Michelle Blackwell interviews Alyssa Ballard about her long-running video series on TikTok and YouTube, and her recent feature at the Mendocino Film Festival. Frei Barty, the Mendocino County Youth Poet Laureate, will share some of his recent work. And Maggie Watson will talk about the workbook she published that helps people prepare for the end-of-life. Upwelling brings the richness of local literature to the airwaves. 

Two local authors David Holper and Maureen Eppstein tackle difficult subjects.  David Holper’s Church of the Very Last Chance combines political satire and magical realism.  It follows the rise of a middle-class Russian student from lost soul to international religious leader.  Maureen Eppstein’s most recent poetry collection, Daughter is memoir through poetry.  The three poems she’ll read are about the difficult and painful loss of a stillborn daughter.  Maureen grieves on the page, and we grieve with her.   

Phillip Zwerling’s Hollywood tell-all, In Search of the Thin Man, explores the lives and work of William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Dashiell Hammett as well as the censorship and politics of old Hollywood. Zwerling writes about how fascism in Germany infiltrated Hollywood in the 1930s. Mendocino County’s first poet laureate Devereaux Baker. Reads three new poems including the award-winning poem The War Tunnel, which explores the loss of those whose every possession is obliterated in war and was partly inspired by the Middle East conflict.  

Emily Lloyd-Jones talks about her two recent releases Unspoken Magic for middle-grade readers and The Wild Huntress for young-adult readers.   Ginny Rorby discusses her recent novel Girl Under Glass for young-adult readers. 

Unspoken Magic is the second title in a delightful middle-grade series set in the magical town of Aldermere.  We first met our main characters, Fin, Eddie, and Cedar in Unseen Magic.  The town of Aldermere, nestled in the redwood forest, relies on tourists to keep its economy going, but it also has a secret.  And that secret is in danger of discovery from some zealous podcasters.  The three kids led by Fin, happen across a lost “baby” magical creature the day after the podcasters come to town.  They try to both hide the magic and to find the baby’s family so it can go home.  The podcasters have other plans. 

The Wild Huntress is the third book set in the Welsh mythological universe.  We revisit the character Blodeuyn who played a bit part in book two.  Here her backstory comes alive and pushes her to find a cure for her mother’s memory sickness.  In The Wild Huntress she calls herself Branwen, because if the monsters know her real name it gives them power.  We also meet two princes from rival nations.  The three of them join together to attempt the impossible without understanding the cost of the prize they seek.   

Ginny Rorby's Girl Under Glass is the culmination of fifty years of rumination and is written for young adult and adult readers.  It chronicles the life of a teenage girl living with her alcoholic mother in Fort Bragg, California.  Kelsey gets herself into trouble on more than one occasion.  Through a court-ordered work program, she meets Hobby a retired botanist who is trying to recreate Cleve Baxter’s experiments on plant communication.  Hobby and Kelsey’s relationship starts out rocky.   Over time Kelsey’s hard outer shell shows some cracks as the two bond and she finds her worth.  Like all of Ginny’s books, the story has twists and turns, mysteries, adventures, lies, and tragedies that tug at the heartstrings.  

A twin sister disappears and resurfaces after fifteen years.  As this mystery unravels, we get to know the family, their traumas, and their relationships. Lisa Manterfield reads from her novel, All Our Lies Are True, and talks about her publishing experience.  Kailyn McCord will read from her recently published essays and talk about life and birth on the rural Mendocino coast.  

Tuomas Mäkinen is a member of a Hindu Ashram in Philo, California.  He is also a former punk rocker and an immigrant from Finland.  In his first book, he tells the story of his transition from an angst-ridden teenager to a spiritually focused monk.  Folklorist and local songwriter, Holly Tannen talks about her recent CD release and her love of traditional music.

An interview with author Norma Watkins about her novel In Common and Mendocino County 2022 Youth Laureate, Sidney Regelbrugge about her poetry and writing journey. 

An interview with award-winning author Ginny Rorby about her novel Like Dust I Rise.  Ginny chronicles a family’s struggle to capture the American Dream from the Chicago Stockyards to Texas during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.  

Daniel Coshnear, winner of a Willa Cather Fiction Award, the Novella Prize, the Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, and the Christopher Isherwood Fellowship, reads from his recently published short story collection, Separation Anxiety.  Local poet windflower reads her poetry and discusses her first poetry collection, Age Brings Them Home to Me.  

Author of Into the Forest, Jean Hegland talks about her novel, Still Time which was rereleased in France, and historian Kim Bancroft delves into her book Writing Themselves Into History which reveals the family life of Emily, Matilda, and HH Bancroft through their own writing.