Narrative Edge

Musician Lee Bains (Lee Bains & the Glory Fires) has been writing songs about the American south and the working class for years. He’s now written his debut collection of poetry. In Work Lunch , Bains uses food to shed light on the horrors of capitalism, the erosion of a sense of place, the loss and rebuilding of human connection, and the life of the American worker.     

Journalist Justin Glawe has spent years reporting from scenes of violence, protest, and national upheaval, from Ferguson to the aftermath of mass shootings and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya explore Glawe’s book, If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened , and what his career reveals about journalism, trauma, addiction, recovery, and the responsib...

Peter Biello sits down with The Help author Kathryn Stockett to discuss her new novel, The Calamity Club , a Depression era story set in Mississippi. Stockett talks about the historical research that transformed the novel, the friendships at its center, her writing process, and how the praise and criticism surrounding The Help shaped her return to fiction.

What happens when four estranged people gather for a funeral on a fictional Georgia island and discover that Saturday keeps repeating? This episode explores Paige Harbison’s Destination Funeral , a magical realism novel that uses a Groundhog Day-style time loop to examine grief, friendship, family conflict, forgiveness, and the bonds that survive years apart.

Historian Keri Leigh Merritt joins the conversation around An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America , her biography of Georgia writer and civil rights advocate Lillian Smith. Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya explore Smith’s relationship with Paula Snelling, her work at Laurel Falls Camp, the literary magazine South Today , and books...

Georgia Poet Laureate Chelsea Rathburn explores family history, financial instability, and the emotional meaning of home in her poetry collection, Broken Houses . Peter and Orlando consider how Rathburn transforms childhood memories, vanished buildings, and complicated family relationships into intimate narrative poems that reveal what our homes continue to hold long after we leave them.

The Leg in Question is the debut short story collection by Savannah writer K.W. Oxnard. Peter and Orlando discuss stories about HIV and AIDS, an apparently healthy leg a patient wants amputated, a grieving dog, and a Savannah morgue worker, while considering how Oxnard uses compressed scenes and unexpected endings to examine medicine, mortality, and human connection. Oxnard also reflects on the wr...

What happens when lifelong beliefs collide with lived experience? Georgia author Taylor Brown joins us to discuss Wolvers , his novel set in New Mexico's Gila Wilderness. We explore the history of Mexican gray wolves, the research behind the story, and how a tale of survival becomes a powerful meditation on empathy, conservation, and the landscapes that shape us.

Was the American Revolution really Americans versus the British, or was it a civil war between neighbors, families, and lifelong friends? This episode explores Greg Brooking's From Empire to Revolution: Sir James Wright and the Price of Loyalty in Georgia , examining the life of Georgia's last royal governor, the Loyalist perspective, and the complicated history of the Revolution in Georgia.

What makes a plantation more than just a historic mansion? In this episode, Peter and Orlando explore In the Shadow of the Great House: A History of the Plantation in America with University of Georgia historian Daniel Rood. From sugar plantations on São Tomé to cotton fields in Georgia, this episode examines how systems of labor, land use, and profit shaped American history and continue to influe...

This episode of Narrative Edge explores Leave Your Mess at Home , the debut novel from Atlanta-based author Tolani Akinola. Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya unpack the book’s layered story of a Nigerian American family in Chicago as they navigate estrangement, identity, immigration, romance, sexuality, and generational pressures. From a tense Thanksgiving reunion to questions about what families o...

Poet Sean Hill joins Narrative Edge to discuss his collection The Negroes Send Their Love: Poems, Perspectives, and Possible Futures . In this conversation, Hill reflects on race, memory, fatherhood, and Afrofuturism while exploring how poetry, prose, and speculative storytelling can work together in a single collection. From Georgia history to imagined futures, this episode examines how literatur...

In this episode, Peter and Orlando explore Momma May Be Mad , a powerful memoir by Kerry Neville that examines mental health, addiction, and recovery. They discuss her journey through anorexia, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and electroconvulsive therapy, and how writing became her anchor. This conversation highlights resilience, the complexity of healing, and the possibility of hope after crisis.

Explore the harsh realities of Civil War prison camps, including Andersonville, in this episode featuring historian Fitzhugh Brundage and his book A Fate Worse Than Hell . Hosts Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya examine how prisoner exchanges broke down, why Black Union soldiers were excluded, and how these decisions reshaped the war. This episode reveals the human cost of incarceration during the...

In this episode, Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya explore In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod. They discuss the author’s complex relationship with his charismatic and deeply flawed father, and how family secrets shape identity. This conversation examines masculinity, memory, and the lasting influence of fathers across generations.

In this episode, Peter and Orlando explore Kin by Tayari Jones. They discuss how the friendship between Annie and Niecy anchors the novel, along with Jones’ ideas about story “budget,” point of view, and why the first pages of a novel are the most valuable real estate. Plus, Author Tayari Jones shares practical creative writing advice about storytelling, character building, and narrative structure...

Author Ace Atkins joins us to discuss Everybody Wants to Rule the World , a Cold War spy novel set in 1985 Atlanta. We explore how real espionage history, including the story of KGB defector Vitaly Yurchenko, inspired this coming-of-age thriller about a teenager who believes his mother’s boyfriend is a Russian spy. If you love spy fiction, 1980s nostalgia, and Atlanta history, this episode reveals...

In this episode, Peter and Orlando explore The Pain Brokers by Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, a gripping investigation into how call centers, lenders, lawyers, and doctors exploited women harmed by pelvic mesh implants. The book uncovers a scheme fueled by mass tort litigation, high-interest loans, and unnecessary surgeries that left victims financially and medically devastated. If you want to understa...

Peter and Orlando explore Rough House: A Father, a Son, and the Pursuit of Wrestling Glory , a deeply reported look at Georgia’s independent professional wrestling scene. Host Orlando Montoya explains how following a young wrestler from Barrow County changed his view of wrestling, revealing the physical risks, emotional toll, and fragile dreams behind the spectacle. If you are curious about indie...

In this episode, we discuss Scarlett: Slavery’s Enduring Legacy in an American Family , a work of creative nonfiction that traces one white family’s deep ties to slavery on Georgia’s coast. By linking plantation history to present-day violence in Brunswick, the book shows how the legacy of slavery continues to shape life in Georgia today.

Explore Angels at the Gate by Atlanta author Sherri Joseph, a campus novel that blends coming-of-age, mystery, and class tension. Listen in as Peter and Orlando unpack a student’s fatal fall, the secrets that ripple through a Southern college, and why this story resonates with anyone shaped by their college years.

In this episode of Narrative Edge, you join hosts Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya to explore The Fight of His Life: Joe Louis’s Battle for Freedom During World War II by sports historians Johnny Smith of Georgia Tech and Randy Roberts. We trace how Joe Louis’s rise from boxing superstar to wartime goodwill ambassador collided with Jim Crow segregation, and how the postwar backlash against Black v...

This episode explores Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress by historian Lorissa Rinehart. We trace Jeannette Rankin's path from a Montana ranch to Congress, her lonely votes against two world wars, and her decades of quiet work for peace on a small farm near Athens, Georgia. Along the way, you hear how this new biography brings to life...

In this episode of Narrative Edge , you join Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya for a conversation about Dark Sisters , the new horror novel by Atlanta writer Kristi DeMeester. Set across the 1700s, the 1950s, and 2007 in and around Atlanta, the story follows women trapped in oppressive Christian communities and bound by a generational curse that causes their mouths to rot when they hide their true...

In this episode of Narrative Edge, you join hosts Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya for a deep dive into John T. Edge’s memoir House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home , a book that braids Southern food, family, and history into one candid narrative. Together, we explore how Edge, founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and host of the TV series TrueSouth , uses dishes from...