The Time of Our Life returns for a bonus episode. For episode seven in our series, Mark Arax reads two short stories by William Saroyan, Laughing Sam and The Poor and Burning Arab, along with discussion hosted by Valley Public Radio's David Aus.

This week on The Time of Our Life with Mark Arax Fresno poet Kenneth Chacón reads William Saroyan's "70,000 Assyrians" and discusses the impact of Saroyan on his own work and on our times.

This week on The Time of Our Life, Fresno writer Brynn Saito reads William Saroyan’s The Journey to Hanford and a Saroyan essay on writing. Brynn Saito is a poet and professor in the English Department at Fresno State, and the author of two books of poetry. Together with Nikiko Masumoto, she’s the co-founder of Yonsei Memory Project, which creates inter-generational spaces for ‘memory keeping’ within the Japanese American community and in alliance with other communities and movements for justice and healing.

This week on The Time of Our Life, Fresno writer Aris Janigian reads William Saroyan's Five Ripe Pears and The Armenian and The Armenian. With host Mark Arax, Aris discusses Saroyan’s influence on his own work. The author of five novels, Aris Janigian is a writer, academic, and a wine grape packer and shipper. His latest novel is Waiting for Sophia at Shutters on the Beach.

Our guest this week on The Time of Our Life is Fresno Poet Laureate and Fresno City College instructor Marisol Baca, whose poetry collection Tremor was published by 3 Mile Harbor Press. In this episode, Baca reads William Saroyan's The Hummingbird That Lived Through Winter and The Daring Young Man On the Flying Trapeze, and she and Mark Arax discuss the divergent styles in these two very different Saroyan stories.

This week on The Time of Our Life, Fresno writer Tanya Nichols reads The Pomegranate Trees, which is part of Saroyan’s collection of short stories My Name Is Aram. Mark Arax and Tanya Nichols discuss themes of agriculture in Saroyan and in her latest novel, Stinger, co-written with Bill McEwen.

This week on the debut episode of the special series "The Time of Our Life", Mark Arax reads William Saroyan's The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse, originally published in 1940 as part of My Name Is Aram, a collection of short stories by Saroyan. Arax also shares recollections of his interactions with Saroyan, who was a family friend.