Episodes

  • Stephen King finishes a story 45 years in the making in 'You Like It Darker'

    Stephen King finishes a story 45 years in the making in 'You Like It Darker'
    Jun 12 2024
    You Like It Darker is a new collection of short stories by Stephen King — and as the author tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, one of those stories spent decades tucked away in a desk drawer before he gave it an ending. In today's episode,the two discuss the bigger questions of destiny and morality in that story and in much of King's work, and why the writer thought several of his best-selling novels would never see the light of day.

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    9 mins
  • The autobiography of John Swanson Jacobs offers a new look at slavery and migration

    The autobiography of John Swanson Jacobs offers a new look at slavery and migration
    Jun 11 2024
    Harriet Jacobs is one of the best-known female abolitionists and authors who wrote about their experiences of enslavement in the South. But while searching for information about Jacobs' children, literary historian Jonathan Schroeder discovered something else: The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots, the long-lost autobiography of Jacobs' brother, John Swanson Jacobs. In today's episode, Schroeder speaks with NPR's Juana Summers about the life of the author, his escape to freedom and the blistering critique of the United States that he wrote in 1855 while living in Australia.

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    6 mins
  • 'The Mango Tree' is a memoir about growing up mixed-race Filipina in south Florida

    'The Mango Tree' is a memoir about growing up mixed-race Filipina in south Florida
    Jun 10 2024
    The Mango Tree kicks off with a phone call: Journalist Annabelle Tometich is informed her mom has been arrested for shooting a man, with a BB gun, who was trying to take mangoes from her yard. What follows is a memoir about a rich but turbulent upbringing in a half-white, half-Filipino family in Fort Myers, Florida. In today's episode, NPR's Scott Simon asks Tometich about the moment she realized the violence in her household wasn't normal, and what that mango tree represented for her immigrant mother.

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    9 mins
  • Ada Limón talks forgiveness, ghosts and fertility on 'Wild Card'

    Ada Limón talks forgiveness, ghosts and fertility on 'Wild Card'
    Jun 7 2024
    U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón recently edited and introduced You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, a collection of poems by writers like Joy Harjo and Jericho Brown that pays homage to landscapes across the United States. In today's episode, Limón joins NPR's Rachel Martin to play a game for the new podcast Wild Card. They discuss some pivotal moments in Limón's life marked by natural scenery, like a creek she played in growing up and a big realization she had about her fertility while swimming in the Chesapeake Bay — and go beyond that into conversations about grandparents, memory and mortality.

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    29 mins
  • 'Malas' is a novel about womanhood, curses and family history in a Texas border town

    'Malas' is a novel about womanhood, curses and family history in a Texas border town
    Jun 6 2024
    Marcela Fuentes' debut novel, Malas, is set in a small town nestled on the border between Texas and Mexico. There, two vastly different women begin to uncover decades of secrets, town gossip and broken family histories wrapped up in rodeos, Chicano politics and a hardcore punk band. In today's episode, NPR's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento speaks with Fuentes about the complicated ideals of womanhood in Mexican-American culture and the way her protagonists struggle to live their truths.

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    12 mins
  • R.O. Kwon's novel 'Exhibit' grapples with sexual desire and Asian identity

    R.O. Kwon's novel 'Exhibit' grapples with sexual desire and Asian identity
    Jun 5 2024
    Jin Han, the narrator of R.O. Kwon's Exhibit, is a photographer going through it – both with her work and her husband. When she meets ballerina Lidija Jung, her world is turned upside down. Exhibit becomes a story about "what you might give up for what you want most," as Kwon tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe. In today's episode, they discuss the nuances of wanting to give in to sexual desires even when they might be problematic for cultural perceptions and stereotypes of Asian women, and the way shame, religion and Korean womanhood function in both the book and Kwon's own life.

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    9 mins
  • Kathleen Hanna remembers her path to becoming the OG 'Rebel Girl'

    Kathleen Hanna remembers her path to becoming the OG 'Rebel Girl'
    Jun 4 2024
    Before she founded the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s, Kathleen Hanna was a teenager volunteering at a rape and domestic violence shelter in Olympia, Washington. In today's episode, the Bikini Kill and Le Tigre frontwoman tells NPR's Kelly McEvers how the anger and grief she absorbed there manifested into lyrics and performances that would take the punk and music scenes by storm. That story is at the heart of Hanna's memoir, Rebel Girl, which also grapples with setting boundaries, carrying the feminist torch of a generation and lending a hand to younger bands.

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    12 mins
  • Illia Ponomarenko's memoir opens up about covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine

    Illia Ponomarenko's memoir opens up about covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine
    Jun 3 2024
    There's a lot of tragedy that goes into watching your home erupt into a battlefield. But journalist Illia Ponomarenko says as the Russian military seized city after city in their latest invasion of Ukraine, people also came together in beautiful ways. His new memoir, I Will Show You How It Was, recounts what living – and covering – the war has been like so far. In today's episode, The Kyiv Independent co-founder speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about Ukrainians' willingness to fight for their country, what life is like in Bucha today and the unexpected way he met his girlfriend's parents.

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    8 mins