KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994), pulp magazine author and protege of H.P. Lovecraft, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded March 1, 1980 in Long’s apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

Frank Belknap Long got his start as a young adult writing horror short stories for Weird Tales. Noted horror writer H.P. Lovecraft took him under his wing and became a close friend. Long later went on to write for several other pulp magazines, including those in the field of science fiction, mystery and thriller. He later became a pulp magazine editor.

Richard Wolinsky:

On March 1, 1980, a bitterly cold  day in New York, I found myself in the then ungentrified Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, dealing with a vicious cold myself, ringing the bell to Long’s  flat in a dilapidated apartment house.

Probabilities had been on the air on KPFA for three years at the time, and my co-hosts Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson were already deep into their search for the pulp writers and editors of the first half of the twentieth century. I was armed with notes from both co-hosts, and had read Long’s recent book The Early Long, which contained autobiographical introductions to his very first horror stories, published in the legendary pulp magazine, Weird Tales.

I could see a long hallway filled with junk, and in the distance, the living room, entered through the door the width of the hallway. There was one door to the side, a bathroom, which I used before we started. The tub was filled with dog poop from his German Shepherd. Mr. Long, much shorter than I am, and looking every day of his almost 79 years, looked clean and dapper, in a suit with vest that could have come from when he was my age. He shouted a couple of times to his unseen wife Lyda down the hall, before we sat down on a steamer trunk to start the interview.

Dick and Lawrence always focused on the people in the pulps as well as what it was like to be a writer at the time, so there’s very little here about the content of Long’s stories, other than their titles. Most of the names, other than H.P. Lovecraft, are forgotten now, writers like Clark Ashton Smith, E. Hoffman Price, Seabury Quinn and August Derleth. Mention is made of John W. Campbell, who was the editor of Astounding Stories, later Analog, from October 1937 until his death at the age of 61 in July 1971, and who, almost singlehandedly, transformed science fiction.

The tape was barely usable because of the thinness of his voice and his slurring, and the heavy echo from the walls and the old hardwood floor, and was digitized and edited from July into October, 2026.

 While the AI augmentation makes the entire interview available in 2026, it still garbles some of Long’s answers, and at the end of the interview, we hear Lyda Long sounding as if she’s in the hallway with us. She wasn’t. She was a strange disembodied voice coming from the depths of the apartment, Positively Lovecraftian.

As the interview ended, Lyda ordered me to come down the hallway. She had something to show me. I don’t remember the living room itself, other than a strange elderly woman was sitting on the floor, surrounded by torn paper. She wore a bright orange Lucy Ricardo wig, and her skin was gray, almost inhuman. She showed me some papers then handed me a note for Dick Lupoff’s wife, Pat. They’d met at a convention in the not-so-distant past. After I took my leave, I headed uptown to Times Square to meet my dad and then see Angela Lansbury in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a fitting end to a cold and creepy day. Later, when I returned to California, I gave Lyda’s note to Pat, who put on a glove, picked it up and deposited it immediately in a trash can.

You’ve been listening to an interview with the late horror writer, Frank Belknap Long, who died in 1994 at the age of 92. It was recorded at his apartment in Chelsea, New York City on March 1, 1980.

If you go to Amazon, you’ll find a number of Frank Belknap Long’s short stories available to read via Kindle for free. The Early Long is not currently available, but Frank Belknap Long’s biography of his mentor, H.P. Lovecraft, Dreamer on the Night Side, was published in 2019 by Wildside Press.

Excerpts from this interview can be found in the book Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! Interviews with Science Fiction Legends, edited by Richard Wolinsky and published by Tachyon Press in 2025.

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Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded April 1, 2015 at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California, while he was on tour for his novel, “The Buried Giant.”

Over the past decades, Kazuo Ishiguro has come to be regarded as one of the titans of modern literature. Author of such novels as “Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go,” he was born in Japan but grew up in Britain, and his sensibility as an author lies somewhere between the two cultures.

On winning the Nobel, he said,”It’s a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I’m in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that’s a terrific commendation. The world is in a very uncertain moment and I would hope all the Nobel Prizes would be a force for something positive in the world as it is at the moment. I’ll be deeply moved if I could in some way be part of some sort of climate this year in contributing to some sort of positive atmosphere at a very uncertain time.” His most recent novel, “Klara and the Sun” was published in 2021. Wikipedia lists his next novel, “Miss Lambert Steps Aboard Danger” will be published in 2017. He is the screenplay author for the critically acclaimed 2022 film, “Living.” This podcast was originally posted on October 8, 2017.

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Mary Roach in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded May 2, 2013 while she was on tour for Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal. 

Mary Roach brings a sharp eye and excellent research skills to explain how things work, how they don’t work, and the various things that happen in between. She is the author of eight books devoted to popular science, told in an often humorous vein. She’s been interviewed five times for this program, f the most recent Replaceable You, Adventures in Human Anatomy, which was recorded September 15, 2026 and will be posted shortly.

In this book, Mary Roach investigates the science of eating, saliva, stomach mechanics, and elimination, tackling “taboo” questions about how the body processes food. This complete edited interview is posted as a podcast for the first time.

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Margaret Maron (1938-2021) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff on the Probabilities radio program on KPFA, recorded June 6, 1994 while she was on tour for the third Deborah Knott mystery, Shooting at Loons.

This is the third in a series of Sisters in Crime interviews conducted in the 1980s and 1990s for the Probabilities radio program on KPFA. Margaret Maron was the fourth president of the Sisters in Crime organization, following Dorothy Salisbury, Sara Paretsky and Nancy Pickard. This podcast was first posted on March 21, 2021.

Margaret Maron died of a stroke on February 23, 2021 at the age of 82. At the time of her death she’d written twenty Judge Deborah Knott mysteries, nine Sigrid Harald mysteries, two other novels, and two collections of short stories. Along with writing about complex women characters, her books also focused on her native North Carolina, its life and its politics.

Following the interview, her next book was in the Sigrid Harald series, Fugitive Colors, published in 1995. She stayed away from that series until 2017, when she wrote Take Out, which turned out to be her last novel. She won an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1993 and for Best Short Story in 2002 and was named a Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America in 2013.

After Shooting at Loons, she wrote seventeen more Deborah Knott novels. Also, over the course of her career, she became a major spokeswoman and advocate for the organization Sisters in Crime, and served as its first Vice President, and later its President.  Despite the success of her novels, to date none of her books or stories have been adapted for film or television, according to IMDb.

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Kate Christensen, whose latest novel is titled “Good Company,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Kate Christensen is the author of ten novels, including “The Great Man,” which won the PEN/Faulker Award for fiction, Trouble, and Welcom Home, Stranger. She’s also written two memoirs along with essays published in a wide variety of publications and anthologies. She has also written a mystery under a pseudonym..

A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, her books focus on contemporary issues such as homophobia, climate change, and specifically in “Good Company,” on misogyny. In thjis interview, she focuses on her writing process, on political issues that find their way into the novel, and on specifics inside the novel. Kate Crhistensen was interviewed on “Bookwaves” in 2009 and this interview picks up where that one left off. This interview was recorded in August, 2026.

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Gene Wolfe (1931-2019), author of several science fiction novels and short stories, including “The Book of the New Sun,” interviewed by Richard Wolinsky, Lawrence Davidson and Richard A. Lupoff at Bay Con, Thanksgiving weekend, 1982.

The noted fantasy and science fiction writer Gene Wolfe died on April 14, 2019, one month shy of his 88th birthday. By the time of his death, he’d achieved a lifetime achievement award from the World Fantasy Convention, he’d been acclaimed a science fiction Grand Master from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, had won several awards from various organizations in the field, and was considered a writer’s writer.

That last designation is important because unlike writers like Ursula K. LeGuin or Isaac Asimov or Stephen King or Terry Pratchett, Wolfe’s fame never spread beyond these genres, despite writing in a literary style, and focusing on philosophical and moral issues in his work.

Wolfe started publishing late in life. His first novel, Operation Ares, was published just before his fortieth birthday, in 1970. But after that, his collection of short stories, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, and other Stories, and his multi-volume Book of the New Sun skyrocketed his career inside the science fiction fantasy field.

By 1982, his reputation had sufficiently cemented to be named a Guest of Honor at the first Bay Con convention over Thanksgiving weekend, 1982, and it’s there that Richard A. Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and Richard Wolinsky had a chance to interview him about his work and career. The first two of the four volume Book of the New Sun – The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator had been published to great critical acclaim, and it seemed he was on the verge of a super-stardom that never moved outside his chosen field.

The next two volumes of Book of the New Sun, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarchwere published in 1983 and 1984. A fifth book, The Urth of the New Sun, was published in 1987, and a collection of essays about the series, The Castle of the Otter, was published by a small press shortly after this interview was recorded.  He would go on to write several multi-book novels, including The Book of the Long Sun, The Book of the Short Sun and The Wizard Knight, along with other novels, short stories, and essay collections. His last novel, A Borrowed Man, was published in 2015. A film version of The Death of Doctor Island was partially filmed in 2008 but has never been released. There’s also a short called Doctor island from 1999 that may or may not be the same film.

Digitizing, remastering & re-editing by Richard Wolinsky in 2019. This podcast was first posted on November 3, 2019. Updated in 2026.

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Ursula Hegi (1946-2026), who died at the age of eighty on July 27, 2026, best known for her novel “Stones from a River,” about life in a small town in Germany in the days leading up to World War II, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded November 6, 2001 while on tour for her short story collection, “Hotel of the Saints.”

Ursula Hegi was a German born novelist and short story writer whose work focused on life in Germany before, during and after World War II along with German and German-American identity, and the nature of moral complicity. She was best known for her novel, Stones from a River, published in 1994, which formed part of a series of novels and stories which came to be known as the Burgdorf cycle, taking place in the fictional small town of Burgdorf, Germany during the middle of the twentieth century.

This interview was recorded on November 6, 2001. less than two months after the events of 9/11 while she was on tour for her collection, Hotel of the Saints. 

I spoke with Ursula Hegi twice, first in November 6, 2001, less than two months after the events of 9/11. There would be a second interview, recorded January 8, 2004 while she was on tour for her novel Sacred Time. 

At the time of her death from complications from a stroke, there were nine novels, two short story collections, a children’s book, and one non-fiction work from 1998, Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America. Her last novel, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls, was published in 2020.

This interview, one of the last Bookwaves interviews recorded on analog tape, was digitized, remastered and edited August 14-16, 2026. The interview was originally edited for a half hour broadcast and never heard in its entirety. It has not aired in over twenty years.

The post Ursula Hegi (1946-2026), Acclaimed Novelist and Short Story Author, 1991 appeared first on KPFA.

Robert B. Parker (1932-2010), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded June 13, 1992 while on tour for the Spenser novel, “Double Deuce.”

Mystery and suspense author Robert B. Parker died at the age of 77 on January 18, 2010. His career encompassed 38 novels in his popular Spenser detective series during his life, with another three published posthumously, plus nine novels in the Jesse Stone series, four in the Cole and Hitch series, six in the Sonny Randall series, nine other novels, and four books of non-fiction.

There were two Probabilities interviews with Robert B. Parker. The first time, co-hosted with Lawrence Davidson, was recorded in Parker’s hotel room in the spring of 1981. At the time he’d just switched publishers and with Looking for Rachel Wallace and then Early Autumn, he was finally having success as an author.

His success would explode exponentially over the next eleven years, and by the time of this interview. Robert Parker had written an additional ten Spenser novels, the TV series Spencer for Hire starring Robert Urich had run for three seasons, and a spin-off, A Man Called Hawk had had a 13 episode run. In addition, he’d completed an unfinished Philip Marlowe novel by Raymond Chandler, and followed that up with a sequel.

Four Robert Urich Spenser films were produced after the interview was recorded, each based on a different Spenser novel by Parker. Three Spenser TV movies, based on three other novels with Joe Mantagna as Spenser ran from 1999 to 2001. A 2020 Netflix film with Mark Wahlberg, Spencer: Confidential, was based on a Spenser novel written by another author, Ace Atkins, who continued the series.

In the interview, Robert Parker insists he won’t start other series. In fact, of course, he did. The Sonny Randall series, featuring a female former cop turned private eye; the Cole & Hitch series of western detective novels, and the Jesse Stone series, featuring the police chief of a small town in Massachusetts. There have also been nine made for television films starting Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone.

This interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited in January 2024 by Richard Wolinsky and was first posted on January 7, 2024.

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From the Probabilities Archive: Nancy Pickard, author of the Jenny Cain mysteries, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded April 4, 1990 in the KPFA studios while on tour for the novel “Bum Steer.”

Originally a journalist, Nancy Pickard turned to mysteries in 1984 with Generous Death, which would eventually lead to ten Jenny Cain novels. As of 2026, there are also three novels in the Marie Lightfoot series, three non-series novels, plus three in the Eugenia Potter series, four collections and one co-authored non-fiction work. Her most recent novel to date, The Scent of Rain and Lightning, was published in 2010 and was adapted into a film in 2017. As of 2025, she continues to speak at various mystery conferences and conventions.

In the late 1980s, crime and mystery fiction by women skyrocketed. Even so, awards were still being given to mostly male writers, and in 1987, the organization Sisters in Crime was formed. 

In Berkeley, at KPFA, Richard Lupoff and I, the hosts of the Probabilities radio program, having drifted from science fiction into mysteries and later into general fiction and narrative non-fiction, noticed the trend pretty early on, and began interviewing these pioneer writers, one by one, local writers like Marcia Muller and Sue Dunlap, and writers from out of town, such as Sue Grafton, or from overseas, such as P.D. James.

These interviews, the Sisters in Crime interviews, were all conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, and because of the switch from analog tape to digital, were not heard since the new century began, and are now being digitized, one by one. This is the second in the Sisters In Crime series of interviews. This interview was digitized, remastered and edited on August 8, 2026. It was first aired in 1990 and then rebroadcast in 1991.

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Robert Bloch (1917-1994), who died on September 23, 1994 at the age of 77, began his career writing fantasy and horror for the pulp magazines, and graduated after World War II to writing psychological thriller novels, often focusing on serial killers. He is best known today for having written the novel “Psycho,” which was adapted into the classic 1959 film by Alfred Hitchcock. From the 1950s through 1970s, he also wrote for episode television (most notably “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”) and made for television films. In all, there were countless short stories, over thirty published novels, and several non-fiction articles.

On March 4, 1982, the late Probabilities co-host Richard A. Lupoff (1935-2020) ninterviewed Robert Bloch before an audience. There were no major science fiction conventions at the time, so it’s not clear exactly where this interview took place). In the first part of the interview, Bloch discusses his friendship with H.P. Lovecraft, his work with the legendary Fictioneers writing group, and the creation of his Lefty Feep series of short stories. The second part of the interview takes him to his novel-writing days, with a look at the creation of his most famous character, Norman Bates of “Psycho.”

Following a question about which Robert Bloch story is the one he’d leave for posterity, Dick Lupoff turns the interview over to the audience, and asks questions based on their input, including a couple of questions about Bloch’s work in television.

This 65 minute interview has never been posted or aired in its entirety, having only aired using excepts as a half-hour program on Probabilities in the 1980s. Digitized and edited August 1-2, 2026 and introduced by host Richard Wolinsky.

Portions of this interview found their way into “Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends,” edited by Richard Wolinskky and published by Tachyon Books in 2025.

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