Russell Banks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Russell Banks returns to the show to talk about his latest novel, Foregone. He shares how his childhood upbringing and young adulthood have fed his fiction, and why this novel feels more autobiographical than most. He also talks about a wild week spent with Jack Kerouac in the 1960s, and experiencing the fall of a literary hero. He discusses how this novel couldn't have been written at any other point in his life, why his characters differ from his readers (and the importance of that difference), a tennis showdown with Chang-rae Lee, and so much more.

There's a lot of advice for writers, including how to surprise your readers, why focusing on contradictions in your characters is more important than consistency, the necessity of learning how to read, and his insights into point of view.

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(Record date: February 25, 2021)

Chang-rae Lee & Karen Russell on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Chang-rae Lee is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University. He is the author of five previous novels: Native Speaker (1995); A Gesture Life (1999); Aloft (2004); The Surrendered, which was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and On Such a Full Sea (2014). My Year Abroad, published by Riverhead Books, is his latest. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about creating a sensationalistic novel, in every sense of the word. He talks about how he surprises himself (and his readers), writing food, sex, torture and much more.

Karen Russell talks about her prescient novel, Sleep Donation. Written in 2014, the book that was intended to be whimsical satire on an insomnia pandemic has become a dark commentary on the times we're living through. Russell talks about the strange ways the book has taken on new meaning, serendipitous experiences she encountered while publishing it, and so much more.

Download audio of Chang-rae Lee's Interview.  

(Broadcast date: February 24, 2021)
(Record date: February 8, 2021)

Download audio of Karen Russell's Interview.

(Broadcast date: February 24, 2021)
(Record date: January 26, 2021)

Katherine Seligman, At the Edge of the Haight, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Katherine Seligman is a journalist and author in San Francisco. As a reporter, she’s focused on social issues, from homelessness, mental health and end of life issues to the city’s boom and bust cycles. But she’s also written about everything else, from self-appointed graffiti curators, urban coyotes and embryonic sex selection to what her kids learned growing up in Haight Ashbury.

Katherine joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about her novel, At the Edge of the Haight, as well as writing, craft, and process. 

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(Broadcast date: February 17, 2021)

Rebecca Sacks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Before receiving her Masters from the Program in Writing at UCI, Rebecca Sacks moved to Israel, spending time understanding Israeli and Palestinian culture, learning Hebrew and Arabic, and immersing herself in the cultures, their people, and their conflicts. Her debut novel, City of a Thousand Gates, tackles these tensions from a variety of points of view. 

Sacks joins Marrie Stone to talk about her writing process, accessing her characters, keeping 29 points of view balanced and organized, rendering sex and violence on the page, and so much more. She brings all her MFA wisdom and experience to the interview, as well as her personal experience living abroad, getting lost, and finding herself again. 

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Record date: January 29, 2021
Broadcast date: February 10, 2021

Poet Tommye Blount on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Tommye Blount, finalist of the National Book Award in poetry last year, joins Marrie Stone to talk about his collection, Fantasia for the Man in Blue. They are daring poems about race, power, desire, sex, and a redefinition of beauty. Blount's work captures the experience of being black and queer in Michigan, about an encounter with the Michigan police, his role as a son, and his observations as a poet.

He talks about his journey into poetry, finding his voice, using media and art in his work, and all the poets who influenced him along the way.

(Disclaimer: Some topics in this interview are intended for mature audiences. There are references to sex and pornography. Listener discretion is advised.)
 

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(Record date: January 16, 2021)