Upstart Crow

Set in South Africa, Olufemi Terry’s first novel is, on one level, a straightforward story of an affluent Creole man coming of age, but on another level, it is the story of a post-apartheid country where a lot of Whites have fled and left behind Creoles, Blacks, and some Whites, all of whom face an uncertain future, politically and economically. On this level, the story evokes the possibilities of...

Steven Mintz and Peter Stearns – The American Child Have a child? Want to have a child? Listen to this podcast episode. The book—The American Child: The Transformation of Childhood Since World War II—by Steven Mintz and Peter Stearns, draws on a wealth of sources to bring an historical perspective to the profound transformations that have occurred in American childhood over the last 70 years, and...

Since publishing his first book of fiction in 1980, Richard Bausch has produced ten collections of stories and thirteen novels. The tenth of those story collections, The Fate of Others, appeared this year. Already, he is working on his next novel. Here, he discusses the stories in this most recent collection, the novel he is working on, and a few of the stories from previous collections, revealing...

Veteran journalist Jerry Mitchell discusses his work that led to four reopened murder cases from the Civil Rights era including those of Medgar Evers and the three men whose story was told in the movie Mississippi Burning, with the resulting trials leading to convictions of the murderers. Historian Robert Luckett joins to discuss the sorts of changes in society, public awareness, and the justice s...

David Baldacci – What is A Calamity of Souls ? The title of his most autobiographical novel occurred to David Baldacci the day he penned the first words. And it was literally penned—he started the book in a blank notebook his wife gave him on Christmas Day, 2011. He wrote that title and about 150 pages. He wasn’t even sure himself what the phrase a calamity of souls meant. He set it aside. Several...

Journalist and writer Catherine Nixey and host William Miller discuss her books that focus on early church history and some of the other men who lived lives not unlike that of Jesus—men whose deeds are recorded in ancient texts. Catherine studied classics at Cambridge University and works as a journalist at The Economist. Her writing also has appeared in The Times and the Financial Times. Her two...

A professor at Jackson State University in Mississippi, Robert T. Luckett Jr. discusses his book analyzing the career of Joe T. Patterson, the attorney general of Mississippi from 1956 to 1969. While the book focuses on Patterson, the study behind it looks at the larger scale of the effort to achieve equality for all. Patterson, an avowed segregationist, tried to preserve the system of white hegem...

Dinaw Mengestu is the author of four novels—Someone Like Us (2024), All Our Names (2014), How to Read the Air (2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007)— each of which was named a New York Times notable book. He was chosen as a MacArthur Fellow and has received a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, National Book Foundation 5-Under-35 Award, Guardian First-Book Award, Los Angeles...

Dr. Rina Bliss, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, discusses her most recent book, What’s Real About Race?, with Upstart Crow host William Miller. In her scholarship, Dr. Bliss researches, writes about, and speaks about—as she puts it on her website—“the personal and social significance of new genetic sciences.” Her work “is centered at the intersection of sociology, psycho...

In this episode, first-time novelist Carol Mitchell discusses the ideas and experiences out of which grew this novel, What Start Bad A Mornin’. The story she tells us of Amaya Lin, a Jamaican living and working in the United States, who is leaving the office where she works with her lawyer husband and his partner, rushing off to gather in her elderly aunt for the evening, when a younger woman appr...

Do We Even Want New Music Anymore?   Why are people less interested in discovering new music? In this episode, we explore how nostalgia, technology, and cultural shifts shape our listening habits with guest  David Rowell and his new book The Endless Refrain . From the dominance of classic hits to the impact of streaming algorithms, we break down the forces that keep us clinging to the fa...

To write his novel The Death and Life of August Sweeney, Samuel Ashworth drew on experience and some very personal research—he worked in the back of Michelin-starred restaurants and assisted with autopsies in a Pittsburgh hospital. The result is an engaging novel, highly artful in conceit and execution, one his publisher, the Santa Fe Writers Project, calls “an epic novel about life, death and the...

Steph Liberatore, as a writer, specializes in nonfiction, so it stands to reason she founded a new on-line journal focused on short forms of the genre. Inshortjournal.com offers readers and writers alike the chance to savor some very well-chosen words: Flash pieces of 1,000 words or fewer; micro pieces of 400 words or fewer, short-shorts of 100 words or fewer. In this episode of Upstart Crow, Step...

When Scott Strode was 11, he had his first drink. By 15, he was using cocaine. In his 20s, paranoid and fearing death, he got sober, replacing drugs and alcohol with fitness: Biking, boxing, triathlons, mountain climbing. Those experiences led him to start an addiction and recovery organization called The Phoenix, which uses, as he puts it, “The inherent transformative power of sport and activity...

In this special episode, guest hosts Debra Lane and Ann Marie Luce , two educators and researchers with extensive backgrounds in leadership development and organizational studies, discuss their new book, Building Inclusive Leadership Beyond the Gender Binary , which seeks to help build the broader understanding of the complexities surrounding gender and leadership that is necessary to foster insig...

Constance Sayers has published three novels ( A Witch in Time ,  The Ladies of the Secret Circus  and  The Star and the Strange Moon ) in four years. All are books that appeared in seven languages and have sold more than 200,000 copies. Reflecting on those works, she discusses what it was like: to write that many novels so quickly how she wove into the first book the craft technique...

This episode hosted by Jennifer Disano, features Paula J. Johnson. Paula is a distinguished curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, whose work has brought iconic stories of American culture to life. Most notably, Paula played a key role in preserving the legacy of culinary legend Julia Child. In 2001, she was part of the team that collected Julia Child’s home kitchen and...

In remarks delivered at the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University , former National Public Radio correspondent Ray Suarez presents observations drawn from work that led to his book, We Are Home: Becoming American in the 21 St Century—An Oral History . As he notes, the history of America is one of immigration, where migrants often have fulfilled many of the country’s needs f...

Master fiction writer Charles Baxter joins host William Miller to discuss his latest novel,  Blood Test,  in a conversation that spans a wide range of topics. They explore the nature of the main character, Brock Hobson, the story’s action, the underlying ideas, and the embedded themes and connections. The discussion touches on everything from the initially proposed cover art—which could...

In this episode of  Upstart Crow , host Jennifer Disano sits down with Chelsea Henderson, author of  Glacial: The Inside Story of Climate Politics . Henderson, an experienced advocate in climate policy, unveils the complexities of climate politics, sharing stories from her work with policymakers and communities impacted by environmental change. They discuss the challenges of bipartisan c...

Literary translator Katherine E. Young joins host William Miller to talk about her latest project, the first-time-in-English volume People and Trees  by Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli. Set in the Caucuses during and right after War War II, the three novellas capture the coming-of-age story of the narrator, a boy named Sadyk, but also the struggles of the village and its people, notably the...

In this episode, host William Miller talks to writer and teacher Nicholas Delbanco, who has published thirty-one books of fiction and nonfiction, including the one they discuss together, his memoir,  Still Life at Eighty , begun on his 80th birthday, finished on his 81st. The book and this discussion look over his early embrace of art, his adventures in a family art business in London, t...

In this episode of  Upstart Crow , a part of Watershed Lit Radio, host Ken Budd sits down virtually with Dr. Charan Ranganath, renowned neuroscientist and author of  Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold On to What Matters . This episode is presented in collaboration with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and Fall for the Book, with Budd—vice chair of the Fall for the Boo...

In this episode, host William Miller is joined by writer Chris Stuck, who dives into the creative process behind  Give My Love to the Savages,  his acclaimed collection of nine daring, thought-provoking stories. They discuss his character-driven storytelling; his process for building rich, layered narratives; and why, as one character says, "Race is a really weird thing but it’s kind of...

In this episode of  Upstart Crow , host Jennifer Disano interviews Dr. Joseph M. Thompson, historian at Mississippi State University and author of the book  Cold War Country: How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism . Thompson dives into the intricate ties between Nashville's country music industry and the U.S. military, revealing how Music Row...