KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Colm Tóibín discusses his latest novel, “Long Island,” which follows characters from his earlier best-seller, “Brooklyn” twenty years later. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland, in 1955. He is the author of 11 novels including The Master, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary, Nora Webster, House of Names and The Magician. His work has been shortlisted for The Booker Prize three times, has won the Costa Novel Award and the IMPAC Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. Special thanks to the folks at BookShop West Portal in San Francisco for their assistance.

The post Colm Tóibín, “Long Island,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

Maureen Gosling, filmmaker and film editor, discusses the films of noted documentary director Les Blank (1935-2013), which whom she collaborated for several years, along with her own career, in this interview with host Richard Wolinsky.  A Retrospective of the films of Les Blank can be seen at Pacific Film Archive June 7 to July 27, 2024.

Les Blank is best known for “Burden of Dreams,” an award winning documentary detailing the efforts of German director Werner Herzog in making his film “Fitzcarraldo” in the Peruvian jungle. Les Blank’s work, though, focuses on the music and culture of the New Orleans and Louisiana, and the American South, with forays into the lives of several musicians, including rock legend Leon Russell.

Maureen Gosling worked as a sound recordist and editor (and co-filmmaker) on several of Les Blank’s films. Among her own films are There Ain’t No Mouse Music: The Story of Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records and The Nine Lives of Barbara Dane.

The post Maureen Gosling: The Films of Les Blank appeared first on KPFA.

Aya de Leon, the Interim Program Director of the Tenth Annual Bay Area Book Festival, June 1-2 in various locations in Berkeley, talks about this year’s festival with host Richard Wolinsky.

Aya de Leon is the Poet Laureate of the City of Berkeley. She is a novelist and poet who currently teaches creative writing at U.C. Berkeley. She is the author of ten books, the most recent of which are the adult novel, “That Dangerous Energy,” and the young adult novel, “Untraceable.” Originally a hip hop artist, Aya de Leon is also a noted local activist, and the acquiring editor of Fighting Chance Books, the climate justice fiction imprint of She Writes Press. She organizes with the Black Hive, the climate and environmental justice formation of the Movement for Black Lives.

The post Aya de Leon, The Bay Area Book Festival 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

Paul Auster (1947-2024), in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded October 2, 2002 while on tour for his novel “The Book of Illusions.”

Paul Auster, who died on April 30th, 2024 was a world-renowned novelist, memoirist, and film-maker whose works were translated into forty languages.

His career as a writer began with a well-received memoir, The invention of Solitude in 1982, and took off in 1987 with the publication of three connected novellas titled The New York Trilogy. His fame and success grew over the following years. He moved into film-making with the screenplays for two movies directed by Wayne Wang, Smoke and Blue in the Face, and then wrote and directed his own film, Lulu on the Bridge.

There are three Paul Auster interviews in the archives. In this first interview, he discusses his film work, goes into depth about both The Book of Illusions and his previous novel, Timbuktu, much of the interview centersd on Lulu on the Bridge and the two Wayne Wang collaborations. The second interview was conducted in  2008 for Man in the Dark, and finally in 2017 for his masterpiece, 4 3 2 1.

Currently, all three films, the two with Wayne Wang and Lulu on the Bridge, can be rented via Amazon. From time to time, all three show up on the Criterion app. This interview was newly edited in May 2024 and the entire interview has never seen the light of day until now.

The post Paul Auster (1947-2024), “The Book of Illusions,” 2002 appeared first on KPFA.

Helen Benedict, author of the novel “The Good Deed,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Helen Benedict is the author of eight novels, including “Wolf Season” and “Sand Queen,” and five books of non-fiction.Her previous book, “Map of Hope and Sorrow,” co-written by Eyad Awwadawnon, is partly an oral history of refugees coming to Greece after escaping from their home countries. Helen Benedict s a Professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism. “The Good Deed” is a novel based on her research, which was later turned into the non-fiction book.

In the interview, she discusses the origins of her book, the research on which the novel was based, and other elements of life among the refugees in Samos prior to the pandemic. She also talks about the recent events at Columbia involving the police raid on the protest encampment, as well as her view of current journalism regarding the upcoming 2024 election.

The post Helen Benedict, “The Good Deed,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

Trina Robbins (1938-2024) who died following a stroke on April 10, 2024, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded at her home in San Francisco on February 6, 2018.

Trina Robbins was a legend in comic book circles, an artist at a time when hardly any women drew comics. In this interview, she discusses her 2017 memoir, “Last Girl Standing,” which deals with her life as an artist, author, and clothing designer. She was the first woman to edit a comic book created by women, “It Ain’t Me Babe,” the first woman to draw “Wonder Woman,” and the single most influential historian chronicling the women who created comics and cartoons.

In this interview, she also talks about her other recent books including a history of women drawing comics during World War II, a graphic novel version of a short story collection originally written by her father in Yiddish, and a graphic novel based on a work by British author Sax Rohmer. Trina Robbins was clothing designer for Los Angeles rock and roll bands in the 1960s and for the Warhol factory in New York. She also was a regular contributor to “Wimmens Comix,” a series of comic books created by women from the 1970s through 1990s. Photo: Richard Wolinsky.

The post Trina Robbins (1936-2024), “Last Girl Standing,” 2019 appeared first on KPFA.

Joan Baez, legendary singer, songwriter and activist, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded while on remote tour for her book of poetry, “When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance.” Recorded April 26, 2024 via zencastr.

Joan Baez is an internationally renowned singer, songwriter and activist who burst on the folk music scene as a teenager in the late 1950s. She has two autobiographies, Daybreak, along with And A Voice to Sing With. There are over thirty albums, including her now classic “Diamonds and Rust”from 1975, she has appeared in numerous documentaries about music and activism, won the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, and is the subject of a recent documentary, Joan Baez, I Am A Noise, which is on Hulu and can be rented on several apps. Photos courtesy Joan Baez.

The post Joan Baez, “When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

A conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel, The Sympathizer, which has now been adapted into a television miniseries. The interview was recorded in the KPFA studios, May 5, 2016. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky

Viet Thanh Nguyen came over from Vietnam with his family at the time of the fall of Saigon. The Sympathizer is the story of a Communist exile in America following the end of the Vietnam War, both a spy and in some respects, a lover of American culture.

An Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of two non-fiction books, Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, a non-fiction bookend to his novel. A sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed, was published in 2021. This podcast was first posted on June 21, 2016.

The post Viet Thanh Nguyen, “The Sympathizer,” 2016 appeared first on KPFA.

Don Winslow, author of “City in Ruins,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded via zencastr on April 10, 2024

Don Winslow is the author of 22 novels, many of which focus on crime and the criminal underworld, including The Cartel, The Force, Savages (which became an Oliver Stone film), and The Border. His latest novel,  “City in Ruins”, concludes the trilogy of “City on Fire” and “City of Dreams,” which told of a mob war using as a template the story of the Trojan War, The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and other works. In this latest novel, we follow the character of Danny Ryan, (Aeneas) as he winds up in Las Vegas (the founding of Rome), with forays into the Odyssey and the greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Europides.  Don Winslow has stated that these will be his final novels.

Don Winslow also produces political videos aimed at saving the American democracy from Donald Trump, and is a vital force on Twitter.

Photos: Richard Wolinsky.

The post Don Winslow, “City in Ruins,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

Margot Livesey, author of the novel, “The Road from Belhaven,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded March 19, 2024 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.

The post Margot Livesey, “The Road from Belhaven,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.