Across the Margin: The Podcast

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Joanna Schwartz, a professor of law at UCLA, where she teaches civil procedure and courses on police accountability and public interest lawyering. Her writing, commentary, and research about police misconduct, qualified immunity, indemnification, and local government budgeting have been featured in The New York Times , The W...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Deborah Rowan Wright, an independent researcher, ocean advocate, and marine-policy researcher who writes about marine conservation. She has worked with the UK NGOs Whale & Dolphin Conservation, Friends of the Earth, and Marinet. Her work on marine renewable energy, ocean governance reform, and public-trust law has been p...

This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast presents an interview with prolific percussionist, vibraphonist, bandleader, and vocalist Mike Dillon. How many artists have been praised as a “punk rock provocateur,” “jazz  vibraphone visionary,” and “percussion virtuoso”? There’s only one: Mike Dillon. Whether through his affiliation with artists like Les Claypool of Primus, Rickie Lee Jones,...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Director Connor Martin and Executive Producer Tony Kriz, part of the team behind the eye-opening new documentary Sentenced . Each year millions of kids are sentenced to a future they don’t deserve because of their inability to read, and Sentenced shines a bright light on this devastating problem. The motivation behind the fi...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Sequoia Maner, Assistant Professor of English at Spelman College. She is author of the poetry collection Little Girl Blue (2021) and co-editor of the book Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (2020). Her poem “upon reading the autopsy of Sandra Bland” was a finalist for the 2017 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize. H...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with  Louis L. Reed  who organized a national grassroots network of reform activists after serving fourteen years in federal prison, and Brandon Kramer, a Washington, DC-based filmmaker and co-founder of  Meridian Hill Pictures . Brandon directed  City of Trees . and the Webby Award-winning independent documen...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with prolific author and renowned scientist and thinker Howard Bloom, who was also a music publicist in the 1970s and 1980s for performers such as Prince, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, and Styx (to name a just few). He has published a book on Islam, The Muhammad Code, an autobiography, How I Accidentally Started The Si...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with William J. Carl (PhD), a Greek scholar, screenwriter and playwright, former professor, seminary president, and pastor, who has spoken at Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Cornell, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, as well as many other schools in the U.S., and internationally. He is the author of eight nonfiction books an...

his episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with Catherine K. Ettman, the chief of staff and director of strategic initiatives at the Boston University School of Public Health. Catherine is the co-editor of Urban Health (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Migration and Health (University of Chicago Press, 2022) — the book that is the focus of this episode. Her important wor...

This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast presents an interview with novelist  David Goodwillie  about his book  Kings County . Goodwillie is also the author of the novel  American Subversive , a  New York Times  Notable Book of the Year, and the memoir  Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time . Goodwillie has written for the  New York Times ,  New Yo...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Dr. Paul Smith, who serves as the secretary-general of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). BGCI leads the Global Tree Assessment and recently published the “ State of the World’s Trees Report ” showing that one-third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction. Prior to joining BGCI, Paul was th...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast finds our host, Michael Shields, in conversation with Dr. Lynda Ulrich, founder of the Goodness Exchange , a website whose aim is to prove that the world is still a beautiful place, full of wonderment, discovery, and compassion. Dr. Ulrich is the author of the book Happiness is an Option : Thriving (Instead of Surviving) In the Era of the Internet, an...

In this episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast, host Michael Shields interviews music critic and journalist Steven Hyden, the author of This Isn’t Happening , Twilight of the Gods , Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me , and (with Steve Gorman) Hard to Handle . His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine , Washington Post , Billboard , Pitchfork , Rolling Stone , Grantland , The A.V. Cl...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with the author of Song Noir: Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles , Alex Har vey. Alex Harvey is a producer and director of programs including Panorama and The Late Show for the BBC. His films include The Lives of Animals and Enter the Jungle . Based in Los Angeles, he regularly writes on literature, film, and music for the L...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Tara Watson, professor of economics at Williams College and a co-editor of the Journal of Human Resources , the leading academic journal in labor economics, as well as Kalee Thompson, a journalist and senior editor at Wirecutter and the author of Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard Histo...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with the author of Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science (The Rise and Fall of the Department of Social Relations) , Patrick L. Schmidt . In Harvard’s Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science , Schmidt tells the little-known story of how some of the most renowned social scientists of the twentieth century struggled to elevate thei...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with musician Chris Forsyth. It isn't hyperbole to describe Chris as one of rock’s most gifted improvisers. Chris got his start in Brooklyn's experimental circles in the early 2000s and promptly grew into a masterful technical player. As the bandleader of Chris Forsyth & the Solar Motel Band, he composed mostly instrumental p...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Woodstock, New York via North Carolina singer-songwriter Kenny Roby. Roby is the former lead singer of 6 String Drag, which he formed with bassist Rob Keller in the early 1990s, a band which quickly became one of the more notable bands of the Americana movement. The band's style ranged from old style country with a hint of s...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with author Ryan Pinkard , a music journalist from Denver, Colorado. Pinkard is the author of the new 33 1/3 book, Boxer , which is the focus of this episode. Boxer is a comprehensive and enlightening oral history of the band that traces The National's early career and struggles, culminating in the creation of their watershed alb...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with Pat McGee , a documentary director in both film and television who works to unearth character-driven stories that push to find common ground. Most recently, McGee directed and produced the award-winning From the Hood to the Holler — the focus of this episode — a feature on political activist Charles Booker of Kentucky, one o...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with comedian Alonzo Bodden who has been making people laugh for over twenty years with many fans knowing him as a regular panel member on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me . A professor of comedy and life, Bodden’ first big comedy break came when he was on the “New Faces of Comedy” showcase at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montrea...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with musician and founding member/keyboardist for the progressive rock band Umphrey's McGee, Joel Cummins. Joel’s keyboard wizardry is widely established throughout the music world. Beyond his heralded work with the increasingly popular, must-see live act that is Umphrey’s McGee, Joel has released impressive solo work and plays i...

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with journalist, published author, and the foremost expert in this ever-changing QAnon conspiracy theory, Mike Rothschild. Mike is a contributing writer for millennial-focused news and technology site the Daily Dot , where he explores the intersections between internet culture and politics through the lens of conspiracy theories....

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast presents an interview with journalist and author Philip Watson. Philip worked for a number of years at GQ , where he was deputy editor, and Esquire , where he was editor-at-large. He has been freelance for the past decade or more, contributing articles and features to many publications in Britain, Ireland and the US, including the Guardian , Telegraph...

This episode of Across The Margin : The Podcast features an interview with pianist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, who has been a fixture of the New York experimental music rock and jazz scene since 1999, Marco Benevento. Marco’s music covers a wide swath of ground, seemingly connecting the dots in the vast space between LCD Soundsystem and legendary musician Leon Russell....