Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese’s Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner. She is also the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir, and Haiti Noir 2. She has written seven books for children and young adults. Her new essay collection is We’re Alone. She teaches at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy by the Sea; Oh William!, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Olive, Again; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name Is Lucy Barton; The Burgess Boys; Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine. Her new novel is Tell Me Everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Powers, a celebrated author known for novels like "Bewilderment" and "The Overstory," returns to share his thoughts on the intricate dance between storytelling and humanity. He delves into the themes of memory, mortality, and the impact of technology on remembrance, intertwining personal tragedies with broader societal issues. With insight into his latest work, "Playground," Powers discusses the roles of friendship and the ocean, as well as the playful energy of narrative, challenging listeners to reflect on the connections we share with the natural world.

Dr. Alan Townsend is a scientist, author and Dean of the Franke College of Forestry & Conservation at the University of Montana. His writing has appeared in multiple national venues, including The Washington Post and Scientific American. Alan's nonfiction book is called This Ordinary Stardust.  He is a highly cited author of more than 140 peer reviewed articles, and received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.  He is an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, a Google Science Communication Fellow and was featured in the Let Science Speak documentary film series.We talked about science, what we can learn from grief, stardust, our challenges facing our mortality, a promise to write a book and the pressure that may or may not place on a writer, and the beautiful cover of the book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Natalie Goldberg is the author of fifteen books, including Writing Down the Bones, which has sold over one million copies and has been translated into fourteen languages.  She co-edited a collection of talks by revered zen teacher Katherine Thanas, The Truth of This Life.  Her new book is Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice.  We talked about writer’s block versus losing the regular routines that sustain writing while the Covid pandemic was in full swing, her family history, writing exercises, Zen, and friendship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lorrie Moore is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at VanderbiltUniversity. She is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, as well as thePEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for her achievement in the short story. She isa member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Nashville,Tennessee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica Shattuck is The New York Times Bestselling author of the novels Last House, The Women in the Castle, a New York Times Bestseller, #1 Indie Next Pick, and winner of The New England Book Award; Perfect Life, and The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a Boston Globe Editor’s Choice Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Winship Award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, Glamour, Open City, and The Tampa Review among other publications. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children.We talked about research, setting her novel in two time periods, oil in Iran, the CIA, Vermont, how idealism and activism may change as we age, and patience in the long journey of writing a novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short fiction has appeared in Somesuch Stories, The Willowherb Review, Electric Literature, Catapult, andExtra Teeth, among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. Her novel is called The Ministry of Time. This was recorded live at Waterstone’s bookstore in London at the Crouch End locations.We talked about a book about time travel with no time travel, polar exploration, being a British-Cambodian writer and identity, dating for time travelers, and the structure of Bradley's novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carl Phillips is the author of 17 books of poetry, most recently Scattered Snows, to the North and Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. His other honors include the 2021 Jackson Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, a Lambda Literary Award, the PEN/USA Award for Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Academy of American Poets. Phillips has also written three prose books, most recently My Trade is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing; and he has translated the Philoctetes of Sophocles. He lives on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts.We talked about how he puts a collection together, vulnerability and guardedness, To the Lighthouse, relationships, darkness, truth and revelation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 29 novels, including By Any Other Name, Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page.  Picoult’s books have been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries.  Picoult also wrote five issues of DC Comic's Wonder Woman. Picoult is the co-librettist for the stage musical adaptation of her two Young Adult novels.  Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.We talked about Emilia Bassano as the author of many of Shakespeare’s most popular place, women’s voices being erased, making a bigger table so everyone can be represented in theatre, how Jodi found her love of plays, structuring her novel By Any Other Name, and her love for Gone With the Wind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices