Podcast appearances and mentions of Rachel L Swarns

The Author Events Series presents Nicholas Boggs | Baldwin: A Love Story In Conversation with Rachel L. Swarns Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer's personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin's last great love is explored in these pages for the first time. Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships-geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic- and alchemized them into novels, essays, and plays that speak truth to power and had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history. Richly immersive, Baldwin: A Love Story follows the writer's creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence. Nicholas Boggs was an undergraduate when he discovered James Baldwin's out-of-print children's book, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood, in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. After he tracked down its illustrator, the French artist Yoran Cazac, he went on to coedit an acclaimed new edition of the book in 2018. His writing has also been anthologized in The Cambridge Companion to James Baldwin, James Baldwin Now, and Speculative Light: The Arts of Beauford Delaney and James Baldwin. He is the recipient of a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the Beinecke Library and Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale, the Schomburg Center Scholars-in-Residence Program, and the National Humanities Center, as well as residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. He received his BA in English from Yale, his MFA in creative writing from American University, and his PhD in English from Columbia. Born and raised in Washington, DC, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Rachel L. Swarns is a journalist, author and associate professor of journalism at New York University, who writes about race and history as a contributing writer for The New York Times. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of American Historians and her work has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the Biographers International Organization and others. Her latest book, The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church, was published by Random House. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians. Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night! All tickets are non-refundable. (recorded 9/30/2025)

This week we interview Rachel L. Swarns, a New York University Professor of Journalism and journalist who writes about race and race relations as a contributing author to The New […]

Rachel L. Swarns discusses her latest book, "The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Church". A story of the American Catholic Church and one family's will to survive.

This is Pt. 2 of the "Modern [Yellow] Love" episode that had Mark, Teen, Oxford, and guest John Bai talking about Andrew Lee's NYT Modern Love article on the experience of dating, and then getting engaged to, an Asian American woman who had avoided dating Asian men before. *This is a bonus episode for Patreon subscribers. To subscribe, please go to: www.patreon.com/planamag TWITTER: John (@bohnjai) Mark (@snbatman) Oxford (@oxford_kondo) Teen (@mont_jiang) REFERENCED RESOURCES: When a Dating Dare Leads to Months of Soul Searching by Andrew Lee: www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/style/…ut-different.html For Asian-American Couples, a Tie That Binds by Rachel L. Swarns: www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/fashio…n-their-race.html SUBMISSIONS & COMMENTS: editor.planamag@gmail.com EFPA Opening Theme: "Fuck Out My Face" by Ayekay (open.spotify.com/artist/16zQKaDN5XgHAhfOJHTigJ)

Emergency brake! We had plans to release another episode this week, but on Friday, July 12 the Modern Love section of the NYT published an article by Andrew Lee ("When a Dating Dare Leads to Months of Soul Searching), in which he talks about getting engaged to an Asian American woman who had avoided dating Asian men before. Mark, Teen, Oxford, and guest John "Baiceps" Bai talk about the underlying message of this article and what it says about the future of Asian America. Note: "Pt. 2" will be released as the next bonus episode Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/planamag John's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bohnjai/?hl=en TWITTER: John (@bohnjai) Mark (@snbatman) Teen (@mont_jiang) Oxford (@oxford_kondo) REFERENCED RESOURCES: When a Dating Dare Leads to Months of Soul Searching by Andrew Lee: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/style/modern-love-asian-racism-same-same-but-different.html For Asian-American Couples, a Tie That Binds by Rachel L. Swarns: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/fashion/more-asian-americans-marrying-within-their-race.html For Years, I Was Vehemently Against Dating Asian Guys—Even Though I'm Chinese by Madelyn Chung: www.flare.com/sex-and-relationsh…g-desexualization/ I’m An Asian Woman Engaged To A White Man And, Honestly, I’m Struggling With That by Tria Chang: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/unlearning-asian-fetish_n_5c547bb1e4b09293b203b7ed The Alt-Right's Asian Fetish by Audrea Lim: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/alt-right-asian-fetish.html SUBMISSIONS & COMMENTS: editor.planamag@gmail.com EFPA Opening Theme: "Fuck Out My Face" by Ayekay (open.spotify.com/artist/16zQKaDN5XgHAhfOJHTigJ)

Rachel L. Swarns and Darcy Eveleigh are two of the four editors of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from The New York Times Photo Archives. In Unseen, the editors took on the monumental task of going through millions of unpublished photos in the archives (or morgue) of The New York Times. They were looking for pictures of African Americans--both the ordinary and the famous. They then tried to get the story behind the photo centering around two major questions: why was the photo taken and why wasn't it used. The process was like unraveling a mystery taking a lot of determination. And the result is pretty extraordinary. Both Rachel and Darcy were longtime staff journalists at and are now contributors to The New York Times--Rachel is a writer and Darcy a photo editor. They talk about the book from these different perspectives and also share how putting this book together influenced their own approach to the work that they do.

Rachel L. Swarns and Darcy Eveleigh are two of the four editors of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from The New York Times Photo Archives. In Unseen, the editors took on the monumental task of going through millions of unpublished photos in the archives (or morgue) of The New York Times. They were looking for pictures of African Americans--both the ordinary and the famous. They then tried to get the story behind the photo centering around two major questions: why was the photo taken and why wasn't it used. The process was like unraveling a mystery taking a lot of determination. And the result is pretty extraordinary. Both Rachel and Darcy were longtime staff journalists at and are now contributors to The New York Times--Rachel is a writer and Darcy a photo editor. They talk about the book from these different perspectives and also share how putting this book together influenced their own approach to the work that they do.

Rachel L. Swarns and Darcy Eveleigh are two of the four editors of Unseen: Unpublished Black History from The New York Times Photo Archives. In Unseen, the editors took on the monumental task of going through millions of unpublished photos in the archives (or morgue) of The New York Times. They were looking for pictures of African Americans--both the ordinary and the famous. They then tried to get the story behind the photo centering around two major questions: why was the photo taken and why wasn't it used. The process was like unraveling a mystery taking a lot of determination. And the result is pretty extraordinary. Both Rachel and Darcy were longtime staff journalists at and are now contributors to The New York Times--Rachel is a writer and Darcy a photo editor. They talk about the book from these different perspectives and also share how putting this book together influenced their own approach to the work that they do.

When we think of Georgetown University, the Catholic faith, & Jesuit priests, we don't usually think of the slave trade, but that's what Rachel Swarns confronts us with in her New York Times article, and she visits Bob Herbert's Op-Ed.TV to explain.

The working poor and lower-middle class are the subject of this conversation, as Rachel L. Swarns, who writes "The Working Life," column for The New York Times, joins Bob Herbert's Op-Ed.TV and gives us a peak inside the struggles many New Yorkers face.

In American Tapestry, Rachel Swarns unearths the hidden story of First Lady Michelle Obama's multiracial ancestors, a history that she herself did not know. It traces the black, white and multiracial forebears of the nation's first African American first lady back to the 19th century and reveals, for the first time, the identity of Mrs. Obama's white great-great-great grandfather, a man who remained hidden for more than a century in her family tree.Rachel L. Swarns has been a reporter for the New York Times since 1995. She has written about domestic policy and national politics, reporting on immigration, the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008, and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has also worked overseas for the Times, reporting from Russia, Cuba and southern Africa where she served as the Johannesburg bureau chief.  Recorded On: Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Rachel L. Swarns has been a correspondent for the New York Times since 1995. She has written about domestic policy and national politics, reporting on immigration, the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008 and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has been a foreign correspondent for the Times, reporting from Russia, Cuba and Southern Africa, where she served as the Johannesburg bureau chief. She has also worked for the Miami Herald, where she covered the L.A. riots and the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, and at the St. Petersburg Times. American Tapestry illuminates the lives of the first lady’s forbears who fought in the Civil War, escaped from bondage and often straddled the color line that divided blacks and whites. They survived slavery, endured Jim Crow and joined the Great Migration. It is an intimate family history, but it is also the collective chronicle of our changing nation, a nation in which racial intermingling lingers in the bloodlines of countless Americans and slavery was the crucible through which many family lines were forged. http://rachelswarns.com/