A podcast posted every Sunday featuring extended interviews and discussions from Bookwaves, Art-Waves, and Bookwaves Artwaves Hour programs on KPFA, and newly digitized and edited archive interviews from the pre-digital Probabilities series dating back to 1977. Literature, theater, film, the visual arts: in-depth interviews from a progressive and artistic viewpoint, with long-time KPFA/Pacifica host Richard Wolinsky.
Octavia Butler died at the age of 58 in 2006. At the time of her death, she’d published 16 books, with another volume of uncollected stories published posthumously. Her reputation since her death has only grown, and after fourteen years, in 2020, her book “Parable of the Sower” made the New York Times bestseller list (trade paperback fiction) for the first time. This encore podcast was first posted on December 2, 2018.
Gail Sheehy, one of America’s most distinguished journalists, known for her incisive profiles in the New Yorker and other magazines, died on August 24, 2020 of complications from pneumonia, possibly brought on by Covid-19. She was 83. In this September 2014 interview with host Richard Wolinsky, she talks about her career and about her views on journalism.
Roger Kahn, who died on February 6, 2020 at the age of 92, was one of the icons in the world of baseball writing. In this 70-minute interview recorded on October 13, 1993, he discusses racism in baseball, his friendship with Jackie Robinson, the glory days of baseball in New York in the 1950s, and several other topics, and reads excerpts from his writing. He is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff. Digitized,remastered and re-edited in August 2020 by Richard Wolinsky
Mavis Gallant, who died in 2014 at the age of 91, was a Canadian short story writer who spent most of her life in France. During her lifetime, she had 118 stories in the New Yorker, which made her one of that magazine’s most published writers. Along the way she did write two novels, but it was because of her shorter fiction that she was very much a writers’ writer. Interviewed in October, 1993 by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff while on tour for her collection, “Across the Bridge.”
Robert K. Massie was an historian and journalist, with a focus on the Romanov dynasty. His book on Peter The Great won a Pulitzer Prize, and “Nicholas and Alexandra” became a film in the 1960s. Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff interviewed him on November 4, 1995 about his book “The Romanovs: The Final Chapter,” which dealt with the bones of Czar Nicholas’s family and with the various people claiming to be either the children of the Czar or their descendents.
John Irving in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in November 2009 while on tour for the novel “Last Night in Twisted River.” John irving is the author of “The World According to Garp,” “The Hotel New Hampshire,” “Cider House Rules” and other novels.
Ray Bradbury, the legendary author who passed away in 2012, sat down for an interview with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in 1992 at his home in Los Angeles. Though called a science fiction or fantasy writer, Ray Bradbury spanned all genres, from poetry to mystery to mainstream fiction. Among his works include The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Farenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man.
Erik Larson, author of “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. In the interview, Erik Larson discusses his source material, and compares some of what went on then to what’s happening today, particularly in terms of heroic and destitute patterns of leadership.
Margaret Atwood, discussing her novel “The Robber Bride,” recorded in San Francisco on November 24, 1993 with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, from the “Probabilities” archive
Carlos Ruiz Zafon in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in 2009 while on tour for “The Angel’s Game.” Best known for “The Shadow of the Wind,” the noted Spanish author, born in Barcelona, died on June 19, 2020 of cancer.
