One True Podcast

Ernest Hemingway’s Red Cross experience in Italy during World War I was short, but it changed the course of his life and his writing. From being wounding in July 1918 to the abrupt end to his relationship with nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky, Hemingway would revisit those traumas for the rest of his life and write about them for his entire career. This pair of tumultuous experiences led to a fascinating...

Actor Mackenzie Astin joins us to discuss the 1996 movie In Love and War, the narrative of Hemingway’s wounding in World War I and subsequent romance with nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky.  Directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O’Donnell, Sandra Bullock, Emilio Bonucci, as well as Astin, this war epic depicts the upheaval that World War I created in the life of the teenaged Hemingway and oth...

One True Podcast continues our exploration of the always complicated world of Hemingway’s volatile “friendships” with an episode devoted to Gertrude Stein. We turn to scholar Barbara Will who discusses the things Miss Stein instructed Hemingway about, both personally and professionally. We cover Stein’s background and education, her depiction in A Moveable Feast , her role in Modernism, her politi...

Jay McInerney, (bestselling author of Bright Lights, Big City , Ransom , How It Ended, and most recently Bright, Precious Days ) shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

John Hemingway - grandson of Ernest and son of Gregory -- shares his remarkable story with us. We explore John's important book, Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir, his revealing and unsparing account of his life as a Hemingway. We cover Ernest's volatile relationship with John's father, a history that includes affection and intimate understanding, but also correspondence filled with re...

Is “Hills Like White Elephants” Hemingway’s greatest short story ever, or only his most famous?   Bolstering the case for “Hills Like White Elephants” as the G.O.A.T., esteemed scholar Russ Pottle joins us to explain the story’s composition, imagery, historical and biographical contexts, and unforgettable dialogue. Pottle helps us read between the lines in the ways Hemingway characterizes Jig and...

Ilan Stavans, publisher of Restless Books and author of numerous works including Quixote and What is American Literature? , shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls .

For an episode devoted to Hadley Richardson, we are proud to welcome Gioia Diliberto, esteemed writer and author of many books, including Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway’s First Wife . We explore Hadley’s difficult childhood, her time in Paris with Hemingway, the dissolution of their marriage, the loss of Hemingway’s manuscripts, the famous “100-day separation” pact, and the rest of...

The great Italian scholar Martina Mastandrea discusses “In Another Country,” one of Hemingway’s finest short stories.  After Mastandrea treats us to an Italian rendition of the famous opening paragraph, we explore the many treasures of the story: Why did F. Scott Fitzgerald admire the first sentence of the story so much? Is this a Nick Adams story? What does it tell us about Hemingway's persp...

Naomi Wood, author of Mrs. Hemingway , shares her one true sentence from a letter Hemingway wrote to friends Gerald and Sara Murphy after the death of their son, Baoth, in 1935. 

Happy New Year from One True Podcast !  We usher in 2023 with our new year's tradition of wondering what Ernest Hemingway was doing one hundred years ago. In 1923, what was Hemingway writing? Where did he live? Who were his friends and enemies? How was his marriage going?  And what was on the horizon? To answer these questions, we turn to his biographer, James M. Hutchisson, emeritus professo...

We welcome back Suzanne del Gizzo to ring in the season with a discussion of “The Christmas Gift,” Hemingway’s account of his 1954 plane crashes in East Africa. Del Gizzo, editor of The Hemingway Review and widely published scholar, guides us through this extraordinary piece originally written for Look magazine, its role in Hemingway’s self-mythologizing, its examination of his near-death experien...

Michael Mewshaw, author of numerous novels and nonfiction works (including Year of the Gun , The Lost Prince , and the forthcoming My Man in Antibes: Getting to Know Graham Greene ) shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms .

We are joined by legendary scholar Jackson Bryer, who explains the origins and implications of a notorious concept: the Hemingway code.   When the code was introduced in the 1950s by influential scholar Philip Young, what did he intend it to mean? What is a "code hero"? What is a "Hemingway hero"? What did Hemingway mean by “grace under pressure”? Bryer helps us explore the imp...

We welcome prolific scholar Don Daiker to help us celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Nick Adams Stories. We discuss the volume’s impact and legacy, Philip Young’s controversial editorial decisions, the sequencing, and the characterization of Nick himself, in all of his various phases. Which stories does Daiker consider underrated? Is Dr. Adams unjustly criticized as cold...

Joshua Ferris, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his novel Then We Came to the End , joins us to discuss his one true sentence from  The Sun Also Rises .

One hundred years ago, in September 1922, Turkish forces torched the port city of Smyrna in a hellish episode towards the end of the Greco-Turkish War. The ensuing evacuation, with its chaos and grisly violence, inspired Hemingway’s journalism as well as his short fiction. Hemingway’s most enduring effort to capture this atrocity is "On the Quai at Smyrna," which would become the first s...

We are asking the entire One True Podcast community to contribute to the Hurricane Ian relief effort. Our production studios are in Fort Myers, Florida, which took the brunt of the storm, so we want to do anything we can to lend a hand. This episode honors the recovery effort by urging our listeners to go to www.communitycooperative.com and give generously to provide direct help to those who suffe...

Kawai Strong Washburn, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his novel Sharks in the Time of Saviors , joins us to discuss his one true sentence from "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

Timothy Christian, author of Hemingway's Widow: The Life and Legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway , joins us for a conversation about Hemingway's fourth and final wife.  Our wide-ranging interview covers Mary's life before, during, and after Hemingway. We explore Mary's family, her early life and education, including her impressive career as a journalist. We cover her first encounter...

One True Podcast examines the deadly category 5 hurricane that ravaged the Florida Keys over Labor Day weekend in 1935, both from a historical perspective and a fictional treatment. We first hear from historian Thomas Neil Knowles, author of Category 5: The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, who describes the deadly weather system, its devastating toll on the veterans stationed along the Keys, the bureaucr...

Billy Collins, the author of numerous collections of poetry and the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 , shares his one true sentence from "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

In this live interview from the 19th Biennial Hemingway Society Conference in Sheridan, Wyoming, we talk with John Sutton and Chris Warren about Hemingway's summers spent in Wyoming and Montana and how his experiences in the American West left their mark on his stories and novels. John Sutton is the director of the NEH “Creating Humanities Communities along Wyoming's Hemingway Highway” G...

Craig Johnson, author of the widely celebrated Longmire series, shares his one true sentence from "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."

In the lead-up to the Hemingway Society conference in Wyoming and Montana, we welcome Darla Worden to explore some fascinating connections between Hemingway and the American West. Worden is the author of the book Cockeyed Happy: Ernest Hemingway's Wyoming Summers with Pauline . She's also the founder and director of the Left Bank Writers Retreat in Paris and the Wyoming Writers Retreat....