KPFA - Radio Wolinsky: Recent Episodes
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A podcast posted every Sunday featuring extended interviews and discussions from Bookwaves, Art-Waves, and Bookwaves Artwaves Hour programs on KPFA, and newly digitized and edited archive interviews from the pre-digital Probabilities series dating back to 1977. Literature, theater, film, the visual arts: in-depth interviews from a progressive and artistic viewpoint, with long-time KPFA/Pacifica host Richard Wolinsky.
Mickey Spillane (1918-2006), author of the classic crime novels, “I, The Jury” and “Kiss Me Deadly,” in conversation in 2003 with Richard A. Lupoff, introduced by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff.
In this recently discovered recording, best-selling crime/noir novelist Mickey Spillane discusses his career as a professional writer and gives advice to writers. In the introduction, Richard A. Lupoff, the late co-host of KPFA’s Probabilities, details how the interview came to be. This was the last interview conducted by Richard A. Lupoff for KPFA.
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Lance Gardner, Artistic Director of Marin Theatre since October, 2023, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
A long-tme Bay Area actor, Lance Gardner came to Marin Theatre after a stint as a live event producer at KQED, and as Chair of the Board of Aurora Theatre. In this interview, he discusses the theatre’s fiscal health, how he hopes to increase the audience, along with details of the various upcoming shows.
Lance Gardner has earned dozens of theatre credits over the last 20 years, including six mainstage shows and a school tour at Marin Theatre Company. He has also performed in multiple shows at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Magic Theatre, TheatreWorks, and more.
The post Lance Gardner, Executive Artistic Director of Marin Theatre appeared first on KPFA.
China Mieville, author of the Hugo Award winning novel, “The City and the City,” and the classic “Perdido Street Station,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky in this archive interview recorded September 1, 2002.
China Mieville is a British author of weird fantasy and science fiction, and a leftist political activist in Britain. Born in 1972, he began his literary career with an urban fantasy novel, King Rat, and followed it up with a novel considered now one of best fantasy works of the 20th Century, Perdido Street Station in 2000. This interview with China Mieville at the 60th World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose on September 1, 2002, shortly after the publication of his follow-up to Perdido Street Station, The Scar.
Since then, China Mieville wrote a third novel set in that same Bas Lag universe as Perdido Street Station, Iron Council, published in 2004, and then moved on to other worlds with six stand alone novels, the most recent being a collaboration with Keanu Reaves titled The Book of Elsewhere, set in the BRZRKR comic book universe, published in 2024. A new novel is expected some time in 2025. his novel, The City and the City, which tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2010, was adapted for television by the BBC in 2018 and is now available streaming on Amazon Prime.
This interview has previously never been heard in its entirety. Remastered and edited in January 2025 by Richard Wolinsky.
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Susanna Clarke, author of the classic fantasy novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, interviewed September 12, 2005 in the KPFA studios.
Back in the fall of 2004, a new fantasy novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by a newcomer, Susannah Clarke, hit the stands and became an instant classic, finding its way to best-seller lists in England and the United States, and winning the Hugo Award for 2004’s best novel at the World Science Fiction convention in 2005.
This interview with Susannah Clarke was recorded while on tour for the paperback edition of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The interview was originally edited down to fit a half-hour KPFA slot, and no edit of the complete interview was ever made, until now.
Both Christopher Hampton and Julian Fellowes took stabs at writing a film adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but both were unable to translate the very long novel into a screenplay, and then New Line cancelled the project. It was eventually developed into a seven -part miniseries for the BBC, and aired in both the United States and Britain in 2015. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
After the publication of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and the awards, Susannah Clarke continued to work on the sequel, set in the same universe a few years later, but became bogged down, almost sentence by sentence, as chronic fatigue syndrome took its toll. By 2015, after visiting the set of the BBC production, she decided to go another route, and went back to another manuscript that likely pre-dated her best-seller. That novel, Piranesi, was published to mostly favorable reviews in 2020. She is now working on a third novel.
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Vernor Vinge (1944-2024), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in the KPFA studios, May 7, 1992 while on tour for his novel, “A Fire Upon the Deep,” which would be a co-winner of the Huge Award for Best Novel at the 1993 World Science Fiction Convention.
Vernor Vinge, who died on March 20th, 2024 at the age of 79 was one of the masters of late twentieth century and early 21st century science fiction. He won five Hugo Awards, three for Best Novel and two for best novella, and is credited as the first science fiction writer to offer a fictional cyberspace, a few years before William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Over all, Vernor Vinge wrote eight novels and had five published collections of his writings. His final novel, The Children of the Sky, was published in 2011.
A prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep titled A Deepness in the Sky, was published in 1999, and a sequel, The Children of the Sky, his last novel, was published in 2011. To date, none of his stories have been adapted for either television or film. Vernor Vince retired from teaching in 2000 to become a full-time writer.
In this interview, he discusses university-level mathematics, and goes into detail about what are now the early days of life on the internet, and ways in which communications are shared using minimal bytes, and discusses his early writing about cyberspace, and about singularities. There are also comments about what the future holds, a future we now are experiencing.
This interview has not aired in over thirty years, and was digitized, remastered and edited in January 2025 by Richard Wolinsky.
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Michael Crichton (1942-2008), recorded December 5, 1990, while on tour for his novel “Jurassic Park,” interviewed by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in the KPFA studios.
In this interview, he talks about his career and about the science behind “Jurassic Park.” Michael Crichton died in 2008 at the age of 66. (Radio Wolinsky page photo: Jon Chase/Harvard University). First posted May 3, 2020.
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Mary Higgins Clark (1927-2020), who died on January 31st, 2020 at the age of 92, was the best-selling author of 51 books, most of them suspense novels featuring women in jeopardy, with four theatrical films and over thirty other books adapted for television. Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff interviewed Mary Higgins Clark for the Probablitiles radio program on May 24, 1989 while she was on tour for her 13th novel “While My Pretty One Sleeps.” The interview was conducted in her San Francisco hotel room.
Digitized, re-mastered, and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky in April, 2020. First posted April 17, 2020.
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Ian McEwan, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, discussing his novel “Atonement” and other works, from the archive, and recorded in New York City on April 3, 2002.
Since 1978, Ian McEwan has had seventeen novels published and there have been ten film adaptations of his works, along with an additional three original screenplays. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize six times, winning for Amsterdam in 1998. This interview, recorded in New York while he was on a publicity tour for “Atonement,” has not aired in over two decades.The post Ian McEwan: “Atonement,” 2002 appeared first on KPFA.
Walter Mosley in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded June 23, 1996 in the KPFA studios while on tour for the novel, “A Little Yellow Dog.” He also discusses his first mainstream novel, “RL’s Dream” and the film version of “Devil in a Blue Dress.”
Today, Walter Mosley is one of America’s leading authors. He is best known for his series of mystery novels featuring the characters of Easy Rawlins and Mouse.
To date, there are now twenty non-series novels by Walter Mosley, the most recent titled Touched, published in 2023, Along with three Fearless Jones novels, six Leonid McGill mysteries, three Socrates Fortlow books, three books in the Crosstown to Oblivion series, three books in the King Oliver series, plus two graphic novels, two plays, and six works of non-fiction. Always Outnumbered became a television film in 1998 starring Laurence Fishburne. Devil In A Blue Dress, is to date, the only Easy Rawlins mystery adapted for film. In 2022, Samuel L. Jackson starred in a TV miniseries titled The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, based on Walter Mosley’s book, and primarily written by Walter Mosley. At present, an adaptation of his novel The Man in My Basement is in post-production. The next Easy Rawlins novel, Farewell Amethystine was published in June 2024.
This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in December, 2024 by Richard Wolinsky. It has not been heard in 25 years. This is the second of five interviews, to date, with Walter Mosley.
The post Walter Mosley, “A Little Yellow Dog” and “RL’s Dream”, 1996 appeared first on KPFA.
Tony Hillerman (1925-2008), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded January 30, 1997 while on tour for his Leaphorn/Chee novel, “The Fallen Man,” the twelfth book in the series.
Hillerman, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, wass a master of the detective genre and an important writer in detailing life on the Navajo reservation. His several novels featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have been acclaimed for their accuracy and for their ability to combine Navajo history and thought into strong plot-driven novels.
There are four interviews with Tony Hillerman in the Probabilities and Bookwaves archive. This third interview, was recorded on January 30th, 1997 in the KPFA studios while he was on tour for his novel, The Fallen Man, the twelfth in the Leaphorn Chee series. Iin the interview, he also discusses his 1995 stand-alone novel, Finding Moon,
This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in November, 2024, and not heard for over a quarter century.
The post Tony Hillerman (1925-2008), Master of the Southwest Mystery, 1997 appeared first on KPFA.
Nelson DeMille, who died on September 17, 2024 at the age of 81, was one of the leading best-selling authors from the 1980s into the 21st Century. Among his novels are The General’s Daughter, the Gold Coast, Plum Island and Word of Honor. Three of his novels were turned into films. On June 13, 1997, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed Nelson DeMille while he was on tour for Plum Island. In the discussion, we focused on that book, as well as several others. This is the first of two interviews with Nelson DeMille.
Nelson DeMille would return to the character of Paul Brenner from The General’s Daughter in Up Country in 2002, he would return to John Corey from Plum Island in The Lions Game in 2000, and in seven other novels. In all, there would be 27 novels, plus two written in collaboration with his son, Alex DeMille, two early novels written under a pseudonym plus several works of short fiction. Three of his books, most notably The General’s Daughter, became films.
This interview was digitized, remastered and edited by Richard Wolinsky in November 2024. Echo and other faults exist on the original recording.The post Nelson DeMille (1943-2024), Best Selling Author of the ’80s and ’90s appeared first on KPFA.
Charles Yu, whose novel Interior Chinatown just won the 2020 National Book Award for fiction, is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky.
Interior Chinatown takes place in a meta-world in which Hollywood’s Chinese stereotypes are portrayed by Asian immigrants and second-generation Asian Americans in films and TV shows. The book uses tropes from screenplays as well as prose fiction to illuminate these tropes, switching between narrative, entertainment history, and polemic in a highly original way.
Charles Yu is the author of two previous short-story collections and one novel, has worked as an attorney, and also has worked in the writers’ room of several television shows, most notably during the first season of HBO’s Westworld. Interior Chinatown is now a television miniseries streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
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Steven Bach (1938-2009) author of the biography “Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl”, interviewed in 2007 by Richard Wolinsky. This podcast was first posted May 5, 2017.
Leni Riefenstahl was the film maker behind the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Reifenstahl, who died in 2003 at the age of a hundred and one, to the end of her life denied her work was political, that she was an artist.
Stephen Bach, who died at the age of 70 in 2009, had been a studio executive and began writing books with “Final Cut”, his memoir about the making of the film Heaven’s Gate. He followed that with a biography of the playwright Moss Hart, and then a biography of actress Marlene Dietrich, which as he says, led him to Leni Riefenstahl. The interview was recorded in the KPFA studios on May 7, 2007. Guardian Obituary.
In an interview perhaps more timely today than the year it was recorded, Bach compares Reifenstahl’s work to right-wing propaganda in America, and the use of the Hitler playbook.
The post Steven Bach (1938-2009): Leni Reifenstahl and the Hitler Playbook appeared first on KPFA.
Richard Powers discusses his latest novel, “Playground” with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios October 31, 2024.
Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize i 2019 for “The Overstory,” and the National Book Award in 2006 for “The Echo Maker.” He is also the author of “The Time Of Our Singing,” “Orfeo,” and “Bewilderment.” He has been a Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist multiple times.
“Playground” brings together the history of Silicon Valley and the growth of A.I. with a look at deep ocean diving and the notion of floating cities in a story that circles back on itself.
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Anne Hillerman discusses her latest novel, “Lost Birds,” and her career as a writer with host Richard Wolinsky.
Anne Hillerman has written nine books in a series of mysteries featuring the native detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, created by her father, the legendary novelist, the late Tony Hillerman (1925-2008).
Previously a writer of travel books focusing on Santa Fe and environs, she began working on these novels following the death of her father and chose to increase the role of a minor character, Bernadette Manuelito, from Tony Hillerman’s books to one of primary protagonist. That change was later emulated in the “Dark Winds” television series.
The post Anne Hillerman: Continuing the Adventures of Leaphorn and Chee appeared first on KPFA.
Francine du Plessix Gray, who died on January 13, 2019 at the age of 88, was a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and frequent contributor to the New Yorker Magazine. Born in Poland, the daughter of a French diplomat and Russian émigré from the revolution, she was raised in Paris and came, with her mother, to the United States after the Germans took France. Her most notable book, “Them,” is the story of her parents’ lives, and Richard Wolinsky had a chance to speak with Francine du Plessix Gray about that book and about her career, recorded at KPFA on May 22, 2005.
Francine du Plessix Gray wrote one more book after the interview, a biography, of Madame Germain de Stall, a novelist and travel writer who lived during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era. Them won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir in 2005.
This interview was first posted on February 9, 2019.
The post Francine du Plessix Gray (1930-2019), “Them: A Memoir of Parents” appeared first on KPFA.
Caleb Carr (1955-2024), author of The Alienist and other works, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios October 15, 1997. Digitized, remastered and edited in September 2024, this interview has not been heard in over a quarter century.
Caleb Carr, who died on May 23, 2024 at the age of 68, was a military historian, a novelist, and a writer who examined the nature of violence in his fiction and non-fiction. He was perhaps best known for his best-selling novel The Alienist, which recently became a two-season streaming series. Over all, he wrote 11 books, several articles and reviews, worked on both seasons of the television series and two exorcist films. He was the son of Lucien Carr, a key member of the group that included Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Lucien Carr went to prison for manslaughter for killing the sexual predator who had abused him as a youth. Kerouac helped him dispose of the knife.
This interview was recorded in the KPFA studios on October 15, 1997 while Caleb Carr was on tour for The Angel of Darkness, the sequel to The Alienist. The interview includes mention of a movie-length pilot for a science fiction series, directed by Joe Dante. That pilot, originally titled The Warlord, Battle for the Galaxy, was released on DVD as The Osiris Chronicles. It is not available for streaming. While he never came back directly to the character of Lasso Kreisler, the protagonist of The Alienist, Caleb Carr’s final novel, a contemporary mystery, Surrender, New York, featured as its protagonist an expert on the life and work of Kreisler. His next book following The Angel of Darkness was Killing Time, a dystopian science fiction novel.
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John Lanchester, whose most recent novel to date is “The Wall,” is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky, recorded at KPFA on March 18, 2019. The interview was first posted on May 7, 2019.
The Wall takes place in a very possible future in which the world’s beaches have disappeared as the planet has warmed and oceans have grown. Taking place in an unnamed country, which is clearly England, a wall has been built not only to protect the land from the rising seas, but to keep out refugees fleeing no longer habitable countries. The protagonist is a young man who must guard the wall, and if it’s breached, he is forced out of the country.
John Lanchester is a novelist and essayist who has written for The London Review of Books, the Guardian and other publications. His latest book is Reality and Other Stories, published in 2020.
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Octavia Butler (1947-2006) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in 1983.
Octavia Butler, who died in 2006 at the age of 58, was one of the giants of modern science fiction. Winner of multiple awards for her short fiction and novels, her work explored issues involving gender, race, and power and featured protagonists often at odds with their societies. At the time she began writing, there were no other African-American women writing in the field, but she was not merely a pioneer: she was a master of the genre. Her first novel, Patternmaster, was published in 1976 and was followed by a series of sequels. Along with those books, she wrote a stand-alone novel, Kindred in 1979. It’s a masterpiece, a time travel story of a modern African American woman suddenly finding herself in the racist antebellum South.
By 1983, with her handful of novels and a growing reputation within the field, she made a visit to a science fiction convention in San Jose California, where she met up with Richard Wolinsky and his co-host Richard A. Lupoff. At that time, she had yet to win her first Hugo or Nebula Award, and was still unknown outside the field. This interview was the first of two recorded with Octavia Butler.
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Sue Grafton died on December 28, 2017 at the age of seventy-seven. Best known as the author of a series of mysteries featuring the detective Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton was at the forefront of the Sisters in Crime movement — women authors who wrote crime fiction – starting with her first mystery, A is for Alibi in 1982, and continuing the alphabet through Y is for Yesterday. The final book in the series, Z is for Zero, was never written.
On April 17, 1989, on a book tour for F is for Fugitive, and again on April 13, 1992, for I Is for Innocent, Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff spoke with Sue Grafton about the history of her career and her writing process. This program is taken from those two interviews. Originally posted on January 9, 2018.
Complete 1989 interview
Complete 1992 interview
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Noel Casler, blogger and You Tube influencer, developed a large following based on his violation of an NDA, revealing information about Donald Trump gleaned from his six years working on the Celebrity Apprentice program. In this interview recorded by computer on December 4, 2020 and posted on December 6, 2020, he talks about his work and his perceptions of Donald Trump and MAGA.
Noel Casler spent two decades working behind the scenes at live events as a celebrity handler, with such stars as Madonna, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and many others. But it was in 2015, having experienced Donald Trump on multiple occasions, that he decided to forgo his career and speak on the record about what he knew, first with the Clinton campaign (which chose not to follow up because of hubris and overconfidence) and later on Twitter, where he has amassed close to 300,000 followers.
In this hour-long interview, he discusses his background, the difference between the fictional businessman created for the two Apprentice TV shows, and the real Donald Trump, and goes into some depth about Ivanka Trump, who was his primary charge during the last three years of Apprentice live finales. He also discusses the role producer Mark Burnett played in the Trump make-over, as well as the role of Jeff Zucker in that endeavor, in charge at NBC at the time (and later at CNN).
Noel Casler Twitter Feed
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Francine Prose, author of “1974, A Personal History” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
The author of twenty novels and ten books of non fiction, Francine Prose is best known for such novels as “Lovers at the Chameleon Club, 1932,” “The Vixen,” “Household Saints” and “Mister Monkey,” and non-fiction such as “Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, The Afterlife,” Francine Prose has also written two short story collections , and a picture book. Two of her novels have become films, and one, “The Glorious Ones,” became a Broadway musical.
In this book, she recalls her time hanging out with Anthony Russo, who along with Daniel Ellsberg, was responsible for The Pentagon Papers, in San Francisco in 1974 and then a few months later, in New York, capturing the vibe of what it was like to live in that time and place, and differences between then and now.
The post Francine Prose: “1974, A Personal History,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
Kinky Friedman, who died at the age of 79 on June 27, 2024, was a noted country western musician (Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys) author of 18 novels, most of them mysteries featuring a detective named Kinky Friedman, and political activist who ran for Governor of Texas in 2006, columnist for the Texas Monthly.
This interview was recorded on September 20, 1994 with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff while on tour for the Kinky Friedman mystery, “Armadillos and Old Lace.” In the interview he talks about the death of country music, his view of the people of Texas, and how he became a novelist.
Digitized, remastered and edited in September 2024 by Richard Wolinsky, this interview has not been heard in over twenty years.
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Naomi Iizuka, playwright and screenwriter, “translator” of Shakespeare’s Richard II, at the Magic Theatre through September 8, 2024, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky,
Noted playwright Naomi Iizuka discusses her translation and adaptation of Shakespeare’s history play, Richard II, a play written in verse, into a theatrical piece in which the language is comprehensible to a modern audience while maintaining the essence of the story, the characterization, and the poetry. She goes on to talk about her work in television, and her work as a professor of theatre.
While known for plays such as Good Kids and Polaroid Stories, she has also worked in the writers’ rooms of several television shows, including Bosch: Legacy, The Terror, and The Sympathizer. She teaches drama and playwrighting at UC San Diego.
The post Naomi Iizuka, Playwright and Teleplay Writer, “Richard II” at the Magic. appeared first on KPFA.
Josh Costello, the Artistic Director of Aurora Theatre in Berkeley since 2019, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Before taking on the role of Artistic Director at Aurora, Josh Costello was the founding Artistic Director of Impact Theatre and Artistic Director of Explanded Programs at Marin Theatre Company. He directed several plays at Aurora prior to becoming Artistic Director, and was Director of “Eureka Day,” which is opening on Broadway in a few months.
In this interview, he discusses the impact of the pandemic on Aurora’s finances (and the finances of all local theatres), along with a look at the upcoming season and other topics. Recorded August 22. 2024 in the KPFA studios.
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Erik Larson, author of “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded at Book Passage Bookstre on May 31, 2024.
Erik Larson is the author of several bestsellers of non-fiction narrative, including The Devil in the White City, The Splendid and the Vile, and In The Garden of Beasts.
His latest book concerns the days and months preceding the start of the Civil War, focusing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, along with what life was like in the antebellum South at the time, the march to war, the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the various triggers that led to the Civil War.
In this interview he discusses how he came to write the book, some of the more interesting facts about the time of the Civil War, and how he became an author of these best-sellling narratives.
Photos: Richard Wolinsky.
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The great Irish novelist and playwright Edna O’Brien died at the age of 93 on July 27, 2024 after a long illness. A controversial figure from the start, her first novel from 1960, The Country Girls, which dealt with sexual and social issues in Ireland following World War II, was banned in Ireland and denounced on the pulpit, and while she moved to London with her husband before publication, she never moved back to her native land.
This interview was conducted in the KPFA studios on April 28, 2000 while she was on tour for her novel, “Wild Decembers,” third in a thematic trilogy of novels set in the recent past in Ireland. It was later adapted for television in 2008..
Of Edna O’Brien, from Wikipedia, the novelist Andrew O’Hagan wrote, “She changed the nature of Irish fiction, she brought the woman’s experience and sex and internal lives of those people on to the page, and she did it with style, and she made those concerns international.” In her lifetime, Edna O’Brien wrote seventeen novels, several plays, eight short story collections, eight works of non-fiction, four children’s books and a collection of poems.
Edna O’Brien continued to write novels and plays well into her nineties. Her final novel, Girl, was published in 2019.
This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in August 2024 and is heard for the first time in its entirety. A second interview, recorded in 2003 while in San Francisco working on her play “Triptych” at the Magic Theatre will be posted on a later date.
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John Barth (1930-2024), who died on April 2, 2024 at the age of 93, was America’s leading writer of metafictional and post-modern fiction. This interview was conducted by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff on November 12, 2001 in the KPFA studios, while on the book tour for the novel Coming Soon.
John Barth began to receive notice for his two earliest novels, The Floating Opera and End of the Road in the late 1950s, but burst on the scene with his epic comic novel about colonial life in Maryland, The Sot-Weed Factor, and his allegory of the Cold War, set on a university campus, Giles Goat-Boy. His short story collection, Lost in the Funhouse and novella collection Chimera cemented his reputation as a writer of meta-fiction, as the stories zoom back on themselves and on the writing of those stories.
From Wikipedia: “In his epistolary novel LETTERS (1979), Barth corresponds with characters from his other books. Later novels such as The Tidewater Tales (1987) and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991) continue in the metafictional vein, using writers as protagonists who interact with their own and other stories in elaborate ways. His 1994 Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera casts Barth himself as the protagonist who on a sailing trip encounters characters and situations from previous works.”
After the 2001 interview, he continued to work in the same vein with a triptych of novellas, Where Three Roads Meet in 2005, interrelated short stories set in a retirement community, The Development: Nine Stories in 2008, and Every Third Thought: A Novel in Five Seasons in 2011. A, book of collected stories was released in 2015 and Postscripts (or Just Desserts): Some Final Scribbling came out in 2022.
This interview was both the last interview conducted with Richard Lupoff as co-host, and the final interview recorded and edited on analog tape. This program was digitized and edited in July 2024 by Richard Wolinsky.
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Jonathan Kellerman and Faye Kellerman discuss their careers as mystery writers with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded October 28, 2004 while they were on tour for their stand-alone book, Double Homicide: Boston and Santa Fe.
Jonathan Kellerman, as of summer 2024, has written 39 novels in the Alex Delaware series, the most recent of which is The Ghost Orchid, along with nineteen other novels, seven of which were in collaboration with their son, Jesse Kellerman.
Faye Kellerman has written 27 novels in the Peter Decker and Rena Lazarus series, along with nine other novels, including one collaboration with their daughter, Aliza Kellerman. This interview has not been posted as a podcast or aired in full until now.
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Adam Gopnik discusses his book “At the Strangers’ Gate with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded September 12, 2017. First posted October 19, 2017.
Adam Gopnik has been a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine for over three decades. Among his best-selling books are “Paris to the Moon,” “At the Children’s Gate,” and “The Table Comes First.” He is currently the author of the magazine’s “Daily Comment” blog, and has written on several subjects, from politics to food to gun control. He is the winner of three National Magazine awards and has worked extensively in theater.
His book, “At The Strangers’ Gate” deals with his arrival in New York in the early 1980s, and focuses on changes in life and culture over the course of that decade. In this interview, he discusses his recent book, as well as his work for the New Yorker, his lecture series, and other projects.
Since 2017, Adam Gopnik has written two books, “A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism” in 2019 and “The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery” in 2023.
The post Adam Gopnik, “At the Stranger’s Gate,” 2017 appeared first on KPFA.
Aya de Leon in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Aya de Leon is the Poet Laureate of the City of Berkeley. She is a novelist and poet who currently teaches creative writing at U.C. Berkeley. She is the author of ten books, the most recent of which are the adult novel, “That Dangerous Energy,” and the young adult novel, “Untraceable.”
Originally a hip hop artist, Aya de Leon is also a noted local activist, and the acquiring editor of Fighting Chance Books, the climate justice fiction imprint of She Writes Press. She organizes with the Black Hive, the climate and environmental justice formation of the Movement for Black Lives.
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Nancy MacLean, author of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.
Nancy MacLean’s 2017 book, “Democracy in Chains,” deals with the long game of the Koch brothers and their ilk, which may now have finally come to fruition with the Supreme Court legalizing bribery as “gratuities,” the overthrow of administrative protections in the areas of safety and the environment, and legalizing crimes by the President. The idea was to create a constitutional convention, which would codify laws in such a way that progressive regimes would be unable to move their programs forward, thanks to the courts, and based on how the Pinochet regime was able to control Chile after giving up power. That convention idea didn’t work in this country, but thanks to Mitch McConnell and his refusal to bring Obama nominees to a vote, followed by the Trump Administration’s packing of all the courts, the Koch plan wound up working anyway. In this interview, Nancy MacLean goes back to the origins of the plan, and brings us forward.
Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean, in researching the life of libertarian professor James Buchanan, discovered the philosophical underpinnings of what Hillary Clinton (almost unknowingly) called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Funded by Charles Koch and other donors, they’ve taken over the GOP and have an agenda, she says, that ultimately will allow minority rule in the United States for the forseeable future.
In this interview, she discusses the role of Buchanan and the Mont Pelerin Society in the underpinnings of this gradual take-over of the state and federal government, and what the goals are, according to her research. Recorded in the KPFA studios October 20, 2017, and previously posted.
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Pam MacKinnon, Artistic Director of American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Pam McKinnon, has been Artistic Director of ACT — American Conservatory Theatre, since January 2018. A leading interpreter of the works of Edward Albee, she won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a play for a Revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in 2013. She was also nominated for a Tony for her direction of Clybourne Park in 2012, as well as winning an Obie for an earlier off-broadway production of that play in 2011.
In this interview, she discusses, in depth, the upcoming season, as well as issues involving the area around the Strand Theatre, how the pandemic impacted ACT, and the differences between working in San Francisco and London as a director.
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David Sedaris, noted humorist, comedian, diarist and radio contributor, discusses his collection of essays, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” and how his career originated in this interview recorded in the KPFA studios on June 28, 2008. (First time podcast). Hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Pride Month Special.
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Ayodele Nzinga, the Poet Laureate of Oakland and the director of the play “Pac and Biggie Are Dead” by Biko Eisen-Martin, which is running at BAM House in Oakland through June 30, 2024, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky
Ayodele Nzinga, known as “Wordslinger,” is the lead curator of BAM House (formerly the Flight Deck and Piano Fight Oakland), YBCA Creative Corps fellow, director of BAMD Fest, an international biennial arts festival in 2025, and creator and director of Lower Bottom Playaz, Inc. She has written a book of poetry, “Incandescent,” and is also an actor and playwright.
“Pac and Biggie Are Dead” focuses on two deceased rap artists who were central to the art form, Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. in a place that might be heaven as they ponder their past and their present, in a non-linear work that attempts to put their art in the context of the African American experience.
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Colm Tóibín discusses his latest novel, “Long Island,” which follows characters from his earlier best-seller, “Brooklyn” twenty years later. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Ireland, in 1955. He is the author of 11 novels including The Master, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary, Nora Webster, House of Names and The Magician. His work has been shortlisted for The Booker Prize three times, has won the Costa Novel Award and the IMPAC Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. Special thanks to the folks at BookShop West Portal in San Francisco for their assistance.
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Maureen Gosling, filmmaker and film editor, discusses the films of noted documentary director Les Blank (1935-2013), which whom she collaborated for several years, along with her own career, in this interview with host Richard Wolinsky. A Retrospective of the films of Les Blank can be seen at Pacific Film Archive June 7 to July 27, 2024.
Les Blank is best known for “Burden of Dreams,” an award winning documentary detailing the efforts of German director Werner Herzog in making his film “Fitzcarraldo” in the Peruvian jungle. Les Blank’s work, though, focuses on the music and culture of the New Orleans and Louisiana, and the American South, with forays into the lives of several musicians, including rock legend Leon Russell.
Maureen Gosling worked as a sound recordist and editor (and co-filmmaker) on several of Les Blank’s films. Among her own films are There Ain’t No Mouse Music: The Story of Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records and The Nine Lives of Barbara Dane.
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Aya de Leon, the Interim Program Director of the Tenth Annual Bay Area Book Festival, June 1-2 in various locations in Berkeley, talks about this year’s festival with host Richard Wolinsky.
Aya de Leon is the Poet Laureate of the City of Berkeley. She is a novelist and poet who currently teaches creative writing at U.C. Berkeley. She is the author of ten books, the most recent of which are the adult novel, “That Dangerous Energy,” and the young adult novel, “Untraceable.” Originally a hip hop artist, Aya de Leon is also a noted local activist, and the acquiring editor of Fighting Chance Books, the climate justice fiction imprint of She Writes Press. She organizes with the Black Hive, the climate and environmental justice formation of the Movement for Black Lives.
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Paul Auster (1947-2024), in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded October 2, 2002 while on tour for his novel “The Book of Illusions.”
Paul Auster, who died on April 30th, 2024 was a world-renowned novelist, memoirist, and film-maker whose works were translated into forty languages.
His career as a writer began with a well-received memoir, The invention of Solitude in 1982, and took off in 1987 with the publication of three connected novellas titled The New York Trilogy. His fame and success grew over the following years. He moved into film-making with the screenplays for two movies directed by Wayne Wang, Smoke and Blue in the Face, and then wrote and directed his own film, Lulu on the Bridge.
There are three Paul Auster interviews in the archives. In this first interview, he discusses his film work, goes into depth about both The Book of Illusions and his previous novel, Timbuktu, much of the interview centersd on Lulu on the Bridge and the two Wayne Wang collaborations. The second interview was conducted in 2008 for Man in the Dark, and finally in 2017 for his masterpiece, 4 3 2 1.
Currently, all three films, the two with Wayne Wang and Lulu on the Bridge, can be rented via Amazon. From time to time, all three show up on the Criterion app. This interview was newly edited in May 2024 and the entire interview has never seen the light of day until now.
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Helen Benedict, author of the novel “The Good Deed,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Helen Benedict is the author of eight novels, including “Wolf Season” and “Sand Queen,” and five books of non-fiction.Her previous book, “Map of Hope and Sorrow,” co-written by Eyad Awwadawnon, is partly an oral history of refugees coming to Greece after escaping from their home countries. Helen Benedict s a Professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism. “The Good Deed” is a novel based on her research, which was later turned into the non-fiction book.
In the interview, she discusses the origins of her book, the research on which the novel was based, and other elements of life among the refugees in Samos prior to the pandemic. She also talks about the recent events at Columbia involving the police raid on the protest encampment, as well as her view of current journalism regarding the upcoming 2024 election.
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Trina Robbins (1938-2024) who died following a stroke on April 10, 2024, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded at her home in San Francisco on February 6, 2018.
Trina Robbins was a legend in comic book circles, an artist at a time when hardly any women drew comics. In this interview, she discusses her 2017 memoir, “Last Girl Standing,” which deals with her life as an artist, author, and clothing designer. She was the first woman to edit a comic book created by women, “It Ain’t Me Babe,” the first woman to draw “Wonder Woman,” and the single most influential historian chronicling the women who created comics and cartoons.
In this interview, she also talks about her other recent books including a history of women drawing comics during World War II, a graphic novel version of a short story collection originally written by her father in Yiddish, and a graphic novel based on a work by British author Sax Rohmer. Trina Robbins was clothing designer for Los Angeles rock and roll bands in the 1960s and for the Warhol factory in New York. She also was a regular contributor to “Wimmens Comix,” a series of comic books created by women from the 1970s through 1990s. Photo: Richard Wolinsky.
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Joan Baez, legendary singer, songwriter and activist, in connversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded while on remote tour for her book of poetry, “When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance.” Recorded April 26, 2024 via zencastr.
Joan Baez is an internationally renowned singer, songwriter and activist who burst on the folk music scene as a teenager in the late 1950s. She has two autobiographies, Daybreak, along with And A Voice to Sing With. There are over thirty albums, including her now classic “Diamonds and Rust”from 1975, she has appeared in numerous documentaries about music and activism, won the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, and is the subject of a recent documentary, Joan Baez, I Am A Noise, which is on Hulu and can be rented on several apps. Photos courtesy Joan Baez.
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A conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel, The Sympathizer, which has now been adapted into a television miniseries. The interview was recorded in the KPFA studios, May 5, 2016. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky
Viet Thanh Nguyen came over from Vietnam with his family at the time of the fall of Saigon. The Sympathizer is the story of a Communist exile in America following the end of the Vietnam War, both a spy and in some respects, a lover of American culture.
An Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of two non-fiction books, Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, a non-fiction bookend to his novel. A sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed, was published in 2021. This podcast was first posted on June 21, 2016.
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Don Winslow, author of “City in Ruins,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded via zencastr on April 10, 2024
Don Winslow is the author of 22 novels, many of which focus on crime and the criminal underworld, including The Cartel, The Force, Savages (which became an Oliver Stone film), and The Border. His latest novel, “City in Ruins”, concludes the trilogy of “City on Fire” and “City of Dreams,” which told of a mob war using as a template the story of the Trojan War, The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and other works. In this latest novel, we follow the character of Danny Ryan, (Aeneas) as he winds up in Las Vegas (the founding of Rome), with forays into the Odyssey and the greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Europides. Don Winslow has stated that these will be his final novels.
Don Winslow also produces political videos aimed at saving the American democracy from Donald Trump, and is a vital force on Twitter.
Photos: Richard Wolinsky.
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Margot Livesey, author of the novel, “The Road from Belhaven,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded March 19, 2024 at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California.
Margot Livesey is the author of ten novels, including “The Missing World,” “Mercury” and “The Boy in the Field,” which range from literary novels to psychological thrillers. Born and raised in Scotland. she currently teaches at the Iowa Writers Workshop.
“The Road from Belhaven” is set in the late 1800s in rural Scotland and Glasgow, and concerns a young woman artist with second sight who finds herself in difficult circumstances. It’s based on stories of Margot Livesey’s great grandmother as told by her grandmother and relatives in Australia.
Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli and the folks at Book Passage Bookstore. Photo: Richard Wolinsky.
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Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), discusses the current retrospective of the films of the great Belgian-French film maker Agnes Varda (1928-2019) with host Richard Wolinsky.
Agnes Varda began her career as a stills photographer and became a director with La Point Courte (1954), having seen very few films in her life. She went on to international fame with Cleo from 5 to 7 and Vagabond, but her late life films The Beaches of Agnes and Faces, Places established her as one of the most important directors of the modern era.
All the films discussed in this interview (except the new documentary Viva Varda!) are available to stream on the Criterion app, save for Faces, Places, which can be streamed on Kanopy. Cleo from 5 to 7 can also be streamed on Max.
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Roz Chast, New Yorker cartoonist, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.
One of the joys of leafing through the New Yorker is coming across the work of the brilliant cartoonist Roz Chast. In this interview from 2017, while she was on tour for her book Going Into Town a Love Letter to New York, she discusses not only the book but also her history as a cartoonist and artist. This podcast was first posted on November 16, 2017 and was recorded in the KPFA studios on October 26, 2017.A regular cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1978, Roz Chast has developed a following for her quirky, strange and funny cartoons.. She started out in the National Lampoon and Village Voice but has since become a regular and familiar artist in the New Yorker.
Roz Chast website
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Burton Lane, Broadway and Hollywood composer and sometime lyricist, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, August 17, 1992 in New York.
Burton Lane, who died at the age of 84 in 1997, was best known for composing the scores for the hit Broadway shows Finian’s Rainbow (with E.Y. (Yip) Harburg) and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (with Alan J. Lerner). As a teenager, he was considered a protégé of George Gershwin, and was close to the Gershwin family until he moved to Los Angeles to compose songs for a variety of different musicals, including the Fred Astaire film, Royal Wedding . His other Broadway show, Carmelina, was produced in 1979.
In 1992, after creating a radio documentary about Leonard Bernstein,Richard Wolinsky embarked on another documentary on the life and music of George Gershwin, which started with a Morning Concert program featuring Ira Gershwin’s nephew Michael Strunsky and Gershwin expert Deena Rosenberg. That was followed followed with interviews with Michael’s father English Strunsky, with Ira Gershwin’s archivist, later a noted cabaret performer, Michael Feinstein, and New York Grande Dame Kitty Carlisle, who dated George Gershwin in the 1930s. This interview as the fifth of seven interviews, after which for personal reasons, the project was abandoned.
Burton Lane’s dreams of a new Broadway show never reached fruition, and he died at the age of 84 five years after the interview. However, three songs he wrote for the film version of On A Clear Day that were cut for the original Broadway production found their way into a revival in 2011, which had a very short run but which is performed in regional theaters from time to time.
Special thanks to Ernie Harburg, son of Burton Lane’s lyricist E.Y. Yip Harburg, and to Gershwin historian Deena Rosenberg Harburg for their assistance in setting up this, and the other interviews in the Gershwin Project.
George Gershwin was born in 1898 and his brother Ira two years earlier. At the age of 15 he took a job as a song-plugger, playing other people’s songs on a piano for Remick Music Publisher for the sale of their sheet music. His first composed song was published when he was 17, and at 21 he scored his first big hit, Swanee. But it wasn’t until 1924 when he teamed up with his brother Ira as lyricist that George Gershwin became, what we might call a superstar, which he remained until his untimely death from a brain tumor in 1937. Ira Gershwin, who went on to work with other composers until he retired in the early 1960s, died in 1983.
The Gershwin Project
Interview I: English Strunsky, Ira Gershwin’s brother-in-law and George’s wingman in the 1920s.
Interview II: Musicologist Deena Rosenberg and Michael Strunsky, Ira Gershwin’s nephew.
Interview III: Kitty Carlisle.
Interview IV: Michael Feinstein.
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David Thomson, film critic and historian, discusses his latest book, “The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film” with host Richard Wolinsky.
Author of over forty books, most of which deal with film and film history, David Thomson here discusses how movies have influenced how our society sees and understands war. He is hosting war films at Pacific Film Archive on March 13 (Paths of Glory), March 20 (They Shall Not Grow Old) and March 27 (1917).
In the interview, he talks about how war films rarely focus on the reasons why individual wars are fought, the soldier mentality, the two World Wars on film, fascism and resistance on film, along with such films as Black Hawk Down, The Deer Hunter and A Man Escapes.
Special thanks to AJ Fox and Susan Oxtoby of Pacific Film Archive, where the interview was recorded. Photo of David Thomson: Richard Wolinsky.
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Otessa Moshfegh, recorded while on tour for the acclaimed short story collection, “Homesick for Another World, in the KPFA studios on February 2, 2017. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky. First posted March 28, 2017.
The author of the highly acclaimed novel, short-listed for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, “Eileen,” Otessa Moshfegh is the daughter of an Iranian father and Croatian mother, both forced out of Iran following the 1979 revolution. Her stories are filled with dark humor, focusing on how we feel about our bodies and our lives in this physical universe. Her vision is very idiosyncratic.
She is currently the author of four novels, most recently Death in her Hands in 2020 and Lapvona in 2022. Otessa Moshfegh is also listed as co-writer for the 2022 film “Causeway,” which is now streaming via an Apple+ subscription.
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Robert Stone (1937-2015), author of “Dog Soldiers,” “A Flag for Sunrise” and “Damascus Gate,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios on January 25, 2007 during the book tour for his memoir, “Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties.”
Robert Stone, who died on January 10th, 2015 at the age of 77, won the National Book Award in 1975 for his novel Dog Soldiers and was a finalist four other times, and twice was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among his other books were the critically acclaimed A Flag for Sunrise, set in war-torn Central America, and Damascus Gate, set in the conflicted city of Jerusalem. His memoir, Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties, is one of the best books written about the counterculture.
Robert Stone’s books tend to have complicated characters existing during complex political and social turmoil. Two of his books became films, Hall of Mirrors became WUSA, and Dog Soldiers became Who’ll Stop the Rain, an excellent film that was dumped by the studio.
Following the interview, only three books were published. In 2010 it was a collection of short stories referred to in the interview, Fun with Problems. The novel Death of the Black Haired Girl, was published in 2013, and a collection of non-fiction The Eye You See With, was published posthumously in 2020.
Interview from 2003.
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Tony Hillerman (1925-2008) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded November 8, 1993 while on tour for the novel “Sacred Clowns.” This is the second of four interviews.Digitized, remastered and edited in February 2024 by Richard Wolinsky. This interview has not been heard in three decades.
Tony Hillerman, who died in 2008 at the age of 83. Was a master of the detective genre and an important writer in detailing life on the Navajo reservation. His several novels featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have been acclaimed for their accuracy and for their ability to combine Navajo history and thought into strong plot-driven novels.
Notes on the interview:
The film The Dark Wind, starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Chee and Fred Ward as Joe Leaphorn was directed by Errol Morris, who became better known as a director of documentaries such as The Fog of War. It can be rented via Apple or Amazon. The second season of Dark Winds is based on the novel People of Darkness and features the character based on the killer that Tony Hillerman met in prison.
A Thief of Time became a film in 2003 with Adam Beach as Chee and Wes Studio as Joe Leaphorn. The book Tony Hillerman talks about as an example of a literary mystery is The Late Man by James Preston Girard, published in September 1993. According to Amazon, that is and was his only novel. The non-Navajo novel he was writing at the time of the interview, Finding Moon, was published in 1996 and is discussed in the third Tony Hillerman interview, from 1997, which has yet to be digitized. Anne Hillerman has continued the Leaphorn Chee series, and the next book, Lost Birds, will be published in April 2024.
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Walter Mosley in conversation with Richard Woinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded October 25, 1992 in the KPFA studios while on tour for the novel, “White Butterfly.”
Today, Walter Mosley is one of America’s leading authors. He is best known for his series of mystery novels featuring the characters of Easy Rawlins and Mouse, now numbering fifteen, seventeen novels in other series, sixteen other novels, a collection of short stories, six works of non-fiction, plus screenplays and teleplays.
But on October 25th, 1992, he was at the beginning of his career when Probabilities co-hosts Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky spoke with Walter Mosley in the KPFA studios about his latest Easy Rawlings novel, White Butterfly, his third book and the third in the series following Devil in a Blue Dress and A Red Death.
Black Betty would follow White Butterfly in 1994. The most recent Easy Rawlins novel is Blood Grove, published in 2021. Devil in a Blue Dress became a film released in 1995 using the screenplay discussed in the interview, directed by Carl Franklin and starring Denzel Washington. Mouse was played by Don Cheadle in a career breakout role. Thus far, that’s the only Easy Rawlins film. In 2022, Samuel L. Jackson starred in a TV miniseries titled The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, based on Walter Mosley’s book, and primarily written by Walter Mosley. At present, an adaptation of his novel The Man in My Basement is in pre-production. The next Easy Rawlins novel, Farewell Amethystine will be published in June 2024.
This interview was digitized, remastered and edited on February 10, 2024 by Richard Wolinsky. It has not been heard in thirty years. This is the first of five interviews, to date, with Walter Mosley.
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Kate Wilhelm (1928-2018), award-winning science fiction and detective novelist, in conversation with Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, August 5, 1996. while on tour for her novel, “Malice Prepense,” (later renamed “For The Defense”).
Kate Wilhelm, who died on March 8, 2018 at the age of 89, was probably best known as a science fiction and fantasy author., winning the Hugo Award for best novel in 1977 for Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, and the Nebula Award three times for her shorter fiction.Along with her work in science fiction and fantasy, she was also an acclaimed mystery and suspense author, with fourteen novels in the Barbara Holloway courtroom series, six novels in the Leidl and Mickeljohn series, and ten stand alone mystery and suspense novels. She was also one of the first teachers at the Clarion Writers Workshop, which began in 1968 and according to Wikipedia, still active following a two year Covid break.Malice Prepense, renamed For The Defense for its paperback release, was the third Barbara Holloway novel. She would follow with eleven more. Her final novel, Mirror, Mirror, another in the series, was published in 2012. Her final science fiction short story, “The Bird Cage” was published in a collection in 2012.This interview was digitized, remastered, and edited on February 3, 2024 by Richard Wolinsky.The post Kate Wilhelm (1928-2018), “Malice Prepense” (“For the Defense”), 1996 appeared first on KPFA.
Bushman, a film by David Schickele
Film director Rob Nillson, Activist and Environmentalist Gail Schickele, and Film Archivist Jon Shibata in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded January 25, 2024 at Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive.
Released in 1971 but filmed in 1968, the film “Bushman” is a masterpiece detailing the story of a Nigerian educator in San Francisco. The film vanished following its showing at various film festivals, and has now been digitized and restored, and will be shown at Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley on February 4th and 24th, with a theatrical release coming across the country from Kino/Lorber and Milestone Films.
This discussion with Gail Schickele, wife of the late director David Schickele (1937-1999), his friend, colleague and collaborator director Rob Nillson, and BAMPFA film archivist John Shibata focuses first on “Bushman” and David Schickele, how the film came about and what happened during and after the filming, and later with the film’s restoration, and a look at Rob Nillson’s career as film-maker.
Special thanks to AJ Fox and Susan Oxtoby of Pacific Film Archive.
Front photo: BAM/PFA. Inside photo: Richard Wolinsky.
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Barry Lopez (1945-2020) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky on June 11, 2004 while he was on tour for Resistance, a collection of interrelated short stories with the theme of resistance.
Barry Lopez, who died on December 25, 2020 at the age of 75, was a master of the short form, both fiction and non-fiction. His non-fiction, collected in such books as Arctic Dreams and his last published work, Horizon, and his fiction in collections such as Light Action in the Caribbean, focused on exploration, biology, morality, transcendence, biology, politics, philosophy and much more.
In this second of three interview, he discusses how he came to write this particular book, and then moves on to discussing what in 2004 was an unnamed threat of totalitarianism. Today, of course, it’s named. While the interview was conducted during the Bush Administration, it’s not hard to project ahead from what Lopez is saying to the current crisis point with a would-be dictator poised to become the Republican nominee for President. He speaks of the inattentiveness of the masses as well, which also has great resonance today.
Barry Lopez Wikipedia page
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Science fiction and fantasy author and political activist Terry Bisson (1942-2024), who died on January 10, 2024 at the age of 81, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded January 2, 2013 following the paperback reprint of the novel, “Any Day Now.”
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short story,”Bears Discover Fire,” Terry Bisson wrote seven stand-alone novels, several collaborations in different mediums, six collections of short stories, six film novelizations and three works of non-fiction. Along with his books and short stories, he wrote Locus Magazine’s This Month in History series for two decades. In his later years, he was a frequent host of the popular SF in SF series of interviews and readings in San Francisco.
His other works include a biography of Mumia Abu-Jabal, titled “On a Move,” and a wide variety of novels from the Star Wars series to the completion of a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
In the interview, he discusses his political work as well as his work as a writer and editor.
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Robert B. Parker (1932-2010), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded June 13, 1992 while on tour for the Spenser novel, “Double Deuce.”
Mystery and suspense author Robert B. Parker died at the age of 77 on January 18, 2010. His career encompassed 38 novels in his popular Spenser detective series during his life, with another three published posthumously, plus nine novels in the Jesse Stone series, four in the Cole and Hitch series, six in the Sonny Randall series, nine other novels, and four books of non-fiction.
There were two Probabilities interviews with Robert B. Parker. The first time, co-hosted with Lawrence Davidson, was recorded in Parker’s hotel room in the spring of 1981. At the time he’d just switched publishers and with Looking for Rachel Wallace and then Early Autumn, he was finally having success as an author.
His success would explode exponentially over the next eleven years, and by the time of this interview. Robert Parker had written an additional ten Spenser novels, the TV series Spencer for Hire starring Robert Urich had run for three seasons, and a spin-off, A Man Called Hawk had had a 13 episode run. In addition, he’d completed an unfinished Philip Marlowe novel by Raymond Chandler, and followed that up with a sequel.
Four Robert Urich Spenser filmswere produced after the interview was recorded, each based on a different Spenser novel by Parker. Three Spenser TV movies, based on three other novels with Joe Mantagna as Spenser ran from 1999 to 2001. A 2020 Netflix film with Mark Wahlberg, Spencer: Confidential, was based on a Spenser novel written by another author, Ace Atkins, who continued the series.
In the interview, Robert Parker insists he won’t start other series. In fact, of course, he did. The Sonny Randall series, featuring a female former cop turned private eye; the Cole & Hitch series of western detective novels, and the Jesse Stone series, featuring the police chief of a small town in Massachusetts. There have also been nine made for television films starting Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone.
This interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited in January 2024 by Richard Wolinsky.
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Richard Powers in conversation with Richard Wolinsky while on tour for the novel “The Overstory,” recorded in the KPFA studios, April 27, 2018. This encore podcast was originally posted on July 19, 2018.
The author of “The Time of Our Singing” and “The Echo Maker” delves into the world of eco-terrorism and the secret life of trees in this epic story about eight individuals who, together and apart, come to see the forests of earth as our salvation, and the salvation of the planet. Based on prodigious research, Powers tells of the way trees communicate with one another, and spins stories based on real life confrontations between protestors and those who would destroy the lifeblood of the planet to pay off leveraged debt.
Richard Powers explores the effects of modern science and technology in his twelve novels. Along with the National Book award for “The Echo Maker,” he has won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. Richard Powers has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford Universities. His most recent novel, “Bewilderment,” was published in 2021.
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Roger Ebert (1942-2013) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded while on tour for “The Great Movies II,” conducted in the KPFA studios on March 3, 2005.
Roger Ebert, who died of cancer on April 4, 2013, was probably America’s best known film critic. Film critic for the Chicago Sun Times from 1967 until his death, his television career began on PBS in 1975, co-hosted with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. Through several iterations, Ebert and Siskel worked together until Siskel’s death in 1999. Roger Ebert continued on TV with several co-hosts until he paired with Richard Roeper until retiring from television in 2007.
Along the way, Roger Ebert wrote several books, including his four book Great movies series, a best selling memoir, Life Itself, various yearly guides, and several collections of his reviews. His website, rogerebert.com, is still a leading compendium of new and old reviews.
In this interview, he talks about his latest book, about new restorations, and about his sojourn into political commentary. He also talks about the Republican Party and its supporters, which indicate that there’s not much difference in thought between the followers of George W. Bush and the MAGA cult behind Donald Trump.
If his voice sounds a bit slurred, it’s because he was diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually kill him three years earlier, and he’d already had a series of operations, making clear speech difficult.
This complete interview is posted for the first time.
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Alice McDermott, whose latest novel is “Absolution,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded December 12, 2023 via zencastr.
Alice McDermott is the author of eight other novels, including Charming Billy, which won the National Book Award in 1998, That Night, which was a National Book Award finalist, and was twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She is also author of one non-fiction work, “What About the Baby?”
“Absolution” concerns the young wife of a Naval officer in Saigon in the spring and summer of 1963, who years later looks back on that time, from the vantage point of old age. The book has been popping up on several best of the year lists.
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Martin Amis (1949-2023), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studio on a book tour for “The Zone of Interest,” October 29, 2014Novelist and essayist Martin Amis died of cancer on May 19, 2023 at the age of 73, leaving behind such novels as The Rachel Papers, London Fields, The Information, and his last memoir-cum-novel, Inside Story. On October 29th, 2014, Richard Wolinsky conducted the last of five interviews with Martin Amis, about Amis’s then most recent novel, The Zone of Interest. A new film adaptation of that novel recently opened to rave reviews.In this interview, Martin Amis also discusses his friendship with the late Christopher Hitchens. The interview concludes with a look at what would be his last book, Inside Story, A Novel.The post Martin Amis (1949-2023) V, “The Zone of Interest,” 2014 appeared first on KPFA.
Amos Oz (1939-2018), author of “A Tale of Love and Darkness” and other books, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in San Francisco in December 7, 2004, while he was on tour for his memoir, “A Tale of Love and Darkness”. Encore podcast originally posted on January 13, 2019.
Amos Oz, the noted Israeli novelist, short story writer, essayist and peace activist, and perennial Nobel Prize candidate, died on December 28th, 2018 at the age of 79. The author of forty books, he was a firm believer in the two-state solution who felt, over the previous decade, that the hope for peace appears to be slipping away. Today, it’s gotten worse of course.
Today his greatest work is considered to be the memoir of his family, set against the background of the rise of Nazi Germany, World War II, and the formation of the state of Israel, and culminating in the suicide of his mother. A Tale of Love and Darkness, was published in Israel in 2002 and two years later in the United States.
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R.L. Stine, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in the KPFA studios on September 22, 1995 during the book tour for the adult novel, “Superstitious.”
On September 22, 1995, Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff had the chance to interview R.L. Stine in the KPFA studio about his first adult novel, Superstitious. At the time, both the first series of Fear Street and Goosebumps were still being written, and a 1990s Goosebumps TV series was yet to make its debut.
R.L. Stine, who recently turned 80 years old, is often called the Stephen King of young adult and children’s horror. With nearly 500 books under his belt alongside several film and TV adaptations, he is best known for two series and their later iterations, Fear Street and Goosebumps
A new Goosebumps series recently completed its run on Disney+ and Hulu, and the film Zombie Town debuted in theaters in September 2023 and is now available on Hulu.
He doesn’t go into it in the interview, but along with his books written as R.L. Stine, he also write dozens of humor books for kids under the name Jovial Bob Stine. What he does talk about here is his writing process, his thoughts about the work he does, and how it appears his various children and young adult books have created lifelong readers and improved test scores in elementary and high schools across the country.
To date, “Superstitious” is only one of four adult novels written by R.L. Stine. This interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited in November 2023 and has not been heard in over twenty five years.
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A.S. Byatt (1936-November 18, 2023), in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky on January 27, 2003 while on tour for the novel, “A Whistling Woman.” This would be the first of two interviews, the second in 2010 for her novel The Children’s Book.
Born Antonia Drabble and sister to novelist Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt spent her early professional life as a teacher before becoming a full time writer in 1983. In 1978 she began the first of a tetralogy, The Virgin in the Garden, which continued with Still Life, Babel Tower, and finally A Whistling Woman.
Her 1990 novel, Possession, probably her best known work, won the Booker Prize. and was turned into a successful film by Neil LeBute. Her novella Morpho Eugenia was adapted into a film titled Angels and Insects in 1995.
Over the course of her career, she wrote ten novels, the last of which was Ragnarok: The End of the Gods in 2011, along with six short story collections, a two-novella collection titled Angels and Insects, and nine essays and biographies. Her final work was a short story collection, Medusa’s Ankles, published in 2021.
This wide-ranging interview focuses not only on her most recent novel, but on the build-up to the American invasion of Iraq, which would happen in March, 2003, her views on Umberto Eco’s works, genre fiction, and other issues.
Remastered and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky, November 18-19, 2023.
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Tim O’Brien, whose latest novel, a contemporary satire, is “America Fantastica,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded at Book Passage on November 6, 2023.
The author of ten previous novels, winner of the National Book Award in 1978 for Going After Cacciato, and acclaimed for his linked collection of stories about the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien took a 20-year break from writing to help raise his late-in-life children. He returned with a non-fiction book about those years, Dad’s Maybe Years, and has now come out with a satirical novel, America Fantastica.
This new book, written before and during the Covid pandemic, focuses on the nature of lying, and how America has fallen into a pandemic of lying. A satire set in California, Texas and Minnesota, and focuses on a former journalist who made a career of lying, and on other assorted liars.
In the interview, Tim O’Brien discusses this new book, and also discusses his feelings about war, about Vietnam, and about being a writer.
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Kazuo Ishiguro, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded October 6, 2000 while he was on tour for his novel “When We Were Orphans.”
The winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is recognized today as one of the world’s leading authors. Nominated four times, he won the Booker Prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day, and was most recently nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for the 2022 film “Living.”
In this interview, he discusses his most recent book at that time, When We Were Orphans, and talks about how he became a writer and the relationship of his Japanese heritage to his life in Great Britain, where he’s lived since he was six years old. His most recent novel, a parable, is titled Klara and the Sun, and was published in 2021. This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in November 2023 and has never been heard in its entirety.
Along with Living, which can be seen on Netflix, Kazuo Ishiguro has written screenplays for The Saddest Music in the World, now on AMC plus. An Adaptation of Never Let Me Go can be found on Starz, and one of An Artist of the Floating World is on Amazon Prime. Both The White Countess, for which he wrote the screenplay, and his adaptation of the Remains of the Day can be rented on various apps. A television series adaptation of Never Let Me Go was announced and then cancelled.
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Margaret Atwood, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios June 10, 2003 while on tour for the novel “Oryx and Crake.”
One of the most distinguished authors writing today, Margaret Atwood is best known for her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and well as several other novels, short stories, poems, essays and political commentary.
In this interview from 2003, she discusses her science fiction novel “Oryx and Crake,” first of what later became a trilogy including ‘Year of the Flood” and “Maddadam,” as well as her views on the then-recent Bush invasion of Iraq and other topics.
This is the fifth of eight interviews with Margaret Atwood conducted between the years 1989 and 2013. The full interview is newly remastered and edited.
Margaret Atwood I, 1989: Cat’s Eye, The Handmaid’s TaleMargaret Atwood II, 1993: The Robber BrideMargaret Atwood III, 1997: Alias GraceMargaret Atwood IV, 2000: The Blind AssassinMargaret Atwood VI, 2006: Moral Disorder, Writing with Intent
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Ben Fountain, whose latest novel is “Devil Makes Three,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, October 19, 2023.
Ben Fountain is the author of one previous novel, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2012. His non-fiction book about the 2016 election, “Beautiful Country, Burn Again” was published in 2018. His earlier short stories were collected in “Brief Encounters with Che Guevara,” which won the PEN/Hemingway Award in 2007/
“Devil Makes Three” is a long dense novel set in Haiti in 1992, beginning with the coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and features four main characters: a young CIA agent on her first assignment, an American everyman who runs a dive shop, and a brother and sister from a wealthy family. The young American becomes a favorite of the leader of the coup, who is a scuba fanatic, and the story goes from there.
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BookwavesRussell Banks (1940-2023), who died on January 7, 2023, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios on November 11, 2004 while on tour for his novel, The Darling.
Russell Banks, who died on January 7th, 2023 at the age of 82 was a master of long and short form fiction. In a career that began in 1975 and continued to his death, there were 14 novels, six collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry, and three works of non-fiction. Among his novels were Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, both of which became critically acclaimed films, plus Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter. His most recent novel, The Magic Kingdom, was published in 2022. This is the second of two interviews and has not been heard in almost two decades. 2000 Interview with Russell Banks.
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Heather Cox Richardson discusses her latest book, “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America,” with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded October 4, 2023.
A Professor of History at Boston College, Heather Cox Richardson began four years ago a daily newsletter on Facebook, “Letters from an American.” Today, that newsletter has become a must-read for anyone interested in how current history relates to the historical record. She is the author of “How the South Won the Civil War” and several other books, with her specialty being the history of the Republican Party in the 19th Century.
“Democracy Awakening” is a look at how America’s politics changed into the current crisis in democracy, what that crisis looks like, and using history as a guide, helps us understand where to go in the future.
In this interview, Prof. Richardson discusses much of this, with side-journeys into the 19th Century and some current issues.
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Mick Herron discusses his latest novel, “The Secret Hours,” and the Slough House series of of spy novels and stories with host Richard Wolinsky.
Mick Herron has written eight books in the Slough House series of novels about a tiny corner of MI5 for rejects and misfits, people who have screwed up but not been fired. They are known collectively as “Slow Horses,” which is the title of the television series starring Gary Oldman as their boss, Jackson Lamb.
“The Secret Hours” is located in the same world as the series, but serves as a stand-alone novel about an inquiry into MI5’s past, set up by a conservative government out to rein in the Secret Service.
In the interview, Mick Herron discusses the origins of the book and of the Slough House series, as well as his career as a writer, and his writing process. Recorded via Zencastr September 22, 2023.
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John Scalzi, noted science fiction/fantasy author, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, during the promotion period for his latest novel, “Starter Villain.” .
John Scalzi has written over thirty books, five of which are non-fiction, plus short stories, essays, chapbooks and audio books. His specialty is the comic science fiction/fantasy novel, often dealing with common tropes in films and television, figuring out how they would work in real life (Kaiju monsters, Star Trek red shirts, etc). His best known works include the Old Man’s War series, and several of his stories have been nominated and won various awards.
His latest novel, “Starter Villain,” looks at James Bond type supervillains and how they might operate in the real world. The book also serves as a satire on the egotism and hubris of the very rich.
John Scalzi has also written for television, and several of his stories have been adopted for the “Love, Death and Robots” series on Netflix. He has raised money for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and has been a strong supporter of feminist causes. His blog, Whatever won a Hugo Award for Best Fan Writing.
This interview was recorded via zencastr August 21, 2023, embargoed until September 19, 2023.
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Dawn Porter, documentary filmmaker, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded on Zencastr, September 11, 2023.
Dawn Porter’s work has appeared on ESPN, HBO, Netflix, PBS and other streamers. Her film Trapped, focusing on abortion clinics in the South, won a special prize at Sundance in 2016 along with a Peabody Award. Her 2013 documentary, Gideon’s Army, her first film, focusing on public defender attorneys in the South, is now part of the US Deparment of State’s American Film Showcase.
She is also the director of John Lewis: Good Trouble, which focuses on the late Congressman and activist. Her most recent projects are The Lady Bird Diaries, which was shown at SXSW Film Festival and the four part documentary series, Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, which airs on Showtime starting September 23rd. Other recent projects include the short film Bree Wayy, about the life of Brionna Taylor, also on Showtime Paramount Plus. Gideon’s Army is available for free on the Tubi app.
Dawn Porter will be appearing live at Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive on September 21st, 22nd and 23rd to discuss her work. On September 21st with The Lady Bird Diaries and September 23rd with Gideon’s Army. See bampfa.org for the times and details of the events. Special thanks to A.J. Fox and Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archives.
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BookwavesGemma Whelan, whose latest novel is titled “Painting Through The Dark,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded via zencastr on April 5, 2023.
‘Painting Through the Dark” concerns a young ex-nun in Ireland, Ashling, who comes to America in 1981, specifically San Francisco, in order to get away from her family and from the control of the Catholic Church in Ireland. A dedicated painter, after spending time attempting to get a job at a local gallery, she takes a position with a family in a rural home outside Mendocino.
This is Gemma Whelan’s second novel. Her first, “Fiona: Stolen Child,” was published in 2011. Gemma is an award-winning director, screenwriter, and educator. She was the founding Artistic Director of Wilde Irish Productions in the San Francisco Bay Area, and of Corrib Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Her short film The Wake was the winner of the Silver Knight Award at the Golden Knight Film Festival, Malta; her feature screenplay Eye of the Storm won the Robert and Ellen Little Screenwriting Award; and her screenplay Wedding Bells won the American Gem Short Screenplay award and was optioned by Fox Broadcasting.
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Jacqueline Woodson, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, while on tour for her novel Another Brooklyn, recorded September 20, 2016. The interview was posted as a podcast on October 30, 2016. Jacqueline Woodson is known for her young adult novels, and won the National Book Award for Young Peoples Literature in 2014 for Brown Girl Dreaming. She was in the KPFA studios to discuss Another Brooklyn, her first adult novel in over two decades. Since that time, Jacqueline Woodson has come out with two middle school novels, Harbor Me and Before the Ever After, the adult novel Red at the Bone, and two illustrated children’s books. Another Brooklyn tells the story of four African American girls growing up in Brooklyn during the 1970s, focusing on August, a transplant from the South with a single father, growing up during a turbulent era and struggling to find herself. The post Jacqueline Woodson, “Another Brooklyn,” 2016 appeared first on KPFA.
Martin Amis (1949-2023), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in the KPFA studios, January 27, 1998 while on tour for his novel, “Night Train,” published in 1997. This is the second of five interviews with Martin Amis for KPFA’s Probabilities/Bookwaves program, which were recorded over a period of 23 years. Along with Night Train, he discusses his novel which was published in 1995, The Information. The three books he discusses at the end of the interview were a short story collection, Heavy Water and Other Stories, which came out later in 1998, a much celebrated memoir and Booker prize winner, Experience, in published in 2000, and another long novel, Yellow Dog, a satire focusing on British ideas of masculinity and patrimony, published in 2003. Known for such novels as London Fields, Money, Time’s Arrow, The Information and The Zone of Interest, the Booker Prize winning memoir, Experience, and his essay collection The War Against Cliché, Martin Amis was he son of novelist and essayist Kingsley Amis, He was also close friends with Christopher Hitchens, Saul Bellow and Philip Larkin, all of whom he wrote about in his final memoir disguised as a novel, Inside Story, in 2020. This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in August 2023 by Richard Wolinsky, has not been heard since its original broadcast. and has never been heard in its complete form. The post Martin Amis II, “Night Train,” “The Information,” 1998 appeared first on KPFA.
Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) was a leading light in the field of crime and noir fiction. Author of such novels as Get Shorty, Stick, Rum Punch and other thrillers which became films, he also was the vision behind the now classic television show, Justified and its new sequel Justified: City Primeval, based on his novel City Primeval.
In this documentary using material from interviews conducted in 1988 and 1989, host Richard Wolinsky lets Elmore speak, in his own words, about his career and his writing process. Produced by Richard Wolinsky. Interviews originally conducted by Richard A. Lupoff, Richard Wolinsky and Lawrence Davidson. Podcast originally posted July 23, 2017. Photo: Creative Commons. The post Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), 1988-89 appeared first on KPFA.
Tony Hillerman, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, was a master of the detective genre and an important writer in detailing life on the Navajo reservation. His several novels featuring Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee have been acclaimed for their accuracy and for their ability to combine Navajo history and thought into strong plot-driven novels. There are four interviews with Tony Hillerman in the Probabilities and Bookwaves archive. This first interview, conducted by Richard A. Lupoff, the late co-host of Probabilities, was recorded on January 14, 1987 in a hotel in San Francisco while Hillerman was on tour for his novel, Skinwalkers, the seventh in the series, and the first to feature both Leaphorn and Chee. He would continue to write a total of eighteen books in the series, and his daughter, Anne Hillerman, has continued the series with eight more novels, the most recent being The Way of the Bear, which was published in April, 2023. Tony Hillerman also wrote four novels outside the series, and several books of non-fiction and photography. The Dark Wind was adapted into a theatrical film in 1991. Three other novels were adapted as TV movies for PBS, and Dark Winds, a streaming series currently on AMC, is adapted from Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee novels. The post The Probabilities Archive: Tony Hillerman (1925-2008) I, 1987 appeared first on KPFA.
The works of Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) seem to have fallen into some kind of unwarranted obscurity in recent years. An author of science fiction, horror and fantasy stories, during his lifetime he was considered a master of genre fiction. It was Fritz Leiber, according to Wikipedia, who coined the term sword and sorcery to refer to fantasy stories set in medieval times involving knights and squires and castles and dragons and all sorts of magic. His own sword and sorcery duo, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser whose stories were collected in several volumes, along with characters such as Conan the Barbarian by his contemporary, Robert E. Howard, are considered among the most notable in the genre. A stylist at a time when there were few stylists in science fiction and fantasy, his books often had social themes, including Gather Darkness, set in a future religious dystopia, The Wanderer, which explores what happens when a rogue planet comes near earth, and Our Lady of Darkness, which sets up a lovecraftian world inside modern day San Francisco. Back in the very early days of Probabilities, the three hosts (Lawrence Davidson, Richard A. Lupoff, Richard Wolinsky) associated socially with Fritz Leiber. There were three recordings to emerge from that time. One of them, focusing on Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser, exists only as a reel to reel tape, still to be digitized. Another was recorded in Leiber’s apartment on Geary Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, when Leiber was more expansive than usual. In that recording, only Fritz’s voice is intelligible. The third was an interview with Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in KPFA’s studios during Science Fiction Day on the KPFA fund-raising marathon in September 1977. This podcast features that third recording, with two inserts from the Geary Street session, duplicating and expanding on some of the material in Dick Lupoff’s interview. Dick’s interview has not been heard since its initial airing in 1978, and the Geary Street inserts have never been heard until now. This podcast was digitized, remastered and edited in August 2023. The post The Probabilities Archive: Fritz Leiber (1910-1992), 1977 appeared first on KPFA.
Lisa See, whose latest novel is “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women,” is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded via zencastr on July 14, 2023. Lisa See’s best-selling books include Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, China Dolls, and most recently, The Island of Sea Women. Each novel, thus far, focuses on the role and lives of women of East Asian descent in various countries, including Korea, Japan, China and the United States. Some of the novels focus on a mystery, others take place within the context of historical events. Her latest novel, “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women” looks at the life of an historical figure, a female doctor of upper class birth living in China in the 15th Century. As Lisa notes in the interview, the circumscribed life of Tan Yuxian bears a startling resemblence to the isolation we all felt during the Covid lockdown. The post Lisa See, “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women,” 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
Lillian Ross (1918-2017), in conversation in June, 2002 with host Richard Wolinsky. Encore podcast originally posted September 30, 2017. Lillian Ross, who died on September 20, 2017 at the age of 99, spent seven decades as a staff writer for the New Yorker Magazine, beginning in 1945. Writing for the Talk of the Town section of the magazine, her credo was “Your attention at all times should be on your subject, not on you. Do not call attention to yourself.” In 1950, her profile of Ernest Hemingway, according to the New York Times, elevated her into the top ranks of New Yorker stylists. Using novelistic techniques for writing non-fiction, she is often credited as the primary influence of what came to be called “new journalism” as exemplified in her series of articles about the making of the John Huston film, The Red Badge of Courage, which were collected in the book, Picture, often called the best book ever written about Hollywood. She spent several years as the mistress of long-time New Yorker editor Willliam Shawn, as chronicled in her book Here But Not Here, from 1998. This interview with Lillian Ross took place on June 4, 2002 on the publication of her book, “Reporting Back: Notes on Journalism.” Of this particular discussion she later wrote, “ It’s the first time I ever listened to any kind of broadcast on my power book, and I was amazed. It’s the first interview I’ve ever experienced that sounded interesting to me and sounded true to me. That of course is because of you, your questions, your general interest, your understanding, and your response, and then, your editing. I do thank you. I’m very grateful. With great admiration, Lillian Ross.” Lillian Ross’s final piece, a profile of J.D. Salinger after his death, was published in 2012. John Huston, Lillian Ross and Audie Murphy on the set of “Red Badge of Courage.” Lillian Ross and longtime New Yorker editor William Shawn. The post Lillian Ross (1918-2017), “Reporting Back: Notes on Journalism,” 2002 appeared first on KPFA.
Kate MacKay. Photo: BAMPFA Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator at Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, discusses a retrospective of the films of the great Spanish director Luis Bunuel playing through November 19, 2023, with host Richard Wolinsky. Luis Bunuel began his career working with Salvador Dali on the film “Un Chien Andalou,” a masterpiece of the Surrealist movement. After working on another film with Dali, “L’Age d’Or,” and creating a documentary known today as “Las Hurdes” (Land Without Bread), he spent nearly two decades in the Mexican film industry before coming to Hollywood first, and then working with European producers to create masterwork after masterwork, from Viridiana to Belle du Jour to Tristana, The Exterminating Angel, TheDiscreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie through to The Phantom of Liberty and That Obscure Object of Desire. The retrospective contains all the later films plus several rarely seen films from his Mexican period. Recorded at BAMPFA July 7, 2023. Special thanks to AJ Fox. Pacific Film Archive film series listing. The post Kate MacKay: The Films of Luis Bunuel, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
Stuart Klawans, author of “Crooked but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Stuart Klawans was film critic for the Nation from 1988 to 2021, and before that wrote a small press and poetry column for the magazine. His previous books were Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order, and a collection of his reviews and essays from 1988 to 2001, Left in the Dark.
Preston Sturges was the first in the Hollywood sound era to write and direct his own films, creating a series of movies, from The Great McGinty in 1940, through The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and other classics to Unfaithfully Yours in 1948, that still resonate today. A retrospective of the films of Preston Sturges runs at Pacific Film Archive July 27th through August 26th, and Stuart Klawans will be on hand to introduce The Great McGinty on July 27th, The Lady Eve on July 29th and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek on July 30th. You can find out more at bampfa.org. All the films mentioned in the interview are available streaming either for rental via Amazon or Apple, or in the case of Unfaithfully Yours, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock and The Great Moment, free on YouTube. NOTE: There were two Preston Sturges films released after Unfaithfully Yours, which Stuart Klawans notes in his book, They are The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend and a French co-production, released as The French They Are A Funny Race. The first has little to recommend it, and the latter is a bastardized version of what might have been a better film.
Photos courtesy BAM/PFA. Radio Wolinsky page photo from The Lady Eve. Special thanks to AJ Fox and Kate MacKay. Recorded via Zencastr July 6, 2023.
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Yiyun Li discussing her first novel, “The Vagrants,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, February 10, 2009.
Yiyun Li is an award winning author of novels and short stories. Born in China in 1972, she earned a BA at Peking University before coming to the united States and getting a degree in Immunology from the University of Iowa, eventually moving on to a Master of fine Arts in creative fiction and non-fiction from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker and Paris Review, and two of the stories from her collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers were adapted into films by Wayne Wang. She has also written five novels, the most recent The Book of Goose in 2022. This is the first of two interviews with Liyun Li. The second was recorded in 2014 for her novel, “Kinder than Solitude.”
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Film critic Richard Schickel (1933-2017) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded May 15, 2003 . Originally posted July 17, 2017. Richard Schickel, who died on February 18, 2017 at the age of 84, spent forty-five years as film critic for Time Magazine. During his lifetime he wrote 36 books, most of them about film, and produced and directed thirty-four documentaries, all about film. This interview was recorded while he was publicizing his book, ““Good Morning Mr. Zip Zip Zip: Movies, Memory and World War II.” In the book he discusses his early love of movies, and more importantly, the movies as propaganda element during World War II. The interview occurred during the height of the invasion of Iraq, and of course that element came into play. Notes on the interview: Fourteen years after this interview, a musical version of “Monsoon Wedding” directed by Mira Nair played to large crowds at Berkeley Rep and played at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York, closing June 25, 2023. Of the two films to look out for, both Veronica Guerin and Mystic River were listed in his top ten of that year While Veronica Guerin never made a mark, Mystic River was nominated for six Oscars including best picture, and won two,, best actor for Sean Penn and best supporting actor for Tim Robbins. He continued to write. Richard Schickel’s final book, published in 2015, was Keepers: The Greatest Films, and Personal Favorites of a Moviegoing Lifetime. He retired from Time Magazine in 2010. His final book, Keepers: The Greatest Films, and personal favorites of a movie-going career, was published in 2015. The post Richard Schickel (1933-2017), “Good Morning Mr. Zip Zip Zip,” 2003 appeared first on KPFA.
David Grann, whose latest book is “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded June 14, 2023 at Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California. David Grann is a long-time staff writer for The New Yorker. Earlier books include Killers of the Flower Moon, soon to be a film directed by Martin Scorsese, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, a collection of essays, and The Lost City of Z. The Wager tells the story of the HMS Wager, one of a handful of British ships sent around Cape Horn to harass the Spanish fleet in the Pacific, which went aground near the Strait of Magellan, and of the crew members who survived (and didn’t) during the following year, and of the aftermath back in England. In the interview, David Grann also discusses the origins of Killers of the Flower Moon, and the relationship between all three of his books. Photos: Richard Wolinsky. The post David Grann, “The Wager,” 2023 appeared first on KPFA.
Fay Weldon (1931-2023) who died on January 4th, 2023 at the age of 91, published 31 novels during her lifetime, including The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, one of four novels which later became films. She was also a playwright, short story writer, television writer and non-fiction author. Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed her twice in the KPFA studios. This second interview was recorded on January 21, 1992 while she was on tour for two novels, Darcy’s Utopia and Life Force
Fay Weldon’s career continued for the next thirty years after the interview with several novels, including a sequel to She-Devil, more plays, more short stories and several works of non-fiction. Her book about therapists, Affliction, was published in January, 1993 and is not currently in print. This interview was digitized, remastered, and edited in June, 2023 by Richard Wolinsky. The is the first time the entire interview has seen the light of day. First Fay Weldon interview, recorded March 1990 while she was on tour for The Cloning of Joanna May. The post Fay Weldon (1931-2023) II, “Darcy’s Utopia” and “Life Force,” 1992 appeared first on KPFA.
Pride Month Special Podcast Alan Hollinghurst, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded on October 18, 2005 in the KPFA studios during the tour for the trade paperback edition of “The Line of Beauty,” which won the 2005 Booker Prize for Fiction. Earlier novels by Alan Hollinghurst include his breakthrough novel, The Swimming Pool Library, along with The Folding Star and The Spell. The Line of Beauty became an acclaimed television miniseries in 2006 (and was being filmed at the time of the interview) starring Dan Stevens, and is currently streaming only in England. A second interview, recorded in 2011 while Alan Hollinghurst was touring for his novel, The Stranger’s Child, longlisted for the Booker, will be posted at a later date. His latest novel, The Sparshot Affair, was published in 2017. The post Alan Hollinghurst, “The Line of Beauty,” 2005 appeared first on KPFA.
Martin Amis (1949-2023), in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky for the “Probabilities” program, recorded in the KPFA studios November 26, 1991 while on tour for the paperback edition of “London Fields.” First of five interviews conducted over a 23 year span.
Martin Amis, who died of esophageal cancer on May 19th, 2023 at the age of 73, was a leading English novelist, essayist, memoirist and screenwriter. Known for such novels as London Fields, Money, Time’s Arrow, The Information and The Zone of Interest, his memoir Experience won the Booker Prize, and his essay collection The War Against Cliché is now considered a classic. The son of novelist and essayist Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis was close friends with Christopher Hitchens, Saul Bellow and Philip Larkin, all of whom he wrote about in his final novel, which was actually a memoir, Inside Story, in 2020.
This is the first of five interviews recorded with Martin Amis. and has not been heard in over a quarter century and was digitized, remastered and edited in May, 2023. Front photo by Richard Wolinsky in the KPFA studios in 2014.
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Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007), interviewed by Richard Wolinsky in February 1983, recorded in a car in the Santa Cruz mountains during a rainstorm. Digitized, remastered and edited in May, 2023.
Robert Anton Wilson had a remarkable career. Starting as a writer of comic science fiction based on historical stories of conspiracy, his work soon turned in the direction of physics, psychology, and futurism, and described himself as an agnostic mystic. In the religion or philosophy known as discordianism, he is considered both pope and saint.
A journalist in his early career, he co-edited the Playboy Magazine forum, and covered the work of both Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, later known as Ram Dass. Most of his best known works were written in the 1970s and 1980s, though he continued to write non-fiction into the 21st century. These include The Illuminati Trilogy, co-written with Robert Shea, The Schrodinger’s Cat and Cosmic Trigger trilogies, and Prometheus Rising. His early works were published by large commercial presses; his later by small presses. Most, of not all, of his books still remain in print. The three books mentioned toward the end of the interview were all published and are all available.
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Russell Banks (1940-2023), who died on January 7, 2023, in conversation with Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios on June 7, 2000 while on tour for his short story collection, The Angel on the Roof. First of two interviews.
Russell Banks, who died on January 7th, 2023 at the age of 82 was a master of long and short form fiction. In a career that began in 1975 and continued to his death, there were 14 novels, six collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry, and three works of non-fiction. Among his novels were Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, both of which became critically acclaimed films, plus Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter. His most recent novel, The Magic Kingdom, was published in 2022. The interview was digitized, remastered and edited in January 2023
Russell Banks Wikipedia page
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Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) Excerpts from various sources, including KPFA, of Philip K. Dick discussing his career, his books, and his life, originally created as a memorial program by Richard Wollnsky, Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson in the spring of 1982. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky.
When science fiction writer Philip K. Dick died of a stroke on March 2, 1982 at the age of 53, most of the literary world shrugged and the entertainment world barely took notice. The film Blade Runner, based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, was still a few months from its release.
Today, IMDb lists nearly fifty adaptations for film, TV and other media, which includes twelve feature films and a handful of television series, from Total Recall to A Scanner Darkly to Minority Report to The Man in the High Castle and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.
The science fiction world, though, knew it had lost one of the all time greats. Between the time the KPFA show Probabilities started in the February of 1977 until Phil Dick’s death five years later, Dick Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson, and Richard Wolinsky never did get a chance to fully interview him for the program, though over the years they’d collected several excerpts to use in a two-part memorial program which was aired some time in the spring of 1982.
The show consisted of commentary and explanations from all three of us interspersed with these excerpts. As is pointed out a couple of times in the program, the sound quality of the excerpts is very uneven, and even with digital tweaking, some of it may be unintelligible. This is the two-part show that originally aired, minus a few musical segments along with an outro from part one, and intro and outro from part two. The program was never rebroadcast, and the cassette sat in a closet for the next forty years, until it was digitized, remastered and edited in 2023.
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Norah Piehl, who is the Director of Literary Programs at the Bay Area Book Festival, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
The Bay Area Book Festival is in its 9th season and runs Saturday and Sunday May 6th and 7th in various venues around Berkeley, including the Berkeley Public Library and Freight & Salvage. Among the guests are singer and activist Joan Baez, novelist and cyber-expert Cory Doctorow, playwright V (Eve Ensler), historian Adam Hochschild, and novelists Dave Eggars and Jane Smiley.
Norah Piehl has been the Director of LIterary Programs since November, 2021 and before that served as the Executive Director of the Boston Book Festival. She is a freelance writer, and the author of a series of books titled “Social Issues Firsthand.
Website for the Bay Area Book Festival.
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Don Winslow, author of “City of Dreams,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded via zencastr on April 12, 2023
Don Winslow is the author of 22 novels, many of which focus on crime and the criminal underworld, including The Cartel, The Force, Savages (which became an Oliver Stone film), and The Border. His latest novel, “City of Dreams”, continues the saga of “City on Fire,” which told of a mob war using as a template the story of the Trojan War, The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and other works. In this latest novel, we follow the character of Danny Ryan, (Aeneas) as he finds himself in Hollywood, and falling in love with one of filmdom’s biggest stars, which tells the story of Aeneas and Dido, with forays into the Odyssey and the greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Europides. The third volume, which shifts the locale to Las Vegas, is scheduled to be published in April, 2024. Don Winslow has stated that this will be his final novels.
Don Winslow also produces political videos aimed at saving the American democracy from insurrectionists and fascists, and is a vital force on Twitter.
Photos: Richard Wolinsky.
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Jason Graae discusses his latest show, “Faith Prince and Jason Graae,” which was at Feinsteins at the Nikko, April 14-April 15, along with his early career on Broadway and elsewhere with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded April 10, 2023 on zencastr.
Jason Graae has appeared on Broadway in A Grand Night for Singing, Falsettos, Stardust, and Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? and off-Broadway in several shows, including the original cast of Forever Plaid. He’s appeared on television as a guest on Frasier, Friends, China Beach and other shows, and has appeared innumerable times in various concerts. He has also sung on over 45 CDs, including reconstructions of several musicals of the 1920s through 1940s.
Jason Graae has performed several times with both 42nd Street Moon and Musical Theatre West, and along with various benefit concerts for Moon, he appeared on “Scrooge in Love” on the Gateway Theatre stage in late 2019
Jason Graae website.
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Justine Bateman, actress and director, author of “Fame: The Hijacking of Reality,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded at Green Apple Books on the Park on San Francisco on October 27, 2018.
Justine Bateman jump-started her career at the age of sixteen with the role of Mallory in the hit television show “Family Ties.” She went on to other television shows, films and stage presentations before turning to directing and getting university degrees after she turned forty. Her book “Fame” details, from personal experience, what it’s like to be famous at an early age, how one deals with fame, and how a member of the public deals with a famous person. She details the ups and downs of fame, from the first time fans take notice to the later times, when nobody takes notice. Her first film as writer/director is Violet, released in 2021, which can be found on the free library app, Kanopy and on Paramount+/Showtime..
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Donald Spoto (1941-2023), noted biographer, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded June 18, 1997 while on tour for “Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman.”
The legendary biographer Donald Spoto died on February 11th, 2023 at the age of 81. Among his works were biographies of Alfred Hitchcock, Marlene Dietrich, Tennessee Williams, Lawrence Olivier, the House of Windsor, James Dean and several others.
This is the first of three interviews about his subjects and about the art of biography. The second interview was conducted a year later for The Hidden Jesus: A New Life. The third and final interview was recorded in 2000 for Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, A Life. Later biographies focused on Francis of Assisi, Alan Bates, Grace Kelly and the Redgraves. His final biography, published in 2016 focused on the life of actress Teresa Wright.
Digitized, remastered and edited on April 1, 2023. This interview has not been heard since its original 1997 broadcast.
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Rebecca Makkai, whose latest novel is “I Have Some Questions for You,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Rebecca Makkai is the author of three earlier novels, The Great Believers, The Hundred Year House and The Borrowers, and one collection of stories, Music for Wartime.
This latest novel is a mystery of sorts that takes place in a New England boarding school and involves a murder that took place twenty years earlier, a murder in which an athletic coach was arrested and convicted, but likely isn’t the guilty party.
In this fast-paced book, Rebecca Makkai takes on the Me Too movement, misogyny in high school, true crime podcasts, and hidden abuse.
The interview was recorded on March 2, 2023 at Green Apple Books on the Park in san Francisco. Photos: Richard Wolinsky.
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John Sayles discusses his latest novel, “Jamie MacGillivray, The Renegade’s Journey,” along with his work as a writer and film-maker, with host Richard Wolinsky.
John Sayles is best known for his work as a director, screenwriter and actor, though this is his sixth novel. Among the films he directed are Lone Star, Sunshine State, Eight Men Out, Matewan, The Brother from Another Planet, Baby It’s You and Passion Fish. His acting credits include small roles in several films, and he wrote the screenplay for the films he directed.
His novel “Jamie MacGillivray, The Renegade’s Journey” follows the characters of Jamie, a Scotsman captured by the English after the Battle of Culloden, and Jenny, another captured refugee from Scotland, as they make their way to the New World, Jamie winding up in a Native American village and Jenny moving from the Caribbean to Quebec, both of them involved in the French and Indian Wars. Photos: Richard Wolinsky.
Recorded March 1, 2023 at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California. Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli and the staff at the bookstore.
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Joe Ngo, who plays the role of Chum, the father, in “Cambodian Rock Band,” by Lauren Yee, and won an Obie for his performance at the Signature Theatre in New York, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.
Joe Ngo is an actor and musician, and has been performing in “Cambodian Rock Band” since its origins at the Ground Floor, Berkeley Rep’s Center for the Creation and Development of New Work in 2016 before moving on to Houston and New York. Previously he acted in regional theatre in both “King of the Yees” and “Viet Gone,” as well as other plays.
In the interview, he discusses how “Cambodian Rock Band” evolved, his own development as a musician, his relationship to the material in the show — both his parents lived through the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields era in Cambodia before migrating to America — and his career as an actor. Photos: Berkeley Rep; Joe Ngo. Recorded via zencastr due to ongoing Covid protocols on March 8, 2023.
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Robert Olen Butler, author of the novel “Perfume River,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, October 25, 2016.
Robert Olen Butler is the author of several novels and short story collections. His collection, “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain” won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The author of sixteen novels and six collections of short stories, his best-known works focus on the legacy of Vietnam, either looking at the war itself or on its aftermath in Vietnam and in America. “Perfume River” tells the story of a Vietnam vet, struggling with his entry to old age, and with his older parents, one of whom has his own secrets from World War II, and with his brother, who ran to Canada rather than be conscripted. Robert Olen Butler also writes a series of thrillers set during World War I featuring reporter Christopher Marlowe Cobb,
This interview with Robert Olen Butler was originally posted on January 26th 2017. Two novels have come out since this interview. Paris in the Dark, a Christopher Marlowe Cobb thriller in September 2018 and Late City, published in September 2021.
Robert Olen Butler website
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Paul Auster, author of several novels, screenplays, books of poetry and film director, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded on February 14, 2017 in the KPFA studios while on tour for his still most recent novel, 4 3 2 1.
Paul Auster’s novel is an epic 850 page story of how circumstance changes us. Archie Ferguson takes four different directions in this novel: in one his family has become rich, in another they’re poor, in a third he loses his father in a fire, and in a fourth he remains middle class. With the same genes, each Archie grows up differently. Born in New Jersey in 1947 (as is Paul Auster), Archie is precocious, a writer … the book shows how different developments lead to different outcomes: whether you go left, right, or straight ahead, something might happen that will change your life. In the interview, Paul Auster also talks about his film-making career and about how his life relates to this novel.
As of February, 2023, 4 3 2 1 remains Paul Auster’s most recent novel to date. Since that publication, there have been five non-fiction works, most recently Bloodbath Nation, an 89 page essay with photographs on gun culture in The United States, published in January 2023, Burning Boy, a biography of the poet and author of The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane, published in October 2021, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Groundwork, a collection of autobiographical writings, published in May 2020, and Talking to Strangers, a collection of other writings, published in 2019, and A Life in Words, a dialogue between Paul Auster and the Danish philosopher I. B. Siegumfeldt, published in October 2017. This podcast was first posted on April 1, 2017.
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Luis Alfaro, playwright, whose latest play is “The Travelers,” at the Magic Theatre in Fort Mason, San Francisco, February 15 – March 5, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Luis Alfaro is a Los Angeles-based Chicano activist and playwright, on the faculty at USC, whose plays have been performed throughout the United States and who is a former playwright in residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, discusses his life and career in this full hour interview. Among his previous works are “Oedipus el Rey” and “Bruja,” both of which were performed at the Magic.
“The Travelers” is set in the small town of Grangeville, near Fresno, in a monastery, into which stumbles a man who has been shot. The interview was recorded via zencastr on February 7, 2023.
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Fay Weldon (1931-2023) who died on January 4th, 2023 at the age of 91, published 31 novels during her lifetime, including The Life and Loves of a She Devil, one of four novels which later became films. She was also a playwright, short story writer, television writer and non-fiction author. Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed her in the KPFA studios in March 1990 while she was on tour for her now classic novel, The Cloning of Joanna May.
Fay Weldon’s career continued for the next thirty years after the interview with several novels, including a sequel to She-Devil, more plays, more short stories and several works of non-fiction. We had a second chance to interview Fay Weldon two years later while she was on tour for her novel, Life Force. That interview will air later this year.
This interview was digitized, remastered, and edited in February, 2023 by Richard Wolinsky. First time on the air in over thirty years.
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Jane Smiley, whose latest novel is “A Dangerous Business,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
The author of seventeen adult fiction novels, two short story collections, five non-fiction works plus several young adult novels, Jane Smiley is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “A Thousand Acres,” and more recently The Last Hundred Years Trilogy. She current teaches creative writing.
“A Dangerous Business” takes us to Monterey, California in the early 1850s as Eliza Ripple, newly widowed and still only eighteen, winds up at a house of prostitution in order to survive and have a life of her own. The book follows her as she meets a friend who works out of a similar house for women, and the two embark on the trail of a murderer of women. Recorded January 20, 2023.
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Dennis Lim, film critic and Artistic Director of the New York Film Festival and author of “Tale of Cinema,” an examination of the work of South Korean film-maker Hong Sang-soo, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky.
Dennis Lim was previously the the director of programming of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Before that he was film editor at the Village Voice, and has taught at Harvard University and NYU. His first book, David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, was published in 2015.
His new book, Tale of Cinema about the South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, focuses on all of Hong’s work through the lens of the 2005 film of the same name. Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, BAMPFA is having a retrospective of seven of Hong Sangsoo’s films from February 3rd through February 18th, including Tale of Cinema on opening night. Most of Hong’s films are available for rental through Apple and Amazon streaming, and ten can be found on the free library app, Kanopy, including two from the BAM/PFA retrospective.
Photos courtesy Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)
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Jack O’Brien, theatre director and author of Jack in the Box, or How to Goddamn Direct, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.
Jack O’Brien has won three Tony Awards and has been nominated seven times. The former artistic director of The Old Globe in San Diego, from 1981 to 2007, he’s one of the premier directors working in America today. Among his Broadway shows are The Full Monty, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can and The Coast of Utopia. He directed the much lauded 2018 revival of Carousel on Broadway. Most recently, in 2021, he directed Hairspray in London.
This book, his second after a memoir, Jack Be Nimble, discusses some of the lessons he has learned as a director, but quickly changes into reminiscences about such performers as Marsha Mason, Jerry Lewis and John Goodman, playwright Tom Stoppard, and fellow director Mike Nichols.
The interview focuses on his early career, the future of theatre after the pandemic, directing Shakespeare, and other issues.
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Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded over Halloween Weekend, 1981 at the World Fantasy Convention in the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley.
Suzy McKee Charnas, who died on January 2nd, 2023 at the age of 83, was a novelist and short story writer focusing on fantasy and science fiction. Over a career that began in 1974 with her first novel, Walk to the End of the World, she wrote eleven novels and several short stories, winning both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best short stories. She is best known for her tetralogy of novels, The Holdfast Chronicles, beginning with the aforementioned Walk to the End of the World and concluding with The Conquerer’s Child in 1999.
In 1981, she had just written three novels, focusing on feminist issues in a field that was still dominated by men. Her second novel, Motherlines, which featured no male characters at all, was decades ahead of its time.
A lot has changed since 1981, and the interview also serves as a time capsule in terms of both questions and answers, and in regard to feminist writing, publishing and genre writing.
She continued to work steadily after 1981, but she wrote no more novels after 1999, though short stories continued to be published. None of her works were adapted for television or film, though she did adapt The Vampire Tapestry for the stage in 2001.
The interview aired once shortly after the recording, and was digitized, remastered and edited on January 4, 2023.
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Frank Galati (1943-2023), who died on January 2, 2023 at the age of 79, was a giant in American theatre.
A long-time member of the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Frank Galati was winner of Tony Awards for the adaptation and direction of The Grapes of Wrath in 1990, was nominated for an Oscar for co-adapting The Accidental Tourist for the screen, and was the director of Ragtime and The Pirate Queen on Broadway. Frank Galati is also known for adapting several other works for stage and screen.
Frank Galati was in the San Francisco Bay Area to direct a production of “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco at ACT’s Geary Theatre, and it was in ACT’s offices that this interview took place on May 22, 2019.
“Rhinoceros” is considered to be one of the greatest works of political theatre of the absurd. Originally produced in the late 1950s, the play hearkens back to the origins of fascism and how propaganda infects the minds of citizens.
At the end of the interview, Frank Galati discusses his upcoming project, a musical version of James Agee’s “A Death in the Family,” with music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime, A Man of No Importance). The show, titled “Knoxville” made its world premiere at the Asolo Repertory Company in Sarasota Florida in April 2022, and an original cast album was released digitally in October and on disc in November, 2022. First posted as a Bay Area Theater podcast on June 2, 2019.
Photos: Richard Wolinsky.
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Richard Adams (1920-2016) interviewed in 1978 by Richard Wolinsky. First posted January 1, 2017.
Richard Adams, the author of “Watership Down,” “Plague Dogs” “Shardik” and other novels, died on Christmas Eve, 2016 at the age of 96. Born in 1920, he served as a liaison officer during World War II, and later joined the civil service, rising to the rank of Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Housing.
Past the age of fifty and a life-long civil servant, Richard Adams began telling stories to his daughters about talking rabbits while on a car trip. The daughters prompted him to turn the stories into a novel. After four failed attempts, a fifth try in 1972 found a publisher and “Watership Down” became an international best-seller and later a beloved classic fantasy.
He followed that with “Shardik,” a novel about a giant bear. Along the way, Adams became an advocate against the use of animal testing, which is the subject of his third novel, “The Plague Dogs.”
It was on tour for that third novel upon its American publication in the spring of 1978 that Richard Wolinsky interviewed Richard Adams. Though he’d conducted a handful of interviews with a co-host, this was Richard Wolinsky’s first solo shot in what would be a long career as literary interviewer.
Though Adams continued to write well into the 21st Century and would publish fourteen more books , he never again achieved the success of his first few novels, especially of course Watership Down. Watership Down and The Plague Dogs both became animated films; a live action film of another novel. The Girl in a Swing, was released in 1988. Watership Down also became a 39 episode TV series in from 1999 to 2001. A new mini-series of Watership Down from BBC One can be found on Netflix, featuring the voices of James McAvoy, Ben Kingsley, Nicholas Hoult and John Boyega.
The interview was digitized, remastered and edited in 2016 by Richard Wolinsky. The exact date and location of the interview were not listed on the cassette.
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Encore podcast first posted March 12, 2017.
Douglas Preston, author of “The Lost City of the Monkey God” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, January 13, 2017.
Douglas Preston has written several works of fiction and non-fiction, including a best-selling series of thrillers co-written with Lincoln Child (the Agent Pendergast series). In his latest work of non-fiction, Preston delves into the story of a lost city in Honduras, in Mosquitia, and a civilization that vanished after the Spanish came to the Americas.
His story involves con men and crooks who spent decades looking for the city, then turns to a documentarian who became obsessed and eventually took state of the art equipment to discover whether such a city exists. In fact, he found two, and Douglas Preston was there. Still later, in 2015, Preston went on an expedition into the jungle to see what remains of the ruins, and while there contracted a rare and often fatal tropical disease which is currently in remission.
This interview also contains an overview of Preston’s writing career, including a look at the process in which he and Lincoln Child create the Pendergast books. Since this interview, four Pendergast novels have been published with a fifth scheduled for 2023, one book in the Gideon Crew series, and three in a new series featuring Nora Kelly. “The Lost City of the Monkey God” remains his most recent non-fiction work.
Douglas Preston website
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Shelley Singer (1939-2022), mystery author of six Jake Samson mysteries and four Barrett Lake mysteries, and former book reviewer on KPFA, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded on November 19, 1986 at her East Bay home.
Mystery and suspense novelist Shelley Singer died of heart failure on November 10, 2022 at the age of 83. The author of six mysteries, two science fiction novels, one mainstream novel and several short stories, she was a key writer in the Sisters in Crime movement of the nineties. She also taught fiction writing and served as a manuscript consultant.
Richard Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky interviewed Shelley Singer at her home on November 19, 1986. At the time of the interview, she’d published three Jake Samson mysteries with a fourth on the way, along with an early science fiction novel.
A few months after the interview, she joined the two Richards for a monthly series of book review programs. Her participation lasted two or three years before she moved north and after a time chose to forgo the long commute to Berkeley.
Warm and welcoming, but not suffering fools, Shelley was a joy to work with, and her reviews were well-thought out and incisive. But it was her friendship at the time that was most important.
Over the course of the next decades of her life, Shelly continued to write Jake Samson mysteries, moved over to a new amateur detective, Barrett Lake, and began a three-volume science fiction series, of which the first volume, “Torch Song” was published in 2014.
“Torch Song” and the Jake Samson mysteries are available through Amazon. This interview was digitized and edited in December 2022 and has not been heard in over thirty years.
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William Gibson is best known as the father of the Cyberpunk movement in science fiction, beginning with “Neuromancer” in 1984 and continuing to his most recent novel, “Agency,” published in 2020. Its prequel in the Jackpot series from 2014, “Peripheral” is now an Amazon Prime TV series.
On February 4, 2003, he was in the KPFA studios on the book tour for his novel, “Pattern Recognition” and was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. In the interview he discusses his history as a writer, and the history of the internet (and its future). From a twenty year vantage point, it’s fascinating.
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Derek Goldman, co-playwright (with Clark Young) and director of “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” starring David Straithairn, playing at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through December 18th, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded by zencastr on November 16, 2022.
“Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” tells the story of holocaust witness Jan Karski, who was sent to Poland to report back on what he’d seen. When he returned to the United States and Britain, no one believed him when he spoke of the atrocities he’d seen. The play uses Karski’s words and Straithairn’s acting chops to bring to life his memories as a living camera to Nazi horrors, and as a warning about humanity’s inhumanity.
Derek Goldman is the Artistic Director for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, where he is a Professor of Theater and Performance Studies. Over the course of his career he’s authored more than thirty professionally produced plays and directed over 90 productions. A film version of “Remember This” played at film festivals in 2022 and is scheduled to air on “Great Performances” on PBS some time in 2023.
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Julie Powell (1973-2022) was the best-selling author of “Julie & Julia,” which was based on her blog posts in which she duplicated all of Julia Child’s recipes in the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky on December 16, 2009 while she was on tour for her second (and it turned out, her last) book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession.
Julie Powell died of cardiac arrest on October 26, 2022 at the age of 49. Shortly before her death, she began writing a series of articles about food for Salon. Julie & Julia became a hit Nora Ephron film with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Cleaving is the story of how she learned to be a butcher, intertwined with the story of the challenges in her marriage. The post Julie Powell (1973-2022), “Cleaving” and “Julie & Julia,” 2009 appeared first on KPFA.
Photo: Steve Tanner Emma Rice, whose latest production, an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” plays at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre November 18th through January 1st, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Emma Rice was formerly the Artistic Director of Kneehigh Theatre, which brought several shows to Berkeley Rep, including Brief Encounter, and The Wild Bride, along with 946 (The Story of Adolpho Tips). Her new company, Wise Children, as formed in 2017 following a short stint as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, produced several live video productions during the pandemic shutdown, including Wuthering Heights, which now airs on Sky Arts. The production of Wuthering Heights focuses not on the romance angle of previous adaptations, but on how it’s actually a story of abuse, revenge and passion, told with a Greek Chorus and some irreverence. Wise Children website. The post Emma Rice, playwright/director, “Wuthering Heights,” at Berkeley Rep appeared first on KPFA.
Lisa Ramirez, playwright, “The Book of Sand” at the Oakland Theater Project, November 11 – December 4th, and Associate Artistic Director of the Oakland Theater Project, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Lisa Ramirez is a bi-coastal actor and playwright. She recently appeared in “Water by the Spoonful” at San Francisco Playhouse. Among the plays she has written are “Exit Cuckoo,” a one-person play about nannies, and “To the Bone.” During the pandemic shutdown, she presented a solo version of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” in a parking lot in Oakland, using radios. She also works with the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles Oakland Theater Project website.
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Eyad and Helen. Photos: Ehab Onan Helen Benedict, co-author (with Eyad Awwadawnon) of “Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Helen Benedict is the author of seven novels, including “Wolf Season” and “Sand Queen,” and five books of non-fiction. Her latest book, “Map of Hope and Sorrow,” co-written by Eyad Awwadawnon, a Syrian refugee who was planning to get a law degree in Damascus, is partly an oral history of refugees coming to Greece after escaping from their home countries. Helen Benedict teaches journalism at Columbia University,. In the interview, she discusses how she first came to meet Eyad, and then takes a look at the stories of the refugees in the book, focusing on stories that didn’t quite make it into the book, and then looks at the harsh terrain of life in the camps. The post Helen Benedict, “Map of Hope and Sorrow,” 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
George Saunders, author of the short story collection, Liberation Day, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. George Saunders is the highly acclaimed author of several short story collections, including “Tenth of December,” and “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” and others, along with political commentary that has appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines. He won the 2017 Booker Prize for his only novel to date, “Lincoln in the Bardo.” This latest collection, “Liberation Day,” contains nine stories, some of which, including the title story, are science fiction. Others delve into the minds of people coping with their lives. There are subtle political implications in several of them, but all of them are stunning works of fiction. The interview was recorded on October 10, 2022 and was edited by Richard Wolinsky October 26-28, 2022. The post George Saunders, “Liberation Day,” 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
Clive Barker, noted horror and dark fantasy author, in conversation with the Probabilities crew, Richard A. Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and Richard Wolinsky, recorded September, 1987 while he was on tour for his fantasy novel, “Weaveworld.” Digitized, remastered and edited in October 2022. Hosted by Richard Wolinsky. The last quarter of the 20th century was a golden age of horror novels. Leading the pack, of course, was Steven King. But there was also Peter Straub, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz and several others. One of the leading authors of the period was Clive Barker, who burst onto the scene in his early thirties with The Books of Blood, followed by novels and short stories specializing in horror and dark fantasy. He was also the writer and director of what is now a classic in the field, Hellraiser and its villains, Pinhead and the Cenobites. The Probabilities Crew, Richard Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and myself, we interviewed Clive Barker three times, first in 1987 then a year later, and finally in 1996. This interview was recorded a few months after Clive’s 35th birthday, was also several months before the release of the original Hellraiser film which premiered the following September. As of 2022, there have been seventeen Clive Barker novels in all, five short story collections, fourteen plays, and a variety of comic books and graphic novels, several screenplays, teleplays and adaptations, and three feature length films he directed. A new version of Hellraiser, based on his original screenplay, now streams on Hulu, along with Books of Blood from 2020. Candyman, from 2021, streams on Amazon Prime, as does the original 1987 Hellraiser. In 2012, Clive Barker he went into a coma following a disastrous visit with a dentist. Since that time, no new novels have been forthcoming, though he is credited with involvement in a number of published works and film and television adaptations. Dario Argento’s horror films are all available on the Criterion app, where you can also find films by Jean Cocteau. After Clive began writing fiction, he stopped writing plays, so his final work for theatre was written before the interview was recorded. A highly edited transcript can be found in a book titled Macabre II: Stephen King and Clive Barker, edited by James Van Hise, and out of print for decades. (Note: The cassette tape says 1/9/87. However, from internal evidence in the interview, the likely date of recording is sometime in September 1987. – RW) Front photo: Clive Barker in 2007. The post From the Probabilities Archive: Clive Barker, “Weaveworld,” “Hellraiser,” 1987 appeared first on KPFA.
Jesse Green, New York Times theatre critic, and co-author of “Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) was the daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, and is best known as the composer of the hit musical “Once Upon a Mattress” and the novel, “Freaky Friday,” which has been adapted into various media. But she is also known as the best friend of composer Stephen Sondheim, as well as for knowing, as the book points out, pretty much everyone in the Broadway universe. The memoir tells the story of her life from her perspective, with additional material created by Jesse Green, who is the New York Times chief theatre critic. The interview covers elements of her life, and focuses on the nature of criticism. Recorded September 8, 2022. The post Jesse Green, NY Times theatre critic, “Shy.” 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and internet activist, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded February 9, 2013 while on tour for the novel “Home Land, ” a sequel to “Little Brother.” The author of several novels, short stories, graphic novels, essays and non-fiction works, Cory Doctorow is probably best known for his advocacy for liberalizing copyright law, and digital rights management. He served as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing until 2020, though he remains co-owner. His current blog, Pluralistic, contains links to articles on a variety of subjects. In this interview, he discusses his fiction as well as his views at the time on copyright, on politics, and on the role of technology in society. The post Cory Doctorow, “Home Land”, 2013 appeared first on KPFA.
Glenn Frankel, author of “The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend,” recorded on April 10, 2013, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. “The Searchers,” as Glenn Frankel explains at the start of the interview, is one of America’s iconic movies. Directed by John Ford, and starring John Wayne, it explores several themes in this country’s life, including racism and so-called manifest destiny. Since that time, Glenn Frankel has written two additional in-depth books about iconic American films, High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic in 2017, and Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic in 2021. Glenn Frankel served as the Washignton Post bureau chief in London, Jerusalem and Southern Africa, and won an international reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for International Reporting. The post Glenn Frankel, “The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend,” 2013 appeared first on KPFA.
Vauhini Vara, author of the novel, “The Immortal King Rao,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded via zencastr September 8, 2022. Vauhini Vara studied at the Iowa Writers Workshop, worked as tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal and wrote for the business section of The New Yorker. She is a contributing writer at Wired. Her upcoming collection of short stories, This is Salvaged, will be published in 2023. The Immortal King Rao tells two stories, that of a fictional tech billionaire who grew up in humble beginnings in the 1950s in southern India and eventually came to the United States, and during the novel flashes forward a hundred years to a dystopia in which algorithms determine the success or failure of any individual. Vauhini Vara webpage. The post Vauhini Vara, “The Immortal King Rao,” 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
Stephen King, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Lawrence Davidson, while on tour for The Dead Zone, recorded September 8, 1979 at Dark Carnival Bookstore in Berkeley, and posted in honor of his 75th birthday on September 21, 2022. At the time of this recording, Stephen King had only written a handful of books — Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining and the Stand preceding The Dead Zone. There were also two novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, which was still a secret at the time. Since then, Stephen King has become a literary institution with over 300 credits for television and film adaptations at IMDb. He also has 64 novels, 11 collections of stories, and 5 non-fiction books. This interview was transcribed and can be found in both Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King, edited by Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller, and Stephen King and Clive Barker: Macabre II, edited by James Van Hise. Photo: Stephen King during the era of the interview. Photo by Marty Reichenthal/AP/Shutterstock. The post Stephen King, “The Dead Zone,” 1979 appeared first on KPFA.
Peter Straub (1993-2022), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded april 4, 1993 while on tour for his novel, “The Throat,” third in a thematic trilogy that included “Koko” and “Mystery.” Peter Straub, who died on September 4th, 2022 at the age of 79, was a master of horror and supernatural fiction whose work erased any distinction between genre and the literary world. Among his best known novels were Ghost Story, Shadowland, Floating Dragon, The Hellfire Club, and his collaboration with Stephen King, The Talisman. He was also a poet and short fiction author. Three years after the interview, Peter Straub’s novel The Hellfire Club was published to great acclaim, followed in 2001, with Black House, a sequel to The Talisman, written with Stephen King, and four later novels, the last one, A Dark Matter, published in 2010. A third book in The Talisman series was announced, but never written. A television series based on The Talisman for Netflix and created by The Duffer Brothers of Stranger Things fame, was announced in 2021 and is apparently still on track. The post Peter Straub (1943-2022), 1993 appeared first on KPFA.