Free Library Podcast Free Library of Philadelphia

In conversation with Annie Duke

An ''unflappable and genial point-person'' (The New York Times), Jen Psaki served as the thirty-fourth White House Press Secretary under President Biden until May 2022. Currently the host of MSNBC's Sunday afternoon and Monday evening program, Inside with Jen Psaki, she spent the previous twenty years in public service. This includes stints as White House Communications Director under President Obama, as the spokesperson for the State Department under then Secretary of State John Kerry, work on three presidential campaigns, and numerous other campaign and communication roles. In Say More, Psaki employs her trademark wit and clearheaded analysis to reveal the surprising lessons she learned in the press room and from America's top leaders.

Annie Duke is the bestselling author of Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts. A former professional poker player, she won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. She currently works with First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund, and teaches executive education at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2023 she completed her PhD in cognitive psychology. Duke is also the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/10/2024)

In conversation with Karen Heller, former national features writer and current contributor for The Washington Post, formerly a metro and features columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

A journalist at The New York Times for more than 25 years, Frank Bruni has been the paper's Rome bureau chief, head restaurant critic, White House correspondent, and staff writer for its Sunday magazine, among other positions. In 2011 he became the Times' first openly gay op-ed columnist. His bestselling books include Ambling into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush; Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater; Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania; and The Beauty of Dusk, a memoir about adjusting to suddenly losing sight in his right eye. Also currently a professor of public policy at Duke University and the writer of a popular weekly Times newsletter, Bruni formerly worked as a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer for the Detroit Free Press. In The Age of Grievance, he examines the ways in which the blame game has come to define American politics and culture.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/9/2024)

In conversation with award winning broadcaster and journalist, Tracey Matisak.


''America's most compelling popular historian'' (The Christian Science Monitor), Erik Larson is the bestselling author of eight critically acclaimed books, including The Splendid and the Vile, a chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz; In the Garden of Beasts, the story of the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany; The Devil in the White City, a history of the serial killer who stalked attendees of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago; and Dead Wake, the tale of the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania. A former features writer for The Wall Street Journal and a contributing writer for Time magazine, he has contributed articles to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper's, among other publications. In The Demon of Unrest, Larson delves into the five pivotal months preceding the Civil War to expose the controversies, crises, and personalities that led America into its bloodiest war.
Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/5/2024)

Featuring: Lydia Abarça, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, Karlya Shelton, and Khadija Tariyan (daughter of Gayle McKinney Griffith)

In conversation with Shelly Power, The Dr. Carolyn Newsom Executive Director, Philadelphia Ballet

Karen Valby's The Swans of Harlem tells the remarkable and-until now-rarely written about true story of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a trailblazing troupe of Black men and women who performed some of ballet's most iconic works for the such audiences as the Queen of England, the White House, and Stevie Wonder. This history focuses on five foundational members of the group and their enduring bond, including Lydia Abarça, the first Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company, the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, and an Essence cover star; and her equally accomplished friends, Gayle McKinney, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, and Karlya Shelton. Valby is a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, and has also published work in The New York Times, O Magazine, Glamour, Fast Company, and EW, where she spent fifteen years writing about culture.

Shelly Power brings to Philadelphia Ballet, formerly Pennsylvania Ballet, her experiences in various artistic and executive leadership roles at Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland and Houston Ballet Academy. Since joining Philadelphia Ballet in 2018, Ms. Power has restructured the organization's administrative functions with new, innovative partnerships, with the goal of promoting that ballet is for everyone. Ms. Power received a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a focus on business, psychology, and fine arts from the University of Houston. She furthered her education at Rice University's Leadership Institute for Non-Profit Executives and Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management's Advanced Certification in Non-Profit Management.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/2/2024)

In conversation with Dr. Jason Karlawish

In partnership with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

The clinical consulting director of support groups at The CaringKind (formerly The Alzheimer's Association), Dasha Kiper has an MA in clinical psychology from Columbia University. For the past decade she has worked with dementia patients, counseled caregivers, led support groups, trained and supervised mental health professionals, and counseled former caregivers who now lead support groups. Informed by her work as both a counselor and work as a caregiver herself, Travelers to Unimaginable Lands employs a wide range of compassionate stories to combat the myth of the so-called perfect caregiver. These ''moving and often surprising'' (The Wall Street Journal) case histories meld science and storytelling to show that caregivers don't just witness cognitive decline in their loved ones with dementia-they are its invisible victims.

Dr. Jason Karlawish is the author of The Problem of Alzheimer's: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It. A Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, he is Co-Director of the Penn Memory Center, where he cares for patients. He also serves on the board of directors for The Greenwall Foundation, a grant-based organization dedicated to expanding bioethics knowledge. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other places.

Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 4/30/2024)

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)