Writer's Voice

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Eric Lichtblau joins Writer’s Voice to discuss his new book, American Reich, a gripping investigation that begins with the murder of Blaze Bernstein in Orange County and expands into a sweeping analysis of white nationalism in 21st-century America.

“We’ve seen an enormous surge in hate crimes across the board… and this is horribly symptomatic of the rise of the neo-Nazis in the 21st century.” — Eric Lichtblau

Lichtblau traces how online extremism, political normalization of hate, and leaderless n...

Duration: 00:56:32

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

What does a 2,000-year-old epic have to say to us today about exile, duty, love, power, war, misinformation, and the fragile hopes of human community?

A great deal, say translators Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, whose new English translation of Virgil’s Aeneid captures both the grandeur of the epic and its deeply human emotional core.

“We were really keen to try to capture…the humanity of the poem, the deep pathos that Virgil generates, the power of the emotional world of the poem.”...

Duration: 00:58:27

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we explore the what’s going on with the current resurgence of psychedelics. My guest is Joe Dolce, whose new book, Modern Psychedelics: The Handbook for Mindful Exploration, dives deep into what these substances really do, why so many people are using them, and how science, politics, medicine, and culture are reshaping the conversation.

Dolce tells us why this is both an “exciting and confusing time” in psychedelic history—a time when reliable guidance is urgently needed in a...

Duration: 00:57:53

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Francesca speaks with Jonathan Slaght about his remarkable book Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China.

Slaght tells the story of the 35-year Siberian (Amur) Tiger Project, one of the longest-running wildlife studies in the world, and how science, persistence, and cross-border collaboration helped bring a species back from the edge of extinction.

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Duration: 00:33:30

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

This week on Writer’s Voice, we look at two stories from history that illuminate the choices people face as they confront evil: collaborate or resist?

First, independent scholar Charles Dick joins us to discuss Unknown Enemy: The Hidden Nazi Force That Built the Third Reich — the first full account of Organisation Todt, the massive construction arm of the Nazi regime that operated across Europe with lethal brutality. His book reveals how ordinary engineers and builders became central participants in enslavement and murder — and how...

Duration: 01:14:30

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with Susana M. Morris, acclaimed scholar of Black feminist thought, about her new biography Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler.

Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and Butler’s own journals, Morris shows how Butler’s discipline, political analysis, and upbringing shaped some of the most influential speculative fiction of our time.

“Now there is such a plethora of Black folk… writing science fiction and fantasy. It’s really excitin...

Duration: 00:58:19

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this, our 1,000th episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon interviews Julian Brave Noisecat about We Survived the Night, his memoir weaving Indigenous oral traditions, personal narrative, political history, and  environmental insight.

Noisecat explores Coyote stories, the legacy of residential schools, intergenerational trauma, mixed-race identity, the meaning of home, Indigenous political traditions, and the contemporary struggle for land, water, and cultural continuity.

“The text itself is a woven narrative that combines different elements of nonfiction to put these different kinds of trut...

Duration: 00:58:29

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

This week on Writer’s Voice, Bruce Holsinger tells us about his new novel Culpability, a story about a family shattered by a self-driving car accident — and about the ethical and emotional consequences of artificial intelligence.

Holsinger, whose earlier novel The Displacements explored climate catastrophe, turns his sharp eye to the ways technology mirrors human flaws, illuminating our collective complicity in shaping the systems that govern us.

“For all that we talk about the ethics of AI, the systems themselves are completely in...

Duration: 00:59:42

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

This week on Writer’s Voice, we turn our attention to the living world—and our place within it.

First, writer Adam Nicolson joins us to talk about his luminous new book, Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood. It’s the story of how he built a shed in his Sussex woods and spent two years learning from the birds who shared it with him. In the process, Nicolson discovered not just the intelligence of birds, but also a new way of seeing t...

Duration: 00:57:21

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In our first segment, comic artist Ben Passmore takes us on a time-bending, darkly funny journey through more than a century of Black resistance in his graphic history Black Arms to Hold You Up. It’s a story of struggle, rebellion, and what liberation really means when the fight never ends.

“We’re in a life-or-death struggle, and I think we need to accept that.” — Ben Passmore

Then, science journalist David Baron joins us to talk about The Martians — the true story of how t...

Duration: 00:59:24

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

This episode of Writer’s Voice features two leading voices confronting the defining challenges of the 21st century — corporate monopolization and climate breakdown.

Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification, reveals the hidden mechanics behind the digital decay of our online platforms — how they move from serving users to exploiting them, and what systemic reforms, from antitrust enforcement to tech worker unions, can reverse the trend. Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes The Sun, shares an unexpectedly hopeful vision for the climate movement, documenting how plummeting solar and wi...

Duration: 01:05:47

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we talk with Edward Wong, diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times and former Beijing bureau chief, about his new book At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China.

Part memoir, part history, and part frontline reporting, the book traces Wong’s journey to uncover his father’s hidden past in Mao’s China, his family’s divided loyalties between Communist and American ideals, and what those personal histories reveal about China’s trajectory under...

Duration: 00:57:53

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we hear from two authors illuminating the human cost of broken systems — one through fiction, the other through investigative memoir.

In the first half of the show, we speak with Evanthia Bromiley about her haunting and lyrical debut novel Crown. It follows three days in the life of a single mother and her nine-year-old twins as they face eviction in the scorching landscape of the American Southwest — a meditation on poverty, love, and resilience in a society...

Duration: 00:57:52

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Today, a gripping story of courage, faith, and friendship in one of the most dangerous countries on Earth. Ross Halperin joins us to talk about his extraordinary book Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land. It’s the true story of two men — an American missionary and a Honduran teacher — who took on the gangs, corruption, and impunity that plague Honduras, one of the most violent nations in the world. Together, they built a radical experiment in justice that dared to succeed where go...

Duration: 00:58:13

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Today, a remarkable conversation with Reality Winner, the NSA whistleblower who leaked proof of Russian interference in the 2016 election and paid for it with the harshest sentence ever imposed under the Espionage Act.

Reality Winner’s new memoir, I Am Not Your Enemy, tells the story of what led her to leak the document, the fallout from her arrest, and what her arrest tells us about our military-industrial complex — and our eroding democracy.

“Depending on where you are on the tote...

Duration: 01:04:08

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Today, we look at two urgent threats to our world: the assault on science and the concentration of wealth.

First, climate scientist Michael E. Mann talks about the book he co-authored with infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Hotez, Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World. It’s a guide to defending truth, evidence, and reason against disinformation and attacks on science.

“If we lose our ability to have shared facts, we lose our abilit...

Duration: 00:58:27

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary

This week on Writer’s Voice, two stories from the planet’s frontlines: the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic ice. Two urgent stories from Earth’s frontlines — and why they matter for us all.

Journalist Andrew Fishman joins us to talk about completing the last book by Dom Phillips, How To Save The Amazon: A Journalist’s Deadly Quest for Answers. Phillips was murdered in 2022 for reporting on the destruction of the rainforest — and this book is his legacy.

“Dom’s...

Duration: 01:04:58

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary

This episode of Writer’s Voice explores two inspiring approaches to building a more just and compassionate world. It’s part of September’s WV programming in honor of Climate Week. Two nationwide mobilizations are happening for Climate Week: Make Billionaires Pay and Sun Day.

First, environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers tells us about her new memoir Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, And Finding Hope. She shares her journey from Lowndes County, Alabama to the national stage, her deep roo...

Duration: 01:07:55

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we explore the lives and legacies of two giants—Charles Dickens and Plato—through the eyes of authors who reveal new dimensions of their work.

Cultural historian Peter Conrad tells us about his biography, Dickens the Enchanter: Dickens didn’t just depict Victorian society—he conjured an entire imaginative universe he called “Planet Dick.” Conrad examines Dickens as an enchanter, social critic, and visionary.

“What he was creating was not some sort of mirro...

Duration: 01:10:26

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary

This episode of Writer’s Voice brings you two powerful stories of women adventurers who forged their paths in male-dominated outdoor sports.

Bridget Crocker’s memoir River’s Daughter is a story of trauma and healing, rooted in her lifelong connection to rivers. From childhood brushes with death to breaking into the male-dominated world of river guiding, Crocker explores recovering from childhood trauma, sexism in adventure culture, and the lessons rivers teach.

“I realized that it was the river...

Duration: 00:58:37