Free Library Podcast Free Library of Philadelphia

In conversation with Beth Kephart

A ''master of illusion, and one of the best storytellers around'' (NPR), Amy Tan is the author of the beloved novels The Joy Luck Club, a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, for which she also co-wrote the film adaptation screenplay; The Kitchen God's Wife; The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Valley of Amazement. Her prolific body of work also includes the memoir Where the Past Begins, several other novels and works of nonfiction, two children's books, and essays and stories that appeared in scores of periodicals and anthologies. In The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Tan pecks out a thoughtful ode to birding and the hidden beauty that lives around us, nested together with her own soaring illustrations.

Renowned for her ability ''to generalize from her personal experience to the greater human one'' (The Washington Post), Beth Kephart is the author of more than 30 books across a wide range of genres, including poetry, young adult fiction, and, most notably, the memoir. These works include the award-winning how-to-guide Handling the Truth; A Slant of Sun, a National Book Award finalist; Love, an ode to all things Philly; and Wife | Daughter | Self, an interlocking essay collection about her various identities. A writing professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder of Junction workshops, she is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Pew Fellowship, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Her latest book is an illustrated memoir, My Life In Paper.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/29/2024)

In conversation with Kim Kelly

A labor journalist who regularly contributes to In These Times magazine and The Guardian, Hamilton Nolan has written about inequality, politics, and class war for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gawker, and Splinter, among other publications. He also regularly contributes articles about boxing to Defector. A member of the Writers Guild of America, East, Hamilton led the 2015 effort to unionize Gawker Media, where he was the longest-serving writer in the organization's history. In The Hammer, he offers a comprehensive overview of the contemporary American labor movement and highlights specific actions and organizations where politics and workers combine to affect change.
 
Kim Kelly has worked as a labor columnist for Teen Vogue since 2018, and her writing on labor, class, and politics has appeared in The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Esquire, among other places. Also a video correspondent for More Perfect Union, The Real News Network, and Means TV, she formerly served as the heavy metal editor at VICE's ''Noisey'' imprint. She was an original member of the VICE union, is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World's Freelance Journalists Union, and is a member and elected councilperson for the Writers Guild of America, East.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU!
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
(recorded 3/18/2024)

In conversation with Shantrelle Lewis

Morgan Parker won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Magical Negro, a poetry collection that ponders the nuances of Black American womanhood. She is also the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On? and the poetry collections Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night and There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé. A Cave Canem graduate fellow, the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and the winner of a Pushcart Prize, Parker is the creator/co-curator of the Poets With Attitude reading series and is a member of The Other Black Girl Collective. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues, including The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, Best American Poetry, a Broadway playbill, and two Common albums. In You Get What You Pay For, she charts the generational and historical difficulties, traumas, and beauty of existing as a Black woman.

Shantrelle P. Lewis is a multi-hyphen creative and scholar who accesses multiple disciplines to help elucidate African Diasporic history, aesthetics, culture and spirituality. After premiering at BlackStar Film Festival, her critically acclaimed directorial debut, In Our Mothers' Gardens, was released on Netflix via Ava Duvernay's Array. Her book, Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, was published by Aperture in 2017. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, NPR, BBC, Washington Post, Slate, The New Yorker and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She co-founded Shoppe Black with her husband and fellow Howard alum, Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson. As an initiated Lukumi Sango Priest, hoodooist and New Orleans native, Shantrelle can be found waxing poetic about all things African spirituality online and in person at the Beaucoup Hoodoo Shop, the annual Beaucoup Hoodoo Fest this October and within her community, ATRS Book Club.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU!
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
(recorded 3/13/2024)

''Packed with richly imagined characters and vivacious prose'' (Esquire), Xochitl Gonzalez's debut novel Olga Dies Dreaming tells a tale of family secrets, Latinx politics in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, and romance set against the backdrop of the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rican history. Winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize in Fiction and the New York City Book Award, it was named a best book of 2022 by The Washington Post, NPR, The New York Times, and TIME magazine. Gonzalez's nonfiction has appeared in Vogue, Allure, The Cut, and other periodicals, and her commentary writing for The Atlantic was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A tale of legacy, class, and art, Anita De Monte Laughs Last follows a first-generation Ivy League art student's quest to uncover the work of a brilliant but largely forgotten 1980s-era painter.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU!

The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees. (recorded 3/11/2024)

In conversation with Tailinh Agoyo

Tommy Orange is the author of There There, a novel of ''pure soaring beauty'' (The New York Times) that tells the story of 12 interconnected Native Americans living in Oakland, California. A national bestseller and lauded by scores of publications as one of the best books of 2018, it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the John Leonard Prize, and the American Book Award. There There was also the 2020 One Book One Philadelphia selection. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, Orange teaches in the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. In Wandering Stars, he revisits some of the characters from There There and paints new protagonists in America's past as he examines the tragic legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and the country's contemporary war on its indigenous peoples.

Tailinh Agoyo is co-founder and director of We Are the Seeds of Culture Trust, a non-profit organization committed to amplifying Indigenous voices through the arts. She also hosts From Here, With a View, a podcast that honors the voices of Indigenous artists and educators, and is a co-founder of Project Antelope, an online marketplace platform developed by Indigenous business leaders for Indigenous artists. Her other work includes the children's book I Will Carry You and the photo collection The Warrior Project.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU!
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
(recorded 3/7/2024)