Bookmark with Don Noble: Recent Episodes
Alabama Public Radio
For over 30 years, English professor Don Noble engages authors in a thoughtful discussion about their lives, creative influences, and of course, their literary works. Produced by the Center for Public Television & Radio at the University of Alabama.
Today's guest is Michael Martone, the 2023 winner of the Truman Capote prize for distinguished work in short fiction. He is the author of 14 books of stories. Don interviewed Michael on campus at the University of Alabama, in Studio UA at the Digital Media Center.
In his many profiles and articles for the Mobile Press Register gathered in collections, such as Back Home and Alabama Afternoons, and in his novels, Roy Hoffman makes his readers aware of the cultural diversity of the modern south, especially Alabama. While exploring mainly the sacrafices families, especially wives and daughters, must make when America goes to war. His new novel Come Landfall dramatized the interactions between tenerations and between old South protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and the newest southerners "the boat people" arrived from Southeast Asia, now often shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico. Don spoke with Roy Hoffman at the annual Alabama Writer's Symposium in Monroeville, Alabama.
Robert Morgan was already a widely published writer when his book Gap Creek, a story of hardscrabble life in Appalachia was made an Oprah selection. With the acoompnying sales and excitement since Gap Creek, Morgan has published a biography of Daniel Boone, Brave Enemies: A Novel of the American Revolution, Lions of the West - a study of such semi-mythological figures as Sam Houston and Kit Carson. Now he has returned to his native Appalachia in The Road from Gap Creek, the sequel to his best selling novel. Don spoke with Robert Morgan at the Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, AL.
This week Don spoke with John T. Edge, arguably the world's greatest expert on southern food. Edge has been a columnnist for the New York Times, The Oxford American, Garden and Gun and is the author of a shelf full of books, his latest being The Potlicker Papers. The story of the modern self told through foods and cooks. Don spoke with John in Studio UA on campus at the University of Alabama.
Sydney Lanier was for years famous as the poet of the confederacy. Southern boys and girls would memorize large swatches of The Song of the Chattahoocheee and The Marshes of Glynn. Except for his time as a prisoner in the Union POW camp, however, little was known about Lanier's short 39 year life. May Lamar of Montgomery, AL has done her research and written an engaging biographical novel dramatizing Lanier's college days. He struggles with illness and poverty during reconstruction and his fierce determination to be an artist. Don spoke with May Lamar at the annual Alabama Writer's Symposium in Monroeville, AL.
Marshall Chapman has had a colorful and tumultuous life as a singer and songwriter in Nashville, and now has begun sharing her stories with readers in her memoir Goodbye Little Rock and Roller and in her latest book They Came To Nashville. Her stories are filled with Nashville legends like Willie Neslon and Kris Kristofferson. Don spoke with Marshall at the Pebble Hill Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities on the campus of Auburn University.
One of America's best loved novelists, Mark Childress has written a shelf of books, including A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, One Mississippi, Georgia Bottoms, and his most widely known Crazy in Alabama. This year's recipient of the Harper Lee Award winner joined Don Noble at the annual Alabama Writer Symposium in Monroeville, Alabama.
When Margaret Wrinkle of Birmingham, who had already produced a documentary Broken Ground about racial strife in her hometown and learned that her ancestors had owned slaves, she need to know more. Her extensive research finally took the shape of a novel, Wash, a powerful and trouble novel set on a cotton plantation in Tennessee in the 1820s. Don spoke with Margaret the the Alabama Public Television studios.
The past few years have seen the rise of the graphic novel, but Lila Quintero Weaver is a pioneer - the first to write and draw a graphic memoir. Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White tells the story of Weaver's childhood in Marion, Alabama during the turbulent years of civil rights demonstrations and integration
Don's guest this week is author Koethi Zan, former New York city entertainment lawyer, was determined to try her hand at fiction. Her first novel, The Never List, is the chilling story of a young woman's abduction, her time chained in a basement and her final escape told in the first person. The novel conveyed to readers the terror of the experience and the post-traumatic effects that were so difficult to deal with.
Today Don sits with Margaret Verble, author of Two Feathers Fell From The Sky, a novel about a horse-diver named Two Feathers, a Cherokee, and involves ghosts, graves and animals with spirits.
Don sits down with Irish poet Joan McBreen to talk about her work, including "The White Page" and "The Watchful Heart" at the Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, AL.
Author Keith Thompson sits with Don Noble to discuss his book about the days of pirates and loot.
Lee Rozelle sits with Don Noble to discuss his unorthodox book "The Ballad of Jasmine Wills."
Don Noble sits with best selling author Patti Callahan Henry to discuss her latest novel The Secret Book of Flora Lea, as well as her previous works. #authortube #author #authorvlog
Charles McNair discusses his novel "Pickett's Charge" with Don on this week's Bookmark.
Victor Luckerson is a journalist and author based in Tulsa who works to bring neglected Black history to light, Don discussed with Victor about his recent book "Built From The Fire" #books #booktube #author #authortube #bookreview
Former pastor Barbara Taylor Brown joins Don Noble to talk about her memoir "Leave Church: A Memoir of Faith"
Kim Cross joins Don Noble at the University of Alabama to talk about her new true crime study In Light Of All Darkness.
Author Al Elmore joins Don Noble to discuss his book "Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: Echoes of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer"
The Air Between Us and The Secret of Magic author Deborah Johnson joins Don Noble on Bookmark.
The Tennessee native lived in New York and Chicago in his youth, and worked as a carpenter and house painter most of his life. He wrote beginning at an early age, but his first publication came only in 1998. His first novel, The Long Home, published in 1999 established him as a southern writer of note, and his work has been compared to Faulkner, O'Connor and Larry Brown. Later works included Provinces of Night, and I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down. Much of his writing is dark and gritty in the Southern Gothic tradition. Mr. Gay died in 2012.
Don Noble is joined by author Judith Ortiz Cofer to talk about her multi-genre successes.
Author Clifton Taulbert joins Don to talk about his career, including his newest book "The Invitation"
This week Bookmark has a very special guest, Don's wife Jennifer Horne to talk about her new book on Sara Mayfield, the eccentric Tuscaloosa socialite and author.
In this episode of Bookmark, host Don Noble interviews author Trish O'Kane about her inspiring memoir, Birding to Change the World. O'Kane shares how birdwatching became a powerful tool for personal transformation and environmental activism.
Today's guest is historian and Auburn professor James Hansen, about his latest book "Completely Mad", a sweeping saga involving two extraordinary—and extraordinarily different—adventurers who have only one thing in common: the ambition to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat.
Don is joined by author Imani Perry, Birmingham native and author of South To America, A Journey Below The Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.
Veteran writer Howell Raines stops by to talk about his study of an important but largely unknown Alabama cavalry unit that fought for the Union army, in his new book "Silent Cavalry"
Don visits with author Harrison Scott Key to talk about his new book "How To Stay Married, The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told"
Don sits down with his old friend Daniel Wallace to discuss his novel "This Isn't Going To End Well".
Philip Beidler is Margaret and William Going Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where he has taught American literature since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1974. His most recent book—the subject of his discussion here with Don Noble—is The Island Called Paradise: Cuba in History, Literature, and the Arts. His new book, forthcoming from the University of Alabama Press, is entitled Beautiful War: Studies in a Dreadful Fascination.
Wayne Flynt sits down with Don Noble to discuss his new book, Mockingbird Songs - My Friendship with Harper Lee.
Edward O. Wilson, a leading advocate of global conservation, is one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. His groundbreaking research, original thinking, and scientific and popular writing have contributed to change the way humans think of nature. He has received many of the world's leading prizes for his research in science, his environmental activism, and his writing. We spoke with Wilson, who currently is a research professor and museum curator at Harvard University, about his latest book, The Diversity of Life, that soon will be available in 14 languages around the world.
Author Christopher McIlwain stops by Bookmark to discuss his historical books on Alabama and the Civil War.
Don Noble is joined by Joe Formichella and Suzanne Hudson to discuss their new novels, The Shoe Burning, All The Way To Memphis, and Waffle House Rules.
Former University of Alabama student Gay Talese sits to talk with Don about his writing career.
Daniel Wallace drops by to talk with Don about his new children's book, The Cat's Pajamas, which he both wrote and illustrated.
Don visits with writer Mark Powell, author of five novels, this first three set in Appalachia, and the newest focus on American culture, drone warfare and extreme interrogation.
Valerie Boyd is author of the award-winning Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, which was hailed by Alice Walker as “magnificent” and “extraordinary”; by the Boston Globe as “elegant and exhilarating”; and by the Denver Post as “a rich, rich read.” Boyd is currently curating and editing a collection of Alice Walker’s personal journals, which span more than 50 years. Simon & Schuster/37 Ink will publish Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker in 2017. Boyd is also a journalism professor and the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Georgia, where she directs the new low-residency MFA Program in Narrative Nonfiction.
Twenty years later, the author of Salvation on Sand Mountain joins Don again to talk about his new book, "Revelation: A Search for Faith in a Violent Religious World"
Dana Gynther was born in St Louis and, at the age of ten, moved to Auburn, Alabama. She attended the University of Alabama, majoring in Political Science, and moved to France after receiving her BA. When she returned to the States a year and a half later, she went back to UA and received an MA in French Literature. In 1994, she and her French-speaking Spanish husband moved to his hometown, Valencia (Spain), where they work as teachers and translators and enjoy spending time with their two daughters. "Crossing on the Paris," her debut novel, explored the lives of three women as they made the voyage across the Atlantic on an ocean liner. It was an Indie Next Pick and B&N Hot Pick for November 2012 and Dana was chosen as a Target Emerging Author. Her most recent novel, "The Woman in the Photograph," to be released in August 2015, is a novelized account of the relationship between the two photographers, Lee Miller and Man Ray in Paris in the early 1930s.
Don Noble interviews both Pat Conroy and Katherine Clark, on campus at the University of Alabama.
Don Noble interviews author John Sledge about his Civil War historical non-fiction These Rugged Days.
Don interviews Alexander McCall Smith, author of the wildly popular No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.
Don talks with author Michael Knight about his new book of short stories: Eveningland. This episode was shot at the Alabama Writer's Symposium.
A 2000 interview with the author of “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” “A Gathering of Old Men,” and “A Lesson Before Dying,” tells why he sets his fiction in the Louisiana of his childhood.
Don sits down with author Charlie Lovett to talk about his new novel "The Lost Book of the Grail"
Author John Berendt joins Don Noble to talk about his novel Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil.
Don Noble interviews author Taylor Branch about his 20 year history project on Civil Rights to an end with his third and final volume of the King years with "At Canaan's Edge"
Don visits with journalist and author Gay Talese, about his new book The Silent Season of a Hero.
Cason Award Winner Dr. Trudier Harris joins Don to talk about her memoir Summer Snow, about growing up in Tuscaloosa's West End.
Jennifer Horne and Wendy Reed join Don Noble to talk about their essay collections on spirituality: Circling Faith and All Out Of Faith.
Novelist Christina Baker Kline joins Don Noble to talk about her novels Oprhan Train and A Piece of the World.
Don sits down with renowned biologist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward O. Wilson to talk about his new books, biology and saving the planet.
William Styron, author of The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie's Choice, speaks with Don Noble in 2003.
This week Don sits down with Clarence Cason Award winner Hardy Jackson to talk about his career, the Gulf Coast, and Alabama's waterways.
Don visits with author and poet Darnell Arnout, to talk about his novel Sufficient Grace and his two books of poetry, What Travels With Us and Galaxie Wagon.
Don Noble interviews Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours, in 2001.
Don sits down with Earl Tilford, military historian, talking about his non-fiction work "Turning the Tide" about the history of Civil Rights on campus at the University of Alabama.
Don is joined by author MIchelle Richmond, the 2018 Truman Capote Prize winner, to talk about her new thrilled The Marriage Pact.
Don welcomes David Joy to the Alabama Booksmith to talk about his new novel, The Weight Of This World.
Don is joined by Winston Groom, to discuss his historical works - Patriotic Fire, A Storm in Flanders and 1942.
Don Noble is joined by columnist, novelist and podcast host Sean Dietrich, or as he know from his blog "Sean of the South"
Accomplished musician and fiction writer Clyde Edgerton visits with Don to talk about his newest novel Lunch at the Piccadilly.
William Cobb visits with Don to talk about his memoir, Captain Billy’s Troopers. The book traces Cobb’s early life, education, and struggles with alcohol and the debilitating condition normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH).
Don speaks with Clarence Cason Award winner Patricia Foster about her new book "Girl From Soldier Creek"
Long-time journalist, biographer and historian Peter Golding joins Don Noble to talk about his new novels "Comeback Love" and "Whereever There Is Light."
Don sits down with Ed Bridges, Director Emeritus of the Alabama Department of Archives and History to talk about his new book "Alabama: The Making of an American State"
University of Alabama graduate Caleb Johnson joins Don Noble to discuss his first novel, Tree Borne.
Don is joined by James McBride, author of The Color of Water, Kill 'Em And Leave, and The Good Lord Bird. This interview took place at the Alabama Booksmith.
Presidential historian, Contributing Editor at TIME, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham is Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at Random House. Meacham’s latest book, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, will be published by Random House on November 10, 2015. His book, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, was a New York Times bestseller. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2009, the book was cited as an “unlikely portrait of a not always admirable democrat, but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.” His other New York Times bestsellers include Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, exploring the relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victory in World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the executive board of the Society of American Historians, Meacham is a regular guest on “Morning Joe” and also occasionally appears on “Meet the Press,” “Charlie Rose,” and other broadcasts. He is editor-at-large of WNET Public Media, New York’s public television station. After serving as Managing Editor of Newsweek for eight years, Meacham was responsible for all day-to-day editorial operations of the magazine as Editor from 2006 to 2010. He is a former editor of The Washington Monthly and began his career at The Chattanooga Times. Born in Chattanooga in 1969, Meacham was educated at St. Nicholas School, The McCallie School, and graduated from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, with a degree summa cum laude in English Literature; he was salutatorian and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Meacham is a communicant of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, where he has served on the Vestry of the 180 year-old Episcopal parish. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees and of the Board of Regents of The University of the South, and currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt University. Meacham also serves on the Vestry of Trinity Church Wall Street and the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2005 and also holds five other honorary doctorates. He lives in Nashville and in Sewanee with his wife and children.
Don sits down with author Taylor Brown to discuss his new book "Wing Walkers" which features William Faulkner as one of the characters
An interview with author Barry Hannah, author of 11 volumes of fiction, about his newest novel Sixth Soldier At Your Door.
This week, Don welcomes Helen Macdonald to Bookmark. Helen is an English writer, naturalist, and an Affiliated Research Scholar at the University of Cambridge Department of History and Philosophy of Science. She is best known as the author of H is for Hawk, which won the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize.
A 2000 visit with Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, author of “Beloved,” “Song of Solomon,” and “Jazz.”
Biographer Charles J. Shields joins Don to talk about his book "Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee"
NY Times bestselling author Anton DiScalfani stops by to talk about her latest book "The After Party" and her first novel the Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls.
Mary Ward Brown of Marion, Alabama, talks about the short stories in her two collections It Wasn’t All Dancing and Tongues of Flame.
Don is joined at the University of Alabama by author Rachel Hawkins to discuss her new book "Reckless Girls"
Poet Natasha Tretheway joins Don Noble to talk about her historical and personal poetry.
Don Noble and Trace Barnett sit down to discuss Trace's latest cookbook "Tracing Roots" and other topics like living off the land and life updates.
Don sits down with Kevin Wilson, author of the collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, The Family Fang and Perfect Little World.
Acclaimed poet and fiction writer Margaret Walker Alexander grew up in Birmingham and her novel Jubilee has been called a black Gone With the Wind. She talks with host Don Noble about her long career and her association with the writer Richard Wright.
Don sits down with Ben Raines to discuss his book "The Last Slave Ship" about Ben's discover of the Clotilda in Alabama.
Longtime author at Auburn University, Craig Darch joins Don Noble to talk about his volume of stories L'Chaim and Lamentations.
Harvard professor and biolgoist E.O. Wilson, from Alabama, joins Don to talk about his work.
Gilman was the first American playwright to win an Evening Standard Award. She serves on the advisory board for Chicago Dramatists. She has received the 2008 Harper Lee Award. Her most widely known works are Spinning Into Butter, a play that addresses political correctness and racial identity, and Boy Gets Girl, which was included in Time Magazine's List of the Best Plays and Musicals of the Decade.
Pulitzer Prize winning author and two term poet laureate of the United States speaks with Don about her poetry.
Margaret Atwood joins Don Noble for a conversation about her novel 'The Handmaid's Tale" and its television adaptation, in the University of Alabama's Studio UA.
This week Don talks with George Saunders about his new novel "Lincoln In The Bardo" at the Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham, AL.
Padgett Powell joins Don Noble at Troy University to discuss his book of short stories "Cries For Help"
Helen Ellis the is acclaimed author of Eating The Cheshire Cat. She is a poker player who competes on the national tournament circuit. Raised in Alabama, she lives with her husband in New York City. Her newest book is a collection of short stories, American Housewife.
Don Noble is joined by Warren St John to discuss Rammer Jammer and Outcasts United, his report on the immigrant boys soccer team in Clarkston, GA.
Gay Talese visits with Don Noble at Birmingham-Southern College to talk about his new book "A Writer's Life"
Alabama native Diane McWhorter talks about “Carry Me Home,” her Pulitzer prize winning account of the civil rights struggle in Birmingham.
"Salvation On Sand Mountain" author Dennis Covington visits with Don Noble at the Digital Media Center at the University of Alabama.
Montgomery poet Jacqueline Allen Trimble sits down with Don to discuss her new book "American Happiness"
Hank Lazer has published nineteen books of poetry, including N24 (2014) and N18 (2012), Portions (2009), The New Spirit (2005), Elegies & Vacations (2004), and Days (2002). Pages from Lazer’s shape-writing handwritten notebooks have been performed with soprano saxophonist Andrew Raffo Dewar, most recently at the University of Georgia and in two concerts in Havana, Cuba. Lazer’s Selected Poems in translation will be appearing in books in the coming year in China, Cuba, and Italy. Over the past fifteen years, Lazer has collaborated with various jazz musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, and visual artists in seeking new ways to present poetry. In 2015, Lazer was selected to receive Alabama’s most prestigious literary prize, the Harper Lee Award, for lifetime achievement in literature, joining past recipients of the award such as Winston Groom, Fanny Flagg, and Rick Bragg. Lazer retired in January 2014 from his positions as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, Executive Director of Creative Campus, and Professor of English. He is now able to teach more frequently, and to spend more time reading, writing, taking his dogs for walks, playing golf, and traveling on his poetry passport. He continues to serve as a Senior Fellow with the Blount Undergraduate Initiative.
Host Don Noble has a chat with former northerner D.B. Tipmore and his book "My Little Tow," where the two discuss Tipmore's transition from the big city north, to the small town south and the culture shock that follows.
Don sits with Rick Bragg to discuss his new book, "The Best Cook In The World: Tales From My Momma's Table" at the Digital Media Center at the University of Alabama.
Don Noble sits down with Patti Callahan to discuss her new book "Surviving Savannah," a novel about the untold story of the "Titanic of the South."
Don Noble speaks with acclaimed author Horton Foote, screenwriter for To Kill A Mockinbird.
Don is joined by actor and activist Ameer Baraka to discuss his autobiography, The Life I Chose.
Join us as Don meets author Robert McCammon to talk about career shifts, the horror genre, and his Matthew Corbett historical fiction series.
Don Noble interviews legendary author Albert Murray at the 1996 Alabama Writer's Forum.
Author of "The Sunday Wife" Cassandra King Conroy joins Don Noble at the Digital Media Center on the campus of the University of Alabama to talk about her memoir of her life and marriage to Pat Conroy.
Don Noble sits down with Alabama's Pulitzer Prize winning author John Archibald to review his new book "Shaking the Gates of Hell" where John recounts his experience growing up in the Birmingham Civil Rights era and Methodist upbringing, exploring accountability and silence within the Church.