Podcast #183 – Amrita Chakrabarti Myers

This week we interview Amrita Chakrabarti Myers, an award-winning author and the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of history and gender studies at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her latest book, The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in October 2023. Myers also is the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston. Amrita Chakrabarti… Read More »

Podcast #182 – Brad Gooch

This week we interview poet, novelist, and biographer Brad Gooch. His latest book, Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, was published by Harper/HarperCollins in March 2024. Gooch’s previous ten books include Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor—a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a New York Times bestseller—and City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara. Brad Gooch is the recipient… Read More »

Podcast #176 – Scott Shane

This week we interview Scott Shane, author of Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland. Published by Celadon Press in September 2023, Shane has written a riveting account of the life of Thomas Smallwood–the formerly enslaved man credited with naming the Underground Railroad. Shane is a veteran reporter for The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times, where he was twice a member of teams that won… Read More »

Podcast #175 – Cynthia Carr

This week we interview award winning author Cynthia Carr, whose latest book, Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar, was published by Farrar Straus and Giroux in March 2024. Carr’s previous biographies include, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz – a Lambda Literary Award winner and finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize – along with Our Town: A Heartland Lynching, a Haunted Town, and the Hidden History of White Read More »

Podcast #170 – Natalie Dykstra

This week we interview award-winning author Natalie Dykstra. Her latest biography, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, will be published by Mariner on March 26, 2024. Dykstra’s work on Stewart Gardner has won a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and an inaugural Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship sponsored by the Biographers International Organization. Dykstra, an emerita professor of English at Hope College in Michigan, lives with her… Read More »

Podcast #169 – Nicholas L. Syrett

This week we interview Nicholas L. Syrett, the author of four books and most recently, The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime, published by The New Press in October 2023. As an associate dean and professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas, Syrett also is the co-editor of the Journal of the History of Sexuality. Nicholas… Read More »

Podcast #168 – J. C. Hallman

This week we interview J. C. Hallman, author of Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, a Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women’s Health, published by Henry Holt and Company in June 2023. Hallman’s previous work on Anarcha has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, the Forum (of the African American Policy Forum), the Baffler, Montgomery Advertiser, and Urology. Hallman also has published five previous works of nonfiction and a book of… Read More »

Podcast #167 – Rachel Shteir

This week we interview author and theater arts professor Rachel Shteir, whose latest book, Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disruptor, was published by Yale University Press in September 2023. Friedan was the trendsetting feminist writer and activist. Shteir has written three precious books, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie ShowGypsy: the Art of the Tease; and The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, along with many essays and articles, and she… Read More »