest book, about new restorations, and about his sojourn into political commentary.

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]

.

The post January 2, 2025: Terry Bisson – Roger Ebert (repeat) appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Science fiction and fantasy author and political activist Terry Bisson (1942-2024), who died on January 10, 2024 at the age of 81, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded January 2, 2013 following the paperback reprint of the novel, “Any Day Now.”

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short story,”Bears Discover Fire,” Terry Bisson wrote seven stand-alone novels, several collaborations in different mediums, six collections of short stories, six film novelizations and three works of non-fiction. Along with his books and short stories, he wrote Locus Magazine’s This Month in History series for two decades. In his later years, he was a frequent host of the popular SF in SF series of interviews and readings in San Francisco.

His other works include a biography of Mumia Abu-Jabal, titled “On a Move,” and a wide variety of novels from the Star Wars series to the completion of a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In the interview, he discusses his political work as well as his work as a writer and editor. Complete Interview.

Roger Ebert (1942-2013) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded while on tour for “The Great Movies II,” conducted in the KPFA studios on March 3, 2005.

Roger Ebert, who died of cancer on April 4, 2013, was probably America’s best known film critic. Film critic for the Chicago Sun Times from 1967 until his death, his television career began on PBS in 1975, co-hosted with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. Through several iterations, Ebert and Siskel worked together until Siskel’s death in 1999. Roger Ebert continued on TV with several co-hosts until he paired with Richard Roeper until retiring from television in 2007.

Along the way, Roger Ebert wrote several books, including his four book Great movies series, a best selling memoir, Life Itself, various yearly guides, and several collections of his reviews. His website, rogerebert.com,  is still a leading compendium of new and old reviews.

In this interview, he talks about his latest book, about new restorations, and about his sojourn into political commentary.

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]

.

The post December 26, 2024: Terry Bisson – Roger Ebert appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Nelson DeMille, who died on September 17, 2024 at the age of 81, was one of the leading best-selling authors from the 1980s into the 21st Century. Among his novels are The General’s Daughter, the Gold Coast, Plum Island and Word of Honor. Three of his novels were turned into films. On June 13, 1997, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed Nelson DeMille while he was on tour for Plum Island. In the discussion, we focused on that book, as well as several others.  This is the first of two interviews with Nelson DeMille.

Nelson DeMille would return to the character of Paul Brenner from The General’s Daughter in Up Country in 2002, he would return to John Corey from Plum Island in The Lions Game in 2000, and in seven other novels. In all, there would be 27 novels, plus two written in collaboration with his son, Alex DeMille, two early novels written under a pseudonym plus several works of short fiction. Three of his books, most notably The General’s Daughter, became films.

​​​​​Barry Lopez (1945-2020) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky on June 11, 2004 while he was on tour for Resistance, a collection of interrelated short stories with the theme of resistance.

Barry Lopez, who died on December 25, 2020 at the age of 75, was a master of the short form, both fiction and non-fiction. His non-fiction, collected in such books as Arctic Dreams and his last published work, Horizon, and his fiction in collections such as Light Action in the Caribbean, focused on exploration, biology, morality, transcendence, biology, politics, philosophy and much more.

In this second of three interview, he discusses how he came to write this particular book, and then moves on to discussing what in 2004 was an unnamed threat of totalitarianism. Today, of course, it’s named. He speaks of the inattentiveness of the masses as well, which also has great resonance today. Barry Lopez Wikipedia page. Complete Interview.

Review of “Waitress” at San Francisco Playhouse through January 18,  2025.

Review of “A WhyNot Christmas Carol” at ACT Toni Rembe Theatre through Dec. 24, 2024./a>

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 December 19, 2024: Nelson DeMille – Barry Lopez appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s episode of Bookwaves/Artwaves is preempted by special programming for KPFA’s 2024 Holiday Fund Drive.

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

The post Special Holiday Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s episode of Bookwaves/Artwaves is preempted by a special interview with Nate Powell about his graphic adaptation of James W. Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me.

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

The post Special Holiday Fund Drive Programming: Lies My Teacher Told Me appeared first on KPFA.

Links to assorted local theater & book venues

Steven Bach (1938-2009) author of the biography “Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl”, interviewed in 2007 by Richard Wolinsky. This podcast was first posted May 5, 2017.

Leni Riefenstahl was the film maker behind the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Reifenstahl, who died in 2003 at the age of a hundred and one, to the end of her life denied her work was political, that she was an artist.

Stephen Bach, who died at the age of 70 in 2009, had been a studio executive and began writing  books with “Final Cut”, his memoir about the making of the film Heaven’s Gate. He followed that with a biography of the playwright Moss Hart, and then a biography of actress Marlene Dietrich, which as he says, led him to Leni Riefenstahl. The interview was recorded in the KPFA studios on May 7, 2007. Guardian Obituary.

In an interview perhaps more timely today than the year it was recorded, Bach compares Reifenstahl’s work to right-wing propaganda in America, and the use of the Hitler playbook. Complete Interview.

Charles Yu, whose novel Interior Chinatown just won the 2020 National Book Award for fiction, is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky.

Interior Chinatown takes place in a meta-world in which Hollywood’s Chinese stereotypes are portrayed by Asian immigrants and second-generation Asian Americans in films and TV shows. The book uses tropes from screenplays as well as prose fiction to illuminate these tropes, switching between narrative, entertainment history, and polemic in a highly original way.

Charles Yu is the author of two previous short-story collections and one novel, has worked as an attorney, and also has worked in the writers’ room of several television shows, most notably during the first season of HBO’s Westworld. Interior Chinatown is now a television miniseries streaming on Hulu and Disney+. Complete Interview.

Review of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” at Berkeley Rep Peets Theatre through December 15, 2024.

Review of “The Antipodes” by Annie Baker, performed by the Actors Reading Collective, at Marin Shakespeare Theatre through Dec. 1, 2024./a>

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]

.

The post November 28, 2024: Steven Bach – Charles Yu appeared first on KPFA.