KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

​​​​​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. While the interview was conducted during the Bush Administration, it’s not hard to project ahead from what Lopez is saying to the current crisis point with a would-be dictator poised to become the Republican nominee for President. He speaks of the inattentiveness of the masses as well, which also has great resonance today.

Barry Lopez Wikipedia page

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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.

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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 filmswere 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.

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Richard Powers in conversation with Richard Wolinsky while on tour for the novel “The Overstory,” recorded in the KPFA studios, April 27, 2018. This encore podcast was originally posted on July 19, 2018.

The author of “The Time of Our Singing” and “The Echo Maker” delves into the world of eco-terrorism and the secret life of trees in this epic story about eight individuals who, together and apart, come to see the forests of earth as our salvation, and the salvation of the planet. Based on prodigious research, Powers tells of the way trees communicate with one another, and spins stories based on real life confrontations between protestors and those who would destroy the lifeblood of the planet to pay off leveraged debt.

Richard Powers explores the effects of modern science and technology in his twelve novels. Along with the National Book award for “The Echo Maker,”  he has won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. Richard Powers has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford Universities. His most recent novel, “Bewilderment,” was published in 2021.

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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. He also talks about the Republican Party and its supporters, which indicate that there’s not much difference in thought between the followers of George W. Bush and the MAGA cult behind Donald Trump.

If his voice sounds a bit slurred, it’s because he was diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually kill him three years earlier, and he’d already had a series of operations, making clear speech difficult.

This complete interview is posted for the first time.

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Alice McDermott, whose latest novel is “Absolution,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded December 12, 2023 via zencastr.

Alice McDermott is the author of eight other novels, including Charming Billy, which won the National Book Award in 1998, That Night, which was a National Book Award finalist, and was twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She is also author of one non-fiction work, “What About the Baby?”

“Absolution” concerns the young wife of a Naval officer in Saigon in the spring and summer of 1963, who years later looks back on that time, from the vantage point of old age. The book has been popping up on several best of the year lists.

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Amos Oz (1939-2018), author of “A Tale of Love and Darkness” and other books, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in San Francisco in December 7, 2004, while he was on tour for his memoir, “A Tale of Love and Darkness”. Encore podcast originally posted on January 13, 2019.

Amos Oz, the noted Israeli novelist, short story writer, essayist and peace activist, and perennial Nobel Prize candidate, died on December 28th, 2018 at the age of 79. The author of forty books, he was a firm believer in the two-state solution who felt, over the previous decade, that the hope for peace appears to be slipping away. Today, it’s gotten worse of course.

Today his greatest work is considered to be the memoir of his family, set against the background of the rise of Nazi Germany, World War II, and the formation of the state of Israel, and culminating in the suicide of his mother. A Tale of Love and Darkness, was published in Israel in 2002 and two years later in the United States.

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R.L. Stine, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in the KPFA studios on September 22, 1995 during the book tour for the adult novel, “Superstitious.”

On September 22, 1995, Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff had the chance to interview R.L. Stine in the KPFA studio about his first adult novel, Superstitious. At the time, both the first series of Fear Street and Goosebumps were still being written, and a 1990s Goosebumps TV series was yet to make its debut.

R.L. Stine, who recently turned 80 years old, is often called the Stephen King of young adult and children’s horror. With nearly 500 books under his belt alongside several film and TV adaptations, he is best known for two series and their later iterations, Fear Street and Goosebumps

A new Goosebumps series recently completed its run on Disney+ and Hulu, and the film Zombie Town debuted in theaters in September 2023 and is now available on Hulu.

He doesn’t go into it in the interview, but along with his books written as R.L. Stine, he also write dozens of humor books for kids under the name Jovial Bob Stine. What he does talk about here is his writing process, his thoughts about the work he does, and how it appears his various children and young adult books have created lifelong readers and improved test scores in elementary and high schools across the country.

To date, “Superstitious” is only one of four adult novels written by R.L. Stine. This interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited in November 2023 and has not been heard in over twenty five years.

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A.S. Byatt (1936-November 18, 2023), in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky on ​​​​​January 27, 2003 while on tour for the novel, “A Whistling Woman.” This would be the first of two interviews, the second in 2010 for her novel The Children’s Book.

Born Antonia Drabble and sister to novelist Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt spent her early professional life as a teacher before becoming a full time writer in 1983. In 1978 she began the first of a tetralogy, The Virgin in the Garden, which continued with Still Life, Babel Tower, and finally A Whistling Woman.

Her 1990 novel, Possession, probably her best known work, won the Booker Prize. and was turned into a successful film by Neil LeBute. Her novella Morpho Eugenia was adapted into a film titled Angels and Insects in 1995.

Over the course of her career, she wrote ten novels, the last of which was Ragnarok: The End of the Gods in 2011, along with six short story collections, a two-novella collection titled Angels and Insects, and nine essays and biographies. Her final work was a short story collection, Medusa’s Ankles, published in 2021.

This wide-ranging interview focuses not only on her most recent novel, but on the build-up to the American invasion of Iraq, which would happen in March, 2003, her views on Umberto Eco’s works, genre fiction, and other issues.

Remastered and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky, November 18-19, 2023.

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