What is it like to live with anxiety and agoraphobia? Join us for our interview with Highly Illogical Behavior author John Corey Whaley. This young adult book explores the life of teenager Solomon Reed and his two friends Lisa and Clark. But does Lisa have an ulterior motive for reaching out to be Solomon's friend? And, will her ambition to be admitted to one of the top college psychology programs end up destroying their friendship? "Solomon never needed to leave the house anyway. He had food. He had water. He could see the mountains from his bedroom window, and his parents were so busy all the time that he pretty much got to be sole ruler of the house." John 'Corey' Whaley is an American author of contemporary realistic novels for young adults. His debut, Where Things Come Back , published in 2011, won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and the William C. Morris Young Adult Debut Award from the American Library Association. Whaley was also named a

Arts and Letters

Highly Illogical Behavior

Celebrate the music from Season Seven . Hosted by producer Mary Ellen Kubit, this episode shares favorite and memorable music from the various episodes this past season. Plus, we have an interview with Chris Long and V. Wirges of Monsterboy Lives discussing their song, "The End of The World." As many of you know, music is at the heart of much of our storytelling, and we typically feature singers, songwriters and musicians from Arkansas and across the Mid-South. In several episodes, we commissioned original songs from our various musical contributors to enhance the storytelling. Many of these songs are yet to be released by the artists and can only be heard on the episodes. From “Object Impermanence” : "Mid-Century Doom" by electronica artist, Empielle . Brad spent weeks tracking down this elusive composer. ​From “Mystics, Madmen, or Cunning Frauds” : "The End of The World" an original song written and performed by Little Rock's indie pop duo, Monsterboy Lives . From “The Perfect Novel”

Music Review, Season 7

Take a deep dive into the infamous dive bar, the Hotel Vernon. On this episode, we interview poet Lea Graham about her book, “From The Hotel Vernon” where she tells tales from her time from behind the bar and tales from the bar’s vibrant and storied past.

From The Hotel Vernon

Take a deep dive into the 1969 fire at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant with author Tyrone Jaeger and his novel Radio Eldorado, published by Braddock Avenue Books . In the novel, Alvin Wund, a recent widower and security guard at the plant, is called in to help fight the fire. Amongst the flames, alarms and contamination, he sees the blue ghost of his wife, Esther. A blue light flashed... Time stopped. There she was--Esther the blue of a pale sky, untouched by clouds and descended from heaven, where she had made a deal with God to punish Alvin. He felt Blue Esther's embrace, and he thought, this isn't so bad, this dying . Why does Blue Esther appear? What messages does she have for Alan and their two adult daughters, Vivi and Ursula? Set in the late 1960's Colorado, Radio Eldorado is a story exploring boundaries: the boundaries of counter-culture and the establishment, industry and the environment, fathers and daughters, and the inescapable lines between life and death. Tyrone

Radio Eldorado

Meet math-loving fourth grader, Danny Bowman Marsh, and join us for an unforgettable story to remind us all that we do not choose our parents. Note: This episode contains depictions of parental neglect. On this episode, author Amy Parker joins us to discuss her short story collection, Beasts & Children , published by Mariner Books, and we take a journey into her short story, "The Balcony." "Maybe if he acted like he didn't notice her, she'd go away. Danny erased a problem in long division, concentrating on the pink rubber shavings, the pencil smear. He blew them away, erased again. He erased so hard, he bore a hole in the paper. He liked long division, liked imagining the numbers entering a little house, fitting in neatly, with the remainders confined to the roof. The door squeaked, and his mother came in, slipping a little in her high heels. She weaved between the desks. Her perfume was like a blow from a fist." In this collection of linked short stories, Parker explores the

The Liminal Spaces of Danny Marsh

Discover Sue Cowan Williams, an early Civil Rights advocate in Arkansas, who sued the Little Rock School District for equal pay in 1942. With Thurgood Marshall at her side, she paved the way for social justice work in Arkansas. On this episode, we take a deep dive into early Civil Rights by examining the life and social justice advocacy of Sue Cowan Williams and foundational work of the NAACP in Arkansas and beyond. Historian John Kirk is our guest and shares his lecture on teacher pay equalization laws suits and rare audio recordings of Cowan Williams from the 1990s, where they discussed her leadership role in the law suit, her personal sacrifices, collateral damages and outcomes of the suit. "We knew that we were not getting the same salaries as white teachers. As a matter of fact, there was no salary scale." In 1992 and 1993, as a young graduate student, Kirk travelled to Arkansas from England to interview historical figures and Civil Rights leaders in Arkansas. During these travels

On The Battlefield

A discussion of the roots of Ozark rural resistance to federalist authority. Join us as we interview historian J. Blake Perkins about the history of populist defiance in Arkansas. Though quite different from the current conservative popularism of today's rural Arkansas sects, the historic tradition of anti-government sentiment in this region is explored in Perkins' book Hillbilly Hellraisers: Federal Power and Populist Defiance in the Ozarks published by the University of Illinois Press. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, conflicts arose over issues such as illegal stills, conscription to military service, and agricultural regulations regarding compulsory cattle dipping. As a micro-historian, Perkins takes listeners on a deep dive into these poor, working class rural communities and settlements to illuminate their ideas, beliefs and actions as they attempted to level the playing field with regional wealthy elites and federal policies and practices that favored the

Leveling the Playing Field

A retrospective of Governor Orval Faubus. On this episode, we interview Civil Rights historian John Kirk and explore his archived tapes of an interview with Gov. Orval Faubus recorded in 1992. From 1955 to 1967, Faubus served as the Democratic Governor of Arkansas. He is most known for leading Arkansas's refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's 1954 decision regarding desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent black students from entering the segregated Central High School in Little Rock. Historians have criticized Faubus for fanning the flames of the crisis for political gain. In 1992, a s a young graduate student, Kirk travelled to Arkansas from England to interview historical figures and Civil Rights leaders regarding the integration in 1957 of Central High School. During these travels, Kirk spoke at length with the aging Governor. In these tapes, Faubus offers his candid perspective of the infamous "Little Rock

Redefining The Color Line

Celebrate a life in public radio . Long-time host of UA Little Rock Public Radio's program, Arts Scene , Ann Nicholson (1932-2020) created over 1000 episodes of her program during her 35 year career. On this episode, we offer a rare interview with our colleague Ann where she recounts personal memories and stories from her past. With her long-time producer William Wagner by her side, we discussed her background and how she came to radio. She was never one who liked to be interviewed; she prefered to be the one asking the questions. However, after she retired in November of 2019, we finally convinced her to sit down for an interview with J. Bradley Minnick, William Wagner, and Mary Ellen Kubit in late February of 2020. With the pandemic quickly approaching, this was her final recording. Born in India, the daughter of a British Army Officer, and educated in India, Kashmir, Scotland, and England, Nicholson immigrated to Canada in 1958, and then to the United States in 1962. She received a

Thank You For Joining Us

Meet American short-story writer and novelist, Jeffrey Condran. Jane Austen reenactors, a surprise celebrity appearance, and Ava, who always looks just right, in costume... On this episode, J. Bradley Minnick interviews author Jeffrey Condran about his short story "In Costume" from his collection, Claire, Wading Into the Danube By Night . During the annual fundraiser for the Jane Austen Society in Bath, we meet main character, Ava, a hopeful actress and one of the reenactors dressed in period costume. With the surprise appearance of Hollywood screen actor Edward Emanuel, a flirtation begins. Will Ava become involved with the aging, yet attractive actor who could help her career? Or, will she resist being swept up in a moment of opportunity and romantic intrigue? A woman wearing a pale yellow Regency dress—not an original, but a lovely imitation—sat smoking a cigarette among the wreckage of the tables and chairs, her careful hair beginning to fall apart. Ava was not unaware of the way

In Costume

Experience the interconnectivity of music and social and political spoken word in four movements for narrator, French horn, oboe, and piano. On this episode, J. Bradley Minnick interviews poet and artist Terry Wright about this performance piece he titles “Iterations.” This project includes Wright’s poetry and visual art, as well as music composed by Daniel De Togni and performed by Lorraine Duso Kitts and Kazuo Murakami on piano. The four featured poems in the piece are "At the Beach," "Inside the Roche Limit," “Deconstructed Canary,” and “Ripley." These poems interrogate the social and political climate of the Obama and Trump years through a visceral, aggressive mashup of found artifacts from deep within internet search engines. Terry Wright is a writer and artist who lives in Little Rock. He’s written seven books and chapbooks of poetry, and his work has appeared widely in publications ranging from McSweeney’s to Rolling Stone . His art is also widely seen in venues like Full Bleed

Iterations

Preview award-winning author Kevin Brockmeier’s latest release, The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories. On this episode of Arts & Letters, Brockmeier shares three stories from his latest project published by Penguin Random House. A certain Russian philosopher maintained that people are not born with their souls but must labor to create them. Anyone who fails to do so, he insisted, will dissolve upon dying into nonexistance. In addition to his latest book, The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories , Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the novels The Illumination , The Brief History of the Dead , and The Truth About Celia ; the story collections Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer ; the children’s novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery ; and a memoir of his seventh-grade year called A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip . His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He has published his stories in such venues as The New Yorker , The

The Ghost Variations, with Kevin Brockmeier

Imagine a noble cruise ship with a rogue charlatan as its new captain with followers "most fowl" and a conspiracy theorist speaking from the bowels of the ship... Join us as we interview author and journalist Dave Eggers about his satirical allegory, The Captain and the Glory . "I like being captain," said the man with the yellow feather. He was installed high on the bridge of the Glory , and surveyed the seas with swelling pride. The ship's passengers had elected him to steer the ship and he was very pleased about it. The supporters of the new Captain were pleased, too. In fact, they were jubilant. Never in their lifetimes had something like this happened. They felt triumphant and unstoppable and capable of doing anything. Dave Eggers is the author of many books, including The Circle , The Monk of Mokha , What is the What , A Hologram for the King , and The Lifters . Eggers is winner of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the TED Prize,

The Captain and the Glory

Discover American author John Edward Williams, who wrote Stoner , critically described as the "perfect novel." Yet, both Williams and this book remain largely obscure to American readers. On this episode, we interview renowned literary biographer Charles J. Shields. Shield's book , The Perfect Novel: John Williams, Stoner, and the Writing Life published by The University of Texas Press is a detailed account of John William's life and explores how William's seminal novel Stoner remains largely unknown in the United States, while finding a wide, popular audience in Europe. Quote from book The subject of a biography should be the person's search for identity. Answering the question "Who am I?" is the great work of life, and all of a person's efforts are, in some way, responses to that unvoiced question, which begins to be heard in childhood as soon as children perceive themselves as different and apart from everyone else. . . John William's discovery at age nine that he was someone else-

The Perfect Novel

Can a blind astronomer, who claims to use the longest telescope in the world, accurately predict an eclipse? Does it take a madman to truly "see" reality? What is the nature of tasty dumplings? On this episode, we speak with author Adam Ehrlich Sachs who explores these questions in his satiric novel The Organs of Sense . In the novel, a young nineteen-year-old G. W. Leibniz, after failing his dissertation, treks through the snowy mountains of Bohemia to investigate a mystery: can a blind astronomer, who claims to use the longest telescope in the world, accurately predict an eclipse? "In an account sent to the Philosophical Transactions but for some reason never published there, or anywhere else, a young G. W. Leibniz, who throughout his life was an assiduous inquirer into miracles and other aberrations of nature, related the odd and troubling encounter he had with a certain astronomer who'd predicted that on noon on the last day of June 1666, the brightest time of the day at nearly the

Mystics, Madmen or Cunning Frauds

Arts & Letters is a program celebrating contemporary arts, humanities, and social sciences, with an emphasis on authentic Southern voices. Hosted by J. Bradley Minnick of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the full episode archive is available at artsandlettersradio.org.

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Arts and Letters

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