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.
Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) was a leading light in the field of crime and thriller fiction. In this documentary using material from interviews conducted in 1988 and 1989, host Richard Wolinsky lets Elmore speak, in his own words, about his career and his writing process. Photo: HarperCollins
Tony Hillerman, who died in 2008 at the age of 83, was a master of the detective genre and an important writer in detailing life on the Navajo reservation. In this interview with the late Richard A. Lupoff for the Probabilities radio series recorded in January 1987, he discusses his early years, his service during World War II, and his relationship with Native American tribes and the belief systems of the Navaho, This first of four Probabilities/Bookwaves interviews conducted over a fifteen eyar period, was digitized, remastered and edited by Richard Wolinsky in August 2023 and has not been heard in over thirty years.
Fritz Leiber (1910-1992), legendary science fiction, fantasy and horror novelist and short story writer, in conversation with Richard A. Lupoff (with inserts from a conversation with Richard Lupoff, Lawrence Davidson and Richard Wolinsky), recorded in the KPFA studios in September 1977. Digitized, remastered and edited by Richard Wolinsky in August 2023.
Lisa See, in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, discussing her latsst novel, “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women.” Lisa See is the best selling author of “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” “Peony in Love” and most recently, ” The Island of Sea Women.”
Lillian Ross (1918-2017), interviewed in June, 2002 by host Richard Wolinsky. Lillian Ross spent seven decades as a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, known for her extended profiles of politicians and celebrities. Her book “Picture,” about the making of John Huston’s “The Red Badge of Courage” is seen as the prototype today of the “new journalism,” using fictional tropes to fully create non-fictional reportage. Encore podcast originally posted September 30, 2017.
Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator at Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive, discusses a retrospective of the films of the great Spanish director Luis Bunuel playing through November 19, 2023, with host Richard Wolinsky. (Image from Belle du Jour courtesy BAMPFA)
Stuart Klawans, author of “Crooked but Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Stuart Klawans was film critic for the Nation from 1988 to 2021. Preston Sturges was the first in the Hollywood sound era to write and direct his own films, creating a series of movies, from The Great McGinty in 1940, through The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and other classics to Unfaithfully Yours in 1948, that still resonate today. A retrospective of the films of Preston Sturges runs at Pacific Film Archive July 27th through August 26th, and Stuart Klawans introduce three of the films July 27, July 29 and July 30.
Yiyun Li discussing her first novel, “The Vagrants,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios, February 10, 2009.
Film critic Richard Schickel (1933-2017) in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded May 15, 2003 while on tour for his memoir, “Good Morning Mr. Zip Zip Zip . Originally posted July 17, 2017. Richard Schickel, who died on February 18, 2017 at the age of 84, spent forty-five years as film critic for Time Magazine. During his lifetime he wrote 36 books, most of them about film, and produced and directed thirty-four documentaries, all about film.
David Grann, whose latest book is “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded June 14, 2023 at Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California. David Grann discusses the research behind the book, the political implications for today, and a look at the origins of his earlier book, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” soon a Martin Scorsese film.
