Past Forward

R. Conrad Speer, a Canadian author, lives in Saskatchewan.  His new collection of fiction, ‘Saint Lazarus Day and other stories’, was published in 2020 by Atmosphere Press.  He holds a postgraduate certificate in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh.

Saint Lazarus Day and Other Stories
Atmosphere Press, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

As a writer and educator, Kelsey Freeman focuses on Indigenous rights, immigration policy, social justice, and public policy. In 2016, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach English and study migration in central Mexico. She is the author of No Option but North: The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border, which is based on her year of interviewing Central American migrants as they journeyed through Mexico. She currently works at Central Oregon Community College, where she runs a college-readiness program for Native American high school students. Kelsey holds a BA in Government and Legal Studies with high honors from Bowdoin College.

No Option but North: The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border
IG Publishing, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a novelist and Director of Student Recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) where she also earned her MFA in Writing. She comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, including poets Virgilio & Jose Antonio Dávila, and her cousin, award-winning author Tere Dávila. Five Midnights was her first solo novel.

Category Five
Tor Teen, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Lauren Shippen is the author of The Infinite Noise, and the creator and sole writer of the popular audio drama, The Bright Sessions. She also wrote MARVELS, an audio adaptation of the popular comic, released in 2019 by Marvel and Stitcher. MovieMaker Magazine and Austin Film Festival named Shippen one of 25 Screenwriters to Watch. She was born in New York City, and grew up in Bronxville, New York. Currently she resides in Los Angeles.

A Neon Darkness
Tor Teen, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

This Vietnam-era Marine solo paddled 3,500 miles of Canada’s wilderness before discovering it was never the hows that would be difficult to write about; it was those troubling whys.

ZHIMON, A Solitary Adventure
Pronghorn Press, 2019

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Sara B. Larson is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the YA fantasy Defy trilogy and the Dark Breaks the Dawn duology. She can’t remember a time when she didn’t write books—although she now uses a computer instead of a Little Mermaid notebook. Sara lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, their four children, and their Maltese, Loki.

Warriors of Wing and Flame
Tor Teen, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Forest B. Dunning is a retired rancher living in Sheridan, Wyoming. Raised in Birney, Montana, near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, he has been a student, cowboy, soldier, financial advisor, purebred cattle rancher, cattle buyer, and author. He is a graduate from New Mexico State University with a bachelor's degree in Agricultural Economics and from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in Military Science. After successful careers as a U.S. Army officer (retired lieutenant colonel) and a civilian financial advisor, Forest returned to his roots and bought a cattle ranch near Sheridan. He has long had a love for Montana and Wyoming history and historical fiction. Noting that much of local history has been overlooked, he has devoted his writing skills to the preservation of history in southeastern Montana, northern Wyoming, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

Death at Lame Deer
Farcountry Press, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Mark Oshiro is the Hugo-nominated writer of the online Mark Does Stuff universe (Mark Reads and Mark Watches), where they analyze books and TV series. Their debut novel, Anger is a Gift won the 2019 Schneider Family Book Award and was nominated for a 2019 Lammy Award. Their forthcoming novel Each of Us a Desert will be published in September 2020. When they are not working they engage in social activism online and offline. Their life long goal is to pet every dog in the world.

Each of Us a Desert
Tor Teen, 2020

A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.

Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Veronica Murphy is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Write Out Loud (since 2007). With a passion for promoting literature, she has produced six NEA BIG READ initiatives, 11 literary festivals celebrating 19thcentury literature, history and culture, and conceived and executed a Roald Dahl Centenary Celebration. For the past six years she has coordinated the San Diego Regional Poetry Out Loud competition for this national program. She has an extensive professional resume as a performer, costume designer and development director. Veronica is the 2013 recipient of The Deborah Salzer Excellence in Arts Education Award, a 2015 10News Leadership Award and a California English Teachers Association Award of Merit. She has a BA in Theatre Arts from California State University, San Bernardino. Her most important achievement is raising three amazing sons as a single mother.

Larry and Debby Kline are collaborative artists, featured in solo exhibitions at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (SF,) California Center for the Arts Museum, La Casa del Tunel Art Center (TJ,) Southwestern College, UCSD Cross Cultural Center, Mesa College and La Jolla Athenaeum. Group exhibitions include Indiana State Museum, Torrance Art Museum and Museum on the Seam (Israel.) We have been featured in periodicals such as Utne and Orion, and books including “The Artists Guide,” and “Design and Ethics: Reflections on Practice.” Awards include three grants from The Gunk Foundation (NY) and grants from Potrero Nuevo Fund (SF,) Center for Cultural Innovation (LA,) UCIRA (SD) and San Diego Art Prize. We were featured in an Emmy Award winning episode of ArtPulse TV and were artists-in-residence at San Diego Natural History Museum, Torrance Art Museum, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Building Bridges Art Exchange and currently UCSD School of Medicine. “Bruce’s Story” is our third illustration project for Write Out Loud San Diego.

Chapters is a multi-part series concerning the history and the lessons of civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices carried out against communities or populations—including civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices that are perpetrated on the basis of an individual’s race, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

This project was made possible with support from Chapman University and The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library.

Guests: Veronica Murphy and Larry and Debby Kline
Hosts: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Jonelle Strickland
Produced by: Public Podcasting

Lilia Gonzáles-Chávez, was appointed Executive Director of the Fresno Arts Council in 2011, and was appointed to the California Arts Council by Governor Gavin Newson in 2020.  She is a performing artist with over twenty years teaching and performing Ballet Folklorico. With a BA from Fresno State University and a Master’s degree from Fresno Pacific University, Lilia has worked in the education, human services and the arts field first as a teacher and advancing through management and leadership positions in public and nonprofit organizations. She is co-founder of Arte Américas, the Latino cultural arts center in Fresno and served as its Director for nearly ten years. 

Brynn Saito is a poet, educator, and organizer based in Fresno, CA. She is the author of two books of poetry from Red Hen Press, Power Made Us Swoon (2016) and The Palace of Contemplating Departure (2013). She recently published Dear—, a chapbook and online letter archive funded with an Artist's Grant from Densho, an organization dedicated to sharing the story of the World War II-era incarceration of Japanese Americans. In 2017, Brynn co-founded Yonsei Memory Project (YMP) with artist and farmer, Nikiko Masumoto; YMP uses the arts and storytelling to engage in memory work and draw connections between the Japanese American incarceration and current struggles for justice. 

Chapters is a multi-part series concerning the history and the lessons of civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices carried out against communities or populations—including civil rights violations or civil liberties injustices that are perpetrated on the basis of an individual’s race, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

This project was made possible with support from Chapman University and The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library.

Guests: Lilia Gonzáles-Chávez and Brynn Saito
Hosts: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Jonelle Strickland
Produced by: Public Podcasting