KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Margaret Atwood in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, discussing her books, Moral Disorder, Writing with Intent and The Penelopiad, recorded November 3, 2006 in the KPFA studios.

The author of such novels as The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake talks about her three recent works: Moral Disorder, a series of connected short stories; Writing with Intent, a collection of essays; and The Penelopiad, a comic take on the Odyssey from the perspective of Odysseus’ wife.

She also discusses the relation of memoir and fiction, America’s role in Afghanistan, her views about America from the perspective of a Canadian, genre fiction, and other issues.

Margaret Atwood I, 1989: Cat’s Eye, The Handmaid’s Tale

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Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in New York City on August 10, 1983.

Isaac Asimov, who died at the age of 72 in 1992, was considered, along with Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein, one of the three great masters of American science fiction in the 20th century.

Isaac Asimov began sending in stories and getting published in science fiction magazines at the age of nineteen, and at the age of 21, with the publication of the short story “Nightfall” in John W. Campbell’s Astounding Stories magazine. moved into the first ranks of science fiction writers. That status was confirmed a year later with the publication of the short story, “Foundation,” later renamed “The Encyclopedists,” which would be the first of several short stories and novellas republished as the three volumes of the Foundation trilogy.

In the 1940s, he turned to a series of stories focused on robots, which became the collection I Robot and then in the 1950s turned to novels, including Pebble in the Sky, The Caves of Steel and The End of Eternity. Along the way, through his entire career, he wrote dozens of non-fiction books on a wide variety of topics, along with young adult novels, and mystery novels and short stories. In the end, the number of books he wrote or edited exceeded 500, not counting separate short stories and articles.

This interview was conducted in a New York City bookstore Asimov was visiting to sign copies of a new collection, The Union Club Mysteries, a year after his return to the world of the Foundation trilogy, Foundation’s Edge, was published. Because his two –volume autobiography had come out a couple of years earlier and dealt with the plots and themes of his fiction, the interview focused instead on his life as a writer and his work with editors and publishers.

A miniseries adaptation of the Foundation Trilogy is due to be released on the Apple + streaming app in September, 2021.

The post The Probabilities Archive: Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), 1983 appeared first on KPFA.

W.P. Kinsella, author of the now classic novel Shoeless Joe, which became the film Field of Dreams, died on September 16, 2016 at the age of 81.  In this archive interview recorded April 19, 1988, he talks about the book and his career with Richard A Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky.

Digitized, remastered and edited in 2016 by Richard Wolinsky. This is the interview’s first appearance as a Radio Wolinsky podcast.

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Tony Horwitz discussing his book, “Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War,” with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded November 12, 2011.

​​​​​Tony Horwitz, who died in 2019 at the age of sixty, was a master of the non-fiction form. In books like Confederates in the Attic, Blue Latitudes and A Voyage Long and Strange, he turned his research and his own personal searches into narratives impossible to put down. His work with Civil War reenactcors led him to the story of John Brown, and in his 2011 book, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Started the Civil War, he took a closer look at the Civil War, at abolitionists, and at the war against slavery. This interview was recorded at his hotel  while he was on tour for Midnight Rising.

Tony Horwitz discussing “Spying On The South” in 2019.

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Jack Arnold, who died at the age of 75 in 1992, was the 1950s master of the science fiction film. Among the films he directed were It Came From Outer Space, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula, and The Incredible Shrinking Man. The Probabilities crew – Richard A. Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and Richard Wolinsky – received a small stipend from a science fiction convention and flew to Los Angeles to interview Jack Arnold in his office at Universal Studios. The interview is undated but was recorded in around 1980, give or take a year.

Arnold’s memory was fuzzy on when films were released. IMDb lists It Came from Outer Space, along with two film noirs  in 1953, Creature from the Black Lagoon in 1954 and Revenge of the Creature in 1955. The first western, The Man from Bitter Ridge along with Tarantula and his work on This Island Earth also came from 1955. The rest of the westerns, along with The Incredible Shrinking Man and the Peter Sellers classic The Mouse That Roared, came between 1956 and 1959. After that, he directed a couple more A pictures, as he called them, but his primary work moved to television, and from then until his retirement in 1984, he was constantly working on projects for the small screen, interspersed with the occasional film.

At the end of the interview, he discusses a remake of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, complete with storyboards. That project never did get off the ground, though it’s possible later versions used some of Arnold’s pre-planning. And, not to forget, he helped turn Gilligan’s Island into a cultural (for better or worse) icon.

Remastered and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky in July 2021, this interview has not been heard in forty years, and has never been publicly available in its entirety.

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