KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

Bebe Moore Campbell (1950-2006), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded August 23, 2001 while on tour for her novel, “What You Owe Me.” In her books, she explored racial justice, childhood obesity and the tensions in friendships between Black and white people; she shared the stigma of mental illness and memories of the summers she spent with her father in North Carolina. Bebe Moore Campbell died of brain cancer on November 27, 2006 at the age of 56,  and was on the verge of recognition as a major African American novelist and journalist at the time of her death. Her first novel, published in 1992, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine, won the NAACP Image Award for Literature that year, and was a notable book in both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Her second novel, Brothers and Sisters, hit the New York Times best seller list after two weeks. Along the way, she became a regular commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition. I interviewed Bebe Moore Campbell on August 23, 2001 while she was on the publicity tour for her fourth novel, What You Owe Me. Most of the interview focuses on that book. Bebe Moore Campbell would only write one more novel before her untimely death 72 Hour Hold. As for October, 2025, none of her works have been adapted for film or television. This was one of the final Bookwaves interviews recorded on analog tape, and was digitized and edited on October 20, 2025. This podcast is the first time the entire edited interview has been heard. The interview itself has not aired since 2002. The post Bebe Moore Campbell (1950-2006), Novelist focusing on Racism and Mental Health, “What You Owe Me,” 2001 appeared first on KPFA.

With the World Series coming up, a look back at baseball with one of the great baseball writers of the Twentieth Century. This podcast was originally posted on August 23, 2020, and hadn’t been heard in over twenty five years. Roger Kahn, who died on February 6, 2020 at the age of 92, was one of the icons in the world of baseball writing. His classic “The Boys of Summer,” about his relationship with his father and their united love for the Brooklyn Dodgers, is one of the greatest baseball books of all time. He started his career in journalism in 1948 as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune and within four years was covering the Dodgers for that newspaper. He moved over to Newsweek in 1956 and the Saturday Evening Post in 1963 as he revved up his career writing both fiction and non-fiction books, mostly but not exclusively about baseball, and the ups and downs of his own life. On October 13, 1993, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky sat down for an extended interview with Roger Kahn about his book, “The Era: 1947-1957, when the Yankees, the Giants and the Dodgers Ruled the World. “ It turned out he was a marvelous raconteur, as well as a keen historian of racism in the sport. In fact, his final book, published in 2014, was titled “Rickey and Robinson: The True, Untold Story of the Integration of Baseball.”  (Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson). Dick Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky would interview Roger Kahn once more, in 1998, but that interview focused not on baseball but on a biography of boxer Jack Dempsey. After this interview, Roger Kahn would go on to write six more books, including not only the history of the early days of integration, and the biography of Dempsey, but a memoir of the people he met, a book about the view from the pitching mound, and a history of the New York Yankees improbable run for the pennant in 1978. Digitized, remastered and edited in 2020 by Richard Wolinsky.   The post Roger Kahn (1927-2020): The Boys of Summer appeared first on KPFA.

Edmund White (1940-2025), who died on June 3, 2025, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded while on tour for “The Farewell Symphony,” the third volume of his autobiographical trilogy, recorded September 15, 1997. Digitized, remastered and edited on October 10, 2025 and heard for the first time in over a quarter century. Edmund White wrote novels, memoirs, plays, essays, biographies, and various hybrids. He was the co-author of The Joy of Gay Sex, and worked extensively in the gay community during the AIDS crisis and later. This interview, the second of four conducted with Edmund White between 1993 and 2014, was recorded on September 15, 1997 while he was on tour for “The Farewell Symphony” the third volume of his semi-autobiographical trilogy about his early year and the effect of the AIDS crisis. In the interview, he discusses various books he plans to write, including one about his Paris years. That book, “Inside a Pearl,” was published in 2014. He also said he’d never write another biography, but “Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel” was published in He discusses returning to the character of Brice from “The Farewell Symphony.” He did return to the character, who was renamed and appears in the novel “The Married Man” in 2000. He also wonders if he will return to historical fiction. He did, with the novel “Fanny,” published in 2003. The three novels in his trilogy are A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty and The Farewell Symphony.   The post Edmund White (1940-2025), The Patron Saint of Gay Literature, “The Farewell Symphony,” 1997 appeared first on KPFA.

Thomas Perry (1947-2025) who died on September 15, 2025 at the age of 78, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded on June 21, 2006 in the KPFA studios while promoting Nightlife in hardover and Pursuit and Dead Aim in trade paperback. In the career of Thomas Perry, which began in 1982 with the novel The Butcher’s Boy, which won the Edgar Award that year for Best First novel, thirty two books have been published, nine in the Jane Whitfield series, four in the Butcher’s Boy series and two in the Jack Till series. A final novel in the Jane Whitfield series will be published in February 2026. Vanishing Act, in the Whitfield series, published in 1995, was voted one of the hundred favorite mysteries of the 20th century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. The TV series The Old Man with Jeff Bridges was based on his novel of the same name, published in 2017, and ran for two seasons on Hulu. The upcoming Russell Crowe film, Bear Country, was based on Thomas Perry’s 2010 novel, Strip. The complete 35-minute interview is heard for the first time. The post Thomas Perry (1947-2025), Award Winning Mystery & Thriller Novelist appeared first on KPFA.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1942-2025) Tanith Lee (1947-2015) This podcast honors two master practitioners of horror, fantasy and science fiction, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Tanith Lee, with two interviews back to back. In the first, in 1983, Tanith Lee is interviewed by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. In the second, in 1979, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who died on August 31, 2025 at the age of 82, was best known for her historical horror novels featuring the vampire the Count Saint.-Germain. Along the way, she wrote in several genres, including science fiction and westerns, and wrote over seventy novels, along with several short stories. Along with her writing, which includes a series of books about a channeler,  titled Messages from Michael, she was a cartographer, palm reader, and composer. In 2009, she received the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. She also wrote novels under several pseudonyms. In this podcast, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro joins Richard A. Lupoff to speak with Tanith Lee. In the second interview, she talks about her vampire hero. Count Saint-Germain, and about writing historical horror fiction. It was recorded shortly after her second San Germain novel, The Palace, was published, which would put it in late 1978 or early 1979..   Tanith Lee, who died of breast cancer in 2015 at the age of 67, also wrote fantasy, science fiction and horror, and her work is considered to be similar and a forerunner of the work of Neil Gaiman. She received a lifetime achievement award from the World Horror Convention in 2013. Nominated for several awards for her novels and short stories, she won the 1980 British Fantasy Award for her novel, Death’s Master. In this first undated tnterview from Probabilities, most likely recorded at BayCon in San Jose in November 1983, Tanith Lee is interviewed by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Richard A. Lupoff. This is the only interview conducted by Quinn Yarbro for Probabilities. Tanith Lee’s novel set during the French Revolution was eventually retitled The Gods Are Thirsty, and was finally published in 1996. You’ve been listening to an interview with Tanith Lee, conducted by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Richard A. Lupoff for the Probabilities radio program on KPFA. It was digitized, remastered and edited on September 24. 2025.         The post The Probabilities Archive: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro & Tanith Lee: Virtuosos of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction appeared first on KPFA.

Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1992. Along the way she’s written for Rolling Stone, the Boston Globe, Esquire, Vogue and other magazines. Her book, The Orchid Thief became the acclaimed Oscar-nominated film Adaptation. This interview was recorded in October 2011 during her tour for Rin Tin Tin, The Life and the Legend. The Library Book, which dealt with a fire at the Los Angeles Public Library, was published in 2018, and her most recent book, On Animals, was published in 2021. She has also been a staff writer for the HBO show, How To with John Wilson. Over all, to date, she’s written ten books and one Kindle single. Her memoir, Joyride, will be published in October 2025. This is the first time the entire interview has been heard. (Photo: Susan Orlean website)   The post Susan Orlean, “Rin Tin Tin” and “The Orchid Thief,” 2011 appeared first on KPFA.

Stephen Greenblatt, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky about his book Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius o Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival, recorded September 11, 2025. Stephen Greenblatt is a literary historian and an expert on Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era. Among his other books are  Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, Hamlet in Purgatory, Shakespeare’s Freedom, and most recently Tyrant: Shakespeare in Politics. He is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. In this interview, recorded the day after Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the day before the capture of his murderer, when the American right wing had declared war on Democrats and “the left,” Stephen Greenblatt discusses political violence in Elizabethan times and today, along with his op-ed in the New York Times, “We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself.” Guest Link The focus of the interview, though, is on the life and work of Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), the playwright (Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II), intellectual and spy, whose work influenced William Shakespeare and who could be called the Bard’s “rival.” The post Stephen Greenblatt: “Dark Renaissance,” the life and times of Christopher Marlowe appeared first on KPFA.

Robert Jay Lifton, who died on September 4, 2025 at the age of 99., was a psychiatrist and author who studied the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence. In the 1960s, he was part of a group that applied psychology and psychoanalysis to the study of history. By the 1980s and 1990s, he’d began exploring the survivors of atrocities and war in such books as The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, and moved on to the study of cults and what he called “totalism,” a term for the characteristics of ideological movements and organizations that desire total control over human behavior and thought. At the time of his death, he’d written or co-authored 23 books. On November, 2, 1999, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky had the opportunity to speak with Robert Jay Lifton about his book, Destroying the World To Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism, which focuses on the Japanese Cult that released sarin nerve bas into the Tokyo Subway System. While the interview serves as a time capsule for pre-9/11 America and the world, it also gives insight into the present day and how we’e gotten from there to here. Regarding Donald Trump, in Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry, published in 2019, Dr, Lifton wrote this: “Donald Trump is a special kind of cultist. He is in no way totalistic—his beliefs can be remarkably fluid—nor is he the leader of a sealed-off cultic community. Rather, his cultism is inseparable from his solipsistic reality.A considerable portion of his base can be understood as cultist, as followers of a guru who is teacher, guide, and master. From my studies of cults and cultlike behavior, I recognize this aspect of Trump’s relationship to his followers, Trump does not directly express an apocalyptic narrative, but his presence has an apocalyptic aura. He tells us that, as not only a “genius” but a “very stable genius,” he alone can “fix” the terrible problems of our society. To be sure these are bizarre expressions of his extreme grandiosity, but also of a man who would be a savior to a disintegrating world.” This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in September 2025 by Richard Wolinsky and is heard in its entirety for the first time. The post Robert Jay Lifton (1926-2025) on Cults and Apocalyptic Violence appeared first on KPFA.

Carl Hiaasen is a novelist best known for writing humorous and satiric crime thrillers set in Florida. His latest novel, Fever Beach, satirizes the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, corrupt nepo Florida Congress-critters, and rich right-wing geriatric  billionaires. Until 2021, he was a regular columnist for The Miami Herald, appearing every Sunday to discuss political and social issues. He is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky. In this in-depth interview, he discusses the writing of “Fever Beafch and how difficult it has been to create satire during the Trump years, his views on what’s happening in Washington and Florida, the adaptation of his novel “Bad Monkey” for Apple Plus, and his process of writing. Recorded August 13, 2025. The post Carl Hiaasen, Master of the Comic Thriller appeared first on KPFA.

Frederik Pohl (1918-2013) recorded at the Octocon Science Fiction Convention, October 15-16, 1978. Interviewers: Richard Wolinsky, Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, for KPFA’s Probabilities radio program. Digitized, remastered and re-edited February, 2021 by Richard Wolinsky. Frederik Pohl, who died in 2013 at the age of 93 in September, 2013, did almost everything in the world of science fiction, as a writer, an agent, and a magazine and book editor. He grew up in Brooklyn, began writing at an early age, and in his twenties was a member of a leftist group of science fiction writers known as The Futurians, publishing for pennies a word in the sf pulps of the era. In 1937, in order to make money, he became an agent, and two years later a pulp magazine editor himself, often buying his own stories along with collaborations with various other writers, all under pseudonyms. In the late 1960s, he became editor of Galaxy Magazine, and its sister publication, Worlds of If, and in the 1970s became the science fiction editor at Bantam Books which he left shortly before this interview. In the mid 1970s, Fred Pohl  emerged as one of science fictions pre-eminent novelists with Man Plus in 1976 and Gateway in 1977. In 1978, on the heels of novelist Damon Knight’s memoir, The Futurians, he came out with his own memoir, The Way the Future Was. And that was where his career stood when the three of us interviewed him. We were all still new at interviewing, particularly in placement of the microphone. Fred Pohl’s success continued for many years after this interview. Jem, published in 1979, won the National Book Award the only year there was an award for science fiction. The sequel to Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon was a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1980. In all, there eventually were seven novels in the Gateway  (Heechee) series, and after 1979, all told, he wrote 17 more novels, the last being The Lives He Led, published in 2011, along with several collections, even more collaborations, and some non-fiction as well. At the time of his death at 93 in 2013, he was working on a second memoir, which has to date not been published. NOTES. Judy Lynn Del Rey was the sf editor at Ballantine Books starting in the early 1970s and soon had her own imprint, Del Rey Books (in collaboration with her husband, writer Lester Del Rey). Judith Merrill was a writer and anthologist, noted for her Year’s Best SF Stories collections, which she edited from 1956 to 1968. John Michel was a key member of the Futurians who never fulfilled his promise. John W. Campbell was the editor of Astounding Stories, later Analog, from 1937 into the 1970s, and is credited with discovering such writers as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. His influence on science fiction was all-encompassing, even as his politics were, as Isaac Asimov quipped, somewhere to the right of Hitler. Horace Gold was the first editor of Galaxy, before Fred Pohl. It was the magazine that brought literary style into science fiction. Other names mentioned are Anthony Boucher and F. Francis McComas, the first editors of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, F&SF. This podcast was first posted February 14, 2021. The post The Probabilities Archive: Frederik Pohl (1918-2013) Acclaimed Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelist and Editor appeared first on KPFA.