KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an essayist, novelist, activist, film-maker, philosopher and teacher. On March 16, 2000, while on tour for what would be her final novel, “In America,” she was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in San Francisco.

From Wikipedia: “Among her best known works are  On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover, and In America.”

From Wikipedia: “Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as “one of the most influential critics of her generation.”

In her final four years after this interview, Susan Sontag published a long essay, Regarding the Pain of Others in 2003, concerning the visual representation of war and violence. Following her death, a collection of essays and speeches was published in 2007, and her journals and notebooks were published in two volumes, in 2008 and 2012. She died of leukemia on December 28, 2004 at the age of 71. Her illness and death were chronicled in the book Swimming in a Sea of Death by her son David Rieff. Am award-winning 2014 documentary on her life, Regarding Susan Sontag, is now available on Kanopy, the streaming app available free through your local library.

This interview and was digitized and re-edited in 2006 by Richard Wolinsky and has not been aired in thirteen years. This podcast was originally posted on July 19, 2019.

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Carlos Ruiz Zafon, who died on June 19, 2020 in Los Angeles of colorectal cancer at the age of 55, burst onto the literary scene in 2001 with his novel, The Shadow of the Wind, first of an interrelated group of four novels titled The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, set in Barcelona, Spain, his birthplace. This interview, recorded in May, 2009, focuses on the second novel in the series, The Angel’s Game. The next book in the series, The Prisoner of Heaven, came out in 2012, and the final book, The Labyrinth of Spirits, was published in 2018. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.

This podcast was originally posted on July 5, 2020.

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Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski mysteries, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff as part of the “Probabilities” radio series, recorded in the KPFA s studio on March 16, 1991 following the publication of “Burn Marks” and before the publication of “Guardian Angel.”

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 Richard Wolinsky, 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, have not been heard since the new century began. Until now.

It is appropriate to begin this series of interviews with the first president of Sisters in Crime, Sara Paretsky, recorded March 16, 1991 while she was in the Bay Area for a mystery conference. At the time, six V.I. Warshawski novels had been published, and a film starring Kathleen Turner would be released a few months later. It would turn out to be the only time V.I. Warshawski stories were adapted for film or television.

As of July, 2026, Sara Paretsky has published 22 novels in the V.I. Warshawski mystery series, and two non-series novels, along with three short story collections and two works of nonfiction. The most recent V.I. novel, Pay Dirt, was published in 2024.

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Lisa See, whose latest novel is “Daughters of the Sun and Moon,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in Culver City, California on June 28, 2026.

Lisa See’s best-selling books include Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, China Dolls, The Island of Sea Women more recently, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Each novel, thus far, focuses on the role and lives of women of East Asian descent in various countries, including Korea, Japan, China and the United States. Some of the novels focus on a mystery, others take place within the context of historical events.

Daughters of the Sun and Moon takes place in 1870, from China to Los Angeles, California, and focuses on the lives of three women, Moon, the wife of a doctor, Dove, the bound-foot daughter of a lesser bureaucrat, and Petal, the daughter of farmers. Moon has come to the United States with her husband, whom she’s known since childhood. Dove was married off to an older man she’s never met, and Petal was sold into sexual slavery and would find herself in a small brothel in the Chinese neighborhood, in what is now downtown L.A.

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Edmund White (1940-2025) discusses his novel “The Married Man” in a newly digitized interview conducted in the KPFA studios on June 10, 2000 with host Richard Wolinsky. Digitized, remastered and edited on June 20, 2026 and heard for the first time in over a quarter century.

Edmund White wrote novels, memoirs, plays, essays, biographies, and various hybrids. He was the co-author of The Joy of Gay Sex, and worked extensively in the gay community during the AIDS crisis and later.By the time of his death, he’d published sixteen novels, one play, six works of non-fiction, three biographies, and six volumes of memoirs.

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David Sedaris, author of the new essay collection, “The Land and Its People,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Originally known for his commentaries on “This American Life” on NPR, David Sedaris has now written 14 books, all of which have become best-sellers, including the early “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” and later “Calypso,” “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls,” and collections of his diaries. He has a home in North Carolina, and lives in England.

In this wide-ranging interview he discusses a wide variety of topics, including his relationship with his family, how he puts together an essay, his views on small talk and finding connections, and how growing old has affected his writing.

Recorded June 9, 2026 at Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera. California. Photo by Richard Wolinsky.

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George R.R. Martin, recorded in 1991, interviewed by Richard Wolinsky & Richard A. Lupoff.

On May 25, 1991, five years before the publication of Game of Thrones, and perhaps before its conception, Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff had a chance to chat with George R. R. Martin. At the time, he’d just completed work writing for the television series, “Beauty and the Beast,” and most of his interest concerned television and its standards and practices. As you listen to the interview, you can discern elements that will play a role in the genesis of Game of Thrones.

Digitized, remastered and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky in 2014. First posted on April 13, 2019.

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Jeff Griffith-Perham is the curator of a retrospective “A Complete Stanley Kubrick” at Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), running from June 12 through August 30, 2026. He is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky.

Stanley Kubrick was one of the most acclaimed film directors of the Twentieth Century. Though he only made 13 feature films, several of them made international headlines and one, “2001: A Space Odyssey” changed movie history. Among his other works are “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb,” the gorgeous “Barry Lyndon,” his controversial “A Clockwork Orange,” and the stunning horror film, “The Shining.”

Jeff Griffith-Perham is an Associate Film Curator at BAMPFA, and has curated other retrospectives focusing mostly on documentaries. He is considered an expert on the films of documentarian Frederick Wiseman.

In this interview, each of Kubrick’s films are discussed, along with ideas about Kubrick’s antiwar viewpoint, his working process and his place in film history.

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Helen Benedict, Columbia Profesysor of Journalism and author of the novel, “The Soldier’s House,” about the lives of Iraqi refugees in America in 2010, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

“The Soldier’s House” tells the story of a refugee from Baghdad, Naemi, who comes to America in 2010, sponsored by an American soldier whose translator was killed after the invasion. She, her young son Tariq and her mother in law have come to the United States, to the Albany area, after a time in Damascus, hoping to find a new life. A pediatrics physician over there, she can only gain the lowest levels of employment in America.

Helen Benedict has focused her literary career on the plight of refugees in America and Europe as she teaches young journalists the ways to keep digging for the truth and for justice. In this interview, she discusses how Iraqi and Afghanistani refugees have fared in this country and talks in detail about the legacy press and the challenges young journalists face as they come into the profession.

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Dan Simmons (1948-2026), Huge and World Fantasy Award winning novelist and short story writer, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded September 22, 1991 while on tour for the novel “Summer of Night.”

Dan Simmons, who died February 21, 2026 at the age of 77, was the author of the now classic science fiction novels “Hyperion” and “Fall of Hyperion” along with horror novels “The Terror” and “Carrion Comfort,” never achieved the popularity of peers like Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but was a genre master in his own right. Winner and nominee for several genre literary awards, his page turning books bristled with originality. Despite several attempts, “Hyperion” never became a film or series, and its sequel books in the Endymion series are still in development. “The Terror” became season one of a series also titled “The Terror.”

There would be a second interview in 1997 following the release of “Endymion Rising.” In his later career, Dan Simmons turned to mysteries as well as continuing his work in horror, fantasy and science fiction. His final novel, “Omega Canyon” was scheduled to be published in 2025 and then again in 2026 but has yet to see the light of day. His previous novel, “The Fifth Heart” was published in 2015.

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