GrottoPod

Poet, memoirist and longtime teacher Louise Nayer joins us to discuss the always-intriguing subject of memoir. In August 2016, Louise re-released Burned, the story of tragedy and rebirth in her family of origin. She also talks with us about the lighter but no-less-revealing personal story in her next book, Poised for Retirement: Moving from Anxiety to Zen. Consider this podcast a preview of Louise...

Two of the three founders of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto -- Po Bronson and Ethan Watters -- join us on the GrottoPod. They come not to discuss their stellar careers in journalism but to share how The Grotto came to be, what The Grotto means, and where The Grotto goes from here. From a humble Victorian flat 22 years ago, to a legendary stint at a decommissioned dog-and-cat hospital, to today’...

Connie Hale, a Hawaiian-born author of groundbreaking books on language, enters the GrottoPod studio to discuss growing up in paradise, laying some island Pidgin English on one of her profs at Princeton and laboring in the publishing industry to write about the culture of her home state. She tells us how a chance exchange with her hula teacher led her to scrap traditional publishing for a new book...

Shanthi Sekaran, whose new novel, Lucky Boy, has been featured in People, InStyle, Publishers Weekly and on NPR, squeezes into the GrottoPod for Episode 1. She talks about her creative process, the unique challenges and responsibilities of writing about the immigrant experience, the "Berkeley experience" and motherhood.