KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Glen David Gold, whose latest book is “I Will Be Complete: A Memoir,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

Glen David Gold is the author of the bestselling novels Sunnyside and Carter Beats The Devil which has been translated into 14 languages. His essays, memoir, journalism and short fiction have appeared in McSweeney’s, Playboy, Tin House, Wired, Zyzzyva, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the Guardian UK and London Independent. He has written The Spirit for DC comics and The Escapist for Dark Horse.  Recently he has co-written episodes of The Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Nightvale.

I Will Be Complete tells the story of his life through his twenties, focusing on his relationship with his mother, who left him alone frequently to go off and do her own thing, and his relationships and attempts at coming to grips with his own life story. Reading like a novel, I Will Be Complete uses fictional tropes to tell a real-life story.

Glen David Gold website

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Even during his lifetime, Howard Browne (1908-1999) was not well known outside of his given fields. His novels, including his best detective fiction, were written under pseudonyms, and his work as editor and Hollywood writer, through credited, remained mostly unknown, except by those in the business.

During his long lifetime Browne published hundreds of stories in science fiction and detective magazines, along with several novels. He wrote dozens of television shows including Mission Impossible, Run for Your Life, Maverick and Cheyenne, and three of his film scripts were produced: Portrait of a Mobster with Vic Morrow; The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre with Jason Robards and George Segal; and Capone, starring Ben Gazzara. He also wrote radio scripts in the late 1940s.

His day job, before he went to Hollywood, was as an associate editor under Ray Palmer and then editor for Ziff-Davis pulp magazines, which included Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures and other lesser known fiction magazines.

Richard A. Lupoff interviewed Howard Browne at Browne’s home in Southern California some time in the mid 1980s (the cassettes aren’t labeled). This was Browne’s only radio interview, and only the second extant interview on record (the other appeared in Locus Magazine). After he retired, Howard Browne taught a couple of college classes and worked on a big Chicago novel that never saw publication.

Most of his work is out of print today, though his four noir novels, in the style of Raymond Chandler and featuring a detective named Paul Pine, are available in a small press edition published this past spring by Haffner Press, with an introduction by Richard A. Lupoff.

If you go to Imdb, you’ll find a long list of his television shows, many of which can be found streaming. Curiously, his novel Thin Air formed the basis for his first television credit, on the show Climax in 1955, and his last, for an episode of Simon and Simon in 1982. Thin Air was also the basis for an episode on yet a third program, The Rockford Files.

Two minor points: Browne says he never wrote for Hawaiian Eye, yet IMDb claims he wrote an episode, and he says he retired in 1973 but his credits extend to 1975.

The interview has now been remastered and re-edited, and is presented for the first time in thirty years.

Feedback on this and other podcasts is appreciated. You can write to [email protected].

Howard Browne IMDb page

Howard Browne Wikipedia page

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Richard Powers, whose latest novel is “The Overstory,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.

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.

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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 recorded October 20, 2017, 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. “Democracy in Chains” was on the short list for the 2017 National Book Award.

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Harlan Ellison (1934-2018), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in San Francisco on September 15, 1997, while he was on tour for his collection, “Slippage.”

Impossible to categorize, and sometimes impossible to be around, Harlan Ellison was an acclaimed short story writer known for his science fiction and fantasy, a novelist, an editor known for the classic Dangerous Visions anthologies, a television writer and consultant, a media gadfly, and one of the most steadfast promoters of reading and independent bookstores.

Dick Lupoff first met Harlan in 1960, and their friendship, with its ups and downs, was to last until Harlan’s death, two years shy of a half-century. This interview reflects that friendship, and their relationship, both professionally and personally.

Richard A. Lupoff, on July 2, 2018:

“I first met Harlan in August of 1960. My wife Pat and I were working on the first issue of our fanzine, “Xero.” Harlan had offered to contribute an essay about Hitchcock’s film “Psycho.” We went over to Harlan’s apartment in the West Village, knocked on the door, and an older woman let us in.

“Turned out she was Harlan’s mother. She said she’d arrived to visit him and he told her that he had to run an errand and left. And hadn’t come back. We spent a few minutes with Harlan’s mom, who turned out to be a complete harridan. We could understand why he’d “had to run an errand” and not come back!

“We did get Harlan’s manuscript shortly after this. My age at the time would have been 27. Harlan and Bob Silverberg (Robert Silverberg (multiple Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction and fantasy author) and I were close in age

“In a long career stretching back to his days as a science fiction fan in the 1950s, Harlan was always outspoken, often controversial and frequently litigious. He never backed off from a fight–or from a lawsuit. He was a magnet for attention with a flair for the theatrical including such stunts as setting up a typewriter in the window of a bookstore and writing a story in the full view of customers and passers-by.”

Along with his work in television, Harlan served as host of KPFK Pacifica’s science fiction program, Hour 25 for one year in the mid-1980s. As a volunteer, Harlan felt he owned the rights to his broadcasts and was furious when Pacifica began selling them. Acrimony ensued, and Harlan moved on.

In 2006, Harlan Ellison was named a Grand Master from the Science Fiction Writers of America, and won a Nebula in 2011 for his short story “How Interesting, A Tiny Man.” His most recent of collection of new material , published in 2015, was “Can and Can’tankerous.” There’s a film about his life, “Dreams with Sharp Teeth,” released in 2007. His best stories are collected in a recent anthology, “Top of the Volcano.” Slippage is now considered one of his finest collections. The Last Dangerous Visions has still never been published, though a story mentioned in the interview, “Stark and the Star Kings,” the only collaboration between Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton, was published in 2005 by Haffner Press.

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Simon Winchester, whose latest book is “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World,” is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.

A master at non-fiction writing, Simon Winchester looks at the difference between precision and accuracy, and at how these two elements helped create the world we see today, from automobiles to cell phones, from microscopes to telescopes. In this wide-ranging discussion, he talks about how he came to write this book, and how his career as an author began.

Simon Winchester website

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