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Writer's Voice with Francesca Rheannon

Francesca Rheannon·20 episodes

ArtsSocietyCultureAuthor interviewsLiterary nonfictionBook discussionsWeeklyStandalone episodesPublic issues

Writer's Voice features author interviews and readings, as well as news, commentary and tips related to writing and publishing. We also talk with editors, agents, publicists and others about issues of interest to writers. Francesca Rheannon is producer and host of Writer's Voice. She is a writer, an independent radio producer and a broadcast journalist.

Why listen

Writer's Voice with Francesca Rheannon is for listeners who want book conversations with civic weight, not just release-week chatter. Francesca interviews novelists, poets, historians, journalists, and public thinkers, often pairing two books around a shared theme like climate, censorship, memory, freedom, or the writing life. It is a good fit for readers who like literary interviews that connect craft to politics, history, ecology, and moral questions.

Episodes

1 hr
May 28, 2026Episode 1026
Omar Zahzah: How Silicon Valley Suppresses Palestinian Voices | Terms of Servitude

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca speaks with Omar Zahzah, Palestinian-American scholar, activist, journalist, and author of Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle. “There’s never been a moment in time where Palestinians did not resist their dispossession. And consequently, there is not going to be a moment in time where Palestinians begin to cease resisting.” Zahzah offers the first book-length analysis of how major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok, systematically suppress Palestinian content, and how that suppression is structurally connected to the financial, ideological, and political ties between Silicon Valley and the Israeli state. The conversation covers the history of Palestinian resistance to silencing, the specific mechanics of digital censorship, the TikTok ban, the No Tech for Apartheid campaign, and the forms of resistance that Zahzah believes can still make a difference. Then we revisit part of Francesca’s 2025 conversation with Omar El Akkad, about his book, One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This.  Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Omar Zahzah, Terms of Servitude, Palestinian censorship, social media censorship Palestine, digital settler colonialism, Silicon Valley Israel, TikTok ban Palestine, big tech censorship, AI warfare Palestine, Palestinian liberation, Writer’s Voice podcast, Omar El Akkad You Might Also Like: <a href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2025/03/breaking-barriers-on-denali-cassidy-randall-on-thirty-below-omar-el-akkad-on-empire-liberalism-bearing-witness/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.writersvoice.net/2025/03/breaking-barriers-on-denali-cassidy-randall-on-thirty-below-omar-el-akkad-on-empire-liberalism-bearing-witn

57 min
May 21, 2026
America’s Death Penalty Crisis + Abdul El-Sayed on Healing Politics

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. This week, Elizabeth Vartkessian joins me to discuss The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice. Drawing on two decades as a mitigation specialist working with people facing the death penalty, she argues that America’s justice system reflects deeper failures in how we value human dignity, mercy, and opportunity. “What I can do is everything possible to provide the context that people need to understand that my client is a person who has likely done a huge amount of harm that can’t be undone, but they are still a human being who is loved, who has potential, who has the capacity just like any other human being to grow, to change, to redeem.”   Then we revisit part of my 2020 conversation with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Michigan. In Healing Politics, he describes what he calls America’s “epidemic of insecurity” and explains why he left medicine to tackle the social and political causes of illness itself. “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale.” Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Elizabeth Vartkessian, The Deserving, death penalty, capital punishment, criminal justice, mitigation specialist, prison system, restorative justice, Abdul El-Sayed, Healing Politics, public health, healthcare inequality, Writer’s Voice podcast You May Also Like: Abdul EL Sayed, HEALING POLITICS, Stephanie Canizales, SIN PADRES NI PAPELES Elizabeth Vartkessian, The Deserving <div class="wp

59 min
May 14, 2026
Tim Weed’s The Gatepost + Farah Naz Rishi’s The Flightless Birds of New Hope

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. This week on Writer’s Voice, two novels explore what happens when people are forced out of the lives they thought they understood. First, Tim Weed joins me to talk about The Gatepost, a speculative thriller that blends archaeology, psychedelics, quantum theory and Mesoamerican mythology into a story about grief, consciousness, and humanity’s fractured relationship with nature. “Our mythologies have collapsed. They no longer explain the world. And so, I consider this to be a fun novel, but it’s also a novel that has a serious aspect to it. And this is part of weaving the new tapestry, the tapestry of a new mythology.”   Then Farah Naz Rishi discusses The Flightless Birds of New Hope, a funny, tender, and deeply moving novel about three estranged siblings brought back together after the death of their parents and the escape of the family cockatoo. “I think grief and humor come hand in hand. Usually you’ll find that some of the funniest people are those who have experienced intense hardship or suffering from depression. And they use humor as a way of making sure that people don’t worry about them.”   Both books ask what it takes to move forward after loss, and whether connection, to family, to nature, or to something larger than ourselves, can help us find our way. Finally, we listen to Richard Wilbur read his poem “Advice to a Prophet.” Hear our 2009 conversation with Wilbur here. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Tim Weed, The Gatepost, psychedelics, Mesoamerican mythology, Inframundo, speculative fiction, Writer’s Voice podcast, Farah Naz Rishi, The Flightless Birds of New Hope, literary fiction, Richard Wilbur <img loading="lazy" decoding

59 min
May 7, 2026Episode 1023
Caroline Bicks on Stephen King, Maria Adelmann on Adjunct Labor

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. This week, we begin with a look at how Stephen King’s work strikes at the heart of our most basic fears. Caroline Bicks takes us inside Stephen King’s private archives to explore how horror works, and why King’s stories continue to haunt us. Her book is Monsters In The Archives. “He doesn’t just write about monsters. He’s really writing about human emotions of grief and trauma and using horror as a way to help us metabolize our own very human experiences and fears.” Then, another kind of fear: the dizzying precarity plaguing so many college graduates. Novelist Maria Adelmann joins me to talk about Adjunct, her darkly funny and deeply unsettling novel about exploitation, debt, and survival inside higher education. “I wanted to make the point that a few things go wrong — a medical issue, no family support — and you can, even as a professor at a good college, become so poor that you don’t have a place to live.” Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Stephen King, Monsters in the Archives, Caroline Bicks, Stephen King archive, Pet Sematary, Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Night Shift, horror writing craft, adjunct professor, Marie Adelmann, Adjunct novel, contingent faculty, academic precarity, student debt, university adjuncts, adjunct pay, adjunct crisis, Writer’s Voice podcast, Love good coffee that’s also Fair-Trade? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show! <strong

1 hr 15 min
Apr 30, 2026
Women Who Changed Journalism + Nature’s Hidden Relationships

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. This week’s Writer’s Voice features two new books that take us into very different realms of hidden history. First, Julia Cooke joins Francesca to talk about Starry and Restless, her vivid group portrait of Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily Hahn, three adventurous women writers who expanded what journalism could be, often while battling the constraints placed on women in their time. “Women were central to voice-driven narrative journalism for at least the last century and a half.” Then, we move from literary history to natural history, as nature journalist Sophie Pavelle takes us into a very different realm with her book To Have or To Hold. It’s a fascinating exploration of symbiosis, parasitism, and the intricate relationships that sustain the living world. “The natural world is structured and founded upon these really intricate, complicated, ancient relationships.” Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Julia Cooke, Starry and Restless, Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, Emily Hahn, women journalists, Sophie Pavelle, To Have or To Hold, symbiosis, ecology, biodiversity, Writer’s Voice podcast, Love good coffee that’s also Fair-Trade? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show! Buy today and get a FREE pair of Handmade Grass Coasters from their fair-trade artisan partners in Guatemala! A $15 value, yours free with purchase. You Might Also Like: Ethel Payne, First Lady Of The Black Press, <a href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2024/12/slippery-beast-ellen-ruppel-shell-on-eels-ecology-and-the-global-wildl

58 min
Apr 23, 2026
Bill McKibben on Solar’s Breakthrough, Anne Fadiman on the Hidden Life of Ordinary Things

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. What if the energy transition is arriving faster than anyone imagined? And what if paying attention to the smallest things can change how we live? This Earth Day, Writer’s Voice revisits our interview with Bill McKibben about Here Comes the Sun, a bracing and hopeful argument that cheap, abundant solar power could reshape geopolitics, weaken authoritarianism, and help us meet the climate emergency.  “About five years ago, we crossed some invisible line where it became cheaper to generate power from the sun and the wind than from burning coal and gas and oil.”  Then, Anne Fadiman turns our attention from planetary systems to intimate acts of noticing. In her acclaimed essay collection Frog, she finds wonder and moral inquiry in a neglected pet frog, the burden of literary inheritance, pronouns, grammar, and other seemingly modest subjects that open into large human questions — along with a good dose of humor. “I’m interested in writing about things that other people haven’t noticed.”  Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Love good coffee? Want to support Writer’s Voice? Head on over to Larry’s Coffee using this LINK, and you’ll earn $30 for the show! You Might Also Like: Bill McKibben, Here Comes T

1 hr 7 min
Apr 17, 2026Episode 1020
Free Press 2025, Media Censorship & Daniel Ellsberg’s Moral Legacy

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with Andy Lee Roth of Project Censored about the State of the Free Press 2026, marking 50 years of tracking underreported stories. “Censorship by proxy… corporate entities… are in effect doing the dirty work of the government.”  Then, Michael Ellsberg discusses Truth and Consequence, a powerful collection of writings by his father, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, exploring moral responsibility, war, and resistance. “What do you do as an official when you realize that the policy that you are enacting is crazy or immoral or evil?” <p class="wp-block-paragraph"

59 min
Apr 9, 2026
Climate Fiction & Plastic Pollution: Stories of Survival and Solutions for a Warming World

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, two powerful voices explore the climate crisis from complementary perspectives. Novelist Ellen Meeropol imagines communities navigating climate disruption in Sometimes an Island. “The challenge is enormous. How do you dramatize doom?… You have to find a balance between the science and the story… the story can inspire action through empathy with the characters.”   Then, environmental leader Judith Enck exposes the systemic forces behind plastic pollution—and what we can do about it—in The Problem with Plastic. “This is a climate change issue. This is an environmental justice issue. This is an ocean issue… mostly, this is a health issue, because none of us should have microplastics in our bodies. But we all do.”   Together, these conversations reveal both the human stories and structural realities shaping our environmental future. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: climate fiction, climate change novels, plastic pollution, microplastics health effects, Ellen Meeropol, Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics, literature podcas

58 min
Apr 4, 2026Episode 1018
Philip Schultz's ENORMOUS MORNING: Life, Poetry & Freedom

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Philip Schultz joins Writer’s Voice to discuss his new collection, Enormous Morning. Writing from the vantage point of his 80th year, Schultz reflects on aging, memory, family, regret—and the possibility of transcendence. “Age has… given me a kind of love of my life and the lives of others that I always didn’t have.” In this conversation, Schultz explores how perspective changes over time, how poetry can transform suffering into insight, and why creativity itself can be a source of resilience and even joy. He also reads several poems from the collection, including “Enormous Morning,” “Good News,” and “My Mistakes.” The conversation moves from the personal to the political, as Schultz reflects on democracy, moral courage, and the ethical questions raised by our current moment. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Philip Schultz, Enormous Morning, poetry interview, contemporary poetry, Writer’s Voice podcast, Pulitzer Prize poet, American poets interview. You Might Also Like: Philip Schultz, LUXURY, Philip Schultz, The Poet & His Dyslexia

1 hr 6 min
Mar 27, 2026
The Women Who Changed Journalism & A Novel of Extinction

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Julia Cooke discusses Starry and Restless, her group biography of Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and Emily “Mickey” Hahn—women journalists whose restless lives and innovative writing helped shape modern literary journalism, even as their contributions were later minimized. “Women have been central to voice-driven narrative journalism for at least the last century and a half.” Then, Iida Turpeinen explores extinction, empire, and the ethics of science in her novel Beasts of the Sea, beginning with the tragic story of the Steller’s sea cow and expanding into a meditation on memory, loss, and the human relationship to the natural world. “They had no idea that species can go extinct.” Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePo

58 min
Mar 19, 2026
Better Than AI? Expanding the Boundaries of the Human Mind: Justin C. Key + Nelson Delles

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. On this episode of Writer’s Voice, we talk with novelist Justin C. Key about The Hospital at the End of the World, a gripping speculative story that explores the ethical and human stakes of AI in medicine. “Technology is best when it’s a tool wielded by humans.” Then, memory champion Nelson Dellis joins us to talk about Everyday Genius—and how ordinary people can train their minds for sharper memory, deeper focus, and far-reaching intuition. “I never had a good memory growing up. It was something that I was inspired to change and learned all about it and really started to work on it about 15 years ago. And my mind has been different ever since.”  Two conversations that explore what the human mind can do — and what AI never will. Read or Listen to A Sample from The Hospital At The End of the World Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Read The Transcript Tags: AI ethics, AI in

59 min
Mar 14, 2026
Victoria Woodhull’s Radical Life + The Booksellers  Who Defied America’s Most Powerful Censor

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. This week on Writer’s Voice, two authors explore fascinating episodes from women’s history—stories of bold individuals who challenged the boundaries of power, speech, and social convention. Journalist Eden Collinsworth discusses The Improbable Mrs. Woodhull, her biography of Victoria Woodhull—an astonishing figure who rose from poverty to become a stockbroker, newspaper publisher, and the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872. “I, like you and most Americans, knew nothing of her.” Then novelist Shelley Noble joins us to talk about The Sisters of Book Row, a historical novel set in 1915 New York during Anthony Comstock’s aggressive crusade against books and information he deemed “obscene.” Noble’s story centers on three sisters running a bookstore in Manhattan’s famous Book Row, where booksellers faced censorship, raids, and the threat of imprisonment. “My thing as an author is to find those little niches of people who actually make history that we should know about, but we very often don’t know about.” Together, these conversations illuminate forgotten histories about the power of books and the struggle for women’s rights. Read or Listen to A Sample from The Improba

35 min
Mar 7, 2026
Jung Chang on Fly, Wild Swans: China, Freedom + the Fight for Truth

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with bestselling author Jung Chang about her memoir Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, and China, the long-awaited sequel to her landmark book Wild Swans. Chang recounts how her parents — once devoted Communists — became disillusioned by famine, repression, and the violence of the Cultural Revolution. Their refusal to betray their beliefs shaped her own commitment to truth and integrity. “My mother was made to kneel on broken glass… but she still refused to denounce my father.”   She also reflects on her extraordinary journey from Mao’s isolated China to becoming one of the first Chinese students to study in Britain, and how that experience transformed her thinking. “I must only follow the evidence and arrive at conclusions from the evidence gathered.”   Finally, Chang discusses the resurgence of authoritarianism under Xi Jinping and why she still believes China’s people ultimately desire freedom. Read A Sample from Fly, Wild Swans Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. <p class="has-text-

1 hr 3 min
Feb 27, 2026
Dignity or Survival? Two Writers Confront Freedom Under Pressure

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with political philosopher Lea Ypi about Indignity: A Life Reimagined, a genre-blending work of memoir, history, and philosophical inquiry that explores dignity under authoritarian regimes. “I think of [dignity] as a property that is really what makes us human.” — Lea Ypi Then novelist Eleanor Shearer discusses Fireflies in Winter, a lyrical historical novel following Jamaican Maroons exiled to Nova Scotia after the Second Maroon War. Through the story of Cora, Agnes, and Thursday, Shearer examines freedom, queer love, grief, and the moral tension between survival and solidarity. “You were only ever a kind of set of stolen papers away… from having your freedom snatched from you.” — Eleanor Shearer Together, these conversations probe enduring questions: What is dignity? What does it mean to be free inside systems designed to deny freedom? How do we maintain moral agency when our survival is at stake? Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. <a href="https://open.substack.com/pub/writersvoice/p/dignity-or-survival-two-writers-confront?r=183be&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true" data-type="link" data-id="https://open.substack.com/pub/writersvoice/p/dignity-or-survival-two-writers-confront?r=183be&utm_campa

58 min
Feb 20, 2026
Daring To Be Free: Sudhir Hazareesingh on Slave Rebellion & Resistance

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Resistance Is the Story When we tell the history of slavery, too often we tell it as a story of suffering relieved by benevolent reformers. But what if resistance — not submission — was the central thread all along? This week on Writer’s Voice, we begin with historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, whose groundbreaking book Daring to Be Free reframes the history of Atlantic slavery as a history of rebellion: from African defense militias and shipboard revolts to maroon communities and the Haitian Revolution. He restores enslaved women and men to the center of their own liberation struggles — not as passive victims, but as strategists, spiritual leaders, and revolutionaries. “From the very moment slave raiding parties are sent out… people begin to resist.” — Sudhir Hazareesingh Then we revisit my 2012 conversation with novelist Jacqueline Sheehan about The Comet’s Tale, her powerful work of historical fiction about Sojourner Truth. Through Truth’s childhood in bondage, her spiritual awakening, and her emergence as a fearless abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, we explore resilience, moral courage, and the making of a revolutionary life. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and </

57 min
Feb 13, 2026Episode 1011
Attensity! D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh & Peter Schmidt on the Attention Liberation Movement

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Episode Summary Something feels wrong with our attention — and with reality itself. In Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement, editors D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt argue that this crisis is not about individual willpower. It’s about a multi-trillion-dollar industry built to monetize human attention. They call it “human fracking.” “These phones are the final node in a… $7 to $14 trillion industry that’s all about maximizing the amount of time that we engage with these devices… capturing our attention and turning it into money. And we call that ‘human fracking.’” — Peter Schmidt In this conversation, we explore how the commodification of attention reshapes nearly every aspect of our lives. We talk about attention as relational and ethical — not just measurable. And we examine why reclaiming attention must be a collective political movement, not a private detox. Then, we listen to an excerpt from our 2025 conversation with Cory Doctorow about his book Enshittifcation. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Attention Liberation Movement, Attensity book, D. Graham Burnett, Peter Schmidt, Alyssa Loh, human fracking, attention economy, digital capitalism, social media harm, attention activism, Cory Doctorow enshittifi

1 hr 3 min
Feb 7, 2026
Andrew Burstein on Thomas Jefferson: Slavery, Democracy, & The Idea of America

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Episode Summary: Historian Andrew Burstein joins us to talk about his biography, Being Thomas Jefferson. It’s an intimate portrait that looks beyond the marble statue and into the emotional life of one of America’s most influential founders. Burstein explores Jefferson as a political moralist, a lyrical writer, and as someone who imagined democracy while profiting from slavery, who preached equality while exercising enormous power over others, and as someone who believed passionately in the nation’s destiny while fearing the forces of centralized power that could tear it apart. “The Jefferson that I write about in this book is a political moralist who converts knowledge into feeling.” — Andrew Burstein We’ll talk about Jefferson’s psychological world, his relationship with Sally Hemings, his battles with Federalism, and how his inner life helped shape our nation and the ideals we’re struggling to protect today. Then, we listen to an excerpt from our 2014 conversation with Danielle Allen about her book Our Declaration, A Reading Of The Declaration of Independence In Defense of Equality. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Tags: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Burstein, Being Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, slavery, Founding Fathers, Federalism, Jeffersonian democracy, American Revolution, Writer’s Voice, Danielle Allen, Declaration of Independence, You Might Also Like: <a href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2014/10/danielle-allen-declaration-katy-simpson-smith-sto

55 min
Feb 1, 2026
Coyote: Robert M. Dowling on Sam Shepard and the American Psyche

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Episode Summary: In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with biographer Robert M. Dowling about his biography, Coyote: The Dramatic Lives of Sam Shepard. Dowling explores Shepard’s groundbreaking theatrical innovations, his jazz-inspired rhythms, and his shamanistic approach to performance — along with the deep fear that powered his work.  “He feared the estrangement — our estrangement from the earth, from ourselves, from reality even.” — Robert Dowling Another writer who loved the deserts of California, as Sam Shepard did, was the poet Forrest Gander. We re-air a conversation with him from April of 2025 about his book-length poem, Mojave Ghost. And finally, Francesca reads a powerful ode written by former US Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman to Renee Nicole Good, “For Renee Nicole Good Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026.” Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePod

1 hr
Jan 24, 2026
Nell Bernstein on Ending Youth Prison & Tamar Adler on Cooking As If People Matter

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. In this episode of Writer’s Voice, journalist Nell Bernstein examines the decades-long movement to end youth incarceration in the United States, drawing on her book In Our Future We Are Free. Bernstein traces how incarcerated young people, their parents, lawyers, and organizers pierced the invisibility of youth prisons and achieved a historic 75% reduction in youth incarceration nationwide. “Youth prisons are inherently abusive by design.” — Nell Bernstein In the second segment, chef and writer Tamar Adler discusses Feast On Your Life, a deeply personal calendar-based book that explores how cooking, leftovers, sobriety, ritual, and attention can transform the ordinary into something sustaining—even during periods of despair. <p class="wp-block-paragrap

58 min
Jan 15, 2026
Entwined Lives: Bridget Lyons on the Intersection of Species, with Carl Safina on Alfie and Me

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Today we explore what it really means to share the planet with other forms of life. We’ll talk with writer Bridget Lyons about her acclaimed book, Entwined: Dispatches from the Intersection of Species, a collection of essays that invites us to see animals, plants, and even ourselves in a radically more connected way. “Part of the reason I wrote this book was to encourage people, inspire people to just go outside and look around and see who else is living around you.” — Bridget Lyons And then we’ll hear an excerpt from our conversation with ecologist and author Carl Safina about his book Alfie and Me, the extraordinary story of a baby owl that helped him rethink what animals know — and what humans believe.  “People have often said humans are the only logical animals, but I think that’s almost completely backward. We’re really the only illogical animals.” — Carl Safina Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Key Words: Bridget Lyons, Entwined, Carl Safina, Alfie and Me, Writers Voice podcast, animal intelligence, anthropomorphism, biodiversity, environmental ethics, sea stars, interspecies relationships You Might Also Like: <a href="https://www.writersvoice.net/2025/11/the-wisdom-of-the-wild-adam-nicolson-on-bird-s

56 min
Jan 9, 2026Episode 1006
American Reich: Eric Lichtblau on Murder, Neo-Nazis, & the New Age of Hate

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Eric Lichtblau joins Writer’s Voice to discuss his new book, American Reich, a gripping investigation that begins with the murder of Blaze Bernstein in Orange County and expands into a sweeping analysis of white nationalism in 21st-century America. “We’ve seen an enormous surge in hate crimes across the board… and this is horribly symptomatic of the rise of the neo-Nazis in the 21st century.” — Eric Lichtblau Lichtblau traces how online extremism, political normalization of hate, and leaderless neo-Nazi networks have collided to shape a dangerous new era—one that has produced waves of hate crimes, radicalized young white men, and emboldened supremacist movements. Lichtblau also explores the role of Trump-era politics, the mechanics of recruitment and radicalization — and what gives him hope for resistance and solidarity. We also re-air a clip from our 2017 interview with photojournalist Zach Roberts about his viral photos of the brutal beating of De’Andre Harris by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia during the Unite the Right rally on August 12 of that year. Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast. Key Words: American Reich, Eric Lichtblau, Writer’s Voice podcastwhite supremacy, neo-Nazis, hate crimes, online extremismreplacement theory, Trump white nationalis