Carolyn Forché on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Poet, teacher, and activist Carolyn Forché has witnessed, thought about, and put into poetry some of the most devastating events of 20^th-century world history. An articulate defender of her own aims as well as the larger goals of poetry, Forché is perhaps best known for coining the term “poetry of witness.” Her memoir about her time in El Salvador, What You Have Heard Is True, was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in nonfiction.

Carolyn joins Marrie Stone to talk about In the Lateness of the World, her fifth collection of poetry, and the first collection in nearly two decades. She discusses the importance of poetry during times of political and social strife, the role of the witness, as well as many other important insights into poetry’s role and the process by which she creates work.
 
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Elizabeth Wetmore on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Debut novelist Elizabeth Wetmore joins Marrie Stone for the hour to talk about her novel, Valentine. On the morning after Valentine's Day, 1976, a 14-year old Hispanic girl turns up on the doorstep of a ranch house outside Odessa, Texas after being brutally raped in the oilfields. What follows is the portrait of a Texas oil town—with all its complexity, racism, and heartbreak—as told by seven of the town's women.

Elizabeth talks about the book's origins, bringing this town to life, and the fully realized and complicated women who won't leave your mind well after the book is done. She also shares writing wisdom she accumulated both from life, working a long series of various jobs, as well as from her professors at the Iowa Writers Workshop. She talks about the big questions—writing from the POV of other cultures and the importance of asking for help. She also discusses the smaller stylistic decisions: not using quotations marks, choosing tense and POV, and keeping notebooks. There's so much wisdom and inspiration in this hour.

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 (Broadcast date: April 29, 2020)

Randy Kraft on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Randy Kraft joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest short story collection, Rational Women. She talks about how she's staying productive during these unprecedented times, her pandemic reading list, and the biggest changes to her writing life in the past weeks.

Randy also shares a number of fantastic insights into constructing a compelling short story, including the difference between a situation and a story, the importance of understanding place, her thoughts about white writers tackling racial issues, and much more.

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 (Broadcast date: April 15, 2020)

Novelist Jill Ciment

Novelist Jill Ciment, author of The Body in Question and Heroic Measures (made into the film, Five Flights Up, with Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton) talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing.

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(Broadcast date: March 11, 2020)

Musical intro and outro by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify.

Colette Sartor on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Colette Sartor, author of the short story collection, Once Removed (University of Georgia Press) talks about the art, craft, and business of writing with host Barbara DeMarco-Barrett.

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Intro and outro by Travis Barrett. Find more by him on Spotify and YouTube.

(Broadcast date: March 11, 2020)

Ann Napolitano on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Novelist and Associate Editor of One Story literary magazine Ann Napolitano joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest novel, Dear Edward. Ann talks about the importance of each writer paying attention to their unique perspective on the world, how an illness in her college years helped her find her story, how working as an editor aids her writing, her new approach to novel writing, and how Dear Edward came about.

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(Broadcast date: March 18, 2020)

Colum McCann on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Colum McCann's latest, Apeirogon, is inspired by the real-life relationship between two men — Bassam Aramin (a Palestinian) and Rami Elhanan (an Israeli)—both of whom lost young daughters in the Middle East conflict. Part nonfiction, part imagination, the book weaves history, science, music, art, nature, and politics to bring depth and complexity to these characters' lives and their girls' deaths.

 

McCann joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel, its complex structure, how he uses subconscious associations to create texture and depth, his literary obsessions, using real life people to spin his fiction, and much more.

 

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(Broadcast date: March 4, 2020)

Memoirist Christina Adams on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Memoirist Christina Adams talks with host Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about her new memoir, Camel Crazy, published by New World Library. They discuss camel milk, autism, and the art, craft, and business of writing.

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 (Broadcast date: Feb. 26, 2020

Jenny Offill & Lily King on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Novelists Jenny Offill, author of Weather, and Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers talk with host Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing.

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(Broadcast date: Feb. 12, 2020)

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Alexis Schaitkin on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Debut novelist Alexis Schaitkin joins Marrie Stone for the full hour to talk about Saint X.

Alexis unveils the inspiration behind the story, and how her curiosity about tourism and the tension between tourists and locals drives her characters. She shares her exhaustive research process, her insights into writing from the perspective of other cultures, and finding culturally sensitive readers. Alexis also reveals former professor Deborah Eisenberg's lens through which she evaluates effective writing, as well as a unique twist on the old writing adage about "killing your darlings." It's a rich hour full of wonderful insights.

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(Broadcast date: February 19, 2020)

Freelance Journalist & Foreign Correspondent William Wheeler on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Foreign correspondent and filmmaker William Wheeler is the author of State of War: MS-13 and El Salvador’s World of Violence. He’s also the producer of the Showtime documentary “The Trade” and the Emmy nominated film, “Who Shot the Sheriff,” about the Cold War assassination attempt on Bob Marley.

Bill joins Marrie Stone for the full hour to talk about his reporting on MS-13 and the life of a journalist in general. He shares his insights on putting together a compelling, well-researched, and impartial story, the future of journalism, how the industry has changed, and more.

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(Broadcast date: February 5, 2020)

Literary agent Danielle Svetcov and crime writer Matt Coyle

Literary agent, Danielle Svetcov, also author of Parked, and crime writer Matt Coyle, author of Lost Tomorrows, talk with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about agenting and writing.

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 (Broadcast date: Jan. 15, 2020)

We like to hear from our listeners. Email penonfire at earthlink dot net.

Alexander Weinstein on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Alexander Weinstein, author of the 2016 dystopian short story collection Children of the New World, returns to talk with Marrie Stone about his latest collection, Universal Love.

In the near-distant future—one where technology has taken the next predictable steps—characters reckon with what it means to love, to kill, to be intimate, and to be human in an age when they're wholly invested in inhabiting a digital world. Fans of Black Mirror will love this collection.

In addition to sharing the inspiration and backstories behind many of the pieces, Alexander shares mounds of writing wisdom and advice.

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(Broadcast date: January 29, 2020)

Julie Zuckerman and Annalee Newitz on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Short story author Julie Zuckerman, author of The Book of Jeremiah, joins Marrie Stone to share her novel in stories. Julie talks about drawing inspiration and structure from Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kittridge, how she structured the collection and the stories within, working with a small press (Press 53), and how a simple writing prompt unlocked Jeremiah Gerstler's complex character.

In the second half, Annalee Newitz joins to talk about their latest novel, The Future of Another Timeline. They talk about how their science background feeds their fiction, what fiction can accomplish that nonfiction cannot, dealing with the complexities of time travel, and much more.

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(Broadcast date: January 22, 2020)

Alix Kates Shulman on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Nearly 50 years after it first shocked readers nationwide, Alix Kates Shulman's, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen is still being hailed as a feminist classic. Inspired by the iconic protest of the 1968 Miss America Pageant, and called by the Oxford Companion to Women's Writing "the first important novel to emerge from the Women's Liberation Movement," the 1972 book continues to hit home with its comic portrayal of growing up female in a man's world in white middle-class pre-feminist America. The book was re-released last year. At 87, Alix is still writing, speaking, and taking her message to the streets.

Alix talks about writing those daring sex scenes, her own terrifying illegal abortion, how fiction can change minds, and the slow but effective changes brought about by wave after wave of the women's movement.

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(Broadcast date: January 8, 2020)

Poet Michael Miller on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Poet Michael Miller joins Marrie Stone for an hour of poetry and reflection on New Year's morning. He talks about his retrospective collection, Tea and Subtitles: Selected Poems 1999-2019, many addressing beginnings, endings, and New Year's Day itself.

Michael discusses his life-long love of the form, how journalism aids his poetry, assembling the writer's toolbox, and the many poets who he recommends as accessible and necessary reads.

Michael will appear at the LA Times Festival of Books on the poetry stage in April.

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 (Broadcast date: January 1, 2020)

Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet Stephen Dunn

Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about his latest volume, Pagan Virtues. (There are a few audio challenges, but keep listening. It's worth it.)

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(Broadcast date: Dec. 4, 2019)

Beau L'Amour & Robin Cook join Marrie Stone on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Louis L'Amour, father of the western and frontier novel, passed in 1988 leaving behind 89 novels, 14 short story collections, and mounds of unfinished manuscripts. His son, Beau L'Amour, continues his legacy by finishing many of his novels and short stories and adding notes, history, and backstory. He shares his latest, Lost Treasures Volume II, as well as his father's writing process, his relationship with Ray Bradbury, and more.

Robin Cook, father of the medical thriller genre, joins in the second half to share his latest novel, Genesis. During his time in the navy, and after completing his medical training, Robin came on the writing scene in the 1970s with the novel Coma. Now, 35 novels later, he still thrills readers with his uncanny sense of where medical technology is heading, the radical advances and attendant consequences we're making, and how his longstanding and beloved characters deal with them.

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(Broadcast date: December 18, 2019)

Tim O'Brien on Writers on Writing, KUCI

Tim O'Brien, National Book Award winning novelist and iconic author of The Things They Carried, joins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest—and last—book.

Dad's Maybe Book is at once a memoir, a love letter to his young sons, a meditation on war, a writing guide for writers, a history lesson, a literature lesson, and swan song to his fans. (Don't let the title or cover fool you . . . this book packs a meaty punch that extends well beyond fatherhood).

Tim shares his enduring struggles with writing, with memory, and with his own father.

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(Broadcast date: December 11, 2019)

THIS LAND author Christopher Ketcham on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Christopher Ketcham, author of the new nonfiction book, This Land: How Cowboys, Corruption, and Corruption are ruining the American West, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett for the entire hour about the book that Outside magazines says, "...brings the fighting spirit and conservation vision of great writers like Edward Abbey, Rachel Carson, and Bernard DeVoto into the 21st century.” 

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(KUCI-FM broadcast date: Nov. 27, 2019)

You can reach Barbara at penonfire at earthlink dot net. Subscribe to the Writers on Writing podcast at iTunes and Stitcher.