Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from the previous three years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is produced by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo.

Our guests are a chef and a scientist who are tackling climate change through creating sustainable food.  Pat Brown is a biochemist and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. Traci Des Jardins is the chef-owner of several restaurants, from fine dining to casual eateries.  She was one of the first chefs to put the Impossible Burger on her menu and worked closely with the company on their new “Impossible: The Cookbook”.  On November 9, 2020, Pat Brown and Traci Des Jardins talked with Adam Savage via videoconference.

Our guest is chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi, whose best-selling cookbooks have earned him a cult following among home chefs around the world.  Born in Israel, Ottolenghi now lives in London where he operates six restaurants and delis.  On October 15, 2020, Ottolenghi spoke to Isabel Duffy from his test kitchen in London.  The two discussed his latest book, “Ottolenghi Flavor”, which includes more than 100 plant-based recipes, and how the chef is feeding his own family during the pandemic.

This week, we’re broadcasting a conversation with Alicia Garza and Megan Rapinoe, recorded four days before the presidential election.  Alicia Garza is an activist and writer.  In 2013, she posted a Facebook response to the murder of Trayvon Martin in which she used the hashtag “Black Lives Matter”, and it sparked a major social movement.  Garza has now written a book, “The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart”.   Megan Rapinoe is a soccer player, two-time World Cup champion and co-captain of the US Women’s National Team.  She’s also an outspoken advocate for social justice and the issue of equal pay for female athletes. On October 28, 2020, Alicia Garza and Megan Rapinoe spoke about activism, organizing, and tactics for achieving structural change.

This week, a conversation with Bruce Springsteen, originally recorded in 2016. The legendary rock star, referred to by his countless fans as “The Boss”, had just published his autobiography, Born to Run. It took Springsteen seven years to write the memoir, covering everything from his childhood and early days performing to his fear of failure and his ambivalence about success. Bruce Springsteen came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on October 5, 2016, to talk about his life in rock and roll. Fans had traveled from around the country to attend, and the energy in the room was at a fever pitch more along the lines of a stadium concert than a literary talk. Still, the conversation with Dan Stone managed to be both intimate and deeply personal.

This week, disability activist Alice Wong talks with comedian and journalist W. Kamau Bell. Wong is founding director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating and amplifying disability media and culture.  She has edited an anthology of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers to mark the 35th anniversary of the ADA, “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century”.  On October 19, 2020, Alice Wong talked about the book with her good friend, comedian and journalist W. Kamau Bell.  The two also spoke about the extra challenges faced by voters during the time of COVID-19, the importance of abled allies advocating for the disabled community, and their shared admiration for Denzel Washington. 

Chanel Miller was just twenty-seven years old when she published her memoir, Know My Name, the book recounts her experience as the victim of sexual assault. It’s a keen examination of gender, power, and the failures of our criminal justice system. It’s also exquisitely written. Among the book’s many fans is her interviewer for this program, Jia Tolentino, a contributor at the New Yorker and the author of Trick Mirror. On October 15, 2020, they discussed the challenges of becoming a public figure and the essential work of forging ones own identity. Miller and Tolentino also spoke about their creative processes, including Miller’s visual art, now on display at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.

This week, a conversation with poet and essayist Claudia Rankine. Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. Her newest book, Just Us: an American Conversation, weaves together essays, poems, and images. Some of its most memorable scenes are those where Rankine examines the moments of discomfort between herself and those around her, urging us to begin discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and seemingly stuck moment in American history. On October 1, 2020, Claudia Rankine spoke to Stephen Best, Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She also answered questions from teachers and students, offering advice to readers and today’s young poets.

This week, a conversation with novelist Yaa Gyasi.  Gyasi was just 26 years old when her debut, Homegoing, was published.  It spans eight generations, tracing the lives of two half-sisters and their descendants from eighteenth-century Ghana to present-day America.  The book garnered major critical acclaim and praise from fellow authors like Zadie Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Four years later, Gyasi has written another powerful work, Transcendent Kingdom.  The protagonist, Gifty, is a doctoral candidate in neuroscience.  Her mother, an immigrant from Ghana, suffers from depression and comes to stay with her.  The novel examines the challenges of addiction and grief, as well as the tensions between science and faith.  On September 22, 2020, Yaa Gyasi spoke with Courtney Martin about her work.

Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University and also a staff writer at The New Yorker. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths and This America. Her latest book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, is a revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, unearthing from archives the shocking story of a long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. She recorded this conversation on September 16, 2020, with Mina Kim, host of KQED's Forum.