Writing Westward Podcast

A conversation with historian Natalia Molina about their book A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022).

Natalia Molina is Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Dean's Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. In 2020 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. Her most recent book, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022). It will be released in paperback in early 2024 and a 30% discount code will be included in a forthcoming edition of Molina's newsletter. Subscribe at https://nataliamolinaphd.com/. The book has received the following accolades:

Prior to this, Molina was the author of the award-winning books Fit to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879–1939 (University of California Press, 2006), How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts (University of California Press, 2014), and coeditor of Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice (University of California Press, 2019).

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A conversation with Sarah Keyes about their book American Burial Ground: A New history of the Overland Trail (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023).

Sarah Keyes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno. She earned her PhD from the University of Southern California and studies the intercultural relations between Indigenous and Euro-American peoples. After securing publications of articles in field-defining outlets like the Journal of American History and the Western Historical Quarterly, she published her first book, which we discuss today, American Burial Ground: A New history of the Overland Trail (University of Pennsylvania Press, America in the Nineteenth Century Series, 2023).

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A conversation with Heather Hansman about their book Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and The Future of Chasing Snow (Hanover Square Press, 2021).

Heather Hansman is the author of Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and The Future of Chasing Snow (Hanover Square Press, 2021, paperback, 2023), and Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West. She's a contributing editor at Outside magazine, and an award-winning journalist whose work appears in places like the Atlantic and the New York Times. She lives in Durango, Colorado, where she's working on her next book, Fierce Country, which is about underrepresented women in the outdoors. 

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A conversation with historian Molly P. Rozum about their new book, Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (University of Nebraska Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2021).

Molly P. Rozum is associate professor of history and the Ronald M. Nelson Distinguished Professor and Chair of Great Plains and South Dakota History at the University of South Dakota. She holds degrees in American Studies, Folklore, and History. She is editor, co-editor, and author of multiple books and articles on Plains history. Her most recent book is Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (University of Nebraska Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2021). 

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A conversation with literary scholar Michael K. Johnson about their book, Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).

 Michael K. Johnson is Professor of American literature at the University of Maine at Farmington. His primary research areas are African American Literature and the literature and culture of the American West.

Johnson's other works include:

Black Masculinity and the Frontier Myth in American Literature (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002)

Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos: Conceptions of the African American West (University Press of Mississippi, 2015)

Can’t Stand Still: Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance (University Press of Mississippi, 2019)

Weird Westerns: Race, Gender, Genre (University of Nebraska Press, 2020)

A Black Woman’s West: The Life of Rose B. Gordon (Montana Historical Society Press, 2022)

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A conversation with geoscientist Ellen Wohl about their books, Something Hidden in the Ranges: The Secret Life of Mountain Ecosystems and Dead Wood: The Afterlife of Trees (Oregon State University Press, 2021 and 2022).

Dr. Ellen Wohl is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Colorado State University. 

Selected additional titles by Wohl include:

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A conversation with Andrea Geiger about their new book, Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

Andrea Geiger is professor emerita of history from Simon Frasier University in British Columbia. With an international childhood spent in Japan, the Netherlands, India, and elsewhere, she had a successful first career as an attorney, culminating with a position representing the Confederated Tribes of the Coleville Reservation in NE Washington State. Inspired by her upbringing, she then earned a PhD in history from UW. Her first book, Subverting Exclusion Transpacific Encounters with Race, Caste, and Borders, 1885-1928 (Yale University Press, 2011). Today we talk about her recent and second book, Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

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A conversation with Melissa L. Sevigny about their book Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon (W. W. Norton, 2023).

Melissa L. Sevigny is a science journalist at the Arizona Public Radio station KNAU in Flagstaff. Her writing intersects science, nature, and history, with a focus on the American southwest. She earned a BS in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of Arizona and an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. In her new book, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon (W.W. Norton, 2023), Sevigny relates the story of two remarkable scientists who took part in a successful rafting expedition through the Grand Canyon to study its botany. Their pioneering botanical discoveries were historic but the media at the time focuses primarily on a different historic aspect of their trip - they were the first two women to successfully raft the oft-treacherous waters.

Along with numerous shorter pieces of writing and journalism, Sevigny has published two other books: Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets (University of Arizona Press, 2016) and Mythical River: Chasing the Mirage of New Water in the American Southwest (University Iowa Press, 2016). The latter of the two was honored with multiple awards. Her shorter-form writings and journalism have also received awards and honors.

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A conversation with Bryce Andrews about their book, Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West (Mariner Books, Harper Collins imprint, 2023).

Bryce Andrews is an award-winning author originally from Seattle but who has spent the majority of his adult life as a rancher and farmer in western Montana. His first book, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West (Atria Books, Simon & Schuster imprint, 2014) won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Reading the West Book Award for nonfiction, and the High Plains Book Award for both nonfiction and debut book. His second book, Down from the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear (Mariner Books, Harper Collins imprint, 2020) won the Banff Mountain Book Competition, and was a Montana Book Award honor Title and the Amazon Best Science title of 2019. Andrews' new book is Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West (Mariner Books, Harper Collins imprint, 2023). Learn more about Andrews at his website https://www.bryceandrews.com.

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A conversation with Craig Childs about their book, Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau (Torrey House Press, 2022).

Craig Childs is a multiple-award winning author with more than a dozen books (and countless shorter pieces) on outdoor adventures, wilderness, and science to his name. You can find information on his other books and writings at his website, www.houseofrain.com.

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