Dialogue with Marcia Franklin

Marcia Franklin talks with former Idaho Governor Phil Batt about his life and legacy. Originally aired: 01/2027/2000

Tom Ikeda, who provided critical research for Daniel James Brown's book "Facing the Mountain," discusses his Seattle-based non-profit, Densho. It preserves the stories of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Ikeda's parents and grandparents were imprisoned in the Minidoka camp in Idaho. Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the  Dialogue  website  for more  conversations that matter....

Daniel James Brown, the best-selling author of "The Boys in the Boat," talks about his newest book, "Facing the Mountain," which honors the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese-Americans who fought in World War II despite the fact that many of their families were incarcerated in the United States simply for being of Japanese descent.  Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the...

  In the lead-up to the November 2016 elections, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham joined Dialogue host Marcia Franklin to talk about presidential character. Meacham talks with Franklin about the qualities he believes are essential to being a successful president, and the unique nature of the 2016 presidential race. An executive editor at Random House, Meacham is well-known for his appeara...

  Marcia Franklin talks with David Epstein, an award-winning sports journalist and author of the bestselling book  The Sports Gene.  It delves into the controversial research on what role genetics plays in the development of athletic talent. The book also takes on the so-called "10,000 Hour Rule," which contends that 10,000 hours of practice can produce mastery in a field, including sports. Don't...

  For decades, Russian poets have preserved both the suffering and the joy of their people - but for their honesty, some writers paid with their lives. World-renowned Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko talks with host Marcia Franklin about his life and work. Originally aired: 05/27/1999

  Host Marcia Franklin talks with Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan about her experiences in several concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, and her life educating others about how to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. Lazan is the co-author of a young adult book about her experiences called Four Perfect Pebbles, and is the subject of a documentary called Marion's Triumph....

  Marcia Franklin talks with Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), the last of the so-called "Big Six" leaders of the African-American civil rights movement. Lewis was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and played a seminal role in some of the 56 most important activities of the movement, including the Freedom Rides, the march from Selma to Montgomery and the...

  Marcia Franklin interviews presidential historian Robert Dallek about the upcoming election and the qualities he believes are important in order to lead a country. Dallek, the author of more than a half dozen books, including a two-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson, is a professor of history at Boston University. He is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and was the 2004 d...

  In part two of her interview with David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, co-creators of "Game of Thrones," Marcia Franklin talks with the duo about the effect the program has had on Northern Ireland, where they film, the technological breakthroughs the production has achieved, what they'd like the legacy of the series to be, and their next project. Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website...

  In part one of her interview with David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, co-creators of the immensely popular "Game of Thrones" television series, Marcia Franklin talks with the duo about why they wanted to create the series, what they think of criticism about its violence, how they work together, and how they've dealt with the fear of the unknown on such a complex project. Don't forget to subscribe, and...

  It's one of his most beloved tales, but was written in a hurry and under duress. On this holiday episode of Dialogue, Marcia Franklin talks with Boise writer Samantha Silva about "A Christmas Carol," penned by Charles Dickens in 1843. In her debut novel, "Mr. Dickens and His Carol," Silva melds fact with fiction to imagine how Dickens came up with the plot for his now-classic story. Of Silva's w...

Author Adam Johnson, who has won both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his works, talks with host Marcia Franklin about his writing philosophy. The two also discuss his thoughts on North Korea, which he has visited and about which he wrote in  The Orphan Master's Son. Don't forget to subscribe, and visit the  Dialogue  website  for more  conversations that matter. Originally Aired:...

Host Marcia Franklin talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson, then a financial editor and columnist at the  New York Times  who covered the country's financial crisis since its inception. They discuss the federal government's push to increase home ownership, which Morgenson sees as the underpinning of the financial collapse. The two also talk about various taxpayer-funded b...

Marcia Franklin talks with playwright Samuel D. Hunter about his work, including "The Whale," which was adapted into a movie with Brendan Fraser, who won an Academy Award. The two also discuss the role of Idaho in his works, and the importance of the humanities.

Marcia Franklin talks with historian Tiya Miles about her book, "All That She Carried," which won the National Book Award. It tells the story of "Ashley's sack," a bag given to an enslaved girl by her mother in the 1850s. The two discuss how a material object can bring untold history alive, and also talk about Miles' book, "Night Flyer," which looks at the effect of the outdoors on Harriet Tubman.

Marcia Franklin talks with Clarissa Ward, the chief international correspondent for CNN, about her start in the business, her assignments in some of the most dangerous parts of the world and the continuing need for journalistic ethics. The two also discuss her memoir, "On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist." The conversation was taped at the 2024 Sun Valley Writers' Conference.

Marcia Franklin talks with Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR, a Jewish congregation in Los Angeles. The two discuss how the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel affected her and her congregants, Israel's bombing of Gaza, increasing antisemitism, and a path forward to peace.

Host Marcia Franklin talks with author Margaret Atwood about her work, which includes the bestselling novel, "The Handmaid's Tale" and its sequel, "The Testaments." Atwood also shares her thoughts on whether the United States could head towards totalitarianism. The conversation was recorded at the 2024 Sun Valley Writers' Conference.

In this episode, host Marcia Franklin talks with Dr. Abraham Verghese about his latest blockbuster novel,  The Covenant of Water . The epic, which includes a mystery at its core, covers more than 70 years in the intertwined lives of families in the Indian state of Kerala. Verghese discusses the ties the story has to his own family history and shares his joy of writing. Originally Aired: 12/01/2023...

In this episode, Hernan Diaz joins Marcia Franklin to discuss his latest novel,  Trust , which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The intricately braided tale about characters in the world of high finance gives readers four different takes on the same story, playing with the idea of "truth." Diaz explains why he constructed the novel using multiple voices, and what it was like to win the Pul...

In this episode, David Grann regales viewers with some of the amazing true stories surrounding the wreck of The Wager, a British ship that sank off the tip of South America in 1741. In his book  The Wager , Grann uses rare primary source documents to reconstruct the harrowing experiences of the ship's castaways and shows how the aftermath of the saga is still relevant today. The book will be adapt...

Conversations From the Sun Valley Writers' Conference is back for a 16th season! In this episode, journalist Andrea Elliott joins host Marcia Franklin to talk about her book,  Invisible Child , which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. The book chronicles eight years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child in Brooklyn. Elliott shares what compelled her to spend that much time coverin...

  In this episode, host Marcia Franklin speaks with writer Mohsin Hamid about his latest novel,  The Last White Man . The story follows the transformation of a man who wakes up one day to find that his skin color has changed. Hamid, who often incorporates his own multicultural background into his work, talks with Franklin about how his life changed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and how he a...

  More of Marcia Franklin's 2019 conversation with National Book Award-winning author and world traveler Barry Lopez about his life, his philosophy of writing and his new memoir,  Horizon . In December 2020, the Sun Valley Writers' Conference awarded Barry Lopez with the inaugural Writer in the World Prize in recognition of his singular voice in the landscape of English Literature. Lopez died Dece...