Nation of Writers

In this episode, we discuss the life and work of writing icon Joan Didion, a writer’s writer. Not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist, and screenwriter, Didion was also a keen observer of life in all its humor, disappointment and grace. Perhaps best known for essay writing and collections such as The White Album, The [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of indigenous author and orator William Apess. In 1829 Apess published his memoir A Son of the Forest, which describes his journey to reclaim his Pequot identity after being taken away from his family and forced to work as a servant for white families. The memoir [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The wildly popular Jazz Age poet ventured fearlessly beyond traditional poetic subjects to tackle political injustice, social discrimination, and female sexuality in her bestselling books, beginning with Renascence and Other Poems in 1917. The first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Betty Friedan. The feminist writer and activist acclaimed as the mother of second-wave feminism, and pathbreaking author of The Feminine Mystique, was powerful and polarizing. As a journalist she covered racism, sexism, labor, class inequality, and anti-Semitism. As a wife and mother, she struggled to [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of poet Phillis Wheatley Peters. Kidnapped in West Africa, Wheatley Peters was renamed after the ship that brought her to Boston to be sold as a slave. A precocious child, she was given an education, which was unusual at a time when enslaved African-Americans could be [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of the late Cormac McCarthy, whose novels about wayward characters in the rural American South and Southwest are noted for their dark violence, dense prose, and stylistic complexity. During his long career, McCarthy wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, many of [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Ursula K. Le Guin. As you can read on her website, UrsulaKLeGuin.com, she was, “a celebrated author whose body of work includes 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of iconic poet Walt Whitman, who grew up in working-class New York City and was largely self taught. Whitman’s poems celebrated America, freedom, and individualism. His unconventional free verse, without rhyme or meter, shocked many readers but others found Whitman’s style and voice distinctly American and [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of poet, author, educator and community builder Gwendolyn Brooks, who was born in Topeka, Kansas. She moved to Chicago at just a few weeks old, where she remained an integral figure in the city for the rest of her life. Her work often dealt with the [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Edith Wharton, who was born in 1862 into a tightly controlled society at a time when women were discouraged from achieving anything beyond a proper marriage. Wharton broke through these strictures to become one of America’s greatest writers. Author of The Age of Innocence, Ethan [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston, who was, simply, extraordinary. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town, leaving home in her teens and working menial jobs in order to finish high school. She arrived in New York in the 1920s to study anthropology at Columbia University [...]

In this episode, we discuss the life and work of Chicago legend Nelson Algren, one of the most well known literary writers in America in the 40s and 50s who eventually fell into obscurity toward the end of his life. Algren is perhaps best known for his novels such as A Walk on the Wild [...]

In this episode, we discuss the life and work of Willa Cather. As one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century, Cather was gifted in conveying an intimate understanding of her characters in relation to their personal and cultural environments—environments that often derived from Red Cloud, Nebraska where she spent most of her [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Rudolfo Anaya. A writer powerfully attuned to the land, history, and people of his native New Mexico, Anaya is often viewed as one of the founders of contemporary Chicano literature. “What I’ve wanted to do,” Anaya reflected, “is compose the Chicano worldview…and clarify it for [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Oscar Hijuelos, who became the first Latino to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. He wrote rich and radiant novels that brought the Cuban American immigrant experience into the heart of American literature, helping [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Octavia E. Butler. Butler was an acclaimed American writer who defied genre, though she is most often associated with the realm of science fiction. The recipient of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, she is the author of such classics as Kindred, Parable of the Sower, [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of the one and only Prince. The Purple One was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, poet, cultural icon, and is widely regarded as one of the best musicians of his generation. In this episode we’ll largely focus on Prince’s lyricism, as well as his profound impact on [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Nora Ephron, one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film. Best known for iconic rom-com films like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and more, Ephron was also a reporter, essayist, director and novelist who [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Sylvia Plath, the poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Plath is perhaps best known for her published collections The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel, as well as the novel The Bell Jar. Nearly twenty years after her death, Plath was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Margaret Wise Brown, the children’s book author of classics such as Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Margaret’s books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children’s book publishing revolution. Her [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Toni Morrison. A writer who needs no introduction, Toni Morrison is one of the most cherished American authors, known for her iconic novels like Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and Sula. She earned numerous prestigious awards during her life including the Pulitzer Prize, [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Hannah Arendt. Arendt is one of the most renowned political thinkers of the twentieth century, and her work has never been more relevant than it is today. Born in Germany in 1906, she published her first book at the age of 23 before turning away [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Rachel Carson, a hugely influential marine biologist and nature writer. Her 1962 book Silent Spring is perhaps her most recognized work, as it led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides and sparked the worldwide environmental and conservation movements. The Library of America [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of Zitkála-Šá, who also went by the name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. Zitkála-Šá was a member of the Yankton Dakota, also known as Sioux, tribe. An accomplished violinist, writer, and activist, she co-founded the National Council of American Indians, lobbied Congress to pass the Indian Citizenship Act, [...]

In this episode, we’ll discuss the life and work of multi-dimensional writer Shirley Jackson, perhaps best known for her horror novels and short stories. We’re joined by three guests whose lives and careers have been influenced greatly by Jackson in different ways. Laurence Jackson Hyman is the eldest child of Shirley Jackson and Stanley Edgar [...]