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.
Theater critic John Lahr discusses his two most recent books, “Joy Ride,” which includes criticism and profiles from his years with the New Yorker magazine, and his recent biography of Tennessee Williams, along with his notions about criticism, reviewing, movies vs. theater, and most relevantly, political theater.
Arthur Laurents (1917-2011), interviewed on April 7, 2000 by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, during the tour for his memoir, Original Story By … Arthur Laurents was one of the giants of American culture. A playwright, librettist and director, he was one of the collaborators on two of the greatest musicals in the history of Broadway, West Side Story and Gypsy. In Hollywood, he was best known for the screenplays to The Way We Were and The Turning Point.
James Gleick, whose latest book is Time Travel, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. The author of The Information returns with Time Travel, which focuses on the history of time travel in literature and physics, and on the various paradoxes and possibilities of the idea.
Marisa Silver, author of the novel Little Nothing is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. Marisa Silver, who began her artistic career in her twenties as a film director (Permanent Record, He Said She Said), and then turned to novels (The God of War, Mary Coin), discusses her latest novel, Little Nothing, a fantasy set in Eastern Europe in the early years of the twentieth century, and involves a girl who changes form and identity as the world becomes modern. Marisa Silver is the daughter of noted film director Joan Micklin Silver.
Jacqueline Woodson, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.
One of the leading writers of children’s and young adult fiction, Jacqueline Woodson’s latest adult novel, “Another Brooklyn,” tells the story of four African American girls growing up in Brooklyn during the 1970s, and is a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award.
James Grissom, author of “Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in August 2015 in New York City. Shortly before the great playwright died, he met up with young James Grissom, and gave him a task: talk to all the famed actresses he had known and worked with about the plays they were in and their careers, and report back. Williams died shortly thereafter, but Grissom kept his work, interviewed the actresses, and this book is the result.
Joel Selvin, author of Altamont: The Rolling Stones, The Hells Angels and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. Selvin talks about the Altamont Rolling Stones concert of 1969, the anti-Woodstock, which was immortalized in the film “Gimme Shelter,” along with reminiscences about the SF Chronicle and his view of the current music scene.
Bill English, Artistic Director of San Francisco Playhouse, discusses the 2016-2017 season with host Richard Wollinsky. In this yearly update, Bill English talks about the process of creating a world premiere, from commission to production, examines the previous and upcoming season at San Francisco Playhouse and talks about the theater as a vehicle for empathy and social change.
Susan Faludi talks with host Richard Wolinsky about her latest book, In The Darkroom, which is about a search for identity … specifically the identity of her father, who moved to Hungary and had a sex-change operation late in his life, and with whom she reconnected. Susan Faludi is the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man.
Jonathan Lethem: Live Career Retrospective, hosted by Richard Wolinsky.
On March 3, 2016, Richard Wolinsky had a chance to sit down with Jonathan Lethem in front of a Berkeley audience as a benefit for KPFA. In this career retrospective, Jonathan Lethem talks about his best-known novels, including Chronic City, Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude, and his early novels as well.
