Author Shelly Oria returns to speak with Kate Wolf about her latest anthology, I Know What’s Best for You: Stories on Reproductive Freedom. The book compiles a range of fiction, essay, poetry, plays, and comics by twenty-eight contributors that offer perspectives on reproductive rights, health care, bodily autonomy, and family making, among many other things. It was published in collaboration with the Brigid Alliance, a nationwide service that arranges and funds confidential and personal travel support to those seeking abortions. The Brigid Alliance’s Executive Director, Odile Schalit, also joins the conversation.
Also, Hernan Diaz, author of Trust, returns to recommend Harrow by Joy Williams.
Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher speak with writer Hernan Diaz about his latest novel Trust, which tells a single story from multiple perspectives, or rather revisions. Trust brings into focus both how storytelling itself, as well as the narratives American culture tells about wealth and money, shape and distort our world. The conversation moves from the traditions of the 19th century American novel, the vagaries of capital and how Diaz put together this nesting doll-like novel.
Also, Celia Paul, author of Letters to Gwen John, returns to recommend the Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh.
Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by acclaimed artist and writer Celia Paul to speak about her latest book Letters to Gwen John, an epistolary memoir addressed to the Welsh painter Gwen John, who lived and worked in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th century. Paul explores the connections between herself and John, who was a passionate defender of her own artistic practice, as well the lover of a much older, much more established man, the sculptor and painter Auguste Rodin. In her letters to John, Paul considers what it means to be a woman and an artist, as well as a mother and a romantic partner.
Also, Douglas Stuart, author of Young Mungo, returns to recommend Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt.
Author Douglas Stuart joins Eric Newman to talk about his new novel Young Mungo. Stuart's previous work, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Young Mungo is a coming of age novel about a young Protestant boy, growing up in working class Glasgow, who finds friendship and love with a Catholic boy who lives nearby. Together, they form a bond that promises to heal the wounds inflicted by family, class, and culture, hoping to build a world all their own before it all comes crashing down.
Also, Margo Jefferson, author of "Constructing a Nervous System," returns to recommend "The Deja Vu: Black Dreams and Black Time" by performance artist Gabrielle Civil.