Emily Ruskovich's debut novel Idaho received wide acclaim in 2017, named a New York Times Editor's Choice Book and The Idaho Book of the Year. Here, she talks with Commonweal contributor Tony Domestico, who described Idaho as "a wondrous novel about the enchanting and terrifying wonders of experience: unexplained and unexplainable actions, the ways in which love can pivot to hate and back again, the strangeness of memory and loss and mercy."

This episode features a conversation between Meghan O'Gieblyn and Katherine Lucky, a pair of young writers whose essays on the life of faith are already receiving acclaim. Editor Dominic Preziosi and Assistant Editor Griffin Oleynick discuss his coverage from the 2018 Synod on Young People at the Vatican. Contributor Anthony Domestico talks to Emily Ruskovich about her 2017 debut novel. And Derek Jeffreys discusses his new book, America's Jails: The Search for Human Dignity in an Age of Mass Incarceration. 

Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi talks with managing editor Katherine Lucky about the power of female rage in this political moment.

Staffers Griffin Oleynick, Nicole-Ann Lobo, and Meaghan Ritchey chat about the recently closed David Wojnarowicz retrospective at The Whitney Museum. Wojnarowicz was a multi-media artist working in NYC from the 1970s through 1992 when he died of AIDS-related complications. According to the exhibition's catalog, his work "documents and illuminates a desperate period of American history...his rightful place is also among the raging and haunting iconoclastic voices."

Julian Revie is a composer of sacred at St. Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel at Yale University. His Composition "Kyrie"—which you can hear in the segment— won the Francesco Siciliani Prize in 2016. In this segment, you'll hear him and assistant editor Griffin Oleynick discuss the process of musical composition, sacred art-making as a vocation, and even the theology behind "Kyrie," the musical setting of the penitential rite at the beginning of the Catholic Mass.

Senior editor Matthew Boudway and Dr. Alan Jacobs discuss Jacobs' new book The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, in which he recounts how thinkers like Jacques Maritain, T.S. Eliot, Simone Weil, C.S. Lewis, and W.H. Auden understood that their soon-to-be victorious nations weren't culturally or morally prepared for their power and success. Their work sought to articulate a sober critique of their own culture and and outline a plan for spiritual regeneration in a post-war world.

Contributing Editor Paul Moses speaks with Donald Kerwin, the Director of the Center for Migration Studies, about the Trump administration's immigration policies. Moses and Kerwin reflect on these policies in light of Catholic teaching, contextualizing the Holy Family as a refugee family with migrant histories in scripture. 

The editors discuss their editorial "Injudicious," on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, subsequent Senate Judiciary hearings with Dr. Ford, and Kavanaugh's conduct therein. 

In our third episode, the editors of Commonweal discuss Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court and the subsequent hearing with Dr. Blasey Ford. Contributing writer Paul Moses chats about U.S. immigration policy with Donald Kerwin, Director of the Center for Migration Studies. Senior editor Matthew Boudway and Alan Jacobs discuss his new book, The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. Assistant editor Griffin Oleynick and Julian Revie, a composer of sacred music at St. Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel at Yale, have a wide-ranging conversation about liturgical music. And Commonweal staffers discuss the David Wojnarowicsz retrospective at The Whitney Museum of American Art.

In our second installment, the Commonweal staff discusses the shape of future podcasts. Matthew Boudway talks with theologian Paul J. Griffiths about Roger Scruton’s latest book and Brexit. Griffin Oleynick sits down with Christine Emba to talk about the issues raised in "A Moral Economy—Faith and the Free Market in an Age of Inequality," a conversation between Cardinal Tobin and Jeffrey Sachs. And Matthew Sitman speaks with Cole Stangler about the populist turn in French politics.