Community of Writers Podcasts

This week we simultaneously mark a maddening anniversary and celebrate joyful creative resistance with a reading of her 2021 short story “False Flag” by writer, teacher, and editor Lisa Alvarez. The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

My guest is the art historian Stephen F. Eisenman , collaborator with legendary artist Sue Coe on the new collection The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism , out now from O/R Books. The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

For  this month’s fund drive first edition I air an edited version of a terrific podcast hosted by writer Abby Walthausen featuring me --- of all people! --- as a guest. Its topic is the writer and artist whose work I curated for an exhibition on December 3rd through December 13 at Cerritos College. The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily r...

I host novelist and memoirist Chuck Rosenthal, author of the Loop trilogy and Never Let Me Go , among many books. His latest, Awake For Ever in a Sweet Unrest , is what writer Michael Ventura calls a “gentle phantasm,” a short book which imagines the role of the reader right into the writing, and into the lives of the writer and characters…here, the writer/characters John Keats, Mary Shelley, Perc...

I host editor, anthologist, book reviewer, and essayist David L. Ulin , who has written about Los Angeles and Southern California for decades, assembling the defining Joan Didion collection for the Library of America, reviewing books and assigning articles and reviews of and about our literary region, and offering  his own original short stories and acclaimed essays too. The views expressed in thi...

Today, a reading by a favorite writer, Gary Amdahl, author of Visigoth , I Am Death , The Intimidator Still Lives in Our Hearts and, out now, The Creative Writers: A Burlesque of the Imagination on Totalitarian Themes in the Manner of Émile Cohl and Les Arts Incohérents Harry Everett Smith, and Hanna-Barbera .  The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not n...

My guest for today is poet and, lately fiction writer Brittney Corrigan .  Her recent poetry collection Solastalgia explored themes of ecological crisis and now, with The Ghost Town Collectives , she creates in short albeit very poetic short stories, a vision of the transformations around us, an emotional and political and mythic apprehending of the Anthropocene investigating and interrogating and...

My guest for the first of a three-part series is Steve Wasserman, the legendary editor, publisher, writer, agent, and arts and literature advocate with decades of experience and engagement and friendships which are now ours to read about in his essential collection, Tell Me Something,Tell Me Anything,Even If It’s a Lie: A Memoir in Essays. The views expressed in this program are those of its prese...

I present my annual program celebrating Banned Books Week (September 22-29) with special guest American Library Association (ALA) President Cindy Hohl. This year’s Banned Books Week 2024 theme is “Freed Between the Lines,” an observance of the freedom found in the pages of books and the need to defend that freedom from censorship. The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and...

I present excerpts from one of the most requested, most popular, and perhaps, alas, most enduring and relevant of the hundreds of shows I have hosted over more than fifteen years of Bibliocracy Radio . Corey Robin ’s landmark The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin is a primer, a take-apart, an essential guide to understanding, critiquing, and fighting the Right. The vi...

A program celebrating a long-ago artist and writer whose work I am curating at an upcoming gallery show. Today I read his self-published book, Aliso Creek , a singular and defining introduction to the work of Peter Carr (1925-1981) and invite listeners to visit the late October show I am helping curate at Cerritos College Art Gallery. The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter...

My guest is Jackie Wu , who worked for the Orange County Registrar of Voters. She's written a firsthand account titled On the Front Lines of Democracy: An Election Official’s Story of Protecting the Vote in 2020 . It's an insider’s account of administering, defending, and advocating for one of the nation’s best voting systems. The views expressed in this program are those of its presente...

I attended the recent launch party reading celebrating the arrival of a must-read, must-own anthology. Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California is out from the new collaborative publisher Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library . It includes essays which write and rewrite stories and experiences of California with a range of writers. The views expressed in this p...

Today, my guest is Larry Beinhart , perhaps best known for a novel adapted into the film Wag the Dog ( American Hero ) but today talking about and reading from Salvation Boulevard . It’s both a detective story and a novel of big ideas, about “faith” and skepticism, a murder mystery with philosophical chops. The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not neces...

Today, my 2009 interview with Victoria Patterson on her debut book, Drift , a defining —- for the author and her hometown, Newport Beach —- short story collection from and about Orange County, California.  This is where it started for the writer Victoria Patterson, who with Drift was a finalist for the California Book Award, the 2009 Story Prize, with Drift selected as one of the best books of 200...

Today, my 2010 interview with Luis Alberto Urrea on his smart, funny, sincerely moving Into the Beautiful North , a comic and woman-centered take on the classic film The Magnificent Seven by way of a border adventure story with a twist. It’s a sort of alternative version of his award-winning nonfiction classic The Devil’s Highway but with a light, humorous, humane touch.  The views expressed in th...

Today, my 2009 interview with Dylan Landis on her debut novel-in-stories, Normal People Don’t Live Like This , a singularly poignant, tough and smart coming-of-age novel set in 1970s New York City. This is a good one, folks.   The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

My guest this week is short story writer Mary Jones . She has written and published dozens of short stories for many years, earning acclaim, and establishing a reputation, all of which is affirmed in her debut collection, 28 short stories, titled The Goodbye Process . The short and short-short stories offered in The Goodbye Process are dark, funny, meditative, often initially realistic episodes wh...

My guest this week is Kevin Allardice, the author of short stories and five novels, of which I have no read three. His most recent is Weft , and it’s a full-length work like his debut novel, Any Resemblance to Actual Persons . I’m also a big fan of his shorter works, closer to novellas but no less rich in voice, wit, fabulist or absurdist themes, each a celebration of association, word choice, dig...

My guest this week is Suzanne Greenberg, a much-published short story writer whose novel Lesson Plans was a Library Journal Editor’s pick.  Her previous short story collection Speed-Walk and Other Stories won a Drue Heinze Literature Prize.  Now Suzanne Greenberg is out with Shopping for Dad and Other Stories , its title, from one of the defining stories, a helpful nod to the wry, funny, sad engag...

To kick off the next season of Bibliocracy Radio on Community of Writers Podcasts, we are presenting a very special episode. A Journal of the Plague Years,  a compendium of work which developed out of the excellent online journal founded by writer Susan Zakin . The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of W...

Gail Tsukiyama delivers the closing talk to round out the fifty-fourth year of the Community of Writers summer workshops. Introduced by Karen Joy Fowler. Gail Tsukiyama is the author of nine novels, including Women of the Silk, The Samurai’s Garden, The Color of Air , and her latest novel, The Brightest Star . She has been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award, the PEN/Oakland Josep...

Alex Espinoza, Monica West, Andrew Nicholls & Janet Fitch. Moderated by Lisa Alvarez.

Dana Johnson, Karen Joy Fowler, Susanne Pari, Amy Tan & Monica West discuss Voice & Dialogue in this panel.

Rachel Howard delivers a craft talk on Improvisation in writing. Rachel Howard is the author of a novel, The Risk of Us , and a memoir, The Lost Night . Her stories and essays have appeared in StoryQuarterly, ZYZZYVA, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books , and other venues. She served as Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow and Interim Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing at Wa...