Lauren Weedman grew up knowing she was adopted. When she became a teenager, she decided she wanted to meet her birth mother, but the hospital records were sealed and the search seemed hopeless. Then Lauren’s mom got in on the act, and today Lauren has two moms – and a one woman show...
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Literature
We’ve got a million expressions for death: kicking the bucket, checking out, buying the farm - but what do we do when words aren’t enough? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, artisans are finding new passages through grief, from graffiti memorials to handcrafted coffins. ...
Jimmy Santiago Baca was in a maximum security prison. He taught himself to read and fell in love with words. Today he’s a champion of the International Poetry Slam, and the author of multiple books of verse.
Joan Didion, who died last week at the age of 87, helped shape a highly personal brand of nonfiction that came to be known as the New Journalism. Her early essay collections "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1968) and "The White Album" (1979) influenced generations of writers. Her later memoirs, "The Year of Magical Thinking" and "Blue Nights," chronicled the deaths of her husband and daughter. In 2011 Didion talked with Steve Paulson about illness and growing old in the wake of the death of her daughter, Quintana.
Anne recently interviewed author Susan Orlean on stage at the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan.
It's summertime and the living is easy — but the reading shouldn't be. "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" producers compile a reading list for those seeking a challenge as their beach read.
Tom Wolfe had a shocking lack of hubris when it came to his journalism. He said what he did as a reporter took no special skills, requiring only the willingness to leave the building and take notes. He also found that to be the best way to craft naturalistic fiction, which he only began writing at 54. He was 88 when he died Monday.
The complexity of mental health makes it challenging to boil down to a single hour of radio. So here's a reading list to open up a bigger conversation.
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