StudioTulsa

Each year, the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature is given by the TCCL's Tulsa Library Trust to a nationally acclaimed author who has made a significant contribution to the field of literature for young adults. This year, that award will go to Rita Williams-Garcia, our guest today on ST. She is being recognized, as noted at the TCCL website , "for writing bestselling novels for young adults that inspire imaginations, dreams, and pride in all ages. Her books encourage cultural

Our guest is Mallory O'Meara, an author, screenwriter, and film producer who lives and works in Los Angeles. She tells us about her new book, which is a biography of Milicent Patrick -- one of Disney's first female animators and the only woman in history to create one of Hollywood's classic movie monsters: The Creature from the Black Lagoon. As was noted of this volume in a starred review in BookPage: "Fascinating.... This is a book that O'Meara was born to write, and she seamlessly meshes her

(Note: This interview originally aired back in November.) News flash: Cats do not meow at random. Nor do they hiss because they have nothing better to do. Cat sounds do have a purpose -- and they can carry important messages. But what ARE those messages? Our guest has some interesting answers: Susanne Schötz, a professor at Lund University in Sweden, is part of a long-standing research program exploring how and why cats use vocal communication...with each other and with their human caretakers.

More and more people these days are getting interested in -- and are, in fact, adopting -- a plant-based lifestyle. Healthy eating, healthy cooking, healthy living, and just taking more control over one's health, period: these practices all seem to be increasingly "mainstream" in America today. And so, in that spirit, the first-ever Tulsa VegFest will happen on Saturday the 4th at Guthrie Green in downtown Tulsa. The event is free to all, running from 10am to 4pm, and it will feature speakers

On this edition of ST, we speak with the acclaimed poet and writing instructor Quraysh Ali Lansana (born 1964 in Enid, Oklahoma). Now based in Tulsa and recently named a Tulsa Artist Fellow, Lansana has published several books over the years: poetry collections, children's books, edited or co-edited anthologies, textbooks, etc. Long based in Chicago, and greatly influenced by the African-American cultural, social, and political life of that city -- and more generally, by the Black Arts Movement

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we offer another episode of our twice-monthly Museum Confidential podcast (which is co-created by Jeff Martin with Philbrook Museum of Art and our own Scott Gregory). This time out, MC speaks with Graham Boettcher, Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama. Boettcher has recently been looking at that museum's troubling Jim Crow-era policies, which occurred in the first dozen years of its existence.

On this edition of our show, we learn about the nonprofit known as Connected Kids, which, per its webiste, "believes that every child needs and deserves connection. It is essential to overcoming trauma and becoming courageous, purposeful, self-directed, and independent. And it is possible! With the right tools and support, we can build healing connections with children who have been through even the darkest of circumstances." This organization was founded by Rr. Barbara Sorrels, who is our guest

On this edition of ST, we learn about the nonprofit Harmony Project, a long-running (and highly successful) music-based mentoring program that provides academic tutoring, instruments, and music lessons to at-risk students (in grades K through 12) nationwide. The program was begun in 2001 in Los Angeles -- as a "public-health intervention" -- by Dr. Margaret Martin, who is our guest today. There are by now several different Harmony Project Affiliates -- in New Orleans, Kansas City, East St. Louis

(Note: This installment of ST Medical Monday originally aired last summer.) It's taken a while for this particular truth to sink in, but America finally seems to be waking up to it: People with mental illness don't need to be locked up -- they need to be treated. On this edition of our show, we speak with journalist Alisa Roth, whose book, "Insane," is a well-regarded and alarming exposé of the mental health crisis now facing our courts, jails, and prisons. As was noted of this book by The New

On this edition of ST, we learn about two new plays to be presented on April 19, 20, 26, and 27 at the Nightingale Theater here in Tulsa, at 1416 East 4th Street. Heller Theatre Company recently opted to stage two one-act plays (in a single evening) by a pair of Tulsa-based playwrights in order to continue its ongoing mission to support original dramatic work, and thus Heller is offering "Trade Privileges" (written by David Blakely) and "Niñas de la Tierra" (written and directed by Shadia Dahlal