KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

This encore podcast was first posted on November 6, 2019.

Terry Tempest Williams, whose latest collection is titled “Erosion: Essays of Undoing”, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Terry Tempest Williams is an environmental activist and chronicler of the western landscape. In her several books and essays, she takes us from national parks and monuments to the way our environment affects us, both physically and emotionally.

In this latest collection, she discusses the degradation of our natural resources, an ongoing process that encompasses the past few administrations and rushes headlong in the ongoing one; she talks about her Mormon roots and how they still affect her at the deepest levels, and how her activism led to her removal from her post at the University of Utah, along with the heartbreaking story of her brother’s death from suicide.

In this in-depth interview, she talks specifically about how she and her husband bought oil leases in an attempt to prevent drilling, about the climate crisis, and about how she came to be a writer.

The post Terry Tempest Williams, Erosion: Essays of Undoing appeared first on KPFA.

Margaret Atwood discusses her novel, “Alias Grace,” in this 1997 archive interview hosted by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff.

“Alias Grace” deals with an 1943 murder in Canada near Toronto, and its aftermath, a subject that intrigued Margaret Atwood for many years prior to the writing of the book. Originally a screenplay she expanded into a novel, it is one of the few works by Margaret Atwood based on historical events.

The interview was recorded in January 1997 in her hotel room in San Francisco. It was digitized, remastered and edited in September 2020, and is now heard in its entirety for the first time.

“Alias Grace” was produced as a miniseries in 2017 and is available on Netflix.

The post Margaret Atwood III, 1997: Alias Grace appeared first on KPFA.

From the Probabilities Archive: Roger Zelazny (1937-1995), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, recorded December 7, 1979. Digitized, remastered and edited in August 2020 by Richard Wolinsky.

Today, a quarter century after his death from cancer at the age of 58, Roger Zelazny’s star has dimmed but from the early 1960s into the 1980s, Roger Zelazny, was one of the giants in the world of fantasy and science fiction. Often expropriating characters from myths and legends from around the world, his stories and books delve into the nature of time, and into fragmented multiverses. A poet as well as a fiction writer, his prose demonstrated that science fiction at the time was not merely a genre of ideas and characters, but of literary merit as well, though he never escaped into the world of mainstream literature. Zelazny first burst like a comet onto the science fiction scene in the early 1960s, and with the award winning novels This Immortal and Lord of Light, as well as his short stories and novelettes, established himself as a force to be reckoned with.

In 1970, the first of his ten-volume Chronicles of Amber series was published as Nine Princes in Amber. This series of five books, focusing on a character named Corwin, was completed at the time of the interview. He would a few years later write another five books focusing on Corwin’s son, Merlin.

One reason Zelazny’s reputation faded is because so little of his work was adapted. In 1977, an dreadful film adaptation of his novel Damnation Alley came and went in a flash. And outside of a short story adapted for The Twilight Zone, none of Zelazny’s work has appeared on screen, though Lord of Light has been in development for decades. It’s odd that the Amber books have never been adapted for television.

This interview with the late Roger Zelazny was part of the Probabilities series of programs that aired on KPFA in Berkeley, beginning in 1977. The show was started by Lawrence Davidson, who was the science fiction book buyer at the legendary Cody’s Books in Berkeley, and myself, at the time working as a behind the scenes volunteer at KPFA. Joining us intermittently, and then as a full time co-host was science fiction writer Richard A. Lupoff. With no guidance and no training, though Richard Lupoff had done some radio in Miami a few years earlier, we were all still finding our footing on December 7, 1979, when this interview was recorded, in Zelazny’s hotel room during a Bay Area science fiction conference.

In this fragmented interview, recorded while people were coming and going, and going and coming, Richard A. Lupoff focuses on Zelazny’s publishing history, I focus on the Amber books, and Lawrence Davidson asks questions about Roadmarks, Zelazny’s most recent novel. None of us paid much attention to the location of the microphone. The interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited into some kind of hopefully coherent form in August, 2020. The interview aired once in early 1980, and has not been heard in forty years.

Zelazny would return to Amber in 1985 with Trumps of Doom. Roadmarks seemed to be the first volume of a new series, but Zelazny never followed up with a sequel. During the 1990’s, he would complete five short stories set in the world of Amber, which took place after the last novel, Prince of Chaos, in 1991, which would also turn out to be Zelazny’s final solo published science fiction fantasy novel. However, during the 1990s, he did collaborate on works with several other writers. His most famous collaboration, though, was Deus Irae, with Philip K. Dick, which came out in 1976.

\

The post Roger Zelazny (1937-1995), 1979 appeared first on KPFA.

This podcast was first posted on October 26, 2017 and then reposted a year later. Her book, “Democracy in Chains,” deals with the long game of the Koch brothers and their ilk, which may now finally be coming to fruition in this country. The idea was to create a constitutional convention, which would codify laws in such a way that progressive regimes would be unable to move their programs forward, thanks to the courts, and based on how the Pinochet regime was able to control Chile after giving up power. That convention idea didn’t work in this country, but thanks to Mitch McConnell and his refusal to bring Obama nominees to a vote, followed by the Trump Administration’s packing of all the courts, the Koch plan wound up working anyway. In this interview, Nancy MacLean goes back to the origins of the plan, and brings us forward.

Nancy MacLean, author of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean, in researching the life of libertarian professor James Buchanan, discovered the philosophical underpinnings of what Hillary Clinton (almost unknowingly) called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Funded by Charles Koch and other donors, they’ve taken over the GOP and have an agenda, she says, that ultimately will allow minority rule in the United States for the forseeable future.

In this interview, she discusses the role of Buchanan and the Mont Pelerin Society in the underpinnings of this gradual take-over of the state and federal government, and what the goals are, according to her research.

The post Nancy MacLean, “Democracy in Chains”, 2017 appeared first on KPFA.

Heather Cox Richardson, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.

Heather Cox Richardson is a noted historian, a Professor of History at Boston College, specializing on the Civil War and reconstruction – but in the past year she’s taken on a different role, chronicling America’s daily political life in a series of commentaries titled Letters from an American, which can be found on her Facebook page, as well as at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com. Earlier this year, she released a book titled How the South Won the Civil War, subtitled Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing fight for the soul of America.

This interview with Heather Cox Richardson was recorded via zencastr.com on the morning of Friday, September 11, 2020. Among topics discussed: her Letters from an American daily posts, a look at recent events involving the Trump administration, how her book came to be written, some of the concepts in the book, and how Heather Cox Richardson became an historian.

The record button was pressed before the interview began during a discussion about the one year anniversary of her commentary, which began on September 15, 2019. The official interview starts around the 7-minute mark, and the discussion about the book at around the 21 minute mark.

The post Heather Cox Richardson appeared first on KPFA.