Live Radio
Best-selling nonfiction author Barbara Graham and award winner Caitlin Hamilton Summie join Suzanne M. Lang in conversation on their novels. Both women are longtime writers, steeped in the literary life, yet each has just published a first novel. Graham’s What Jonah Knew is a psychological thriller touching on inherited family trauma, Buddhism, and past lives.
Summie’s carefully crafted Geographies of the Heart tells the bitter and sweet story of a family’s love and loss, and their evolution across the years. A Novel Idea every first and fifth Sundays at 10 am PDT on KRCB 104.9. streaming at krcb.org.
The Late 19th Century tells us as much about ourselves as looking in the mirror. Two writers explore the late 19th century, though one writes fiction and the other nonfiction, their methods of steeping themselves and their work in period detail is striking. Neal Thompson joins Suzanne Lang with his “narrative americana”, a nonfiction account of the Irish immigration of the 19th century in The First Kennedys, The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty. 
Also featured is Connie Hertzberg Mayo, whose novel, The Sharp Edge of Mercy is set in America’s first cancer hospital with themes of medical ethics, racial injustice, gay relationships, and workplace harassment. 
Long-time NPR commentator, editor of Exquisite Corpse, novelist, and poet Andrei Codrescu joins Suzanne Lang in conversation on his life, writing, and language. His upcoming works include a collection of pandemic poetry, Too Late for Nightmares, and one of his earliest novels —revisited by his current self, Meat from the Goldrush. 
Suzanne also visits with novelist and poet Barbara Quick to talk about her latest novel What Disappears along with her volume of award-winning poetry The Light on Sifnos. 
Story, memory, place, and water converges with our two guests. Suzanne Lang is joined by Greg Sarris, author, educator and Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. Greg talks about his book Becoming Story, A Journey among Seasons, Places, Trees, and Ancestors. 
Julene Bair talks about The Ogallala Road, A Story of Love, Family, and the Fight to Keep the Great Plains from Running Dry. Both authors explore their roots, their environment, their choices, and how to integrate various elements of their experience with what they’ve come to know. Sunday, April 3rd at 10am PT on KRCB 104.9, streaming and podcasting at krcb.org. - Ruthie Marlenee and Meredith Hall join Suzanne on A Novel Idea (Aired: March 6, 2022)
- Ann Vileisis talks about abalone's uncertain future on A Novel Idea (Aired: February 6, 2022)
- Daniel Coshnear and Beth Kirschner on A Novel Idea (Aired: January 30, 2022)
- Rosemary Manchester shares her autobiography on A Novel Idea (Aired: January 2, 2022)
- Two young new literary voices on A Novel Idea (Aired: November 7, 2021)
- Peri Chickering and Carolyn Lee Arnold on A Novel Idea (Aired: October 31, 2021)
