Lit Matters Chris Evans

Welcome to Season Two of the Lit Matters Podcast. We kick off this new adventure with a beautifully crafted novel about the mythology of family, of the power of story telling, of overcoming oppression through perseverance—Victor Villasenor’s Rain of Gold. Chris is joined by Dr. Angelica Loera Suarez, the President of Orange Coast College, to discuss this remarkably rich, incredibly lyrical novel and their own journeys of family through the lens of story.

Season 2 of Lit Matters begins September 26th! Catch every episode by subscribing via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or your favorite podcatcher.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry.” If you’ve spent your life always asking that all important question—“Why”—then, this is the episode for you. Lucky Episode number 13 sees Chris joined by the multi-talented Phil Simpkin to discuss Ralph Ellison’s American classic, Invisible Man. Phil is the lead singer/lead guitarist for the highly successful Reggae band The Simpkin Project, as well as a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Orange Coast College.
Books discussed during this episode:
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
The Republic by Plato’s
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Check out Phil’s amazing music at The Simpkin Project  and his other musical suggestions on Spotify, Amazon Music, or other places where you download tunes:
The Simpkin Project
The Abyssianians
The Gladiators
Burning Spear

One of my favorite lines in Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Winning children’s story, The Tale of Despereaux, is “Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell a story. Make some light.” Today, Pat Burns, the Executive Director and Co-founder of the Orange County Children’s Book Festival, one the largest in North America, joins the Lit Matters podcast to shine a bright light on the importance of reading, story-telling, and the power of the written word for children. Pat discusses not only her own journey to becoming a reader, but also the impressive guests who have graced the festival’s main stage: Kobe Bryant, Jamie Lee Curtis, Buzz Aldrin, Kristen Bell and so many more.
Many of the highlights of last year’s Virtual Festival can be viewed at https://www.kidsbookfestival.com/ along with the interview I did with the Library of Congress’ Ambassador for Young Peoples’ Literature, Jason Reynolds, the two time Newbery medalist and  best-selling author, Kwame Alexander, and U.S. Congresswoman Katie Porter. The link for this interview is found on the Festival Webpage or at https://youtu.be/CejQEtO2zG8
 
A list of some of the books discussed this episode:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s What Color is My World: The Lost History of African American Inventors
Buzz Aldrin’s Reaching for the Moon
Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover, Swing, and The Undefeated
Kristen Bell’s The World Needs More Purple People
Kobe Bryant’s The Wizenard Series: Season One and Legacy and the Queen
Jamie Lee Curtis’ Big Words For Little People and Today I Feel Silly
Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down, Miles Morales Spiderman, and Look Both Ways
Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are

Are you looking for direction in this madcap world?
Are you trying to figure out “Who are you?”
To search for answers to some of these questions, we are joined by Derrick Fernando, a High School and College English teacher and the host of the American L_it! Podcast. For Episode 10 of the Lit Matters Podcast, we dive headfirst, whole-heartedly—into the rabbit-hole that is Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m mad. Derrick is mad. We are all a little mad…or we wouldn’t be listening to this podcast. So, join us in Wonderland.
Derrick’s show, American L_it! can be found at:  https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/zhywa-14040b/American-L_it%21-Podcast  
Additionally, The British Library has a wonderful retrospective of Alice, the influences that helped shape the text, and the impact Carroll’s masterpiece has on our world. Visit the collection online:
https://www.bl.uk/alice-in-wonderland#

“To feel/Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural/Beauty, is the sole business of Poetry”—Robinson Jeffers’ “The Beauty of Things”
 
For Episode 9 of the Lit Matters Podcast, Chris is joined by California State University of Long Beach Professor, George Hart to discuss one of California’s most important…and forgotten poets, Robinson Jeffers. Stone-mason, naturalists, scandalous recluse, and foreboding prophet of “Inhumanism,” Jeffers composed so many beautiful poems while overlooking the majestic power of the Pacific Ocean and building a three story tower of granite by hand. 
 
Suggested Works by and About Robinson Jeffers:
The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers, edited by Albert Gelpi
Jeffers’ 1948 New York Timesarticle, “Poetry, Gongorism, and a Thousand Years” at https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1948/01/18/96585266.html?pageNumber=170
Robinson Jeffers’ Cawdor and Medea: A Long Poem after Medea
Robinson Jeffers: Selected Poems
Professor George Hart’s Inventing the Language to Tell It: Robinson Jeffers and the Biology of Consciousness
 
Information on visiting Robinson Jeffers’ Carmel, California home, Tor House can be found at https://www.torhouse.org/