Write On! Radio: Recent Episodes
KFAI - Minneapolis + St. Paul
Write On! Radio interviews local, national and international authors as well as editors, playwrights, poets and more. We’re interested in all things literary, from spoken word performances to readings by writers to just plain well-written works of art.
Originally aired January 31, 2023.Liz opens the show discussing Surrender with author Brian O’Hare. After the break, a Legacy interview.
Originally aired January 24, 2023.Liz opens the show with Neal Wooten and his newest book, Devil’s Help— a tale of Deep South family, secrets, and severe mental illness.After the break, MollieRae and Wayne Johnson discuss Johnson’s Jennie’s Boy, a narration of his true unconventional childhood in Newfoundland.
Originally aired January 17, 2022.Liz and Carolyn Hays open the show discussing A Girlhood, Hays’s ode to her transgender daughter.After the break, the team revisits an interview with Michael Bazzett from the release of his translation of the Popol Vuh.
Originally aired January 10, 2023.Josh opens the show with Dacher Keltner, Berkeley psychologist and author of Awe: the New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.After the break, MollieRae welcomes Kelly Barnhill, whose new work When Women Were Dragonscombines sci-fi and feminism in a midcentury setting.
Originally aired December 27, 2022.Some things are too fun to just happen once! Liz welcomes radio legend Richard Barone back only a week later for more Music + Revolution.
Originally aired December 20, 2022.Liz welcomes radio legend Richard Barone for tales of Greenwich Village in the 1960s as told in his new book, Music + Revolution.
originally aired December 6, 2022.Dave kicks off the show with local author Michael Merriam, author of Last Car to Annwn Station, a novel that will be very familiar to anyone who’s lived in Uptown!After the break, we return to a favorite interview with David Mura.
Originally aired March 15, 2022.
The East Phillips Urban Farm proposal is way more than a farm—it’s a group of diverse neighbors and families coming together to stand up against environmental racism that has led to systemic pollution and toxic air that causes illness, asthma, and other painful and costly health conditions in residents.
Activists and community members Dean Dovolis and Joe Vital join Bihi from East Phillips in the wake of Mayor Frey vetoing the Council’s approval on the farm. Joe and Dean explain how Minneapolis leaders choosing the farm proposal over the vehicle storage facility can:
- reconnect the community with the land
- improve food and air quality
- provide control and ownership to Indigenous, Black, Latinx, immigrant, and other POC communities
- connect to other movements in the family, youth, and education spaces
and improve on other wrongs of the Arsenic Triangle. They also speak truth to power about Frey, Osman, and other local leaders’ responses to the proposal, and shout out leaders who are helping.
Get involved or learn more:
Follow the cause on Instagram for updates and action items
Learn more on the EPNI webpage
Originally aired February 1, 2022.
Dave opens the show joined by Lambda Literary finalist author SJ Sindu, discussing her new collection Dominant Genes.
After the break, Josh and Ronald Peterson discuss science, introversion, and more in the context of Peterson’s memoir, An Introvert Learns to Fly.
Originally aired January 25, 2022.
Liz kicks off the show with Farhad Dadyburjor and his new novel The Other Man, a romantic comedy that centers conversations about queerness, modern Indian dating norms, and arranged marriage.
After the break, Josh connects with Jing Tsu, the first Professor of Chinese Literature & Comparative Literature at Yale, about her new book Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern.
Originally aired January 18, 2022.
Dave kicks off the show by welcoming Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature.
After the break, Liz is joined by Mike Errico, author of Music, Lyrics, and Life.
Originally aired January 11, 2022.
Liz and Naomi Hirahara discuss Hirahara’s novel Clark and Division, a poignant historical mystery centered around the Japanese-American community in 1940’s Chicago and the deadly effects of Japanese internment camps and anti-Asian policy and sentiment.
After the break, the team revisits a legacy episode in which Mira Bartok discusses her children’s novel The Wonderling.
Originally aired December 7, 2021.
Annie opens the show welcoming Linda LeGarde Grover, member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and professor emeritus of University of Minnesota Duluth, to discuss Gichigami Hearts: Stories and Histories from Misaabekong, her new collection combining history, essay, and memoir about the North Shore.
After the break, Liz and Teresa Dovalpage, prolific Cuban author and playwright in Spanish and English, to discuss her new mystery, Death Under the Perseids.
Originally aired November 30, 2021.
Dave kicks off the show with Pamela Fletcher Bush, co-editor of Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota.
After the break, Liz welcomes Mark Liechliter, author of The Other Side.
Originally aired November 23, 2021.
Liz kicks off the show with celebrated crime writer and Lambda Literary book reviewer John Copenhaver about The Savage Kind, his new historical thriller centering young queer female sleuths.
After the break, Dave welcomes a panel of authors of What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family. Sun Yung Shin, Valérie Déus, Zarlasht Niaz speak to their contributions to the colloection, creating spaces of belonging and nourishment, and holiday eats.
Originally aired November 16, 2021.
Annie kicks off with Kriota Willberg, author of Draw Stronger, to discuss self-care for cartoonists.
After the break, Liz and Jamie Schumacher, author of Butterflies and Tall Bikes, have an in-studio discussion about writing and interviewing through what makes Cedar-Riverside special.
Originally aired November 9, 2021.
Dave starts off the show with in-person guest Jim Moore, who reads from his new collection, Prognosis and discusses the tumultuous and illuminating events of the past year.
After the break, Josh and master-bread-baker-and-writer Klecko discuss his new work, Lincolnland.
Annie and Amitava Kumar plunge into all the ways Kumar’s newest book, A Time Outside This Time, gets us to think about our contemporary chaos in new ways, from questioning the simplicity of truisms like “believe science,” to the wavy rules of semi-autobiographical fiction, to the inherent biases we all carry, to a more thoughtful reflection on the early months of COVID-19, to “slow jamming the news.”
Before it airs in the normal half-hour Write On! Radio fashion, enjoy Annie’s interview with Amitava Kumar uncut exclusively on the podcast (here on the website, on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts).
Originally aired November 1, 2021.
Dave starts the show with Jane Yolen and Kaddish, her new collection of poetry that doesn’t shy away from challenging topics ranging from the Holocaust to women’s depictions in the Bible.
After the break, Liz and KFAI’s own Jacquie “Lady J” Maddix discuss Maddix’s book, Root Wisdom, and spirituality, history, and blues music.