Writers at Work

With me today on Writers at Work is Catherine Conybeare, author and academic, who is widely acknowledged as an authority on Augustine of Hippo, known to many as St. Augustine. Katharine's new book is AUGUSTINE THE AFRICAN, which considers him in the context of his African heritage. He was born in Thagaste, a city in present-day Algeria in North Africa.

After about five years in Milan and Rome, agitated years according to the author...

With me on this episode of Writers at Work is writer, director, producer and actor Anu Valia, whose debut feature film, WE STRANGERS, is now streaming, very likely on your favorite service. Anu has already accumulated a resume bursting with achievement. Her first mainstream success was LUCIA, BEFORE AND AFTER, the short film she wrote and directed that won the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Jury Award.

She directed episodes...

Joining me on this episode of Writers at Work is Charlie English, author of THE CIA BOOK CLUB. Its subtitle tells why I found, and I think you will find, Charlie's latest to be so fascinating: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature.

From its headquarters in Manhattan, the CIA Book Club secretly sent millions of banned titles, pamphlets and other reading material into the East. By the 1980s, illicit literat...

You may have heard that Thomas Perry, the best-selling mystery writer, died this week at age 78. I was immediately saddened by the news, not just for the passing of a skilled, dependable, and imaginative author, but for the loss of someone who had become a friend. Though Tom and I were members of the mystery community, I hadn't had the pleasure of getting to know him and his wife, Jo, also an acclaimed writer, until fairly recently...

Before we begin, I want to tell you about an experience I had this week leading up to this Writers at Work interview. For the first time, I watched a movie as I was reading the short stories upon which it was based, not simultaneously, of course. I read the short stories in the evening, watched the film in the afternoon, read the short stories again, then watched the film one more time.

The short stories, two in a collection of 12,...

Joining me on this episode of Writers at Work is Susana M. Morris, author of the new POSITIVE OBSESSION: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF OCTAVIA E. BUTLER.

For the uninitiated, Butler, who died suddenly in 2006 at age 58, was an American science fiction and speculative fiction writer who won the Hugo, Locus, and NEC Nebula awards for her work. In 1995, Butler became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

An Assoc...

With me today on Writers at Work is Chris Lang, writer, creator and executive producer of UNFORGOTTEN, the beloved British crime drama broadcast in the States on PBS Masterpiece. It's now in its sixth season. Chris began his career in TV as an actor, but fairly early on he wrote episodes of THE BILL, the long-running UK police procedural.

In short order he wrote episodes of a number of TV series, including THE TUNNEL, the British-F...

I'm joined today on Writers at Work by Paul Muldoon, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the T.S. Eliot Prize, and the Irish Literature Prize for Poetry, among other acknowledgments. Some 30 collections of his poems have been published. Paul taught at Princeton and Oxford and served as poetry editor of the New Yorker.

Of his poetry, Clair Wills, author of Reading Paul Muldoon, wrote, “Muldoon stands by the entrance or rabbi...

My guest on this episode of Writers at Work is Denise Mina, the much admired and much honored writer from Scotland. Denise is best known for her crime novels. THE GOOD LIAR, available now, is her latest, but that is but a part of her impressive resume.

Her first novel, GARNETHILL, was published in 1998 to spectacular reviews here in the States and. And leading to the Garnethill trilogy. Then came FIELD OF BLOOD, the first of Denise...

With me on this episode of Writers at Work is writer and literary critic Heather Clark, whose latest is THE SCRAPBOOK, her fourth book and debut novel.

Heather may be best known for RED COMET: THE SHORT LIFE AND BLAZING ART OF SYLVIA PLATH, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Prior to that, she published THE ULSTER RENAISSANCE: POETRY IN BELFAST 1962-1972 and THE GRIEF OF INFLUENCE: SYLVIA PLATH AND TED HUGHES. A recipient of...

With me today on Writers at Work is Adriana Trigiani, who has amid a remarkable career in the arts, primarily as a writer. Her current novel is THE VIEW FROM LAKE COMO, which she describes as a story of a woman who decides to build a life she can live in, and the house that goes along with it.

The woman is an Italian-American from New Jersey. The house is in Carrera, Italy. And if you know anything about me and my work, you can pre...

Joining me on this episode of Writers at Work is Tom Mead, whose latest novel, THE HOUSE AT DEVIL'S NECK, confirms he is a new master of the locked-room mystery. For the uninitiated, a locked-room mystery is a tale in which the crime in question is committed in circumstances under which it appears impossible for the perpetrator to enter the scene, commit the crime, and then leave undetected. Or at least that's what Wiki tells me. T...

My guest on this episode of Writers at Work is Marie Rutkoski, whose latest novel, ORDINARY LOVE, is a bit of a departure for her. Marie may be best known for her books for children and young adults, beginning with the Kronos Chronicles, a trio of novels that blended fantasy and historical fiction.

Then came the standalone THE SHADOW SOCIETY, a supernatural romance set in Chicago in an alternate universe, then followed by her popul...

Joining me on this episode of Writers at Work is C. M. Kushins, author of COOLER THAN COOL: THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELMORE LEONARD, a biography of the master of American crime writing, a journalist whose work appeared in the Daily Beast, among other publications. Chad's previous works include biographies of Warren Zevon and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham.

He left the world of rock for COOLER THAN COOL, the first in-depth biography of Elmo...

My guest today on Writers at Work is Dennis Lehane, an exceptional novelist and screenwriter whose body of work reveals the tender heart of his characters as they yearn, even as the world explodes around them.

His novels and short fiction and the films adapted from them, MYSTIC RIVER, SHUTTER ISLAND, GONE, BABY GONE, and THE DROP among them, are now part of the American cultural and artistic landscape. In addition, he's written for...

My guest on this episode of Writers at Work is Craig Thompson, author and graphic artist. His latest is the epic GINSENG ROOTS: A MEMOIR.

Craig's first graphic novel, GOOD-BYE CHUNKY RICE, was published in 1999 and won high honors such as the Harvey and Ignatz Awards. That year he began his first masterwork, the 600-page BLANKETS, described as a memoir of first love and faith lost in rural Wisconsin. The Bloomsbury Review said it i...

Joining me on this episode of Writers at Work is Sarah Lampert, writer, executive producer and creative force behind Ginny and Georgia, the smash hit now in its third season on Netflix. Sarah is a bit of a miracle in today's media landscape. As I understand it, Sarah wrote the pilot during a writing class.

This is her first program. I'll ask her to tell us how Ginny and Georgia came to be. I said smash hit a few seconds ago. How sm...

Joining me on this episode of Writers at Work is Chris Pavone, author of THE DOORMAN. Described by the New York Times as a state of the city novel, a kaleidoscopic portrait of New York at a singularly strange moment, THE DOORMAN has drawn comparison to Tom Wolfe's THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.

Rightfully so, I'll add, as Chris displays a keen gift for ascetic satire but serves it without drawing attention to a flashy style. THE DOOR...

My guest on this episode of Writers at Work is Julie Gilbert, author of GIANT LOVE: EDNA FERBER, HER BEST-SELLING NOVEL OF TEXAS, AND THE MAKING OF A CLASSIC AMERICAN FILM. Julie brings a special insight into her latest work. She is the great niece of Edna Ferber, author of the novel that was the Source for the 1956 George Stevens film starring James Dean, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor.

She is also the author of the biography of...