Narrative Edge

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...

Dive into Charles Sumner’s life and legacy, from his abolitionist roots in Boston to the “Crime Against Kansas” speech and the caning by Preston Brooks that galvanized the North. You hear how Sumner’s constitutional arguments shaped Republican thought, echoed in phrases like “freedom national, slavery sectional,” and how his ideas later surfaced in the Brown v. Board fight.

On this episode, Peter Biello and Orlando Montoya unpack Hot Desk by Atlanta author Laura Dickerman, a witty romantic comedy set inside rival New York publishing houses. You hear how a contested literary estate, a notorious twentieth-century “lion,” and a secret family connection collide with texting, Zoom, and office politics to test what it means to separate art from the artist. Stay for how the...

Peter and Orlando talk with Georgia writer and longtime teacher Alan Caldwell to discuss his first poetry collection, The Only Verse. You hear Caldwell read “Running for No Reason” and we explore how his work faces depression, grief, marriage, and memory with clarity and care. We also trace his path from fiction to the Carrollton Just Poetry group and discuss how story and image power his poems.

This episode explores Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi, a sweeping historical novel that reframes the Persephone myth in a reimagined fifteenth-century West Africa. You’ll hear why Ododo, a young blacksmith from Timbuktu, is one of the podcast's most compelling protagonists and how palace intrigue, shifting loyalties, and questions of agency drive this story. Peter and Orlando talk setting, character,...

If we knew that Coca-Cola was one of the deadliest products in the American diet, would we keep drinking it? In this episode, journalist Murray Carpenter joins Peter and Orlando to uncover the story behind his book Sweet and Deadly . You learn how soda corporations spent decades funding research, building shadow networks, and spreading disinformation to obscure the links between sugary drinks and...

On this episode of Narrative Edge , Peter and Orlando dive into Colleen Oakley’s witty and fast-paced novel Jane and Dan at the End of the World . What begins as a tense dinner where Jane plans to ask for a divorce quickly turns into a chaotic hostage situation that feels ripped straight from the pages of her own failed book. With humor, heart, and unexpected twists, Oakley explores love, second c...

Orlando Montoya and Peter Biello explore Spitfires by Becky Aikman, the story of American women who ferried aircraft for Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II, including Georgia pilot Hazel Jane Raines, whose daring flights and survival stories reveal the courage and skill of the “Atta Girls.”

Michael Hardwick had no idea that when a police officer stood at his bedroom door on August 3, 1982, he would become a face of the gay rights movement. Arrested for sodomy, Hardwick sued for his right to privacy to the Supreme Court, even as the HIV/AIDS epidemic began to take its toll. When he lost, his era-defining case inspired a half-million people to protest, and the ruling became one of the...