This week we interview Rachel L. Swarns, a New York University Professor of Journalism and journalist who writes about race and race relations as a contributing author to The New York Times. Her latest book, The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the Catholic Church, was published by Random House in May 2023. She also authored American Tapestry: The Story of the Black and White and Multicultural Ancestors of Michelle … Read More »

This week we interview Edward O’Shea, a State University of New York at Oswego Emeritus English Professor and author of Seamus Heaney’s American Odyssey. Published by Routledge Press in December 2022, this biography explores the 40 years that Irish poet Seamus Heaney spent in America. O’Shea has served as a Fulbright Fellow at Presidency College in Kolkata, India, and he was a Fulbright Specialist at Trinity College in Dublin. During that appointment, he made presentations… Read More »

This week we interview Mary Ann Caws, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, English and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. In her latest book, Mina Loy: Apology of Genius, published by Reaktion Books in July 2022, Caws explores Loy’s flamboyant life and avant-garde artistry. Caws has authored several books, including The Modern Art Cookbook and Creative Gatherings: Meeting Places of Modernism, both published by Reaktion Books. Mary… Read More »

This week we interview the internationally renowned cosmologist Thomas Hertog, who for many years was a close collaborator and mentee of the late Stephen Hawking. His book, On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory, was published by Bantam in April 2023. Hertog currently serves as professor of theoretical physics at Belgium’s University of Leuven, where he studies the quantum nature of the big bang. Thomas Hertog was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO… Read More »

This week we interview Ilyon Woo, the New York Times best-selling author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, published by Simon & Schuster in January 2023. This biography details the story of Ellen and William Craft who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise. Woo also authored The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, and her articles have appeared in… Read More »

This week we feature award-winning journalist and author Caleb Gayle, who writes about the history of race and identity. His latest book, We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity and Power (Riverhead Books, June 2023), is about Black members of the indigenous Creek Nation. It was awarded the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award. Gayle’s writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian… Read More »

This week we feature biographer and cultural historian Paul Fisher. His most recent award-winning biography, The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in November 2022. Fisher currently serves as an American Studies Professor at Wellesley College; he has also taught at Yale, Wesleyan, Boston University, and Harvard. His group biography, House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family (Henry Holt and Co., 2008)… Read More »

This week we feature Angela V. John, an historian and biographer from Wales who serves as the president of Llafur, the Welsh People’s History Society. Her latest book, War, Journalism, and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century: The Life and Times of Henry W. Nevinson, was published by Bloomsbury in February of this year. It examines the life of a journalist who has been called the “king” of correspondents. John has served as a… Read More »

This week we feature Jonathan Eig, former senior writer for The Wall Street Journal and the author of a new biography of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—King: A Life (Farrar Straus and Giroux, May 2023). Eig is a New York Times bestselling author of five previous books including: Ali: A Life (Mariner Books, 2017); Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (Simon & Schuster, 2005); and Opening Day: The Story of … Read More »

This week we interview Kerri K. Greenidge, the Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University. The author most recently of The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in An American Family (Liveright, November 2022), Greenidge also wrote Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (Liveright, 2019), one of The New York Times’ top picks of 2019. She is also the recipient of the… Read More »