Tom Lutz sits down with legendary Los Angeles author Walter Mosley, recipient of LARB/UC Riverside Lifetime Achievement Award. Mosley, a master of contemporary noir, has written over 50 books, most famously Devil in a Blue Dress. In late 2019, Mosely published Elements of Fiction; and his most recent novel, Trouble Is What I Do, hit the bookstores this week. In his dialogue with Tom, Mosley spins tales about his childhood, his years as a young writer, and his experiences most recently in the TV writer’s room and Hollywood.
Janet Fitch, author of the classic White Oleander, joins Kate and Medaya to discuss the life and work of Kate Braverman, a Los Angeles literary legend who passed in late 2019. Braverman was Janet's teacher, mentor, and later friend; and Janet reflects on the person she knew, tells tales of her in the classroom, and, of course, on the power of her work on the written page.
Then, LARB's own Founder and Editor-in-Chief Tom Lutz joins Kate and Medaya for an extended conversation about his just released debut novel, Born Slippy.
This is the seventh episode in our series on LA and Southern California writers, artists and filmmakers. This episode of the LARB Radio Hour is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov. Any findings, opinions, or conclusions contained herein are not necessarily those of the California Arts Council.
This week the legendary actress, model and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini joins co-hosts Kate and Medaya to discuss her new theatrical production, Link Link Circus, her studies into animal behavior, and her long career in film and TV. Isabella also discusses her most recent book, My Chickens and I; as well as her previous one, Green Porno, a hugely successful multi-media project that helped revive interest in one of Isabella's other loves, the short film form.
Also, Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown, returns to recommend Lisa Damour's Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood.
Kate and Medaya talk with Garth Greenwell about his new book of fiction, Cleanness, the follow-up to his heralded debut What Belongs to You. Set in Bulgaria, where Greenwell taught in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the social crises that followed; the book's distinct nine chapters/stories focus on the narrator's life as a teacher as well as his romantic and sexual experiences.
Also, Director Celine Sciamma, who's latest film is Portrait of a Lady on Fire, returns to recommend the entire body of work of French author Virginie Despentes.
Kate and Medaya talk with award-winning screenwriter and novelist Charles Yu about his new book, Interior Chinatown; an experimental, yet eminently enjoyable, novel-in-the-form-of-a-screenplay. Charles discusses how he came to write such a formally challenging book, in which the central character's world is defined by, and limited to, the horizons available to Asian and Asian-American characters in popular film and television.
Also, J Hoberman, author of Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan, returns to recommend Victor Serge's recently discovered Notebooks from 1936-47, in which the great communist writer lived in exile, from Paris to Mexico.
This is the sixth episode in our series on LA and Southern California writers, artists and filmmakers. This episode of the LARB Radio Hour is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov. Any findings, opinions, or conclusions contained herein are not necessarily those of the California Arts Council.