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.
Kate Jessica Raphael, whose lastest novel is “Murder Under the Fig Tree: A Palestine Mystery” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Activist and radio producer Kate Jessica Raphael discusses her latest novel “Murder Under the Fig Tree,” which deals with the gay and lesbian communities in Palestine and Israel, and features her two detectives from “Murder Under the Bridge,” a Palestinian detective and an American activist, both of whom join together to solve these murders.
Jeffrey Eugenides, whose latest book is a collection of short stories, “Fresh Complaint,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. In this wide ranging interview he discusses some of the stories in the new book, as well as their relation to his own life, and touches on the creation of both the earlier two novels.
Richard Connema is the Bay Area reviewer for the theater website Talkin’ Broadway. From 1946 to 1993, first at Republic Pictures, and later at Warner Bros., he was a staff stills photographer for dozens of movie shoots, from A Streetcar Named Desire, through Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, and on through Missouri Breaks and later films. He is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.
Bill Hayes, author of “Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me,” and co-editor of the posthumous collection of essays, “The River of Consciousness” by Oliver Sacks, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Bill Hayes was partnered with the previously closeted neurologist, and in this interview talks about their life together and his love affair with New York.
Roz Chast, whose latest book is “Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. A regular cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1978, Roz Chast has developed a following for her quirky, strange and funny cartoons.. She talks about her career and about this, her most recent book.
Stephen Greenblatt, whose latest book is “The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve,” winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction for “The Swerve,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. “The Rise and Fall” chronicles the story of one of the most enduring myths of modern civilization and the effect of its original interpretations. Stephen Greenblatt dissects many of them in his book, and in this interview.
Salman Rushdie, whose latest novel is “The Golden House,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. The author of “The Satanic Verses” and several other novels, discusses his latest work of fiction, which focuses on a wealthy Indian family living in New York, and concerns such topics as the relationship of wealth to criminal enterprises in New York and Bombay (Mumbai), the world of the artist in New York, the recent presidential election, film images in our culture, and more.
Nancy MacLean, author of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Duke University Professor Nancy MacLean, in researching the life of right-wing professor James Buchanan, discovered the philosophical underpinnings of what Hillary Clinton (almost unknowingly) called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Funded by Charles Koch and other donors, they’ve taken over the GOP and have an agenda, she says, that ultimately will allow minority rule in the United States for the forseeable future.
Adam Gopnik, whose latest book is “At The Strangers Gate” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Adam Gopnik has been a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine since 1986, has written several best-sellers and currently writes the Daily Comment on-line blog for the magazine.
Susan Vreeland, who died on August 23, 2017 at the age of 71, was the best-selling author of several novels, most of them focusing on art, specifically painting. Richard Wolinsky interviewed Susan Vreeland on January 24, 2002, when she was on tour for her third novel, “The Passion of Artemisia,” about the female baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
