Podcasts about American Writers Museum

This week, we kick off our new exhibit and content initiative American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture with four writers of speculative fiction: N. K. Jemisin, Matthew J. Kirby, Nnedi Okorafor, and Nghi Vo. Moderated by Michi Trota, the panel of authors discuss religion in their writing, the importance of considering socio-spiritual systems when world-building, and how these influence the ways their characters move through the worlds they create.This conversation originally took place April 22, 2025 and was recorded live at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago. We hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture opens November 2025 at the American Writers Museum in Chicago. Learn more about the exhibit and upcoming programming schedule here. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about the writers:N. K. JEMISIN is a fantasy author and 2020 MacArthur Fellow whose fiction has been recognized with multiple Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. Most of her works have been optioned for television or film, and collectively her novels, including the Broken Earth trilogy — The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky — have sold over two million copies. Her speculative works range widely in theme, though with repeated motifs: resistance and oppression, loneliness and belonging, and Wouldn't It Be Cool If This One Ridiculous Thing Happened. In her spare time she's into tabletop and video games, biking, fanfiction, and urban gardening. She lives and writes in Brooklyn, with her son and two cats.MATTHEW J. KIRBY is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of numerous books for young readers, including The Clockwork Three, Icefall, The Lost Kingdom, the Dark Gravity Sequence, the Assassin's Creed series Last Descendants, A Taste for Monsters, and Star Splitter. He has also written adult titles for the Assassin's Creed and Diablo video game franchises. He has won the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, the PEN Center USA award for Children's Literature, and the Judy Lopez Memorial Award.NNEDI OKORAFOR is the author of multiple award-winning and New York Times bestsellers, including Death of the Author, the Binti trilogy, Who Fears Death, and Lagoon, currently in development at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. She has won every major prize in speculative fiction, including the World Fantasy, Nebula, and Eisner Awards; multiple Hugo Awards; and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Born in Cincinnati to Igbo Nigerian immigrant parents, she now resides in Phoenix, Arizona, with her daughter, Anyaugo.NGHI VO is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas of the Singing Hills Cycle, which began with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. The series entries have been finalists for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Crawford Award, the Ignyte Award, and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind. Her latest release is Don't Sleep With the Dead.MICHI TROTA is a five-time Hugo Award-winning Filipino American writer, editor, and narrative expert. Her work explores how to use empowerment, representation, and storytelling to attain collective liberation and to dismantle oppressive institutions, not just survive them. She is the Executive Editor at the environmental justice and advocacy nonprofit Green America and her publications include the Wing Luke Museum 2018-19 exhibit Worlds Beyond Here: Expanding the Universe of APA Science Fiction and Chicago Magazine, and she's been featured in The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and CNN: Philippines. She is also a member of the Filipino Young Leaders Program 2022 Immersion cohort and a fire performer with Raks Geek/Raks Inferno Fire+Bellydance.

On this edition of The Arts Section, host Gary Zidek catches up with filmmaker Jeremy Workman to talk about his fascinating new documentary, SECRET MALL APARTMENT. The Dueling Critics, Kelly Kleiman and Jonathan Abarbanel, join Gary to review a thought-provoking production that tells the story of a Jewish family over the course of 70 years. Later in the show, Gary visits the Chicago-based American Writers Museum to learn about a new programming initiative that will explore the connections between religion and literature. And we'll get ready for Independent Bookstore Day with a profile of a new bookstore in suburban Lisle.

This week, author Sash Bischoff discusses her hit debut novel Sweet Fury, a twisty, thought-provoking novel in conversation with the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bischoff is interviewed by author Kathleen Rooney. This conversation originally took place February 12, 2025 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. We hope you enjoy entering the [...]

This week, author Sash Bischoff discusses her hit debut novel Sweet Fury, a twisty, thought-provoking novel in conversation with the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bischoff is interviewed by author Kathleen Rooney. This conversation originally took place February 12, 2025 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.We hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout Sweet Fury:When a beloved actress is cast in a feminist adaptation of a Fitzgerald classic, she finds herself the victim in a deadly game of revenge in which everyone, on screen and off, is playing a part."Cunningly ambitious, twisty, and immersive, it seduces you into a story so compelling that you aren't ready for the sucker-punch of its deeper truths. This is a hell of a debut." —Rebecca MakkaiLila Crayne is America's sweetheart: she's generous and kind, gorgeous and magnetic. She and her fiancé, visionary filmmaker Kurt Royall, have settled into a stunning new West Village apartment and are set to begin filming their feminist adaptation of Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night.To prepare for the leading role, Lila begins working with charming and accomplished therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. Soon, Lila's impeccably manicured life begins to unravel on the therapy couch—and Jonah is just the man to pick up the pieces. But everyone has a secret, and no one is quite who they seem.A twisty, thought-provoking novel of construction and deconstruction in conversation with the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and told through the lens of the film industry, Sweet Fury is an incisive and bold critique of America's deep-rooted misogyny. With this novel, Bischoff examines the narratives we tell ourselves, and what happens when we co-opt others into those stories; and she probes the blurred lines between victim and perpetrator and the true meaning of justice.SASH BISCHOFF is a writer and theater director. She has written plays that have been developed at theaters throughout the US. As a director, she has worked on Broadway and off. Broadway/National Tours include Dear Evan Hansen, The Visit, On the Town, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Shrek. Sash grew up as an actor and won the National Arts Award (NFAA) for Acting. She currently lives in New York with her husband and their many pets. Sweet Fury is her first novel.KATHLEEN ROONEY is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, as well as a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a collective of poets and their vintage typewriters who compose poetry on demand. Her most recent books include the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Her poetry collection Where Are the Snows won the 2021 X. J. Kennedy Prize and was published by Texas Review Press in fall of 2022. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry magazine and the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books, and her criticism appears in the New York Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Brooklyn Rail, Chicago magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University.

This week, award-winning writer and scholar Eve L. Ewing discusses her new book Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. She is interviewed by AWM President Carey Cranston. This conversation originally took place February 10, 2025 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. We hope [...]

This week, award-winning writer and scholar Eve L. Ewing discusses her new book Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. She is interviewed by AWM President Carey Cranston. This conversation originally took place February 10, 2025 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.We hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Original Sins:If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour de force makes it clear that the opposite is true: The U.S. school system has played an instrumental role in creating and upholding racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives.In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that our schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to “civilize” Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Education was not an afterthought for the Founding Fathers; it was envisioned by Thomas Jefferson as an institution that would fortify the country's racial hierarchy. Ewing argues that these dynamics persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. The most insidious aspects of this system fall below the radar in the forms of standardized testing, academic tracking, disciplinary policies, and uneven access to resources.By demonstrating that it's in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective and underacknowledged mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that we need a profound reevaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place we send our children for eight hours a day.EVE L. EWING is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author of four books: the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has written several projects for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series, and is currently writing Black Panther. Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues.

This week, authors Charisse Burden-Stelly and Andrew W. Kahrl discuss their recent work and writing Black history with journalist Arionne Nettles. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States by Charisse Burden-Stelly is a radical explication of the ways anti-Black racial oppression has infused the US government's anti-communist repression. And in The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America, Andrew W. Kahrl reveals a history that is deep, broad, and infuriating, and casts a bold light on the racist practices long hidden in the shadows of America's tax regimes.This episode is presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum's special exhibit Dark Testament: A Century of Black Writers on Justice, which is now traveling throughout the United States. Learn more and see where Dark Testament is now at this link here.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the writers:DR. CHARISSE BURDEN-STELLY is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University and a 2023-2024 Charles Warren Center Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. A scholar of critical Black studies, political theory, political economy, and intellectual history, she is the author of Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States, the co-author of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History, and the co-editor of Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women's Political Writings and of Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State.ANDREW W. KAHRL is professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia. He is the author of the books The Land Was Ours and Free the Beaches.ARIONNE NETTLES is a lecturer at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. As a culture reporter in print and audio, her stories often look into Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing and race & class disparities as a contributor to the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, Medium's ZORA and Momentum, Chicago PBS station WTTW and NPR affiliate WBEZ. She is also host of Is That True? A Kids Podcast About Facts and the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago's Influence on Everything.

This week, writer and researcher Gail Crowther discusses her new book Dorothy Parker in Hollywood, an expansive and illuminating study of legendary writer Dorothy Parker’s life and legacy in Hollywood. Crowther is interviewed by Allison Sansone, Program Director at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place January 21, 2025 and was recorded live [...]

This week, writer and researcher Gail Crowther discusses her new book Dorothy Parker in Hollywood, an expansive and illuminating study of legendary writer Dorothy Parker's life and legacy in Hollywood. Crowther is interviewed by Allison Sansone, Program Director at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place January 21, 2025 and was recorded live via Zoom.We hope you enjoy entering the Mind of a Writer.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Dorothy Parker in Hollywood:The glamorous extravagances and devasting lows of her time in Hollywood are revealed as never before in this fresh new biography of Dorothy Parker—from leaving New York City to work on numerous classic screenplays such as the 1937 A Star Is Born to the devastation of alcoholism, a miscarriage, and her husband's suicide. Parker's involvement with anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, which led to her ultimate blacklisting, and her early work in the civil rights movement that inspired her to leave her entire estate to the NAACP are also explored as never before.Just as she did with her "deliriously fast-paced and erudite" (Library Journal) dual biography of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, Gail Crowther brings Parker back to life on the page in all her wit, grit, and brilliance.GAIL CROWTHER is a writer, researcher, and academic. She is the author of Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton, The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath, and the coauthor of Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning and These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath. Gail divides her time between the North of England and London. As a feminist vegan she engages with politics concerning gender, power, and animal rights.

This week, acclaimed book critic and editor Donna Seaman discusses her new book River of Books: A Life in Reading, a memoir of reading and working with books by the renowned Booklist editor. Seaman is interviewed by AWM President Carey Cranston. This conversation originally took place December 16, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout River of Books:With the infectious curiosity of an inveterate bibliophile and the prose of a fine stylist, Donna Seaman charts the course of her early reading years in a book-by-book chronicle of the significance books have held in her life. River of Books recounts Seaman's journey in becoming an editor for Booklist, a reviewer, an author, and a literary citizen, and lays bare how she nourished both body and soul in working with books. Seaman makes palpable the power and self-recognition that she discovered in a life dedicated to reading.DONNA SEAMAN is the Editor-in-Chief at Booklist, a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, an adjunct professor for Northwestern University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, School of Professional Studies, and a recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Seaman created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness; her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations About Books, and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists. She lives in Chicago. Visit: https://www.donnaseaman.com

This week, Mike Thomas, co-author of the Johnny Carson biography Carson the Magnificent, sits down with Rick Kogan of the Chicago Tribune to discuss the highly anticipated biography—twenty years in the making—of the entertainer who redefined late-night television and reshaped American culture. Thomas—who finished the project Bill Zehme started after Bill's passing—shares insights into the reporting process, picking up where Zehme left off, and the influence of Carson on today's comedy.This conversation originally took place November 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Carson the Magnificent:In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he'd granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than showbiz legend. Shortly after Carson's death in 2005 and urged on by many of those closest to Carson, Zehme signed a contract to do an expansive biography. He toiled on the book for nearly a decade—interviewing dozens of Carson's colleagues and friends and filling up a storage locker with his voluminous research—before a cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatments halted his progress. When he died in 2023 his obituaries mentioned the Carson book, with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman calling it "one of the great unfinished biographies."Yet the hundreds of pages Zehme managed to complete are astounding both for the caliber of their writing and how they illuminate one of the most inscrutable figures in entertainment history: A man who brought so much joy and laughter to so many millions but was himself exceedingly shy and private. Zehme traces Carson's rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to a Navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show—which he transformed, along with the entirety of American popular culture, over the next three decades. Without Carson, there would be no late-night television as we know it. On a much more intimate level, Zehme also captures the turmoil and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, troubles with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child.In one passage, Zehme notes that when asked by an interviewer in the mid-80s for the secret to his success, Carson replied simply, "Be yourself and tell the truth." Completed with help from journalist and Zehme's former research assistant Mike Thomas, Carson the Magnificent offers just that: an honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was.MIKE THOMAS is the author of two critically acclaimed books, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater and You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman. He spent more than fourteen years as an arts and entertainment features writer at the Chicago Sun-Times and is a regular contributor to Chicago magazine. He lives in Chicago with his family.Born and raised and still living in Chicago, RICK KOGAN has worked for the Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune, where he currently is a columnist. Inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2003, he hosts "After Hours with Rick Kogan" on WGN radio and is the author of a dozen books, including A Chicago Tavern.BILL ZEHME was the author of the New York Times bestseller The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin' and Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman. He coauthored memoirs by Jay Leno and Regis Philbin, served as a longtime writer at large for Esquire, and contributed to other publications including Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Vanity Fair. A native and lifelong resident of Chicago, he died in 2023.

Two bestselling authors — Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy) and Lydia Millet (We Loved It All) — discuss the process and craft of writing a memoir with book critic Donna Seaman. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEA Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung — A searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost.We Loved It All: A Memory of Life by Lydia Millet — This lucent anti-memoir from celebrated novelist Lydia Millet explores the pain and joy of being a parent, child, and human at a moment when the richness of the planet's life is deeply threatened.NICOLE CHUNG'S A Living Remedy was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen outlets. Her 2018 debut, All You Can Ever Know, was a national bestseller and finalist the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Time, the Atlantic, GQ, the Guardian, and Slate. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in the Washington, DC area.LYDIA MILLET has written more than a dozen novels and short story collections, including Dinosaurs (2022) and A Children's Bible, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction and one of The New York Times Book Review's Best 10 Books of 2020. Millet has won fiction awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PEN-Center USA and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; since 1999 she has also worked as a writer and editor at the Center for Biological Diversity. We Loved It All is her first work of nonfiction.DONNA SEAMAN is Editor, Adult Books for Booklist. A recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award, Seaman is a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, a frequent presenter at various literary events and programs, and an adjunct professor for Northwestern University's MA in Writing and MFA in MFA in Prose and Poetry Programs. Seaman's author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists.

This week, scholar Marilyn Sanders Mobley visits the AWM to discuss her book Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing, which Henry Louis Gates, Jr. calls a "powerful and learned meditation, and one that deserves a prominent place in the field of Morrison studies." Mobley is joined in conversation by poet Parneshia Jones. This conversation originally took place October 15, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEMore about Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing:Toni Morrison's readers and critics typically focus more on the “what” than the “how” of her writing. In Toni Morrison and the Geopoetics of Place, Race, and Be/longing, Marilyn Sanders Mobley analyzes Morrison's expressed narrative intention of providing “spaces for the reader” to help us understand the narrative strategies in her work.Mobley's approach is as interdisciplinary, intersectional, nuanced, and complex as Morrison's. She combines textual analysis with a study of Morrison's cultural politics and narrative poetics and describes how Morrison engages with both history and the present political moment.Informed by research in geocriticism, spatial literary studies, African American literary studies, and Black feminist studies at the intersection of poetics and cultural politics, Mobley identifies four narrative strategies that illuminate how Morrison creates such spaces in her fiction; what these spaces say about her understanding of place, race, and belonging; and how they constitute a way to read and re-read her work.MARILYN SANDERS MOBLEY is Emerita Professor of English and African American Studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of Folk Roots and Mythic Wings in Sarah Orne Jewett and Toni Morrison: The Cultural Function of Narrative and a spiritual memoir, The Strawberry Room, and Other Places Where a Woman Finds Herself.PARNESHIA JONES studied creative writing at Chicago State University and earned an MFA from Spalding University. Her first book Vessel (2015) was the winner of the Midwest Book Award and featured in O, The Oprah Magazine as one of 12 poetry books to savor for National Poetry Month. Her poems have been published in anthologies such as The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (2007), Poetry Speaks Who I Am (2010), and She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems (2011), edited by Caroline Kennedy. Jones serves on the boards of Cave Canem and the Guild Complex and the advisory board for UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry. She is the director of Northwestern University Press.

This week, prominent writers and game designers discuss crafting game narrative and representation within gaming communities. Featured panelists are Keith Ammann, Derek Tyler Attico, Keisha Howard, and Samantha Ortiz. Moderated by Carly A. Kocurek. Learn more about them below.This episode is presented in conjunction with our special exhibit Level Up: Writers & Gamers, on display now through May 2025 at the American Writers Museum. Level Up explores the role of narrative and storytelling in gaming, from the 1970s to today. Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Level Up enriches visitors' understanding of writing through fun and interactive formats, inspires young people to try a new form of writing, and encourages exploration of the worlds created through games. Join the adventure today!This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the panelists:KEITH AMMANN is an ENNIE Award–winning writer based in Chicago. He's the author of several books of advice for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons players, including The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters, MOAR! Monsters Know What They're Doing, and most recently How to Defend Your Lair, all published by Saga Press, and has written the blog The Monsters Know What They're Doing since 2016. He's been a role-playing gamer and game master for more than thirty years. He likes to play outwardly abrasive helpers, out-of-their-element helpers, and genuinely nice, helpful helpers. Mostly, though, he plays non-player characters. And monsters.DEREK TYLER ATTICO is a science fiction author, essayist, and photographer. He won the Excellence in Playwriting Award from the Dramatist Guild of America. Derek is also a two-time winner of the Star Trek Strange New Worlds short story contest, published by Simon and Schuster. He is the author of the bestselling, critically acclaimed Star Trek Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko from Titan Books. With a degree in English and History, Derek is an advocate of the arts, human rights, and inclusion. He can be found at DerekAttico.com and on social media platforms under the handle @Dattico.KEISHA HOWARD is best known as the creator of Sugar Gamers, the world's longest-running gaming & tech community geared toward inclusivity. What began as a multicultural gamer group is now an award-winning organization that supports it's inclusive membership in finding their place in the rapidly growing industry, facilitating Sugar Gamers' evolution from video game enthusiasts to game developers, writers, testers, voice and mo-cap actors, artists and designers. A consummate futurist, Keisha recognizes the potential for video games to transcend their role as entertainment and become a mechanism for inspiration and social change. As a true “geek of all trades” and first-wave gaming and esports influencer, Keisha's experience spans from introducing game design/media literacy to underprivileged youth, such as her partnership with Adidas and the NBA on tech advocacy activations, to consulting Microsoft's XBOX division as well as Logitech, Google, and Meta on Inclusive Game Strategy. A two-time TEDx Speaker, she is infectiously passionate and authentically plugged-in to the worlds of video games, AI, VR and geek culture. Keisha Howard identifies compelling ways for games & tech to intersect with any industry and inspires others around the infinite possibilities.CARLY A. KOCUREK is a cultural historian specializing in the study of new media technologies and video gaming. She is the author of two books, Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade, which covers the early rise of video game arcades in the U.S., and Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls, a consideration of Laurel's career as researcher and game designer. With Jennifer deWinter, she co-founded and co-edits the Influential Game Designers book series for Bloomsbury. She is also a game designer specializing in experimental and serious games. Paste Magazine called her game Choice: Texas “one of the best games of 2014.” She served as lead writer and producer for The Spider's Web, an alternate reality game embedded in a peer-reviewed journal article. In 2020, her print-and-play card game, Happy Ecosystems, was awarded the positive impact award for the Indiecade Climate Jam. At Illinois Tech, she teaches courses on digital culture, interactive storytelling, game design, and media history at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She also works with both undergraduate and graduate students on collaborative research and design projects.SAMANTHA ORTIZ is a writer and Narrative Designer at Bad Robot Games. Over her five year career in the independent games space, she has worked on award-winning titles including Neon White, Tamales: Con Familia, and the 2021 Latinx in Gaming Unidos Jam winner, Comunicacion. She has also appeared on NPR and exhibited at ICIDS Hops Ahead. In her spare time, she volunteers as a program coordinator and mentor for the IGDA Foundation.

This week, we discuss the threat censorship poses to democracy as part of Banned Books Week, an annual event that highlights the value of free and open access to information. Presented by the American Library Association, this panel includes Heather Booth, Anna Claussen, Sara Paretsky, and Donna Seaman. The following conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the speakers:HEATHER BOOTH is the Audiobooks Editor for Booklist and a reader's advisory librarian at the Helen Plum Library in Lombard, IL. She is also serving her third term as a trustee at the Westmont Public Library. Booth, the mother of two teens, has focused on teen services, and has been involved in facing book challenges and preserving our freedom to read.ANNA CLAUSSEN is the Policy and Outreach Coordinator – Libraries for the Illinois Secretary of State.A Chicago-based author, SARA PARETSKY is one of only four living writers to have received both the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. Her latest V. I. Warshawski novel is Pay Dirt. Paretsky is an ardent freedom of speech advocate.DONNA SEAMAN is the Editor-in-Chief for Booklist. A recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award, Seaman is a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum and an adjunct professor for Northwestern University's MA in Writing and MFA in Prose and Poetry Programs. Seaman's author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists. River of Books: A Life in Reading, will be out fall 2024.

This week, we celebrate the lasting legacy of Lorraine Hansberry with J. Nicole Brooks, Natalie Y. Moore, and Ericka Ratcliff. The following conversation originally took place August 22nd, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.

This week, we celebrate the legacy of Lorraine Hansberry with J. Nicole Brooks, Natalie Y. Moore, and Ericka Ratcliff. This conversation originally took place August 22, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum.This program is presented in partnership with the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative, which was created by The Lillys (conceived by Lynn Nottage and Julia Jordan) to honor Lorraine Hansberry's legacy through the tour and permanent placement of a figurative sculpture of the playwright, while investing in those following in her footsteps through the creation of a fellowship which supports the living expenses of women and non-binary writers of color during their pursuit of graduate degrees.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the panelists:J. NICOLE BROOKS is an actor, author and director. Selected acting credits include Lottery Day (Goodman Theatre, New Stages Festival), Beyond Caring, Death Tax, and RACE (Lookingglass Theatre Company), Immediate Family (Center Theatre Group) and House Home (Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, China). Directing credits include Mr. Rickey Calls A Meeting, Thaddeus & Slocum: A Vaudeville Adventure and Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten. Brooks is author of HeLa, Fedra Queen of Haiti, Black Diamond, and 3 Weeks With Her Honor Jane Byrne. Television credits including recurring roles on Showtime's The Chi and Comedy Central's South Side. She is a multi-award winning artist honored by 3Arts, TCG Fox Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Black Ensemble Theatre Playwright of the Year, LA Ovation and Black Theatre Alliance. She is an ensemble member of Lookingglass Theatre Company.NATALIE Y. MOORE is an award-winning journalist based in Chicago, whose reporting tackles race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence. Natalie's acclaimed book The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation received the 2016 Chicago Review of Books award for nonfiction and was Buzzfeed's best nonfiction book of 2016. She is the author of the play The Billboard, set in Chicago. She is also co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang and Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation.ERICKA RATCLIFF works to amplify the mission of Congo Square by celebrating the complexities of Black life and culture on stage. She is a member of The Chicago Women In Philanthropy, Women's Leadership Mentoring Program (WLMP), the 2023 Points of Light Conference Host Committee, and artEquity's BIPOC Leadership Circle. Ericka is a nominee for Broadway World Chicago's 2022 Regional Awards for “Best Direction of a Play” for her work on What To Send Up When It Goes Down and was recently featured in NewCity Magazine for her accomplished work in theatre. She is an artistic associate with Lookingglass Theater and was a recipient of the Chicago 3Arts Make A Wave Award in 2017.

This week, we chat with members of the Ardent Dance Company about their upcoming ballet POE, based on the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. Justine Kelly is the Artistic Director of Ardent Dance Company and Ben Locke is a dancer who plays the role of Poe in the upcoming show. You can learn more about Kelly and Locke below. You can see Ardent Dance Company perform POE at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts on August 23rd and 24th at 7:30 pm, and August 25th at 3:00 pm. Learn more and get tickets here. Justine and Ben are interviewed by Nate King, Digital Content Associate at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place July 23, 2024 and was recorded live via Zoom. About our guests: JUSTINE KELLY, originally from the DMV area, grew up with the Cecchetti method under the training of her mother, Cynthia Kiehnau. She has worked professionally with many DMV-based companies including Lindsay Taylor Dance, Maryland Youth Ballet, Virginia Civic Ballet and Bowie Contemporary Dance Company and has received training from Pam Moore, Rosemary Floydand, and Sonia Cromiller. Justine moved to Chicago in 2012 and founded Ardent Dance Company in 2016 to reimagine classical and historical literature as full-length contemporary works. Working with over 100 professional dancers nationwide and in Chicago to help create Ardent's shows, Justine is very grateful for all the dancers who have worked so hard these past few months. It is the countless hours of time, sweat, and dedication that allows Ardent to be vulnerable, be dramatic, and laugh together to create these stories. BEN LOCKE has been dancing with Ardent for over seven years, appearing in shows like Dracula, Les Mis, Pandora's Box, Poe and more. He has a double degree in Theatre and Human Services from Millikin University and is currently getting his graduate degree in TV/Film Writing at Boston University. Outside of dance, Ben is an actor, director, writer and casting director. His hope is to make the arts equitable and accessible for all. His plays can be found at The New Play Exchange.

This week, writers John Berendt and Taylor Mac discuss the Goodman Theatre's world-premiere stage musical adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Berendt is the author of the original book the musical is based on, and Mac wrote the book for the adaptation. Learn more about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: The Musical, here. This conversation originally took place July 8, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME More about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: The Musical Southern charm is bountiful in Savannah, Georgia. But behind polite smiles, the eccentric residents are filled with secrets and motives. When wealthy antiques dealer Jim Williams is accused of murder, the sensational trial uncovers hidden truths and exposes the fine line between good and evil—which sparks Lady Chablis and other Savannahians to change the city forever. The world-premiere stage musical adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—John Berendt's 1994 blockbuster non-fiction book, a Pulitzer-Prize finalist that was on the New York Times Best-Seller list for 216 weeks—is realized at Goodman Theatre by creators MacArthur “Genius” Grantee Taylor Mac (book), Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics) with choreography by Tanya Birl-Torres. Tony Award winner Rob Ashford directs a cast led by Tony- and Grammy-Award winning actor J. Harrison Ghee as The Lady Chablis; Tony Award nominee Tom Hewitt as Jim Williams; and Olivier Award nominee Sierra Boggess as Emma Dawes. JOHN BERENDT was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. He attended Harvard, where he majored in English and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. Upon graduation he was hired by Esquire magazine—first as an editor, then as a monthly columnist. Later, he became the editor of New York Magazine. It was during a trip to the South in the mid-1980s that he discovered Savannah—a cloistered, inward-looking garden city that basked on the Georgia coast, reveling in its own peculiarities and giving not a thought to the outside world. He was enchanted and began writing about the city and its people in what would eventually become the non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. TAYLOR MAC is a MacArthur Fellow, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a Tony Award Nominee (for Best Play), and the recipient of the Kennedy Prize (with Matt Ray), the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim, a Drama League Award, a NY Drama Critics Circle Award, two Obie's, two Bessies, and the first American to receive the International Ibsen Award. Mac is the author of Joy and Pandemic (Huntington Theater); The Hang (with Matt Ray); Gary, A Sequel to Titus Andronicus; A 24-Decade History of Popular Music; Hir; The Fre, The Walk Across America For Mother Earth, The Lily's Revenge; The Young Ladies Of; and The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac. The documentary Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music recently premiered on HBO to critical acclaim.

This week, we get spooky. National bestselling author Paul Tremblay discusses his latest summer blockbuster Horror Movie: A Novel, a chilling twist on the "cursed film" genre from the author of The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World. Tremblay's latest is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful feat of storytelling genius that builds inexorably to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion. He is joined in conversation by fellow writer Gus Moreno. This conversation originally took place May 13, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME More about Horror Movie: In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick. The weird part? Only three of the film's scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot. The man who played "The Thin Kid" is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he's going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions—demons of the past be damned. But at what cost? PAUL TREMBLAY has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the nationally bestselling author of The Beast You Are, The Pallbearers Club, Survivor Song, Growing Things and Other Stories, Disappearance at Devil's Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, and the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland. His novel The Cabin at the End of the World was adapted into the Universal Pictures film Knock at the Cabin. He lives outside Boston with his family. GUS MORENO is the author of This Thing Between Us, a "Best Book Of 2021" pick by NPR and the New York Public Library. His stories have appeared in the Southwest Review, Aurealis, Pseudopod, and the Burnt Tongues anthology, among others. He lives in the suburbs with his wife and two dogs, but never think that he's not from Chicago.

This week, bestselling author R. O. Kwon discusses her new novel Exhibit, an exhilarating, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between her desires and her life. Kwon is joined by fellow author Nami Mun. This conversation originally took place May 5, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME [...]

Join Ocean House owner, actor, and bestselling author Deborah Goodrich Royce for a conversation with New York Times bestselling authors and mother/son duo Elliott Ackerman and Joanna Leedom-Ackerman. They discuss their books: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman's The Far Side of the Desert and Elliott Ackerman's 2054. About the Authors:  Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Halcyon, Red Dress in Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, Green on Blue, and the memoirs The Fifth Act and Places and Names. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in fiction and nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a Marine veteran, having served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. About 2054: From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America's violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the United States and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, holding power for over a decade. Efforts to cement its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media but is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he'll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death. A cover-up ensues, conspiracy theories abound, and the country descends into a new type of civil war. A handful of elite actors from the worlds of computer science, intelligence, and business have a fairly good idea of what happened. All signs point to a profound breakthrough in AI, of which the remote assassination of an American president is hardly the most game-changing ramification. The trail leads to an outpost in the Amazon rainforest, the last known whereabouts of the tech visionary who predicted this breakthrough. As some of the world's great powers, old and new, state and nonstate alike, struggle to outmaneuver one another in this new Great Game of scientific discovery, the outcome becomes entangled with the fate of American democracy. Combining a deep understanding of AI, biotech, and the possibility of a coming Singularity, along with their signature geopolitical sophistication, Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis have once again written a visionary work. 2054 is a novel that reads like a thriller, even as it demands that we consider the trajectory of our society and its potentially calamitous destination. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her works of fiction include Burning Distance, The Dark Path to the River, and No Marble Angels. She has published PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line and was the editor for The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. Former International Secretary of PEN International, she is a Vice President of PEN International and a former board member and Vice President of PEN American Center. She serves on the boards of Refugees International, the International Center for Journalists, the American Writers Museum, and Words Without Borders and is an emeritus director of Poets and Writers, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, and Human Rights Watch and an emeritus trustee of Brown University and Johns Hopkins University. Joanne is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Texas Institute of Letters. A former The Christian Science Monitor reporter, Joanne has taught writing at New York University, City University of New York, Occidental College, and the University of California at Los Angeles extension. About The Far Side of the Desert: A terrorist attack—a kidnapping—the ultimate vacation gone wrong Sisters Samantha and Monte Waters are vacationing together in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, enjoying a festival and planning to meet with their brother, Cal—but the idyllic plans are short-lived. When terrorists' attacks rock the city around them, Monte, a U.S. foreign service officer, and Samantha, an international television correspondent, are separated, and one of them is whisked away in the frenzy. The family mobilizes, using all their contacts to try to find their missing sister, but to no avail. She has vanished. As time presses on, the outlook darkens. Can she be found, or is she a lost cause? And, even if she returns, will the damage to her and those around her be irreparable? Moving from Spain to Washington to Morocco to Gibraltar to the Sahara Desert, The Far Side of the Desert is a family drama and political thriller that explores links of terrorism, crime, and financial manipulation, revealing the grace that ultimately foils destruction.  

This week, bestselling author R. O. Kwon discusses her new novel Exhibit, an exhilarating, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between her desires and her life. Kwon is joined by fellow author Nami Mun. This conversation originally took place May 5, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME More about Exhibit: At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Philip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night. Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She's been told that if she doesn't keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Vital, bold, powerful, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire? R. O. KWON is the author of the nationally bestselling novel The Incendiaries, which was named a best book of the year by more than forty publications and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award. With Garth Greenwell, Kwon coedited the bestselling Kink, a New York Times Notable Book. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, and MacDowell. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States. NAMI MUN grew up in Seoul, South Korea and Bronx, New York. For her first book, Miles from Nowhere, she received a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Chicago Public Library's 21st Century Award, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers and the Asian American Literary Award. Miles From Nowhere was selected as Editors' Choice and Top Ten First Novels by Booklist; Best Fiction of 2009 So Far by Amazon; and as an Indie Next Pick. Chicago Magazine named her Best New Novelist of 2009.

This week, we present a panel discussion with a range of scholars exploring religion through narrative games. This is a special episode in conjunction with our new exhibit Level Up: Writers & Gamers, on display now at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place April 11, 2024 and was recorded live at the [...]

In this episode, Senior Creative Directors Val and Doug explore how to craft and tell a good story from master Chicago storyteller, Jacoby Cochran.  They discuss:Engagement: How effective storytelling connects emotionally with audiences.Preparation: Practice techniques and physical delivery to improve storytelling performance.Authenticity: How emotions and personal experiences make stories relatable and impactful.A writer, educator, and storyteller, Jacoby Cochran is the award winning host of City Cast Chicago, Chicago's favorite daily news podcast! The podcast was named Best of 2021, 2022, 2023 by the Chicago Reader and Chicago Magazine calls it “the essential Chicago podcast.” You can also catch Jacoby on Chicago's stages, TVs, and radios. As a performer, keynote speaker, and workshop leader, Jacoby has partnered with corporate clients (Google, Spotify, AT&T, Chicago Bulls, Best Buy, Samsung, Kohl's); academic institutions (DePaul University, City Colleges, Syracuse University); and non profits (The Moth, Boys & Girls Club, American Writers Museum). Find him at @cobycochran and jacobycochran.com 

This week, acclaimed mystery writer Sara Paretsky discusses her new book Pay Dirt, the latest installment of her iconic V.I. Warshawski detective series. Paretsky is joined by Booklist editor Donna Seaman. This conversation originally took place April 16, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HUB See Sara and [...]

This week, we're on a mission from God. Journalist and author Daniel de Visé discusses his book The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Classic. Hit it. This conversation originally took place March 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST [...]

This week, award winning filmmaker Ed Zwick discusses his memoir Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood, a heartfelt and wry career memoir that gives a dishy, behind-the-scenes look at working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Zwick is interviewed by Carey Cranston, President of the American Writers Museum. This [...]

Chris Burrow, director of operations at the American Writers Museum, joins Rick Kogan to catch up with what is new at the museum.

This week, author Clara Kumagai discusses her debut young adult novel Catfish Rolling, a wholly original and mind-bending debut YA novel about memory, family, and an earthquake that breaks apart time. This conversation originally took place October 28, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. Quick note: during this episode, Clara references [...]

This week, writers Jonathan Taplin and Michi Trota discuss the profound implications of AI for the future of writing and creative expression. They are interviewed by Allison Sansone, Program Director at the American Writers Museum. This conversation originally took place November 10, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. Taplin's latest book The [...]

Is ten years long or short in the life of a writer? Fiction writer and journalist Joanne Leedom-Ackerman shows us how her perspective on this has shifted. She offers us a prompt via Rainer Maria Rilke to get us thinking about our own writing lives and to get us to build narrative with what she describes as concentric circles in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her works of fiction include upcoming novel The Far Side of the Desert and also Burning Distance, The Dark Path to the River, and No Marble Angels. Her nonfiction book PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line was recently published, and she is the senior editor and contributor to The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. She has also published fiction and essays in books and anthologies, including Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement; Remembering Arthur Miller; Snakes: An Anthology of Serpent Tales, Fiction and Poetry by Texas Women, the Bicentennial Collection of Texas Short Stories and Beyond Literacy. A reporter for The Christian Science Monitor early in her career, Joanne has won awards for her nonfiction and published articles in newspapers and magazines, including World Literature Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, GlobalPost, and others. Joanne is a Vice President of PEN International and the former International Secretary of PEN International and former Chair of International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee. She also serves on the boards of the International Center for Journalists, Refugees International, the American Writers Museum and Words Without Borders and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Edward R. Murrow Center at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the ICRW Leadership Council. She is a former board member and Vice President of PEN American Center and past President of PEN Center USA. She is an Emeritus Director of Poets and Writers, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and Human Rights Watch, where she served as Chair of the Asia Advisory Committee. She is an Emeritus Trustee of Johns Hopkins University and Brown University and has served on the Board of Trustees of Save the Children and the International Crisis Group.

This week, historian and author Sterling L. Bland Jr. discusses his book In the Shadow of Invisibility: Ralph Ellison and the Promise of American Democracy. This conversation originally took place October 15, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. This episode is presented in conjunction with the AWM’s ongoing special exhibit Dark [...]

This week, former television screenwriter Patty Lin discusses her new memoir End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood. She is joined by author, podcaster, and publisher Zibby Owens. This conversation originally took place October 5, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About End Credits: The only [...]

This week, writers Joanne Leedom-Ackerman and Sara Paretsky discuss their craft, the writing process, and the dangers of censorship and book bans. This conversation originally took place June 15, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. This episode is presented in conjunction with Banned Books Week. Follow the link to learn more [...]

This week, author Tom Piazza discusses his novel The Auburn Conference with Booklist editor Donna Seaman. This conversation originally took place September 10, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About The Auburn Conference: It is 1883, and America is at a crossroads. At a tiny college in [...]

This week, authors Logan Steiner and Elizabeth Blackwell discuss writing historical fiction and Steiner's debut novel After Anne: A Novel of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Life. This conversation originally took place July 9, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME More about After Anne: A stunning and unexpected portrait of [...]

This week, Black writers and artists celebrate Juneteenth by discussing their crafts and their activism in the context of our special exhibit Dark Testament: A Century of Black Writers on Justice, on view now at the American Writers Museum. Journalist Jaha Nailah Avery reads from and discusses her new book Those Who Saw the Sun, [...]

This week, bestselling author Lisa See discusses her new historical fiction novel Lady Tan's Circle of Women, with Joanne Leedom-Ackerman The following conversation originally took place June 12, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About Lady Tan’s Circle of Women: The latest historical novel from New York Times bestselling [...]

This week, sex and relationship columnist Zachary Zane discusses his new essay collection Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto, named a Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of the Year by Buzzfeed. This conversation originally took place June 6, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. Content Warning: this conversation contains explicit language related to [...]

This week, Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr.—Emmett Till’s cousin, best friend, and the last surviving witness of the night Till was lynched—discusses his book A Few Days Full of Trouble with co-author Christopher Benson. The following conversation originally took place March 16th, 2023 and was recorded live at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME [...]

In this episode, co-host Jennifer and guest co-host Allison discuss the life and work of American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the nation's most revered authors. They are joined by writer and magician Dale Salwak, author of the recent book The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne, the first major Hawthorne biography to be published in two decades, featuring original scholarship on both unpublished and published sources. About The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a rich and nuanced portrait of one of America's greatest writers, exploring the thoughts and ideas of a man whose profound insights about the human condition continue to resonate in the modern day. Accessible to those with little knowledge of Hawthorne, this unique volume uses a new biographical approach based on exhaustive primary research that provides readers with a better understanding of the artist and his work. Author Dale Salwak challenges the presumption that Hawthorne was a reclusive, eccentric, and alienated man whose relevance to modern times is diminishing. Drawing from his forty-five years' experience reading, studying, and teaching Hawthorne, the author reveals a more approachable Hawthorne. In-depth and reflective chapters explore topics such as the circumstances that led Hawthorne to become a writer, the influence of Sophia Hawthorne on her husband's work, the theory of the unfulfilled homoerotic relationship between Hawthorne and Herman Melville, and more. Highlighting Hawthorne's special contributions to American literature, The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne is essential reading for scholars, lecturers, and college students taking courses including Literary History, American Literature, and History of the Novel as well as anyone interested in biography, literature, and creativity. Dale Salwak is a professor of English at southern California's Citrus College and a recipient of Purdue University's Distinguished Alumni Award as well as a National Defense Education Act fellowship from the University of Southern California where he earned his Ph.D. He is the author of numerous books, including Kingsley Amis: Modern Novelist and Carl Sandburg: A Reference Guide, and the editor of The Wonders of Solitude, Anne Tyler as Novelist (Iowa, 1994), Philip Larkin: The Man and His Work (Iowa, 1989), and The Life and Work of Barbara Pym (Iowa, 1987). About the hosts: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is the author of the New York Times bestseller Seinfeldia and her new book When Women Invented Television. Allison Sansone is the Program Director at the American Writers Museum. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME

This week, Stuart N. Brotman and John Palfrey discuss Brotman's new book The First Amendment Lives On, a collection of conversations with free speech scholars and advocates. This conversation originally took place November 7th, 2022 at the American Writers Museum and was recorded live. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME More about The First Amendment Lives On: [...]

Rick Howard, the CyberWire's CSO and Chief Analyst, chats with Steve Winterfeld, the Akamai Advisory CISO, and Errol Weiss, the Health-ISAC CSO, about recommended sources of infosec content that they found valuable in 2021. Links to content mentioned in the show: Documentaries “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections,” by Harri Hursti, Published by HBO, 26 March 2020.  “The Perfect Weapon.” by David Sanger, Published by HBO, 16 October 2020. Podcasts “Darknet Diaries – True Stories from the Dark Side of the Internet,” by Darknetdiaries.com, 25 January 2022. “The Lazarus Heist,” BBC, 2021. Books “Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers,” by Andy Greenberg, Published by Doubleday, 7 May 2019. “This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends the Cyberweapons Arms Race,” by Nicole Perlroth, Published by Bloomsbury Publishing 9 February 2021.  Author Interviews “A Conversation with Nicole Perlroth, Author of ‘This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends,'” American Writers Museum, YouTube, 2 March 2021. “Andy Greenberg - Sandworm: Lessons from the Cyberwar,” by CS3STHLM, YouTube, 25 October 2021.  “Bonus: Cybersecurity Canon Hall of Fame Interview with Andy Greenberg,” By Rick Howard, The CyberWire, 12 July 12 2021. ‌“‘Sandworm' Author Andy Greenberg,” by David Bittner, The CyberWire, 11 November 2019.  ‌Video Content “LockPickingLawyer.” YouTube, 2022. “RSA Conference.” YouTube, 2022. Twitter Subject Matter Experts Phil Venables (@philvenables) Bonus - Gate 15 / Andy Jabbour (@Gate_15_Analyst) Errol Weiss (@errolw65) Rick Howard (@raceBannon99) News and Topic Summaries “Daily Briefing.” The CyberWire, 2022. “SmartBrief.” SmartBrief, 2018. For a complete reading list and even more information, check out Rick's more detailed essay on the topic.

This week, bestselling author Ross Gay discusses his new essay collection Inciting Joy. In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships. This conversation originally took place November 1, 2022 at the American Writers Museum and was recorded live. This [...]

This week, bestselling mystery novelist Sara Paretsky chats with Booklist editor Donna Seaman about Overboard, the latest book in Paretsky's “V.I. Warshawski” detective series. This conversation originally took place May 15th, 2022 at the American Writers Museum and was recorded live as part of the museum's inaugural American Writers Festival. We hope you enjoy entering [...]

Today's episode marks the first in Season 4 as Sherry & Theresa dive into their tagline, Science & Stories (focusing perhaps a bit more on the story part). This introduction to the season touches on stories as they reflect our respective cultures (2:07) as well as the stories we make from our personal observations (3:54). Stories take the listener on a journey (7:51) and remind us that we are always in flow - as the old saying goes that a person never steps into the same river twice (12:41). Theresa's full body yawn practice (14:54) moves the body and tells a story of its own. Lin Manuel Miranda's epic, Hamilton, sings "who lives who dies who tells your story," leaving the listener with that existential question. Sherry & Theresa talk a bit about this - who tells our story? - which takes us back to https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anecdotal-anatomy/id1599613572?i=1000557593786 (S2 E17 - After the Because). We are an anthology of stories (31:48) waiting to be lived & told. The hosts go on to talk about the intention of a story (39:56) and how easy it is to get sucked into good stories as Sherry reveals her bingeing on the show Supernatural. Our stories live on (47:25). Referenced in the show: https://welldoing.org/article/how-your-body-tells-story-your-life (How Your Body Tells the Story of Your Life ) (from Welldoing.org) The Book, https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/ (Sapiens) - by Yuval Noah Harari https://www.britishcouncil.org/society/new-narratives/insights/news/why-stories-matter (Why Stories Matter) - British Council https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_goundry_why_stories_matter (TED TALK - Tim Goundry) Used by not referenced directly is a great article called, https://americanwritersmuseum.org/why-do-stories-matter/ (Why Do Stories Matter), by American Writers Museum. Anecdotal Anatomy's Amazing Team: http://www.tobereel.com/ (Judith George) - Editor (video & audio) https://www.keithkenny.com/ (Keith Kenny) - Music http://cindyfatsis.com/ (Cindy Fatsis) - Photography

Mia Funk's work appears in public and private collections, including the U.S. Library of Congress, Dublin Writers Museum, Office of Public Works, and other museums and culture centers. She has received awards and honors, including the Prix de Peinture from the Salon d'Automne and exhibited in the Grand Palais. Her paintings of Francis Bacon have won prizes and were exhibited in Paris and Brussels for Bacon's centenary. As a writer and interviewer, she contributes to various national publications. Funk served on the National Advisory Council of the American Writers Museum and serves on the advisory board of the European Conference for the Humanities. www.creativeprocess.info · www.miafunk.com

How to Become a Great Divorce LawyerThere are many choices available if you are looking for a family law attorney. If you don't know what to look for in a divorce lawyer, this is the show for you. On this episode of The Inside BS Show, Dave Lorenzo speaks with one of Chicago's top divorce lawyers as she reveals her secrets to success. Join us as Dave Lorenzo interviews Chicago Family Law Attorney Katy Mickelson.Chapter00:00 Intro How to Become a Great Divorce Lawyer 02:00 Are Second Career Lawyers More Passionate About the Practice of Law?05:00 Why did Katy Choose Family Law? 09:30 How Do Divorce Lawyers Handle the Emotional, Psychological and Financial Aspects of Family Law?13:30 Katy Takes Us inside the Room When the First Settlement Conference Happens in a Matrimonial Case18:30 How Does a Family Law Attorney Tell When a Client Doesn't Tell Them The Truth?26:20 How Does an Attorney Have a Discussion with a Client about On-going Bad Behavior?29:50 What is the Moment When a Client Realizes They Have to Settle?33:50 How to Talk a Client Out of Fighting Over Stupid Stuff39:00 Two Perspectives on a Divorce Settlement41:30 What Should a Client Look for When Hiring a Family Law Attorney?44:00 The Emotional Connection that Makes Katy Different from Other Family Law AttorneysKaty MickelsonFamily Law AttorneyPartner – Beerman LLP(312) 621-4382khmickelson@beermannlaw.comhttps://www.beermannlaw.com/team/kath...About Katy MickelsonKnown for her thoughtful and straightforward approach to family law, Ms. Mickelson has distinguished herself among her peers by identifying her individual client's goals and then drawing on her extensive courtroom and mediation experience to bring strategic and empowering representation to each case. By looking at family law issues pragmatically, Ms. Mickelson can craft strategies that will result in resolution that is efficient, expeditious and drama-free. Ms. Mickelson understands and appreciates that no client is the same and that long after family law matters are resolved, the individual and their family remain. It is this understanding that has driven Ms. Mickelson to ensure that her clients are treated with respect, their needs are met and they emerge from family law conflict feeling empowered and whole.Ms. Mickelson is an active member of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois and for eight years, she served as co-chair of the organization's widely praised Domestic Relations Roundtable, an annual gathering of family law practitioners and more than 20 family law jurists from Cook, Lake and DuPage Counties. Ms. Mickelson was former President of the Associate Board of CARPLS Legal Aid, a Chicago-based legal assistance foundation, and she currently dedicates a significant amount of her time to Make-A-Wish Illinois as the Philanthropy Chair of the organization's fundraising arm, the Women's Network. Ms. Mickelson is also is member of the American Writers Museum's Chicago Council, a group of dedicated professionals who plan and host fundraising events and raise awareness for the Museum. Considered a “trusted resource” among her peers across all industries, Ms. Mickelson leads a monthly group dedicated to business development for senior level advisors for the California-based organization, ProVisors, and she was named the Group Leader of the Year in 2019. In addition to her professional and civic affiliations, Ms. Mickelson is dedicated to educating others on family related matters, having participated as a panel speaker for the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education and authored articles for various non-legal and legal entities, including the American Bar Association.

A dreamy conversation with New York Times Best Selling Author Jen Armstrong... Kristina starts the episode with reminding you of her favorite Gabby Bernstein mantra, "Measure your *success* by how much fun you're having." Listen for the GIVEAWAY Announcement for anyone who listens before 3/18/22. Today's episode it so much *fun* as Jen takes you behind-the-scenes of her experiences: Working on the Red Carpet for Entertainment Weekly The pivotal moment when Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything hit the charts and changed her career (and life) in multifaceted ways The Sarah Jessica Parker moment before going on tour for Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live, and Love Encounters with Betty White for her book When Women Invented Television Her newest project for Mean Girls Before you read Jen's bio, make note of this! We have a *major* giveaway! Leave a review for the episode and comment on any of Kristina's Instagram posts for this episode. You could win a signed copy of ANY of Jen's books (you choose it!). Jen Armstrong's Bio Jennifer Keishin Armstrong has written seven books, including the New York Times bestseller Seinfeldia; When Women Invented Television; Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted; and Sex and the City and Us. Formerly a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, where she worked for a decade, her writing appears in many publications, including BBC Culture, The New York Times Book Review, Vice, New York magazine, and Billboard. She created and co-hosts two podcasts, Pop Literacy (about pop culture-related books) and, via the American Writers Museum, Dead Writer Drama (examining classic writers through a modern lens). She also curates and writes the weekly “Peabody Finds” recommendation newsletter for the prestigious Peabody Awards in broadcasting! Connect with Jen! Click here to get her newsletter Click here to visit www.jenniferkarmstrong.com