KQED's Forum

It seems that everyone wants a happy ending, and nothing delivers that better than a romance novel. The Harlequin romance bodice rippers of old have evolved. Today’s romance novels feature diverse protagonists – including men. They offer more real-to-life scenarios, and often mash into other genres like science fiction. In the last five years, booksellers have seen a 740% increase in the sales of LGBTQ romance novels, with 850,000 books sold last year. We’ll talk about the rise of the romance novel and hear from you…what’s your favorite?

Guests:

Jasmine Guillory, novelist and writer, "Drunk on Love" — Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Bon Appetit, and Time.

Mia Sosa, novelist, "The Wedding Crasher" and "The Worst Best Man"

Olivia Waite, novelist, "The Hellion's Waltz" and "The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows;" romance novel reviewer, the New York Times

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Sally Yates, who as acting attorney general refused to defend the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries. Reproductive rights attorney Brigitte Amiri, who represented teen migrants denied abortions. These are among the women lawyers Dahlia Lithwick profiles in her new book “Lady Justice” -- the ones who she says fought the racism, sexism, transphobia and xenophobia that took root and flourished during the Trump presidency. We’ll talk to Lithwick about how women are harnessing the law to advance civil rights, even as the Supreme Court and state legislatures work to curtail them.

Guests:

Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor, Slate; host of podcast Amicus; writer of "Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America"

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Chef and author Illyanna Maisonet, a former food columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, made a name for herself by reimagining Puerto Rican cuisine. Her debut cookbook, “Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook.” chronicles Maisonet’s experience as a Puerto Rican living in Sacramento and how this region’s cultures have informed her cooking. Maisonet joins us to talk about her book as part of our next installment of All You Can Eat, our regular segment about the food cultures of the Bay Area with KQED food editor Luke Tsai.

Guests:

Luke Tsai, food editor, KQED

Illyanna Maisonet, chef and author, her debut cookbook, "Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook” comes out in October 2022.

Jose 'Cheo' Ortiz, chef and restaurant owner, La Perla Restaurant, Oakland - Authentic Puerto Rican cuisine

Jacqueline Roman, chef and owner, El Coqui Puerto Rican Cuisine in Santa Rosa

Lourdes “Lulu” Marquez Nau, chef and owner, Casa Borinqueña in Oakland

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Come 2027, Californians will have a new post-death option: to become human compost. A law signed by Governor Newsom this month made California the fifth state to legalize “natural organic reduction,” which lets human bodies decompose into a cubic yard of soil. While green burials — the process of wrapping the deceased in a shroud and placing them in the ground — are already legal, composting doesn’t require a dedicated portion of land. And though it’s more expensive than cremation, it’s also less carbon-intensive. We’ll talk about the new law and hear whether you’d want to become human compost.

Guests:

Courtney Applewhite, doctoral candidate studying environmental disposition ("eco-funerals"), UC Santa Barbara

Cristina Garcia, assembly member, representing California's 58th Assembly District

Katrina Spade, founder and CEO, Recompose

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The death of the 22-year old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, for a supposed violation of the country’s strict dress code, has sparked protests across Iran and around the world. As Iranian citizens protest in call for justice and women's rights reform, many have gotten arrested, injured and even killed. We'll talk with Iranians here in the U.S. about the reactions to Amini's death and the status of women's rights in Iran.

Guests:

Persis Karim, Iranian-American poet and essayist; director for the Center of Iranian Diaspora Studies, San Francisco State University

Shaghayegh Cyrous, artist

Hoda Katebi, writer, community organizer and creative educator

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Points, badges, progress bars and leaderboards: they’re among the games designed to make dull activities fun -- and to make us more productive at the gym, in school or at work. But to video game developer Adrian Hon, gamification has become the twenty-first century’s most advanced form of behavioral control, coercing our decisions and justifying corporate and government surveillance. We’ll talk to Hon about his new book “You’ve Been Played.”

Guests:

Adrian Hon, game developer and author, "You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments and Schools Use Games to Control Us All."

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Three historic BIPOC-focused media outlets are celebrating anniversaries this fall - India Currents turns 35, Willie Ratliff, the publisher of San Francisco Bayview National Black Newspaper turns 90, and the Mission’s El Tecolote turns 52. These outlets may be small (compared to the mainstream media) but they are mighty. We’ll find out how their communities sustained their local media through the pandemic, and how the outlets sustained their communities in turn. Thriving together through difficult times.

Guests:

Vandana Kumar, Editor-in-chief, publisher and co-founder, India Currents.

Nube Brown, Editor-in-chief, San Francisco Bayview National Black Newspaper.

Alexis Terrazas, Editor-in-chief, El Tecolote.

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The California condor is not one of nature’s cutest birds, but it is probably one of its most compelling. The largest bird in North America, the condor has a wingspan measuring nine and a half feet. It can fly at speeds up to 50 miles per hour, glide at 15,000 feet in the air without flapping, and can cover 150 miles a day. The condor once flew freely across the west, but by 1982, only 23 condors remained in existence worldwide, and by 1987, all living condors were in captive breeding programs. The success of those programs has allowed the reintroduction of the condor to the wild, and this year, the condor was reintroduced to Northern California in partnership with the federal government and partners like the Yurok Tribe. We’ll talk to experts about reintroducing a species to the wild, and hear from you: What comes to mind when you think of the California condor?

Guests:

Tiana Wiliams-Claussen, Director, Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department.

Joe Burnett, Senior Wildlife Biologist and California Condor Recovery Program Manager, Ventana Wildlife Society.

Ashleigh Blackford, California Condor Coordinator & At-Risk Species Coordinator, U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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With the goal of helping San Francisco’s under-resourced students develop their voices as writers, the nonprofit 826 Valencia — founded at that exact address in San Francisco’s Mission District — turned 20 this year. There are now nine 826 chapters nationwide, and in San Francisco more than 5,600 students are served by the program in the back of its pirate store flagship, in its Tenderloin and Mission Bay centers and in eleven public schools across the city. Nearly 3 thousand students have been published in its writing collections and podcasts, proudly calling themselves published authors. We’ll hear some works by 826’s youth authors and talk with the founders and current team about the importance of celebrating — and publishing — youth voices.

Related link(s):

"Truth Of The Fenced Castle" by Tiarri

More 826 Valencia Podcasts

Guests:

Dave Eggers, co-founder, 826 Valencia

Nínive Calegari , co-founder, 826 Valencia

Bita Nazarian, executive director, 826 Valencia

Bianca Catalan, alumnus and Board Member, 826 Valencia

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In one of her undergraduate history seminars, Harvard professor Drew Gilpin Faust recently discovered that the majority of her students could not read cursive. To them, it was like a foreign language. This is not surprising as cursive was not part of the Common Core educational standards introduced in 2010, though half of the nation’s states, including California, now include cursive in their curriculum. Some argue that computers have made the need for handwriting obsolete. But research suggests that handwriting, and cursive in particular, helps children read better and retain knowledge. What is lost when we cannot write or read in cursive? We’ll talk to experts on handwriting, and we’ll hear from you: Is cursive relevant anymore and how’s your handwriting?

Guests:

Drew Gilpin Faust, Arthur Kingsley University professor in History Organization, Harvard University - Faust is the former president of Harvard University; recent article for the Atlantic is titled, "Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive"

Robert Wiley, assistant professor, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Virginia Berninger, professor emeritus, University of Washington College of Education

Sandra Gutierrez, associate DIY Editor, Popular Science; recent article, "Wait, It's Not to Late to Get Good Handwriting"

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