Stanley Flink: Due Diligence and the News

February 25, 2020 by  
Filed under Non-Fiction, WritersCast

Due Diligence and the News: Searching for a Moral Compass in the Digital Age – Stanley Flink – Center for Media and Journalism Studies at Indian River State College – paperback – 978-0-578-60291-2 – 214 pages – $19.95 – 12/7/2019 – ebook editions available at lower prices.

I was recently introduced to Stan Flink by a mutual friend. I’d known of him for many years as he was a Yalie of some renown, a journalist for many years who later became the editor of the Yale Alumni Magazine and taught journalism at Yale and at other institutions of higher learning.

With his long experience, as a reporter, editor and lecturer, Stan knows and understands the importance of the news media to the functioning of American democracy. Still active at 95 years of age, Stan has worked as a journalist and editor for many years, in many different venues and platforms.

Flink recognizes that democracy has no life without truth. In fact, democracy is predicated on there being an educated and active citizenry, that tries to know as much as possible the truth and nature of events and human affairs. In Due Diligence and the News, Stan reviews, succinctly and gracefully, the relationship between the press and American civic life from colonial days to the digital age. In a series of interlocked essays, he demonstrates succinctly and clearly that while opinions may differ, facts are not optional. He discusses the important question of how it can be possible to assure publication based on verifiable facts without curtailing differing opinions. This is a central issue for us all to face – understanding and resolving the difference between fact and opinion. We need both elements to have equal weight in our political discourse, and we cannot dismiss either.

Some of the questions he raises include:

How can the media restore the trust of the reading/listening public?

Is it ever possible for the news media to create mechanisms, like the Hutchins Commission, that can make workable rules of self-governance and professional standards for itself?

Can government—international, national, state or local—serve as a watchdog on the media without violating the Constitution?

Can the news media, assuming it is truthful, do less than full due diligence in commenting on a public official?

These questions are addressed thoughtfully throughout this well-written book, but no one, not even Stan, can answer them conclusively and for all situations. Ultimately, as Stan takes a look forward into the digital age, the age of learned intelligence, he poses what may be as yet unanswerable questions about the future of the press in our fast-changing society. I think we have alot to learn from this book and the questions that Stan provides are ones we should be discussing far and wide as we try to heighten the importance of truth among our fellow citizens.

STANLEY FLINK grew up in a New Jersey. He entered Yale University a few months after Pearl Harbor and soon after enlisted in the Army. After service in the Pacific, he returned to Yale to continue his education. He graduated in 1948 and became a correspondent for Time, Inc. in New York and then in California, where he reported on such people as William Randolph Hearst, Richard Nixon, and the first appearances of Marilyn Monroe.

In 1958 he transferred to television news at NBC and later CBS. In 1962 he took up a series of assignments in London where he lived for eight years. In 1972 he returned to Yale to become the founding director of the Office of Public Information. From 1980 to 2010 he taught an undergraduate seminar called “Ethics and the Media.” In 1994 he was awarded the Yale Medal.

Stanley Flink is the author of many articles and profiles, and among his books are a novel called But Will They Get It In Des Moines? about television, published by Simon & Schuster; and Sentinel Under Siege, an historical analysis of freedom of the press in America, published by Harper Collins.

Mr. Flink and his second wife (of 45 years) Joy, live in a retirement community in North Branford, Connecticut, where he still lectures on the media. Through it all, he has never lost his deep affection for golden retrievers. He celebrated his 95th birthday in May, 2019.

Watch this video of Stan talking about the ethics of journalism here.

Support independent bookselling by buying the book online from our friends at R.J. Julia Booksellers.

Publishing Talks: David Wilk interviews writer and entrepreneur Rachel Lehmann-Haupt

November 5, 2019 by  
Filed under Publishing History, PublishingTalks

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books, and culture. As every media business continues to experience disruption and change, I’ve been talking with some of the people involved in our industry about how publishing might evolve as it is affected by technology and the larger context of culture and economics.

Rachel Lehmann-Haupt is best known for being an expert on the future of family life, career timing, and the influence of science and technology on fertility, pregnancy and family.

She is the author of In Her Own Sweet Time: Egg Freezing and the New Frontiers of Family. Her articles have been featured in a wide range of magazines and websites.

Rachel graduated with a degree in English literature from Kenyon College, and has a Masters in Journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, she apprenticed under Clay Felker, the founder of New York Magazine. She has spoken on numerous panels at bookstores, hospitals and corporate events, and has delivered keynotes at universities.

Rachel’s newest venture, StoryMade Studios, a content development and editorial production studio was what introduced me to her work and caused me to want to talk to her for this Publishing Talks podcast series.

Much like my own work with content creators, and similar to the way movie studios work, Rachel builds teams that include writers, designers, developers, and video producers, and then manages the creation and editing of all the elements of a digital media story. StoryMade Studios focuses on health, parenting, advanced reproductive technology, neuroscience, women, sustainability, and food.

In recent years, Rachel has been a senior content strategist and strategic advisor for a number of technology start-ups, media properties, and non-profits including TED Books, The Dwell Store, Wired Magazine, BabyCenter.com, The Women 2.0 Conference, Code for America, Bridge Housing, Shebooks, and Dr. Dean Ornish/Healthways.

It was a pleasure to spend some time with her for a lengthy and wide ranging conversation when she was recently in New York City for a visit. I wanted to talk to her about her work as a writer and as a facilitator of book and other content projects, but in particular, I thought it would be really interesting to talk to Rachel about what it was like to have grown up as the child of two writers in the hothouse environment of New York City literary culture and how it influenced her own professional and personal life.

Thank you Rachel for a great conversation!

You can buy her book from RJ Julia here.

Visit Rachel’s own website here. Read about her book,In Her Own Sweet Time

And about Story Made Studio here.

Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning reading in Tucson, Arizona

March 3, 2019 by  
Filed under AuthorsVoices

What a great trip! Starting January 18, 2019, with a reading at McNally Jackson Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, poets Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning, started a cross country journey together (you can view their trip itinerary here).

Appropriately, their story and journey began in Brooklyn, where Barbara lives, and this amazing cross-country jaunt ends in Denver two months later, where Maureen lives.

The two writers have been blogging about their adventure here – their writing is terrific and fun, it is always fresh and lively, truly poets’ reportage, and reading their travel log will make you feel like you are along for the ride with them. They are having alot of fun and meeting and talking with some wonderful people along the way. They are getting to see some beautiful parts of our country too. Their two months on the road will feature 16 public events, and innumerable anecdotes and stories. It’s really fun to follow along with them as they travel, and when they are done, this will make a really interesting book.

I had the good fortune to be in Tucson, Arizona, when the two writers arrived there on February 14. Maureen is an old friend and colleague, so it was wonderful to get together with her, and to meet Barbara for the first time. When I went to hear them read for the POG Poetry reading series at the Steinfeld Warehouse Community Art Center, 101 West 6th Tucson on Saturday, February 16, and I recorded the event for this Authors Voices series here on Writerscast.

Local writer Steve Salmoni introduced the event. Poet and publisher (Chax Press) Charles Alexander introduced Maureen, and artist Cynthia Miller introduced Barbara, who lived in Tucson for a few years and has many friends there still.

It was a great event, and a wonderful opportunity to hear two terrific writers, both of whom engage with their audience and their writing. I’ve known Maureen for a long time, and believe she is one of the best poets of our time. Getting to hear Barbara Henning was a treat for me, as she is also a terrific writer of both poetry and fiction. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to present this reading here.

Poet Maureen Owen was born in Minnesota, lived and worked in New York City and Connecticut, and has been living in Denver for a number of years, where she has long taught at nearby Naropa University. She was the founder of Telephone magazine and Telephone Books, worked at the Poetry Project in NYC, and is the author of a number of wonderful collections of poems.

Barbara Henning is a poet and fiction writer, born in Detroit, who has lived mostly in New York and Tucson since the early eighties. Aside from being the author of a number of books of poetry and fiction, she was also the editor of a book of interviews, Looking Up Harryette Mullen, and The Selected Prose of Bobbie Louise Hawkins. She is professor emeritus at Long Island University, where she taught for many years.

Publishing Talks: David Wilk interviews Dan Blank of We Grow Media

Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and folks active in media and technology, at that time, mostly talking about the future of publishing, books and culture. At the outset of this series, I was mostly interested in exploring what people were thinking about the changing economics and culture of publishing and reading.

Now, I’ve  expanded these talks to go beyond the future of publishing – in some cases, by going backwards to discuss the recent history of publishing, and in some instances, sideways into various other realms that interest me. I’ve talked with editors and publishers who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing in the past, and into the present, and will continue to explore the ebb and flow of writing, books, and publishing in to document the cultural milieu around books, authors and publishers.

Dan Blank is an inspiring and practical thinker about books, authors and readers. We met a number of years ago, and in working with him on a project to help self publishing authors, I was impressed with his thinking and ideas for ways to help writers conceptualize marketing. I first talked to him for Publishing Talks all the way back in 2012 – you can listen to that interview here. I have continued to follow his work through his excellent email newsletter, and frequently, have been inspired by his writing, especially his view of how writers can thrive in a challenging environment. Since so much has changed in the publishing landscape over the past several years, I thought it would be valuable to talk to Dan again about his current work with writers, books, readers, and the way they are connected.

Dan did not disappoint. This interview is full of great advice for writers and anyone who is interested in connecting with audiences in today’s media-rich environment.

As Dan says about himself on his website, he “help(s) writers and creative professionals share their stories and connect with their audience.” He’s worked with hundreds of authors and many publishers as well. And he has written his own book too, making the process of writing and publishing the book part of his experience-based coaching – Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Work and Engaging an Audience.

Dan’s website, wegrowmedia.com is well worth spending some time with, and his newsletter has been a valuable source of ideas and inspiration to many.

Brad Watson: Miss Jane (a novel)

March 10, 2017 by  
Filed under Fiction, WritersCast

Miss Jane: A Novel – Brad Watson – W.W. Norton & Company – Hardcover – 9780393241730 – 284 pages – $25.95 (ebook versions available at lower prices)

I originated the Writerscast series of conversations with writers at least in part, to remind myself to keep reading book length prose. I didn’t want to miss out on discovering great books and finding new writers to read. In this era of too much noise and stimulus, reading a novel or a serious work of nonfiction can be a wonderful pleasure, as well as a reward for escaping the rhythms of daily life. It does take time, and sometimes finding time to read is difficult. But there are some books that are completely fulfilling to spend time with. Having the opportunity to read a novel like Brad Watson’s Miss Jane was a deeply rewarding experience, and one I will not soon forget. Discovering books like this one is a special experience for me.

This is the kind of novel that you don’t come across that often. It is not action packed. In fact, it is more quiet than any novel I have read in a very long time. And it is fully engrossing.

I really love this book and have found myself talking about it to people all the time. It is that special. The writing is luminous, and the characters are as alive and present as if they were in the room with us as we read. I cannot imagine it is possible to not fall in love with this book.

But enough rhapsodizing about the book. I need to give you just a bit about the story, so you have a sense of what it is about. Miss Jane is based on the life story of Brad’s own great-aunt. Because he did not know her at all really, he had to imagine her life in rural, early twentieth-century Mississippi, born with an unusual and not talked about genital birth defect, that would prevent her from having either sex or a marriage. But just as Brad’s real aunt lived a full and long life, so he imagines Miss Jane to live, alone, but with family and other relationships as well. Her life was completely her own, and while it was not her choice to be made the way she was, it was her choice completely to live a complex and deeply experienced life of her own.

Brad Watson is a truly fine writer. The reviews for Miss Jane bear that out. He is the author of two collections of stories and the novel The Heaven of Mercury, which was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award. His fiction has been widely published in magazines. Most recently, Brad was selected to receive the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2017 and Miss Jane is included on the 2017 longlist for the Wellcome Book Prize. He teaches at the University of Wyoming, Laramie.

I hope you will enjoy listening to our conversation about this amazing and wonderful book.

Tom Shroder: The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived

January 20, 2017 by  
Filed under Non-Fiction, WritersCast

9780399174599The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived: A True Story of My Family – Tom Shroder – Blue Rider Press – hardcover – 9780399174599 – 416 pages – $28 – published October 4, 2016 (ebook editions available at lower prices)

Tom Shroder is an excellent writer and an experienced editor who has had a long career as a journalist, as well as having also written some really interesting books. As it turns out, he is the grandson of the once-bestselling author, MacKinlay Kantor, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for his sprawling historical novel about the Civil War, Andersonville. I expect that a number of my listeners will have read that book, and many will quite possibly remember MacKinlay Kantor as someone who was an extremely well known and popular author in the fifties and sixties.

Like so many of us, Shroder grew up mostly taking his grandfather for granted, and while he was close with both his grandfather and grandmother, Tom did not really know very much about their actual lives before he was born, when their lives were very different. Their daughter, his mother, was also a writer as Tom was growing up, but he did not want to identify with the literary milieu of his youth. It was only later in his life that he was spurred to learn more about his family history, and to begin to understand himself within any kind of a personal literary context.

This book recounts the thoroughly compelling MacKinlay Kantor’s very colorful and intentional life as a writer, as well as weaving together Shroder’s own story, which is one of becoming a writer without perhaps intending to do so. It works amazingly well, and even if you have never read Andersonville or any of the other many books Kantor wrote during his long and checkered career, this particular book is likely to captivate you. It is full of wonderful stories and empathetic emotional connections.

Shroder’s journey to understanding who his grandfather was turns out to be almost as epic as Kantor’s actual life, full of twists and turns, discoveries and surprises. I read Andersonville long ago, and remember being fully engaged by its epic scope and historical detail. But I had forgotten that Kantor was also the ghost writer for Curtis Lemay later in his life, when things were not going so well for him. His was a complicated and very American 20th century story, story, and Shroder tells it exceptionally well.

Tom Shroder has been an award-winning journalist, writer and editor for nearly 40 years. His books include Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy and the Power to Heal (2014), a mind-altering account of the resurgent research into the medical use of psychedelic drugs; Fire on the Horizon: the Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster (2011) (co-author); and Old Souls: Compelling Evidence From Children Who Remember Past Lives (1999), a study of the border between science and mysticism.

He was the editor of The Washington Post Magazine between 2001 and 2009, where he oversaw Gene Weingarten’s two Pulitzer Prize-winning feature stories, “Fiddler in the Subway” and “Fatal Distraction.”

Shroder’s The Hunt for Bin Laden (2011) was based on 15 years of reporting by The Washington Post. Shroder is also known for co-creating the Tropic Hunt, a mass-participation puzzle which has become The Washington Post Hunt in Washington, D.C.

Shroder was born in New York City in 1954.

You can visit Shroder’s author website here.

“Fascinating…As Shroder vividly tells the story of this larger-than-life writer who was a generous and often doting grandfather, he contemplates the fleeting nature of fame….a biographical gold mine and an object lesson in the ultimate fading away of the best-selling, prize-winning success many writers dream about.”
—Susan Cheever, The Washington Post

This book was a pleasure to read, and the conversation with Tom Shroder was a lot of fun for me as well. He made this interview extremely easy for me to conduct.35-Mack-mid-to-late-50s-Bill-Dog

Tom and Lisa at Monterrey

Chris Offutt: My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir

June 6, 2016 by  
Filed under Non-Fiction, WritersCast

my-father-the-pornographer-9781501112461_lg9781501112461 – Atria Books – 272 pages – Hardcover – $26.00 – ebook versions available at lower prices

Chris Offutt’s father, Andrew Offutt, left behind an unusual legacy – a massive quantity of pornography he wrote over a long swatch of his life. Besides being at one time a respected insurance agent, and subsequently a successful but still minor science fiction writer, Andrew Offutt spent years writing pornography, and made himself the “king of twentieth-century smut.”

During the 1970s, after Grove Press and other publishers had helped break down the barriers to legal publishing of pornographic and erotic literature, the floodgates of erotic writing opened up to meet a formerly unreachable demand. Several specialized, but relatively small commercial publishers created a mini-industry to satisfy an emerging market for written pornography and erotica of all kinds. During the height of the popularity of these books, some writers were able to make reasonable livings by turning out massive quantities of what was essentially pornographic pulp fiction.

Andrew Offutt was one of these writers, but unlike so many other high volume writers,  he was singular in his commitment to good writing and real plot lines, among other features of traditional fiction. As one might imagine, Andrew Offutt was an unusual man, and a strange and awkward parent keeping secrets about his work and the toll it took on his psyche.

Chris Offutt therefore grew up in a highly unusual world. His mother was the typist for all his father’s books. The family lived in the Kentucky hills, where most kids grew up hunting and fishing, and learning the pleasures of traditional country woodcraft.

Andrew Offutt was more than a little eccentric, and was a fiery and unpredictable father. When he closed the door to his home office, he demanded silence and to be left alone to concentrate on his writing, terrifying and controlling his family. And Offutt took the entire family with him when he went off to science fiction conventions, where he was a sought after figure, playing the role of the exotic sci fi novelist. In the seventies, Chris’ parents were evidently active swingers at these conventions.

During this time, Andrew Offutt wrote an incredible number of books – in total, more than four hundred novels, including pirate porn, ghost porn, zombie porn, and secret agent porn.

In 2013, after his father died, Chris Offutt returned to help his mother move out of his childhood home. In order to make sense of his father and his own childhood, Chris took on the herculean task of reading and organizing his father’s manuscripts and the vast trove of memorabilia, journals, and letters that accompanied them. It was only through the lens of his father’s writing that he was finally able to bring some closure to his understanding of this difficult and sometimes brilliant man. And at the same time he was able to gain a better understanding of himself as a person, father and of course, his own life as a writer.

This book is a remarkable literary and personal effort of psychic and literary exploration, truly one of the best memoirs I have read. Perhaps because my own father was similarly a writer who made his living through his work with words, this book meant a lot to me.

It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with Chris Offutt about his courageous and beautifully written memoir, and his own creative work as a writer.

Chris Offutt was born in 1958 in Lexington, Kentucky and grew up in the small town of Haldeman in the same state. He went to Morehead State University, and then to the University of Iowa, where he earned an MFA from the famed Iowa Writers Workshop. His first short story collection was Kentucky Straight, published in 1992. Along with fiction and memoirs, Chris has also written comics and journalism for several magazines and newspapers. In recent years, he has written for television as well (Weeds and True Blood).

Chris has received awards from the Lannan Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He received a Whiting Award in Fiction and Nonfiction.

“Chris Offutt owns one of the finest, surest prose styles around, ready and able to convey the hardest truth without flinching. Now Offutt enters the darkest and most mysterious of places—the cave of a monstrous enigma named Andrew J. Offutt—armed with nothing but his own restless curiosity. Spoiler alert: He makes it out alive, walking into the daylight to bring us a deeper, funnier, more tender and more heartbroken truth—and his masterpiece.” —Michael Chabonchris offutt

I’m as impressed as Michael Chabon is with this fine book.

And Offutt knows how to give a great interview too.

David Wilk talks with Jane Friedman

Jane-Friedman-e1447852553552Publishing Talks began as a series of conversations with book industry professionals and others involved in media and technology about the future of publishing, books, and culture. As we continue to experience disruption and change in all media businesses, I’ve been talking with some of the people involved in our industry about how publishing might evolve as our culture is affected by technology and the larger context of civilization and economics.

I’ve now expanded the series to include conversations that go beyond the future of publishing. I’ve talked with editors and publishers who have been innovators and leaders in independent publishing in the past and into the present, and will continue to explore the ebb and flow of writing, books, and publishing in all sorts of forms and formats, as change continues to be the one constant we can count on.

It’s my hope that these conversations can help us understand the outlines of what is happening in publishing and writing, and how we might ourselves interact with and influence the future of publishing as it unfolds.

There are two Jane Friedmans in the book business, which has caused no end of confusion for all sorts of people and many occasions (even Google can’t figure this one out).

One Jane Friedman is the well known and iconic publishing executive who is the founder and CEO of Open Road Media, a leading digital book publisher. The “other” Jane Friedman, whose work I have been following for a number of years, is an expert in social media and digital marketing who advises and teaches writers in marketing their work and how to be writers in the current rapidly changing environment, as well as working with publishers and others on a wide variety of subjects and concerns. She continually impresses with her intelligence, acuity, passion for writing, and compassion for writers.

This Jane Friedman worked at Writer’s Digest, where she ultimately became publisher and editorial director, and recently she served as the digital editor for the Virginia Quarterly Review, where she led a digital overhaul of the magazine. She is now teaching digital media and publishing at the University of Virginia and writes a column for Publishers Weekly (I frequently have recommended her smartly written columns). The Great Courses has released her 24-lecture series, How to Publish Your Book and she has a book of her own forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press called The Business of Being a Writer (2017).

Given that her thinking, writing and teaching has placed her in position to know a great deal about how things are for writers these days, I thought it would be good to talk to the “other” Jane Friedman for Publishing Talks. Our stimulating conversation follows. What Jane has to say will be valuable and important for writers and publishers alike.

You can follow Jane Friedman at her website, where she offers a myriad of insightful, practical and useful information, advice for free, and also online courses and consulting services at very reasonable rates.

Nice quote from Jane on her site: “The 3 things very important to me: compassion, service, and independence. I avoid environments (or people) lacking these qualities, especially organizations without a strong service component—a strong why—driving their work-play.”How-to-Publish-Your-Book-300x300

Self Publishing News

June 6, 2013 by  
Filed under Pipeline

self-published readersIf you are interested in self publishing (and who isn’t these days?), there are so many options and choices, it’s not so easy to figure out what your best pathway is.  And it will differ depending on what kind of writing you do, how much you have published in the past, and what your goals are as a writer.

There are all kinds of resources for writers who want to self publish, and there is something new going on almost every day that could be useful, valuable or interesting to writers (and some publishers) in the universe of self publishing.

Since so much of my work relates to publishing and options for writers, I decided to follow new developments and doings in the self publishing arena, and highlight some of those I think will be most useful to writers.  You can find my Self Publishing News on Tumblr. Please take a look, and if you like what you see, you can follow my posts pretty easily.  I’ll be posting 3-5 times a week, depending on my workload and what kind of interesting news I can uncover.  I hope you find this little site useful.  Feel free to send links and news items my way whenever you find something you think is interesting or valuable to writers.

Coming soon: a new interview series focusing on Self Publishing How To.  Video and audio interviews with experts and successful writers talking about what works and what doesn’t, always practical and useful information and ideas for writers and anyone who might be self publishing their work.header_2

Publishing Talks: David Wilk interviews Ishmael Reed

Ishmael ReedIn this series of interviews, called Publishing Talks, I have been talking to book industry professionals and other smart people about the future of publishing, books, and culture.  This is a period of disruption and change for all media businesses.  We must wonder now, how will publishing evolve as our culture is affected by technology, climate change, population density, and the ebb and flow of civilization and  economics?

I hope these Publishing Talks conversations can help us understand the outlines of what is happening in the publishing industry, and how we might ourselves interact with and influence the future of publishing as it unfolds.

These interviews give people in and around the book business a chance to talk openly about ideas and concerns that are often only talked about “around the water cooler,” at industry conventions and events, and in emails between friends and they give people inside and outside the book industry a chance to hear first hand some of the most interesting and challenging thoughts, ideas and concepts being discussed by people in the book business.

Ishmael Reed is not only one of my favorite writers (fiction, poetry, theater and a wide range of nonfiction), he is an editor, publisher, literary activist and one of the founders of the Before Columbus Foundation, which has sponsored the American Book Awards since 1980.  His latest publishing venture is Ishmael Reed Publishing Company, sponsoring the work of a diverse set of writers from many continents, including an online magazine, Konch.  He blogs for the San Francisco Chronicle at www.sfgate.com.

His own books include the now classic Yellow Back Radio Brokedown, Mumbo Jumbo, The Freelance Pallbearers (a book I like to re-read at least once every five years), Flight to Canada as well as an amazing number of collections of essays, plays and poems, and recently, Powwow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, an anthology he co-edited with Carla Blank.  Forthcoming books include The Fighter and the Writer: Two American Stories (Random House), and Brawls, a new collection of Ishmael’s always provocative and on point essays. Ishmael Reed is a massively prolific writer in a wide range of forms.

You can read a complete biography of Ishmael here.  It’s pretty impressive, but listen to this interview I did with him to get a real sense of what he has done to support and promote the full breadth of writing and creativity in this country (and around the world).  Ishmael Reed gives voice to the heart and soul of the river of creativity that flows out of and through the great American continent, and never fails to tell truth to power, expose alternative views of accepted wisdom, and makes us think long and hard about who we really are.Fiction Anthology_0  This conversation covers a wide range of topics, and includes much about the history of independent publishing in the last several decades, and much more.

Blan_0609807846-330 A guest appearance by editor, writer and professor Carla Blank near the end of our talk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carla Blank

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