Patriotism demands more than pride, it demands moral courage.

This Independence Day episode of Writer’s Voice explores two remarkable women who believed loving America meant challenging it to live up to its highest ideals.

First, filmmaker, author and activist John de Graaf discusses From Sea to Shining Sea, his documentary about Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful. Far from writing a triumphal anthem, Bates created what de Graaf calls a patriotic prayer, a vision of a nation grounded in justice, equality, stewardship of the land, and compassion for all.

“She saw it as a country filled with flaws but with great promise that she wanted to reform.” — John de Graaf

Then novelists Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie talk about A Founding Mother, their richly researched novel told in the voice of Abigail Adams.

Drawing from her letters and historical record, they reveal a woman whose intelligence, independence, and moral clarity shaped both her family and the new republic. Abigail advocated for women’s rights, condemned slavery, built financial independence through her own business ventures, and understood that democracy depends on the participation of every generation.

Together, these conversations remind us that “a more perfect union” was never a description of America. It was, and remains, an aspiration. Katharine Lee Bates and Abigail Adams each understood that patriotism isn’t blind celebration. It’s the willingness to participate fully in the project to create an America that works for all, not just the one percent.

Watch From Sea To Shining Sea

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Tags: America the Beautiful, Katharine Lee Bates, John de Graaf, From Sea to Shining Sea, Abigail Adams, Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, A Founding Mother, American history podcast, Fourth of July, American Revolution, women founders, slavery, historical fiction, Writer’s Voice podcast

You might also like: Stewart Udall and The Politics of Beauty with John de Graaf, What’s An Economy For, Anyway?

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John de Graaf: From Sea To Shining Sea

John de Graaf explores the extraordinary life of Katharine Lee Bates, whose poem America the Beautiful was inspired not only by the grandeur of Pikes Peak but also by the poverty, environmental destruction, and inequality she witnessed across America. Bates believed love of country required moral courage, social reform, and stewardship of both democracy and the land. De Graaf explains why her vision feels remarkably contemporary more than a century later.

Episode Topics

• Katharine Lee Bates
• America the Beautiful
• Patriotism versus nationalism
• Democracy as an ongoing project
• Abigail Adams
• The American founding
• Women’s rights
• Slavery and abolition
• Civic responsibility
• Environmental stewardship
• Historical fiction
• American history
• The Declaration of Independence
• Social reform
• Equality

Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie: A Founding Mother

Abigail Adams helped shape America long before women had political power.

Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie discuss their novel, which draws on more than a thousand surviving letters to recreate Abigail’s voice. They explore her partnership with John Adams, her call to “remember the ladies,” her opposition to slavery, her entrepreneurial spirit, and her belief that each generation must continue the work of building democracy. The conversation reveals Abigail Adams as both a founder and a visionary whose ideas remain deeply relevant today.

Who gets to tell the story, and who gets erased?

This week on Writer’s Voice, we talk with media scholar Robin Andersen about her book The Complicit Lens: U.S. Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. Andersen’s argument is blunt: the American press didn’t just fail to report accurately on Gaza. Through what she calls “the complicit lens,” it helped make the genocide possible.

“It’s no small charge to say that establishment media is complicit in a genocide. And I do believe that they know what they’re doing. They know exactly what’s happening there.”

We discuss media framing, censorship, language, competing narratives about October 7, and why independent journalism has become increasingly important.

Then we revisit part of my 2025 conversation with journalist Nico Lang about American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. Lang traveled across the country to meet trans young people and their families, documenting not only the challenges posed by anti-trans legislation, but also the resilience, humor, and humanity that rarely make headlines.

“They treat these kids like they’re like monsters and aliens rather than human beings who have the same kinds of human being experiences that they do.”

Both conversations ask a similar question: What happens when people are represented through narratives created by others rather than being allowed to tell their own stories? Whether it’s Palestinians documenting life under bombardment or trans teenagers fighting to define themselves in a hostile political climate, these interviews explore the establishment structures that keep the truth from the public — and how those who are being silenced are fighting back.

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Tags: Gaza media coverage, U.S. media bias, Robin Andersen, Complicit Lens, Israel Palestine journalism, media censorship, Palestinian journalists, media criticism, FAIR media, trans youth, transgender teenagers, Nico Lang, American Teenager, Pride Month, anti-trans legislation, trans kids resilience, Writer’s Voice podcast

You might also like: Nico Lang, AMERICAN TEENAGER, Omar Zahzah, GAZA

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Segment One: Robin Andersen — Complicit Lens

Robin Andersen examines the editorial and structural forces that shaped U.S. media coverage of Gaza from October 7, 2023, onward.

She details the internal CNN memos directing journalists to avoid terms like “genocide,” “massacre,” and “refugee camp,” and describes how the New York Times followed similar editorial directives shaped by Israeli military talking points.

Andersen traces how two distinct realities emerged: the ground-level documentation by Palestinian journalists using cell phones and Arab-language press, and the highly constructed version published by U.S. establishment outlets.

She also examines atrocity propaganda surrounding October 7, the Hannibal Directive, competing narratives about systematic sexual violence, and the structural ties between corporate media boards, fossil fuel interests, and the military-industrial complex. Andersen’s conclusion: American media’s complicity in the Gaza genocide was not accidental. It was chosen.

Read An Excerpt

Segment Two: Nico Lang — American Teenager

Award-winning journalist Nico Lang (they/them) traveled to seven states to spend extended time with seven trans youth for their book American Teenager.

Lang discusses their approach to individual storytelling and why they refused to flatten their subjects into a single thesis, letting the particularity of each story carry the universal meaning.

The conversation covers gender dysphoria and non-binary identity, the devastating psychological toll of fighting anti-trans legislation as a teenager, and specific subjects including Micah, a Black gender-fluid teenager in West Virginia who shows up to the state legislature to oppose anti-trans bills and is told by a Republican lobbyist that it doesn’t matter how many kids protest.

Lang reflects on what it means to write about joy under those conditions.

The stories we tell can change how we live.

This week on Writer’s Voice, a novel about what happens when we lose our connection to the living systems that sustain us.

Songwriter and author Alex Woodard joins us to talk about Ordinary Soil, a multigenerational saga of a Choctaw farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle that traces the intertwined health of land, food, and people across more than a century.

“The simplified message of this book is that you get out what you put in. And that goes for the dirt, that goes for your stomach, that goes for your mind, that goes for your spirit, that goes for everything.”

Then, we revisit our 2019 conversation conversation with environmental journalist Carey Gillam about her book The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice. It’s about the groundbreaking case of school groundskeeper Lee Johnson—how he sued Monsanto and won.

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Tags: Alex Woodard, Ordinary Soil, regenerative agriculture, soil health, glyphosate, Roundup, Indigenous farming, environmental fiction, Carey Gillam, Monsanto

You might also like: Exposing Hidden Agendas: Will Potter on Factory Farm Secrecy, Carey Gillam, WHITEWASH

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Alex Woodard, ORDINARY SOIL

Alex Woodard’s Ordinary Soil follows six generations of a Choctaw farming family living on the same Oklahoma Panhandle land from the late nineteenth century to the present. At its center is Jake, a struggling modern farmer whose physical and emotional health reflect the accumulated effects of generational trauma, environmental degradation, and the transformation of American agriculture.

In our conversation, Woodard discusses the novel’s roots in both family history and contemporary concerns about industrial agriculture. The book contrasts Indigenous farming traditions, particularly the “Three Sisters” method of planting corn, beans, and squash together, with the rise of chemical-intensive monoculture farming. Through the family’s story, Woodard explores how changes in the soil affect not only ecosystems but human health as well.

We also talk about glyphosate, gut health, regenerative agriculture, and the growing scientific understanding of epigenetics. The novel suggests that both physical and emotional trauma can accumulate across generations, shaping the lives of descendants long after the original wounds occurred. At the same time, Woodard emphasizes that healing is possible, for individuals, communities, and the land itself.

Listen to or Read a Sample from Ordinary Soil

Anand Gopal on Syria’s Lost Democratic Revolution

What really happened in Syria?

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we talk with journalist Anand Gopal about his extraordinary book Days of Love and Rage. Drawing on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, Gopal reconstructs the story of ordinary Syrians who rose up against dictatorship and attempted to build a democratic society in the city of Manbij during the Arab Spring.

“In these complex scenarios, you usually hear about devastation, not about acts of construction.”

We discuss the social contract that sustained the Assad regime for decades, the impact of neoliberal economic reforms and climate-driven drought, and the revolutionary awakening that swept through Syria in 2011. Gopal describes how citizens with no prior experience of democracy organized councils, newspapers, political assemblies, and public debates, creating a vibrant experiment in self-government under impossible conditions.

The conversation also explores the class divisions, economic crises, and political struggles that contributed to the rise of Islamist movements and eventually ISIS. Yet Gopal argues that the democratic experiment was real, meaningful, and not doomed to fail.

In the final part of our conversation, we examine hope, not as a feeling but as a practice, a willingness to remain open to possibility even in dark times.

Tags: Anand Gopal, Days of Love and Rage, Syria, Syrian Revolution, Arab Spring, Assad regime, Bashar al-Assad, ISIS, Middle East politics, Writer’s Voice Podcast

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More on “Days of Love & Rage”

Anand Gopal’s Days of Love and Rage is a sweeping account of Syria’s revolution through the lives of ordinary people in Manbij and the Euphrates countryside.

Beginning with the agrarian world of Ibrahim Qasim and the village of Little Hyena, Gopal traces the transformation of Syrian society under the Ba’ath Party, the erosion of economic security through neoliberal reforms, and the environmental pressures that helped fuel the Arab Spring.

The conversation examines how Syrians who had lived for decades under dictatorship discovered collective political power through protest and democratic organizing. Gopal describes the emergence of the Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary Youth Movement, which attempted to govern Manbij through public participation, debate, elections, and accountability.

We also explore how economic inequality, class conflict, and insecurity opened space for Islamist movements and eventually ISIS. Finally, Gopal reflects on historical contingency, revolutionary tradition, and the meaning of hope in times of uncertainty.

Key Topics

• Syria before the Arab Spring
• The Assad regime and the Ba’ath Party
• Neoliberalism in the Middle East
• Climate change and drought in Syria
• The Arab Spring
• Democratic self-government in Manbij
• The Revolutionary Youth Movement
• Class conflict and political transformation
• The rise of Islamist movements
• ISIS and revolutionary collapse
• Historical contingency
• Revolutionary traditions
• Hope as political practice

Listen to or read an excerpt

Episode Summary

What if the story we tell about civilization is wrong?

What if human history isn’t a steady march from “primitive” hunter-gatherers to ever more advanced societies, but something far messier, more inventive, and more fragile — a long experiment of adaptation, collapse, reinvention, and survival?

Our guest, historian and podcaster Patrick Wyman takes readers deep into that story in his new book, Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World.

“Our human past is infinitely bigger than we generally tend to think it is.”

Drawing on breakthroughs in archaeology, ancient DNA, isotope analysis, and climate science, Wyman takes us from Ice Age North America to Bronze Age cities and forgotten civilizations across Europe and the Mediterranean. Along the way, he challenges the idea that history follows a single path toward “civilization.” Instead, he reveals a human story filled with experimentation, adaptation, migration, collapse, and renewal.

At a moment when many people feel trapped by crises that seem beyond our control, Lost Worlds offers a powerful reminder that history is full of alternatives, and that the future remains unwritten. One thing is clear: we’ve always had more choices than we thought.

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Tags: Patrick Wyman, Lost Worlds, Bronze Age collapse, Göbekli Tepe, Trypillia, Mycenaean Greece, Sea Peoples, hunter-gatherers, ancient DNA, archaeology, migration history, collapse and renewal, human prehistory, Writer’s Voice podcast, 

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Patrick Wyman, LOST WORLDS

Segment Summary

The scale of the human past — Wyman opens by making the case that even people who love history dramatically underestimate how much of it there is, how many societies have existed, and how different they were from each other and from our assumptions.

Why civilization didn’t unfold in a straight line — Agriculture was independently invented multiple times, in places that look nothing like each other. The “package” of traits we associate with civilization — farming, cities, hierarchy, writing — didn’t arrive together, and they weren’t inevitable.

Migration as humanity’s oldest survival tool — Wyman pushes back on the idea that people are supposed to be rooted in place. Over long periods of time, moving is the baseline human response to pressure, and new tools like ancient DNA are letting us see those movements more clearly than ever before.

New archaeology and what it reveals — The Kosice mass grave in Poland, the Anzick child burial in Montana, the antler frontlets at Starcar in England: Wyman shows how new scientific methods are turning what used to be anonymous fragments into intimate human stories.

Göbekli Tepe, Trypillia, and the problem with “civilization” — Wyman is skeptical of checklists that define which societies “count” as civilizations. He argues those checklists exclude extraordinary experiments in human organization, and he makes the case for taking the Trypillia megacities seriously on their own terms.

The Bronze Age collapse — Around 1200 BC, one of the most prosperous and interconnected worlds in ancient history fell apart in a cascading systems failure. Wyman argues the same interconnections that made it successful made it fragile — and draws explicit parallels to disruptions in global supply chains today.

Collapse and renewal — Wyman pushes back on apocalyptic collapse narratives. Even the worst collapses left survivors with knowledge, agency, and choices. The end is never the end.

About the Author

Patrick Wyman is the host of The Tides of History and The Fall of Rome podcasts, author of several books, and creator of the Substack Perspectives: Past, Present, and Future, 

Read a Sample from Lost Worlds

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca speaks with Omar Zahzah, Palestinian-American scholar, activist, journalist, and author of Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle.

“There’s never been a moment in time where Palestinians did not resist their dispossession. And consequently, there is not going to be a moment in time where Palestinians begin to cease resisting.”

Zahzah offers the first book-length analysis of how major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok, systematically suppress Palestinian content, and how that suppression is structurally connected to the financial, ideological, and political ties between Silicon Valley and the Israeli state.

The conversation covers the history of Palestinian resistance to silencing, the specific mechanics of digital censorship, the TikTok ban, the No Tech for Apartheid campaign, and the forms of resistance that Zahzah believes can still make a difference.

Then we revisit part of Francesca’s 2025 conversation with Omar El Akkad, about his book, One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This. 

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Tags: Omar Zahzah, Terms of Servitude, Palestinian censorship, social media censorship Palestine, digital settler colonialism, Silicon Valley Israel, TikTok ban Palestine, big tech censorship, AI warfare Palestine, Palestinian liberation, Writer’s Voice podcast, Omar El Akkad

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Omar Zahzah, Terms of Servitude

Zahzah opens by explaining his title: “Terms of Servitude” is a pun on “terms of service,” meant to expose the broader social vision behind the platforms we use daily.

He traces his own path from UCLA activist facing doxxing and blacklisting to journalist and author, and frames Palestinian history as what he calls “a series of failed silencings,” a story not of passive victimhood but of continuous, defiant resistance.

He describes in detail the two-tier content system that operates on major platforms: posts that present Palestinians as depoliticized victims, with grief but no named culprit, tend to spread freely, while posts that name Israel, Zionism, or the colonial roots of Palestinian dispossession are flagged, removed, shadowbanned, or suppressed. He gives specific examples: posts by Palestinian journalists flagged as pornographic, accounts shadowbanned in real time, activists forced to use “algo-speak” and emojis to evade automated censorship.

Zahzah addresses the TikTok story in depth, arguing that the platform became a target precisely because it was so effective at spreading pro-Palestinian content and helping younger generations break from legacy media narratives. He connects the TikTok ban and its acquisition by the Ellison family to a broader consolidation of media control in explicitly pro-Israel hands.

On the question of resistance, Zahzah highlights the No Tech for Apartheid campaign among Google and Amazon workers, the importance of whistleblowing (including his own Electronic Intifada reporting on Dell Technologies’ hardware role in AI targeting systems), and the continued importance of posting and speaking out even under censorship. He ends with a reminder that even as the odds are stacked, people are not powerless.

This week, Elizabeth Vartkessian joins me to discuss The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice. Drawing on two decades as a mitigation specialist working with people facing the death penalty, she argues that America’s justice system reflects deeper failures in how we value human dignity, mercy, and opportunity.

“What I can do is everything possible to provide the context that people need to understand that my client is a person who has likely done a huge amount of harm that can’t be undone, but they are still a human being who is loved, who has potential, who has the capacity just like any other human being to grow, to change, to redeem.”  

Then we revisit part of my 2020 conversation with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Michigan. In Healing Politics, he describes what he calls America’s “epidemic of insecurity” and explains why he left medicine to tackle the social and political causes of illness itself.

“Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale.”

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Tags: Elizabeth Vartkessian, The Deserving, death penalty, capital punishment, criminal justice, mitigation specialist, prison system, restorative justice, Abdul El-Sayed, Healing Politics, public health, healthcare inequality, Writer’s Voice podcast

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Elizabeth Vartkessian, The Deserving

Elizabeth Vartkessian has spent more than two decades working as a mitigation specialist for people facing the death penalty.

In The Deserving, she brings readers inside a rarely seen part of the American legal system, investigating the lives of people condemned to die and the social conditions that shaped them long before they entered a courtroom.  

In our conversation, Vartkessian explains what mitigation work actually involves. She investigates the life histories of defendants, tracing patterns of childhood abuse, poverty, trauma, addiction, racism, and systemic neglect. Rather than excusing violent acts, she argues that understanding the full human context behind them is essential if justice is to mean anything more than punishment.  

We talk in depth about one of her early clients, “Edward,” who was sentenced to death after a robbery gone wrong when he was barely eighteen years old. Through Edward’s story, Vartkessian explores how violence often begins long before a crime itself, in homes and communities shaped by desperation and neglect.

She also discusses the deeply flawed mechanics of the death penalty system itself, from ineffective defense counsel to “death-qualified” juries that are predisposed toward conviction and execution.  

The conversation ultimately becomes a larger meditation on mercy, dignity, and the meaning of justice in America. Vartkessian argues that the death penalty neither deters violence nor creates public safety, and instead reflects a society willing to decide that some people are beyond redemption.  

Abdul El Sayed, Healing Politics

In this excerpt from our 2020 interview, Abdul El-Sayed argues that America faces not just a healthcare crisis, but what he calls an “epidemic of insecurity.”

Drawing on his training as both a physician and epidemiologist, he describes how collapsing systems of healthcare, housing, employment, and politics leave millions of Americans struggling with chronic instability and fear.

El-Sayed explains how his understanding of public health evolved beyond traditional medicine into what he calls a systems approach, recognizing that disease is shaped not only by biology, but by racism, poverty, environmental exposure, political power, and economic inequality. He illustrates this through his former work as director of the Detroit Health Department, where industrial pollution, asthma, COVID-19, and racial disparities all intersected in the same communities.

The conversation also turns deeply personal. El-Sayed recounts the patient encounter that changed the course of his life, leading him to leave clinical medicine behind in order to address the systemic causes of illness itself. He reflects on water shutoffs in Detroit, the Flint lead crisis, and the failure of political institutions to protect public health.

At its core, Healing Politics argues that healing requires more than medical care. It requires rebuilding social systems that allow people to live with dignity, security, and democratic power.

This week on Writer’s Voice, two novels explore what happens when people are forced out of the lives they thought they understood.

First, Tim Weed joins me to talk about The Gatepost, a speculative thriller that blends archaeology, psychedelics, quantum theory and Mesoamerican mythology into a story about grief, consciousness, and humanity’s fractured relationship with nature.

“Our mythologies have collapsed. They no longer explain the world. And so, I consider this to be a fun novel, but it’s also a novel that has a serious aspect to it. And this is part of weaving the new tapestry, the tapestry of a new mythology.”  

Then Farah Naz Rishi discusses The Flightless Birds of New Hope, a funny, tender, and deeply moving novel about three estranged siblings brought back together after the death of their parents and the escape of the family cockatoo.

“I think grief and humor come hand in hand. Usually you’ll find that some of the funniest people are those who have experienced intense hardship or suffering from depression. And they use humor as a way of making sure that people don’t worry about them.”  

Both books ask what it takes to move forward after loss, and whether connection, to family, to nature, or to something larger than ourselves, can help us find our way.

Finally, we listen to Richard Wilbur read his poem “Advice to a Prophet.” Hear our 2009 conversation with Wilbur here.

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Tags: Tim Weed, The Gatepost, psychedelics, Mesoamerican mythology, Inframundo, speculative fiction, Writer’s Voice podcast, Farah Naz Rishi, The Flightless Birds of New Hope, literary fiction, Richard Wilbur

Love good coffee that’s also Fair-Trade? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show!

You May Also Like: Tim Weed, THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT, Modern Psychedelics with Joe Dolce

Tim Weed — The Gatepost

Tim Weed’s novel The Gatepost combines literary suspense, speculative fiction, and spiritual inquiry in a story that moves between contemporary Vermont and a mysterious alternate realm inspired by Mesoamerican mythology.

The novel follows Esme, a woman investigating the disappearance of her father, Gregory, an amateur archaeologist whose experiments with psilocybin mushrooms and an ancient Olmec stela may have opened a doorway into another world.  

In our conversation, Weed discusses the influence of psychedelic researchers like Albert Hofmann and Gordon Wasson, as well as the Mesoamerican concept of the Inframundo, a hidden realm existing alongside ordinary reality. We talk about the intersection of science and spirituality in the novel, including the parallels Weed sees between ancient cosmologies and the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum physics.  

Weed also reflects personally on his own experiences with psychedelics as a teenager and how those experiences shaped his imagination as a writer. He describes both the exhilaration and danger of altered states, stressing the seriousness and reverence with which traditional cultures approached entheogenic substances. The conversation explores how experiences of awe, ego dissolution, and interconnectedness influenced the novel’s vision of consciousness and love as a unifying force.  

At its heart, The Gatepost is a novel about humanity’s relationship with nature and the stories we tell about our place in the world. Weed argues that modern society suffers from a collapse of shared mythology, and that literature can help imagine new paradigms rooted in stewardship rather than domination.  

Farah Naz Rishi — The Flightless Birds of New Hope

Farah Naz Rishi’s novel The Flightless Birds of New Hope begins with grief and a missing bird.

After the death of their parents, three estranged siblings, Aidan, Eliza, and Sami, are brought back together when the family cockatoo, Coco, escapes. What follows is a road trip story full of emotional reckoning, sharp humor, buried resentment, and hard-earned tenderness.  

In our conversation, Rishi talks about how the novel emerged from her own experience of losing her younger brother. She describes grief as a kind of emotional paralysis, a feeling of being “flightless,” and explains how the novel became a way to explore anger, abandonment, love, and survival. The sibling dynamics are central to the story, especially the tensions between Aidan, the angry eldest brother, and Eliza, who feels abandoned after he leaves the family.  

One of the novel’s most unusual and moving elements is Coco herself. Rishi explains why she chose to give the cockatoo her own perspective chapters, allowing the bird to become not just a symbol but a full participant in the family’s emotional life. We also talk about birding culture, community, and the generosity of strangers the siblings encounter on their journey.  

The conversation also explores the novel’s blend of humor and heartbreak. Rishi reflects on the way grief and comedy coexist, and why imperfect healing felt truer than a neat resolution. In the end, the novel suggests that healing may begin simply with the willingness to keep moving together.  

Read A Sample

This week, we begin with a look at how Stephen King’s work strikes at the heart of our most basic fears. Caroline Bicks takes us inside Stephen King’s private archives to explore how horror works, and why King’s stories continue to haunt us. Her book is Monsters In The Archives.

“He doesn’t just write about monsters. He’s really writing about human emotions of grief and trauma and using horror as a way to help us metabolize our own very human experiences and fears.”

Then, another kind of fear: the dizzying precarity plaguing so many college graduates. Novelist Maria Adelmann joins me to talk about Adjunct, her darkly funny and deeply unsettling novel about exploitation, debt, and survival inside higher education.

“I wanted to make the point that a few things go wrong — a medical issue, no family support — and you can, even as a professor at a good college, become so poor that you don’t have a place to live.”

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Tags: Stephen King, Monsters in the Archives, Caroline Bicks, Stephen King archive, Pet Sematary, Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Night Shift, horror writing craft, adjunct professor, Marie Adelmann, Adjunct novel, contingent faculty, academic precarity, student debt, university adjuncts, adjunct pay, adjunct crisis, Writer’s Voice podcast,

Love good coffee that’s also Fair-Trade? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show!

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Caroline Bicks, Monsters In The Archives

Caroline Bicks is the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and a scholar of Renaissance literature and Shakespeare.

She spent her sabbatical year inside the Kings’ private archive—reading the first drafts, copy-editor exchanges, and revision notes behind five major works including Pet Sematary, Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, and “The Boogeyman.” Her book, Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King, is the result.

In this conversation, Bicks explains why King’s horror works not just because of monsters, but because of the human emotions—grief, trauma, the fear of abandonment—that the monsters stand in for.

She traces her own childhood fear of the boogeyman back to the specific psychological mechanisms King exploits, and walks us through what the archives reveal: the version of Carrie that was almost an alien, the copy-editor arguments over the word “rattly,” the draft of Salem’s Lot where the town wasn’t a character yet. She also describes what it was like when King himself called her at home—and what happened when he walked into a room full of students, to their huge delight.

Key Topics

• Why Stephen King’s horror taps universal fears of grief, trauma, and abandonment
• What King’s private archives reveal about his revision process
• The transformation of Carrie from alien monster to empathetic victim
• Why Salem’s Lot is really about a town, not vampires
• King’s philosophy: words as matter, not just meaning
• Why King’s stories meet you differently at different points in your life
• King’s character-driven vs. plot-driven approach to storytelling
• The Shining drafts, and King’s complicated feelings about Kubrick’s film

Maria Adelmann, Adjunct

Maria Adelmann is the author of three books, including the novel Adjunct.

The book follows Sam, a PhD-holding adjunct professor whose financial situation deteriorates over the course of a single semester—from precarious to genuinely desperate—until she’s hiding under a desk in the adjunct office at 2am. On the surface, the novel is satire — but it might be closer to documentary.

In this conversation, Adelmann and Writer’s Voice host Francesca Rheannon—who was herself an adjunct at Keene State College in the 1990s for $1,500 per course—talk about what the numbers actually mean: 70% of college instructors are contingent laborers, 40% specifically labeled adjuncts, and a quarter of those make less than $25,000 a year.

They discuss how student debt, the gig economy, gender inequality, and a willful institutional blindness all converge in the figure of the adjunct. And they examine the campus novel as a genre: why it’s always been romantic, and why Adelmann’s deliberately isn’t.

Key Topics

• The adjunct labor crisis: statistics, causes, and human cost
• Class divisions within academia: adjuncts vs. tenure-track professors
• Student debt as structural trap
• Gender and race disparities among adjunct faculty
• Why universities became dependent on contingent labor
• The campus novel as genre — and why Adjunct is an “anti-campus novel”
• Unionization efforts and their unique challenges for adjuncts
• The gig economy parallel: academia and hustle culture

This week’s Writer’s Voice features two new books that take us into very different realms of hidden history.

First, Julia Cooke joins Francesca to talk about Starry and Restless, her vivid group portrait of Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily Hahn, three adventurous women writers who expanded what journalism could be, often while battling the constraints placed on women in their time.

“Women were central to voice-driven narrative journalism for at least the last century and a half.”

Then, we move from literary history to natural history, as nature journalist Sophie Pavelle takes us into a very different realm with her book To Have or To Hold. It’s a fascinating exploration of symbiosis, parasitism, and the intricate relationships that sustain the living world.

“The natural world is structured and founded upon these really intricate, complicated, ancient relationships.”

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Tags: Julia Cooke, Starry and Restless, Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, Emily Hahn, women journalists, Sophie Pavelle, To Have or To Hold, symbiosis, ecology, biodiversity, Writer’s Voice podcast,

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You Might Also Like: Ethel Payne, First Lady Of The Black Press, Slippery Beast: Ellen Ruppel Shell on Eels, Ecology, and the Global Wildlife Trade

Segment One: Julia Cooke, Starry & Restless

Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless brings three remarkable women journalists back into focus: Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily Hahn.

These writers refused to stay within the limits set for women in the early twentieth century. They traveled widely, reported from conflict zones, and wrote with a voice and authority that helped shape what we now call literary journalism. Yet despite their influence and fame in their own time, their contributions were later minimized or left out of the canon.

In our conversation, Cooke makes a strong case that women were not peripheral but central to the development of narrative, voice-driven reporting. She points to the sheer scale of women’s contributions, from immersive reporting to stylistic innovation, and shows how constraints, like being barred from the front lines of war, actually pushed women journalists to tell different kinds of stories. They focused on civilian life, domestic spaces, and the human consequences of conflict, expanding what counted as news.

We also talk about how these writers challenged the idea of objectivity. By inserting themselves into their reporting and questioning authority, they offered a broader, more inclusive view of the world. Cooke highlights how they paid attention to people often overlooked, women, children, and working-class lives, and in doing so widened journalism’s field of vision.

The interview also explores the tension between creative work and domestic life, a thread that runs through the book and still resonates today. Cooke reflects on the ways motherhood, partnership, and economic necessity shaped these women’s careers, and how their “restlessness” was both a personal drive and a form of resistance.

Segment Two: Sophie Pavelle, To Have Or To Hold

In To Have or To Hold, science journalist Sophie Pavelle takes us into the intricate and often surprising world of symbiosis, the relationships between living things that make life possible.

From parasites to pollinators, from microbes in our bodies to complex marine ecosystems, Pavelle shows that life on Earth is not built on isolation, but on constant interaction, dependence, and exchange.

In our conversation, Pavelle explains that symbiosis is far more complex than the simple idea of mutual benefit. These relationships can be cooperative, exploitative, or somewhere in between, and they are always shifting. She shares vivid examples, like the “mint sauce worm,” a tiny creature that hosts algae inside its body and lives partly like a plant, and parasites that move through multiple hosts, shaping entire ecosystems in the process.

We also talk about how deeply embedded humans are in these systems. Our own bodies are ecosystems, dependent on microbes for health and survival, and our relationship with the natural world is itself symbiotic. Pavelle challenges the idea that humans stand apart from nature, arguing instead that our survival depends on recognizing and respecting these connections.

The interview also turns to what’s at risk. Climate change, habitat loss, and even light pollution are disrupting these delicate relationships. But Pavelle also offers a hopeful perspective. By paying attention to how nature operates, taking only what we need, allowing complexity and balance, we might begin to repair some of the damage and build a more sustainable relationship with the living world.

What if the energy transition is arriving faster than anyone imagined? And what if paying attention to the smallest things can change how we live?

This Earth Day, Writer’s Voice revisits our interview with Bill McKibben about Here Comes the Sun, a bracing and hopeful argument that cheap, abundant solar power could reshape geopolitics, weaken authoritarianism, and help us meet the climate emergency. 

“About five years ago, we crossed some invisible line where it became cheaper to generate power from the sun and the wind than from burning coal and gas and oil.” 

Then, Anne Fadiman turns our attention from planetary systems to intimate acts of noticing. In her acclaimed essay collection Frog, she finds wonder and moral inquiry in a neglected pet frog, the burden of literary inheritance, pronouns, grammar, and other seemingly modest subjects that open into large human questions — along with a good dose of humor.

“I’m interested in writing about things that other people haven’t noticed.” 

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You Might Also Like: Bill McKibben, Here Comes The Sun (full interview), Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows

Tags: Bill McKibben, Anne Fadiman, Here Comes the Sun, Frog essays, solar power, climate solutions, renewable energy, they/them pronounce, literary essays, Writer’s Voice podcast, climate politics, energy transition, literature podcast, interviews with writers, book author interviews, author interviews,

Segment One: Bill McKibben, HERE COMES THE SUN

Bill McKibben can finally see a path forward, and it’s lit by the sun.

Last November, I sat down with Bill McKibben to talk about his new book, Here Comes the Sun, and what he told me then feels even more urgent right now. With global oil supplies disrupted by the Iran conflict, the case for solar has never been stronger.

And even though Donald Trump has dismantled federal incentives for renewable energy, states are stepping up, communities are moving fast, and the economics of solar have already crossed a point of no return.

McKibben explains that for the first time in the history of the climate fight, the technology to fix the problem is also the cheapest option on the market. Solar and wind have crossed the threshold where they cost less than fossil fuels, and the world is producing a third more energy from the sun this year than last. 

We talk about Pakistan’s solar revolution driven by ordinary people with YouTube tutorials, California running on 100% renewables for stretches of the day, and why McKibben thinks the barriers to change are no longer technical or financial. They’re political and bureaucratic. And he’s working to fix that, too.

Segment Two: Anne Fadiman, FROG

Anne Fadiman can turn a household frog into a meditation on love, guilt, and what we owe the creatures we barely notice.

Anne Fadiman’s new essay collection, Frog, is exactly the kind of book I love most: deeply intelligent, full of wit, and somehow able to make you care passionately about things you never knew you cared about.

The title essay follows Bunkie, her family’s African Clawed Frog,  a creature she now realizes she didn’t appreciate nearly enough while he was alive.

But don’t let the humble subject fool you. This book is a collection of essays that move from a pet frog, to the grammar wars over the singular ‘they’, to what it means to be the literary child of a famous literary parent, and to the poetic beauty of lists.

Sam Anderson of the New York Times Magazine, who wrote the foreword, says Fadiman has a gift for finding the universe hidden inside the ordinary. I think that’s exactly right. And I think you’re going to love this conversation. 

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with Andy Lee Roth of Project Censored about the State of the Free Press 2026, marking 50 years of tracking underreported stories.

“Censorship by proxy… corporate entities… are in effect doing the dirty work of the government.” 

Then, Michael Ellsberg discusses Truth and Consequence, a powerful collection of writings by his father, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, exploring moral responsibility, war, and resistance.

“What do you do as an official when you realize that the policy that you are enacting is crazy or immoral or evil?”

Together, these conversations examine the forces shaping what we know—and what we don’t—and the landscape of moral choice in confronting injustice.

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Tags: free press 2026, media censorship, Project Censored, independent journalism, ICE surveillance, Meta censorship, climate crisis news coverage, Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers, media consolidation, Writer’s Voice podcast, literature podcast, interviews with writers, book author interviews, interviews with authors,

Love good coffee? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show!

You Might Also Like: Daniel Ellsberg, THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE, Andy Lee Roth, STATE OF THE FREE PRESS 2024

Segment One: Andy Lee Roth — Project Censored, State of the Free Press 2026

Fifty years after its founding, Project Censored continues to document the most important underreported stories in U.S. media. Andy Lee Roth discusses how media consolidation, “censorship by proxy,” and algorithmic control are reshaping the information landscape.

He highlights key censored stories, including ICE surveillance of critics, Meta’s mass takedown of pro-Palestinian content, underreported police violence, and the climate crisis.

Roth also warns of growing threats to press freedom and emphasizes the vital role of independent journalism.

 Read A Sample

Segment Two: Michael Ellsberg — Truth and Consequence

Michael Ellsberg discusses Truth and Consequence, a posthumous collection of writings by Daniel Ellsberg, best known for releasing the Pentagon Papers.

The book explores Ellsberg’s central moral question: how ordinary people become complicit in massive harm—and how they can resist.

From nuclear war planning to Vietnam, Ellsberg’s writings challenge readers to confront the ethics of power, obedience, and dissent—and to embrace moral courage in the face of injustice.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, two powerful voices explore the climate crisis from complementary perspectives.

Novelist Ellen Meeropol imagines communities navigating climate disruption in Sometimes an Island.

“The challenge is enormous. How do you dramatize doom?… You have to find a balance between the science and the story… the story can inspire action through empathy with the characters.”  

Then, environmental leader Judith Enck exposes the systemic forces behind plastic pollution—and what we can do about it—in The Problem with Plastic.

“This is a climate change issue. This is an environmental justice issue. This is an ocean issue… mostly, this is a health issue, because none of us should have microplastics in our bodies. But we all do.”  

Together, these conversations reveal both the human stories and structural realities shaping our environmental future.

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Tags: climate fiction, climate change novels, plastic pollution, microplastics health effects, Ellen Meeropol, Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics, literature podcast, interviews with writers, book author interviews, interviews with authors, women authors interviews, 

You Might Also Like: Ellen Meeropol, HER SISTER’S TATTOO, Jennie Romer, CAN I RECYCLE THIS?

Segment One: Ellen Meeropol — Sometimes an Island

What does it take to imagine survival in a world shaped by climate disruption? Ellen Meeropol’s climate novel unfolds as a “mosaic” of interconnected lives shaped by migration, memory, and environmental upheaval.

Set against the backdrop of a worsening climate emergency, the book follows three communities—from an island in Maine to an off-the-grid cooperative—seeking new ways to live sustainably and collectively.

Meeropol explores the parallels between past migrations—like Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms—and present-day climate displacement. At the heart of the novel is a belief in storytelling as a force for empathy and transformation.

In our conversation, Meeropol explores:

Key Themes

• Climate migration and historical memory
• Community resilience and cooperation
• The role of storytelling in shaping action
• Multigenerational activism, especially elder leadership
• Balancing realism and hope in climate fiction

Listen to our other conversations with Ellen Meeropol.

Segment Two: Judith Enck — The Problem with Plastic

Judith Enck argues that the global plastic crisis is not an accident—but a strategic shift by the fossil fuel industry. As demand for fossil fuels declines in energy and transportation, companies have turned to plastics as a new growth market.

Enck breaks down the myths of plastic recycling, the health impacts of plastic pollution, and the policy solutions needed to reduce plastic production and waste. She emphasizes local and state-level action as key leverage points for change.

Judith Enck was the Regional Administrator of Region 2 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Enck is the founder of Beyond Plastics, a national organization that works on  the problem of plastic pollution,

Key Themes:

• Plastic as a fossil fuel “Plan B”
• The myth of widespread plastic recycling
• Health impacts of microplastics and toxic chemicals
• Environmental justice and “Cancer Alley”
• Policy solutions: reduction, reuse, refill, rethink

Learn more about the plastics crisis and solutions.

Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Philip Schultz joins Writer’s Voice to discuss his new collection, Enormous Morning. Writing from the vantage point of his 80th year, Schultz reflects on aging, memory, family, regret—and the possibility of transcendence.

“Age has… given me a kind of love of my life and the lives of others that I always didn’t have.”

In this conversation, Schultz explores how perspective changes over time, how poetry can transform suffering into insight, and why creativity itself can be a source of resilience and even joy. He also reads several poems from the collection, including “Enormous Morning,” “Good News,” and “My Mistakes.”

The conversation moves from the personal to the political, as Schultz reflects on democracy, moral courage, and the ethical questions raised by our current moment.

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Tags: Philip Schultz, Enormous Morning, poetry interview, contemporary poetry, Writer’s Voice podcast, Pulitzer Prize poet, American poets interview.

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Episode Summary: Philip Schultz

Philip Schultz is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Failure and one of America’s most distinctive contemporary poets. His work has long explored the inner life—its doubts, contradictions, and longings—with a rare mix of emotional honesty, philosophical depth, and, often, surprising humor.

Now, in his new collection, Enormous Morning, Schultz writes from a new vantage point: his 80th year. These poems take on aging, memory, family, and mortality—but also something else: renewal. The possibility of gaining a new, more joyous perspective on life

The book opens with a walk through a cemetery—yet what emerges is not just a meditation on death, but a vivid sense of continuity. The past and present coexist. The living and the dead are in conversation. And throughout the collection, Schultz moves from the particulars of daily life—a movie, a memory, a friendship—into larger questions about meaning, suffering, and what it means to live ethically in a troubled world.

We talk about how age changes perception, how poetry can transform regret into something like forgiveness, and how creativity itself can be a form of resilience—even joy.

We also talk about the political dimension of the book—poems that grapple with democracy, moral courage, and the unsettling forces shaping our current moment. For Schultz, poetry is not an escape from reality—it’s a way of entering it more deeply, asking harder questions.

As he puts it, writing a poem can be a way of confronting even the most difficult truths—and finding, if not answers, then a kind of clarity, or even transcendence.

About the Poet

Philip Schultz is the founder and director of the Writers Studio in New York. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Failure, as well as The God of Loneliness: Selected and New Poems.

His work often explores personal history, family, and Jewish and immigrant experience, including his father’s struggles, which he addressed with striking honesty in Failure. He lives in East Hampton, New York, with his wife, sculptor Monica Banks.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Julia Cooke discusses Starry and Restless, her group biography of Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily “Mickey” Hahn—women journalists whose restless lives and innovative writing helped shape modern literary journalism, even as their contributions were later minimized.

“Women have been central to voice-driven narrative journalism for at least the last century and a half.”

Then, Iida Turpeinen explores extinction, empire, and the ethics of science in her novel Beasts of the Sea, beginning with the tragic story of the Steller’s sea cow and expanding into a meditation on memory, loss, and the human relationship to the natural world.

“They had no idea that species can go extinct.”

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Tags: women journalists, literary journalism history, Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, Emily Hahn, Julia Cooke interview, Beasts of the Sea novel, Iida Turpeinen interview, extinction history, Steller sea cow, women in science history, Writer’s Voice podcast

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Segment One: Julia Cooke – Starry and Restless

Julia Cooke reexamines the legacy of three pioneering women journalists—Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily Hahn—arguing that women were not peripheral but central to the development of literary journalism.

Cooke explores how constraints placed on women—barred from war fronts, dismissed as “sob sisters”—actually pushed them to innovate, expanding the scope of reporting to include domestic life, civilian experience, and overlooked voices. Their work challenged conventional ideas of objectivity, incorporating first-person perspective and a broader understanding of who counts as a subject.

The conversation also traces the tension between ambition and domestic life, the role of restlessness as both personal drive and cultural force, and the ways these writers navigated financial, professional, and social barriers.

Read An Excerpt

Segment Two: Iida Turpeinen – Beasts of the Sea

Iida Turpeinen discusses her novel centered on the Steller’s sea cow, a massive Arctic animal driven to extinction within decades of its discovery in the 18th century.

The novel begins with a museum skeleton—an entry point into questions of memory, loss, and scientific history. Turpeinen examines how imperial expansion, scientific inquiry, and extraction were deeply intertwined, and how early naturalists lacked even the concept of extinction.

She also introduces overlooked figures like Hilda Olsson, a 19th-century scientific illustrator whose work—once erased—has been rediscovered. Through her story, the novel contrasts modes of seeing: possession versus attention, extraction versus care.

At its heart, Beasts of the Sea is an elegy—and a call to remember the many species lost without notice.

On this episode of Writer’s Voice, we talk with novelist Justin C. Key about The Hospital at the End of the World, a gripping speculative story that explores the ethical and human stakes of AI in medicine.

“Technology is best when it’s a tool wielded by humans.”

Then, memory champion Nelson Dellis joins us to talk about Everyday Genius—and how ordinary people can train their minds for sharper memory, deeper focus, and far-reaching intuition.

“I never had a good memory growing up. It was something that I was inspired to change and learned all about it and really started to work on it about 15 years ago. And my mind has been different ever since.” 

Two conversations that explore what the human mind can do — and what AI never will.

Read or Listen to A Sample from The Hospital At The End of the World

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Read The Transcript

Tags: AI ethics, AI in medicine, speculative fiction AI, human vs machine intelligence, physician patient relationship, memory techniques, memory palace, cognitive training, intuition, remote viewing, Writer’s Voice podcast, Nelson Dellis, Justin C. Key,

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Segment One: Justin C. Key

What happens when artificial intelligence becomes more than a tool—and starts making decisions for us?

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Justin C. Key’s gripping novel imagines a world where AI controls medicine, exposing the ethical and human stakes of technological dependence.

The Hospital At The End of the World is a speculative novel set in a near-future America where an AI corporation controls not only medicine but society at large. The story follows a young medical student forced to flee New York for a human-centered hospital in New Orleans—the last city resisting AI dominance.

Key explores the tension between machine efficiency and human intuition, the risks of technological dependency, and the political forces shaping how technology is used.

Segment Two: Nelson Dellis

What if the reason you forget things has nothing to do with your memory — and everything to do with how you retrieve information?

Nelson Dellis, six-time USA Memory Champion and author of Everyday Genius, joins Writer’s Voice to explain how ordinary people can develop extraordinary mental skills.

Dellis — who grew up with no exceptional memory — began studying memory techniques 15 years ago and transformed his mind entirely.

In this conversation, he breaks down the ancient method of the memory palace, explains why multitasking is a myth built on dopamine, offers practical tricks for anyone who fears numbers, and describes his unexpected encounter with a classified government program that trained psychics to gather Cold War intelligence.

His book, Everyday Genius, covers memory, focus, number sense, creativity, decision-making, and intuition — making the case that every one of us has an inner genius waiting to be developed.

Check Out Nelson Dellis’ YouTube Channel

This week on Writer’s Voice, two authors explore fascinating episodes from women’s history—stories of bold individuals who challenged the boundaries of power, speech, and social convention.

Journalist Eden Collinsworth discusses The Improbable Mrs. Woodhull, her biography of Victoria Woodhull—an astonishing figure who rose from poverty to become a stockbroker, newspaper publisher, and the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872.

“I, like you and most Americans, knew nothing of her.”

Then novelist Shelley Noble joins us to talk about The Sisters of Book Row, a historical novel set in 1915 New York during Anthony Comstock’s aggressive crusade against books and information he deemed “obscene.” Noble’s story centers on three sisters running a bookstore in Manhattan’s famous Book Row, where booksellers faced censorship, raids, and the threat of imprisonment.

“My thing as an author is to find those little niches of people who actually make history that we should know about, but we very often don’t know about.”

Together, these conversations illuminate forgotten histories about the power of books and the struggle for women’s rights.

Read or Listen to A Sample from The Improbable Victoria Woodhull

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Read The Transcript on Substack

Tags: Victoria Woodhull, Eden Collinsworth, Shelley Noble, The Improbable Mrs. Woodhull, The Sisters of Book Row, Writer’s Voice podcast, women’s history,

Segment One: Victoria Woodhull: Radical Reformer – Eden Collinsworth

Victoria Woodhull was one of the most remarkable and controversial figures of the nineteenth century. Born into poverty with little formal education, she reinvented herself repeatedly—first as a spiritualist, then as a stockbroker on Wall Street, a newspaper publisher, and eventually the first woman to run for President of the United States.

Journalist Eden Collinsworth first encountered Woodhull’s story in an unlikely place: the archives of the British Museum. There she discovered the transcripts of a lawsuit Woodhull brought against the museum—a discovery that opened the door to a life story filled with audacity, ambition, and reinvention.

In this conversation, Collinsworth explores Woodhull’s complex legacy. Woodhull was a fierce advocate for women’s rights, labor reform, and what she called “free love,” arguing that women should have control over their own bodies and marriages. Her ideas shocked Victorian society and earned her both devoted supporters and bitter enemies.

Woodhull’s run for the presidency in 1872 was largely symbolic—women could not even vote at the time—but it made her a national sensation. Her life intersected with many of the major social movements of her era, from suffrage to spiritualism to the labor movement.

Collinsworth’s biography brings new attention to this extraordinary figure and examines why Woodhull’s story has largely been forgotten despite the boldness of her achievements.

Segment Two: The Sisters of Book Row – Shelley Noble

In her novel The Sisters of Book Row, Shelley Noble recreates a vanished literary world: Manhattan’s famous Book Row, a stretch of Fourth Avenue that once housed dozens of rare and secondhand bookstores.

The story takes place in 1915, when Anthony Comstock’s anti-obscenity crusade cast a long shadow over American publishing. Comstock, a powerful moral reformer and postal inspector, used federal law to seize and destroy books, artworks, and even information about women’s health.

Noble’s novel follows three sisters who inherit their father’s bookstore and struggle to keep the shop alive amid increasing censorship and social pressure. As the sisters navigate their own ambitions and secrets, they become entangled in the broader struggle over knowledge, books, and freedom of expression.

Drawing on the rich history of Book Row and the world of early twentieth-century bookselling, Noble portrays a vibrant community of merchants, collectors, and readers who believed deeply in the cultural importance of books.

The novel also touches on the underground circulation of information about women’s health during the era of the Comstock laws, connecting the story of censorship with the emerging fight for reproductive rights.

Through the lives of ordinary people—booksellers, printers, activists—The Sisters of Book Row shows how cultural change often begins with individuals quietly resisting authority.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with bestselling author Jung Chang about her memoir Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, and China, the long-awaited sequel to her landmark book Wild Swans.

Chang recounts how her parents — once devoted Communists — became disillusioned by famine, repression, and the violence of the Cultural Revolution. Their refusal to betray their beliefs shaped her own commitment to truth and integrity.

“My mother was made to kneel on broken glass… but she still refused to denounce my father.”  

She also reflects on her extraordinary journey from Mao’s isolated China to becoming one of the first Chinese students to study in Britain, and how that experience transformed her thinking.

“I must only follow the evidence and arrive at conclusions from the evidence gathered.”  

Finally, Chang discusses the resurgence of authoritarianism under Xi Jinping and why she still believes China’s people ultimately desire freedom.

Read A Sample from Fly, Wild Swans

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Read The Transcript on Substack

Tags: Jung Chang interview, Fly Wild Swans, Wild Swans author, Chinese history memoir, China under Xi Jinping, authoritarianism China, Writer’s Voice podcast

Segment: Jung Chang — Fly, Wild Swans

After Jung Chang wrote her first memoir, Wild Swans, she went on to write biographies of Mao Tse Tung and the last Empress of China. 

Now, 25 years after her first book, Chang returns with Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, and China, continuing the story after she became one of the first Chinese students allowed to leave Communist China and study in the West.

Jung Chang recounts how her parents — once devoted Communists — became disillusioned by famine, repression, and the violence of the Cultural Revolution. She describes how her father’s protest against Mao’s policies led to brutal punishment — and how her mother refused to denounce him despite immense pressure. Their refusal to betray their beliefs shaped her own commitment to truth and integrity.

She also reflects on her extraordinary journey from Mao’s isolated China to becoming one of the first Chinese students to study in Britain, and how that experience transformed her thinking.

Finally, Chang tells us about the resurgence of authoritarianism under Xi Jinping and why she still believes China’s people ultimately want to be free.

In addition to her other books, Jung Chang is the author of Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister.

Key Topics

• Jung Chang’s memoir Fly, Wild Swans

• The legacy of Wild Swans

• Mao’s China and the Cultural Revolution

• Political courage and moral integrity

• The Great Chinese Famine

• Intellectual freedom and scholarship

• China under Xi Jinping

• Resistance to authoritarianism

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with political philosopher Lea Ypi about Indignity: A Life Reimagined, a genre-blending work of memoir, history, and philosophical inquiry that explores dignity under authoritarian regimes.

“I think of [dignity] as a property that is really what makes us human.” — Lea Ypi

Then novelist Eleanor Shearer discusses Fireflies in Winter, a lyrical historical novel following Jamaican Maroons exiled to Nova Scotia after the Second Maroon War. Through the story of Cora, Agnes, and Thursday, Shearer examines freedom, queer love, grief, and the moral tension between survival and solidarity.

“You were only ever a kind of set of stolen papers away… from having your freedom snatched from you.” — Eleanor Shearer

Together, these conversations probe enduring questions:

• What is dignity?
• What does it mean to be free inside systems designed to deny freedom?
• How do we maintain moral agency when our survival is at stake?

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Read The Transcript on Substack

Tags: Lea Ypi interview, Indignity book, Eleanor Shearer interview, Fireflies in Winter novel, Jamaican Maroons history, historical fiction about slavery, queer historical fiction, Writer’s Voice podcast.

You may also like: Jacob Mikanowski, GOODBYE EASTERN EUROPE, DaMaris Hill, A Bound Woman Is A Dangerous Thing

Segment One: Lea Ypi

A haunting honeymoon photograph of her grandmother — posted online by a stranger and met with accusations and insults — launches Lea Ypi into a philosophical and archival investigation.

Ypi’s grandmother lived through the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, fascism, communism, and neoliberal capitalism. The book asks: What does it cost to defend dignity when systems of power are dedicated to erase it?

Ypi explores:

• Dignity as a universal human capacity for moral agency
• The archive as an instrument of power
• Communist surveillance and modern surveillance capitalism
• Nationalism, fascism, and historical repetition
• The responsibility of art to “rescue dignity”

Read An Excerpt

Segment Two: Eleanor Shearer

Shearer brings to life the little-known history of Jamaican Maroons exiled to Nova Scotia in the 1790s.

Her protagonist Cora has never been enslaved — yet her freedom is deeply precarious. In Nova Scotia, she encounters Agnes, a formerly enslaved woman surviving in the forest, and Thursday, an indentured laborer whose freedom hangs by a thread.

Shearer explores:

• The ambiguity between legal freedom and lived freedom
• Indentureship and stolen contracts
• Queer love as resistance
• The moral collision between survival and solidarity
• Grief as a shaping force

Read or Listen to A Sample

Resistance Is the Story

When we tell the history of slavery, too often we tell it as a story of suffering relieved by benevolent reformers. But what if resistance — not submission — was the central thread all along?

This week on Writer’s Voice, we begin with historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, whose groundbreaking book Daring to Be Free reframes the history of Atlantic slavery as a history of rebellion: from African defense militias and shipboard revolts to maroon communities and the Haitian Revolution. He restores enslaved women and men to the center of their own liberation struggles — not as passive victims, but as strategists, spiritual leaders, and revolutionaries.

“From the very moment slave raiding parties are sent out… people begin to resist.” — Sudhir Hazareesingh

Then we revisit my 2012 conversation with novelist Jacqueline Sheehan about The Comet’s Tale, her powerful work of historical fiction about Sojourner Truth. Through Truth’s childhood in bondage, her spiritual awakening, and her emergence as a fearless abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, we explore resilience, moral courage, and the making of a revolutionary life.

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Tags: Sudhir Hazareesingh, Daring to Be Free, Atlantic slavery, slave resistance, Haitian Revolution, Solitude of Guadeloupe, maroon communities, Sojourner Truth, Jacqueline Sheehan, The Comet’s Tale, Abolition movement, Black history, Writers Voice podcast,

You May Also Like: Aaron Robertson, THE BLACK UTOPIANS, Ben Passmore on Black Resistance

Read The Transcript

Segment One: Sudhir Hazareesingh

There are many histories of the Atlantic slave trade. Few center the enslaved as agents of their own freedom.

In Daring to Be Free, Sudhir Hazareesingh challenges the myth that resistance was rare or exceptional. Instead, he shows that resistance was woven into the fabric of slavery from the very beginning.

Solitude and the Erased Women of Resistance

Hazareesingh opens with the story of Solitude of Guadeloupe — a freedom fighter who resisted Napoleon’s 1802 attempt to reinstate slavery and was executed while remaining defiant . Her story, erased for generations, symbolizes what he calls a “hidden history” of resistance.

For too long, he argues, histories focused on male leaders and major revolutions, especially Haiti. But enslaved resistance was constant — and women were central actors: strategists, healers, organizers, spiritual leaders .

Resistance Began in Africa

Hazareesingh emphasizes that rebellion did not begin in the Americas. It began in Africa itself.

From the moment slave raiders entered African villages, communities organized militias, fought capture, resisted transport, and even planned revolts while confined on the coast .

Shipboard insurrections were often planned before captives even boarded the ships. Resistance was integral to the system — not an exception to it.

Spiritual Traditions as Sources of Power

African religious traditions — including Obeah and Islam — fortified resistance movements . These spiritual systems preserved identity, offered psychological protection, and helped organize rebellion.

Under conditions of near-total domination, enslaved people carved out autonomous interior worlds — sustaining languages, faiths, and networks of solidarity .

Women as Network Builders

Women, often working inside plantation households, gathered intelligence and helped coordinate revolts . They maintained kinship networks that countered what one historian called slavery’s “social death.”

Hazareesingh discovered instead a story of social persistence: communities forming bonds across plantations, across ethnic lines, and even across racial boundaries.

Palmares and Cross-Boundary Alliances

One astonishing example: Palmares in 17th-century Brazil — a vast maroon society of thousands that developed political systems, agriculture, trade, and military defenses .

Palmares blended African and Indigenous military traditions and even attracted poor whites seeking more humane community .

Resistance was multiracial, transnational, and sustained.

Haiti: Rank-and-File Revolution

While Hazareesingh has written on Toussaint L’Ouverture, in this book he emphasizes rank-and-file insurgents .

The Haitian Revolution became a beacon of Black sovereignty — and a terror to slaveholding powers . News of the uprising spread rapidly via sailors and refugee networks .

Yet Haiti paid a devastating price: punitive indemnities imposed by France in 1825, U.S. intervention under Woodrow Wilson, and ongoing destabilization .

The Enslaved as the True Abolitionists

Hazareesingh challenges the narrative that white reformers abolished slavery. Most abolitionists advocated gradualism. The enslaved demanded — and fought for — immediate freedom .

Their revolts and persistent pressure forced political change.

Honoring Our Debts

In concluding, Hazareesingh calls for a “debt of memory” — telling the story truthfully — and for serious engagement with material reparations .

And he offers a lesson for today: unity, resilience, and moral courage in the face of authoritarianism .

Read An Excerpt

Segment Two: Jacqueline Sheehan

The Comet’s Tale — A Novel of Sojourner Truth

In our encore conversation from 2012, novelist Jacqueline Sheehan explores the inner life of Sojourner Truth.

Isabella’s Childhood in Bondage

Born Isabella Baumfree in Dutch New York, Sojourner Truth’s first language was Dutch .

Sheehan spent five years researching Truth’s early life, drawing from the dictated narrative recorded by Olive Gilbert in Massachusetts .

Her novel focuses intensely on childhood — the psychological resilience required to survive being treated as property and sold away from family .

The Power of Story

The title The Comet’s Tale comes from a fictionalized birth story told by Isabella’s mother — illustrating how oral tradition helped enslaved parents maintain connection with children sold away .

Storytelling becomes an act of survival.

Spiritual Seeking and Dangerous Faith

After gaining freedom, Isabella moved to New York City during a period of religious ferment .

She became involved in the cult of Matthias — a charismatic religious leader who manipulated followers and dictated their lives .

Later, after a profound spiritual epiphany, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth — believing God had called her to preach .

Though illiterate, she became a mesmerizing orator; newspaper accounts described the hair standing on listeners’ necks .

Florence, Massachusetts: Political Awakening

Truth eventually found community at the Northampton Association for Education and Industry — a utopian, abolitionist community based on equality of labor and one person, one vote .

There she interacted with Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles, and blended her spirituality with abolitionism and women’s rights activism .

She later supported Black soldiers during the Civil War and met Abraham Lincoln .

Resilience as Choice

Sheehan emphasizes Truth’s moral agency: despite enduring profound injustice, she chose not to live in hatred .

Her life illustrates that even under brutal conditions, individuals retain the capacity for courageous choice.