The Story Talks Back

At the age of 18 -- while still in high school -- Jack Rabid founded "The Big Takeover," a magazine devoted to the alternative music that had become his obsession. Over 40 years later, TBT (as its known by fans) has become a powerful force on the rock/punk landscape, and Rabid has become a legend in his own right. In this excerpt from our forthcoming interview, Rabid tells how his love of rock mus...

TSTB shares a wide-ranging interview with Richard Kostelanetz, a powerful presence in New York's avant-garde literary and art scenes for several generations. Born in New York City in 1940, Kostelanetz has published more than fifty books of criticism, cultural history, and creative work, in addition to editing over three dozen anthologies. Relentlessly experimental and productive, Kostelanetz is a...

Since the 1960s, Richard Kostelanetz has been a distinctive voice for experimentation in poetry, fiction, and criticism. The author or editor of over 100 books, Kostelanetz has been an integral part of the New York City avant-garde scene for several generations, working in a seemingly inexhaustible variety of boundary-crossing genres -- among them “visual poetry,” “audiotapographies,” “foreshorten...

TSTB interviews the extraordinary Julie Lythcott-Haims -- author of the best-selling "How to Raise an Adult"; "Real American" -- a powerful poetic memoir of Black biracial life in white American spaces; and "Your Turn," a wise perspective on being an adult in today's complex world. Lythcott-Haims talks to us about becoming a source of white discomfort and confusion during her Midwest childhood; fi...

Born to a white English mother and African-American father, Julie Lythcott-Haims came to the US as a child and quickly discovered the powerful, enigmatic force of American racism. She beautifully -- and forcefully -- records this and other indelible life experiences in her celebrated memoir, "Real American." In this clip from our forthcoming interview with Lythcott-Haims, she talks about her inesc...

In this candid and wide-ranging interview, a veteran actor reveals the secrets of great Hollywood storytelling -- in front of the camera and behind. In a career spanning four decades, Michael Horton acted in dozens of TV-land’s most celebrated series, including “Murder, She Wrote,” “M*A*S*H,” “Taxi,” “Hill Street Blues,” “LA Law,” and “ER." He also gave voice to characters in numerous animated ser...

As an actor, Michael Horton appeared in dozens of TV shows and movies across a career that spanned four decades -- from "M*A*S*H" to "Hill Street Blues" to "Star Trek: Voyager." But in recent years he has devoted himself to helping Hollywood's behind-the-scenes professionals, facilitating a recurring "meetup" in which editors, set designers, make-up artists, and others share tips and simply get to...

Is it possible that the most important months of your life -- the stories that have been shaping you ever since -- took place before you were born? Laura Uplinger is an educator and scholar focusing on our prenatal and peri-natal lives -- before and just after we were born. In this new interview, she explores how our awareness of and need for stories is part of us even before birth, and how storie...

TSTB interviews Dani Shapiro -- the author of Inheritance, which became an instant New York Times best seller in January 2019. In this touching and insightful dialogue, Shapiro talks to a friend of 40+years -- TSTB host David Stanton -- about the extraordinary ways her own story has been disrupted, reinvented, and ultimately made whole again. She tells how stories and storytelling "saved her" in d...

In her nationwide best seller Inheritance, Dani Shapiro tells how her most fundamental sense of self -- the story of her own life -- was upended. Secrets held for decades unraveled in a matter of hours, and she learned that her feeling of being an outsider in her orthodox Jewish family was rooted in fact. This extraordinary experience has given Shapiro a front-row seat on the interplay of story, i...

A pianist, visual artist, and educator, Jane Stanton (1921 - 2008) was the mother of TSTB creator and host David Stanton. In this program honoring what would have been her 100th birthday (August 2, 2021), Jane is remembered by three of her former students and colleagues -- talking about her passion for empowering students (especially women), her compassion as a friend and confidante, and her infec...

When Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor -- a Harvard trained brain scientist -- suffered a massive stroke in 1996, the experience set her on a journey of discovery that would touch people of all kinds and in all parts of the world. Her 2008 TED Talk was the first to go viral (it's now been seen by over 26 million people), and her best-selling book, My Stroke of Insight, continues to inform and inspire people w...

In her breakthrough 2008 TED Talk -- the first viral video in that now-storied series -- Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor took her audience on a remarkable journey. With passion and a powerful engagement, she told the story of her severe brain hemorrhage -- an incredible tale recounted in her New York Times best-seller My Stroke of Insight -- and what it taught her about life, intelligence, and the brain. Th...

TSTB interviews Gary Husband, a unique "dual virtuoso" at home in many musical styles and settings. With an equal mastery of both keyboard and drums, Gary Husband has collaborated with a who’s-who of celebrated musicians in modern jazz and progressive rock. He has toured and recorded with John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck, Jack Bruce, and Allan Holdsworth, and has also worked with the likes of Chick Core...

We are thrilled to share this excerpt of our forthcoming interview with Gary Husband , the virtuoso British drummer and keyboardist who has collaborated with a who's-who of fusion jazz and progressive rock -- from Jeff Beck and Jack Bruce to John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth. Here Husband explores differences between composing and improvising in musical storytelling -- and the "power of 3's" in...

TSTB interviews T. Coraghessan Boyle -- the author of twenty-eight books of fiction, including Descent of Man, Water Music, World’s End (which won the PEN/Faulkner Prize), The Road to Wellville, Drop City, The Women, TC Boyle Stories, and Outside Looking In. His work has been translated into more than two dozen languages, and his fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic Month...

T. Coraghessan Boyle -- the author of 28 remarkable and completely distinctive books of fiction -- has a powerful perspective on the need for #stories . In this excerpt from our forthcoming interview with Boyle, he tells how stories have helped him come to terms with life's absurdity -- and turn it into a lifelong dialogue with the process of #storytelling . #tcboyle #tcoraghessanboyle #shortstori...

An interview with Bob Minkin, whose photographs have documented four decades of rock music. His special focus has been on Blues musicians, the Punk scene of the late 1970s, and “Jamband” music typified by the Grateful Dead. He has photographed thousands of concerts, and his work has appeared in countless music publications and books, as well as on CD and record album covers. Minkin has published t...

Bob Minkin has become one of rock music's most respected photgraphers -- documenting thousands of concerts with indelible images seen around the world. His most powerful connection is to the Grateful Dead, the legendary "jam" band he has photographed -- in all of its manifestations -- since the 1970s. In this excerpt from our forthcoming interview, Minkin talks about discovering rock music as a te...

A revealing interview with Brazilian-born poet and fiction writer Ananda Lima. Her poetry collection Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) won the 2020 Hudson Prize. She is also the author of the chapbooks: Translation (Paper Nautilus, 2019, winner of the Vella Chapbook Prize), Amblyopia (Bull City Press – INCH series, 2020), and Tropicália (Newfound, 2021 winner of the Newfound Prose Prize). H...

Brazilian-born author Ananda Lima has already established remarkable -- and remarkably different -- styles in her fiction and poetry. New story collections like "Tropicalia" rest on sometimes-surreal premises, such as a hospital orderly who becomes addicted to snacking on tiny humans. But Lima's poems reflect more of her everyday world, including the struggles with amblyopia (a.k.a. "lazy eye") th...

Joel Gardner is a filmmaker, photographer, and writer who lives in Vermont. His documentary, "Sunlight Man," tells the story of his late father, the novelist John Gardner, and their complex relationship. Joel lost his father at age 22, after a tumultuous decade in which the elder Gardner shot to fame, mentored many now-famous writers, divorced twice, published a scathing critique of modern fiction...

In an all-new panel discussion, TSTB celebrates the life and work of Ruth Lisa Schechter -- poet, activist, editor, healer, and mentor. Raised in the Bronx during the Great Depression, Schechter discovered a passion for poetry and studied with the legendary Louise Bogan. Schechter admired the freewheeling verse of Ginsberg and the confessional poets -- but she was also meticulous about craft and p...

Today, Maria Mazziotti Gillan is a world-renowned poet, editor, and visual artist; but when she met the late poet Ruth Lisa Schechter, she was a "typical Italian housewife" who was just beginning her journey as a writer. In this excerpt from our forthcoming TSTB tribute to Schechter -- a panel discussion with Gillan, poet Maureen Seaton, and Schechter's son Bill -- she describes her fateful first...

In this moving interview, philosopher and advocate Bayo Akomolafe reflects on the stories of his Yoruba culture, his Westernized Nigerian childhood, and his present-day "decolonizing journey." Raised in a Christian family, he gave up a promising academic career to pursue a life outside “the highways of the familiar.” Akomolafe is co-editor of “We Will Tell Our Own Stories: The Lions of Africa Spea...