The WBT Podcast: Recent Episodes
The WBT
A group of veterans and people connected to the veteran community writing and podcasting about violence and trauma.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website, featuring new fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews. Support us on Patreon if you like. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5241924
A conversation with USMC veteran Dewaine Farria, whose novel, Revolutions of All Colors, spans different countries and colors to explore how minority groups navigate their identities. Farria, along with host Adrian Bonenberger, discuss (among other things) the culture of Ukraine, where both spent a great deal of time.
Wrath-Bearing Tree editors Mike Carson, Adrian Bonenberger, and David James sit down to discuss Chekhov's Ward No. 6, a short story about a doctor who encounters a life-changing experience when visiting a mental ward in his hospital.
Chat with Pulitzer Prize-winner Tom Ricks about his recent book "First Principles," written in order to consider the curricula and intellectual schemas on which the first four U.S. presidents based their views, and to better understand the quandary in which the U.S. finds itself today.
Conversation between WBT co-host Adrian Bonenberger and New York Times Staff Writer David Philipps about Philipps' new book, "Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALS." Philipps discusses researching the book, his thoughts about what led to the crisis of morality within SEAL teams, and why he believes the SEALS who reported Gallagher were the ones who ultimately won in a process that tested their integrity.
Adrian Bonenberger talks with Bret Charles Devereaux, PhD, lecturer in UNC-Chapel Hill's department of history, about his blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantries (or "ACOUP"), and some of the more extraordinary and engaging claims he's made on it. Discussion topics include neorealism in Europa Universalis IV and Hearts of Iron IV, Victoria II, and reflections of history present in Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings.
Brian Castner, Adrian Bonenberger, and poet Brian Turner read and discuss Don DeLillo's "Falling Man" on the 20th anniversary of the tragedy. While the trio starts off somewhat critical of the book, through conversation they decide that the book has greater depth and they've profited from reading it — though Castner prefers DeLillo's "White Noise," with good reason.
The WBT podcast co-hosts Adrian Bonenberger and Michael Carson talk with podcaster, writer, and historian Patrick Wyman about his debut history book, "The Verge." The group also discusses the fall of Kabul and Afghanistan to the Taliban, which occurred on the day of the recording.
Adrian Bonenberger is joined by Brian Castner and Andrea Pitzer to talk about their newest books. Castner's Stampede: Gold Fever and Disaster in The Klondike" looks at the gold rush in Alaska and Canada that unfolded at the end of the 19th century, while Pitzer's "Icebound: Shipwrecked at The Edge of The World" returns to the 16th century to examine a trade expedition that sought a shortcut to China via a legendary temperate north sea. Both journalists and writers decided to explore the land they were describing, in the process of writing their books.
Wrath-Bearing Tree co-editors David James and Adrian Bonenberger sit down with British author and former professor Garry Craig Powell to talk about Leo Tolstoy's powerful and nearly perfect story "Hadji Murat"—how the author accomplishes his goal, and how the audience interacts with the story.
A talk between Adrian Bonenberger of The WBT and Wesley Morgan, author of The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in the Pech Valley. The talk covers a lot of topics in Morgan's book, including the cultural feedback loop bringing movies into the military and the military into movies, how that plays out with the Taliban, units that "succeeded" with counter-insurgency or COIN versus those that did not, and many more. A wide-ranging conversation that extends far beyond the book's focus of The Pech Valley itself.
A conversation with Professor of English Connie Ruzich, PhD, and Jennifer Orth-Veillon, PhD, about overlooked voices in WWI poetry, hosted by WBT co-editor Adrian Bonenberger. The poems that were read and discussed are linked here:
John Allan Wyeth's "Transport" "Night Watch" and "Picnic: Harbonnières to Bayonvillers" Rose Macaulay’s "Picnic, July 1917" Joseph Seamon Cotter’s "Oh Little David, Play on Your Harp Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s "I Sit and Sew"
And a link to Professor Ruzich’s recent publication. The anthology’s a vital resource for people and academics interested in reading a more diverse set of voices than are typically explored on university syllabi: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/international-poetry-of-the-first-world-war-9781350106444/
WBT's Adrian Bonenberger talks with Jim Dao, the New York Times reporter who embedded with 1-87, 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division during a deployment to Afghanistan from 2010-11. The two have a frank discussion of journalism, some of the things they saw and did there (including attending a buzkashi match), and what it all meant.
Wrath-Bearing Tree co-editors Adrian Bonenberger, Michael Carson, and David James discuss Kurt Vonnegut's "Mother Night," a deep, subversive, and challenging satirical look at nationalism and "the totalitarian mind" that operates as a companion piece to Slaughterhouse Five.
Peter Molin, Patrick Deer, and Matt Gallagher talk about Elliot Ackerman's short story "Two Grenades," from the fiction anthology "The Road Ahead," and then discuss Gallagher's latest book, "Empire City," and its parallels to the modern day veteran insurrection potentials.
Adrian Bonenberger, Mike Carson, and David James reread Borges' "Deutsches Requiem," a short but extremely powerful confessional where the South American writer broke with his habit to look at a political character, and political characteristics. The conversation wandered outside the short story, unsurprisingly, to talk more broadly about the phenomenon of the Nazis, and conjecture about what Borges may have been thinking or trying to say.
Adrian Bonenberger and Brian Castner talk with Will Mackin about Donald Barthelme, Denis Johnson, and "Bring out the Dog." In the course of the conversation explore ideas like how to portray the regret of serving, the role of postmodernism in describing current wars, and how some of their favorite stories most resemble dreams.
Adrian Bonenberger (@AdrianBonenber1) is joined by Brian Castner (@Brian_Castner) and Wesley Morgan (@wesleysmorgan) to discuss Svetlana Alexievich's "Zinky Boys," a creative non-fiction series of interviews dedicated to the USSR's catastrophic intervention in Afghanistan.
Wrath-Bearing Tree co-editors Adrian Bonenberger and Andria Williams are joined by National Book award winner Phil Klay to talk about his new book, Missionaries, and Anton Chekhov's short fiction story "The Murder."
WBT co-editors Andria Williams and Adrian Bonenberger chat about "The Progress of Love," a short story by Alice Munro. Williams first encountered the story at her MFA program in Minnesota. Bonenberger had never read it before. The two discuss Munro's storytelling techniques, and what they enjoyed about the story.
Fredrik "Freddie" deBoer, PhD, joins WBT's Adrian Bonenberger to discuss de Boer's controversial new book "The Cult of Smart." DeBoer argues that the current academic system is incompatible with a true meritocracy. The two also discuss the positive impact that the original GI Bill had on US society, with de Boer arguing that its impact has been underestimated.
Adrian Bonenberger of The WBT is joined by Brian Castner, writer, veteran, journalist, and author of "The Long Walk," and Matt Gallagher, writer, veteran, journalist, and author of "Empire City" to discuss George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia." The trio try to make sense of the politics of the time, with varying degrees of success, and then attempt to compare 1930s Spain to today's troubled American political scene. Highlights include Bonenberger resolving to do more research for future podcasts, Castner proposing that the memoir is a comedy, and Gallagher observing that Orwell would have been well suited to Twitter in addition to using his superior knowledge of the work and Orwell's biography to make several fascinating points about how things really went down in Barcelona.
WBT's Michael Carson, David James, and Adrian Bonenberger discuss Isaac Babel's short fiction collection "Red Cavalry," as well as Babel's life, times, and unorthodox (revolutionary?) literary project.
WBT editors Andria Williams, David James, and Mike Carson discuss the relationship between silence and the imagination in the work of J.M. Coetzee. We cover Waiting for the Barbarians, Life and Times of Michael K, and Disgrace, but also, as always, find time for a debate over the value of literature in an unjust world.
Check out David's essay on Coetzee here: https://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/2017/03/coetzee-master-cape-town/
Jennifer Orth-Veillon discusses her recent WBT essay, Reading Camus’ ‘The Plague’ in 2020: A Dispatch from Lyon, France, by Jennifer Orth-Veillon and John Tyrrell, from the May issue of WBT.
Read Jennifer's essay here: https://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/2020/05/reading-camus-the-plague-in-2020-a-dispatch-from-lyon-france-by-jennifer-orth-veillon-and-john-tyrrell/
Mike Carson, David James, and Adrian Bonenberger sit down to talk about Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's masterwork novella, "The Royal Game," aka "Chess Game" ("Schachnovelle" in the original German). It's a cold open, and recorded on Zoom so the audio goes in and out, especially near the end, but the quality of the interrogation of Zweig is enough to tolerate the occasional and brief disruptions.
An interview conducted in May with J.T. Blatty, a U.S. Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, a photojournalist, and documentarian. Jenn was getting ready for photography exhibitions that were received well, in Chicago as well as elsewhere--a link to one news story about the exhibit, of photos taken of Ukrainian volunteers, is here: www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/photo-exhib…r-in-the-donbas/
One can find more work by J.T. at her home page, jtblatty.com. Furthermore she is on Instagram at @jtblatty.
Wrath-Bearing Tree / The WBT editor Adrian Bonenberger talks Stolen Valor with Kristiana Willsey, PhD, a folklorist who specializes in military culture and storytelling. Dr. Willsey can be found on Twitter (@BlueWindGirl) and Instagram (SpindleWise), and currently lectures at the University of Southern California.
WBT editor and author Adrian Bonenberger interviews journalist and author Nolan Peterson about Peterson's debut short fiction collection: Snow-Blind. The book is available via Amazon, here: www.amazon.com/Snow-Blind-Other-…ook/dp/B07F2DBHHF
Amalie Flynn, Michael Carson, and David James try to work out the connections between and relevance of the influential liberal American philosophers Richard Rorty and John Rawls.
What, if any, obligation do artists have in confronting today's politically charged world? The Wrath-Bearing Tree editors, David James, Amalie Flynn and Mary Doyle talk politics and art.
In this episode, The WBT podcast travels to the Boulder Crest Retreat in Virginia to attend The War Horse writing retreat. We speak to Thomas Brennan, the founder of The War Horse about why he has made it his mission to help veterans tell their stories.
On this episode of The WBT Podcast, poetry editor Amalie Flynn interviews award winning poet Lynn Houston about her work.