"It's important to be your authentic self. If you're not you, the world doesn't know who to love." Jody Lulich Rising to accept a prestigious award, Jody Lulich wondered what to say. Explain how he’d been attracted to veterinary medicine? Describe how caring for helpless, voiceless animals in his own shame and pain provided a …
Morgan Jerkins on her debut novel, Caul Baby
“I don’t know this woman, I don’t like this woman, but I understand this woman,” says author Morgan Jerkins of what she wants her readers to takeaway from reading the complex, challenging women who make up her debut novel l Caul Baby (Harper 2021). In this episode, essayist, memoirist, and, now, novelist Morgan Jerkins sits …
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“Change comes one at a time” – author Claudia Rankine on her latest work, Just Us: An American Conversation
Launching the sixth season of BMR, Lissa sits down with poet and essayist Claudia Rankine to dive into her latest work Just Us: An American Conversation (Graywolf Press, 2020). Rankine describes the book as the result of a challenge she set to herself to talk to white men - a group she rarely talks to …
Dr. Frank B. Wilderson, III on Afropessimism
Wrapping up the fifth season of Black Market Reads, Lissa speaks with author and scholar Dr. Frank B. Wilderson, III about his latest work, Afropessimism (Liveright, 2020). From his youth in Minneapolis to Apartheid South Africa and beyond, Dr. Wilderson has been a committed activist for radical social change. His creative, scholarly, and critical work …
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Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify: Author Carolyn Holbrook on her new book
"For me, the title of the book is about testifying on behalf of myself, my family, my children and adding to the conversation about the beauty of our people," says Carolyn Holbrook about her newly released collection of essays, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify (University of Minnesota Press, 2020). In this episode, …
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Author J. Drew Lanham on his memoir The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, featuring guest host Michael Kleber-Diggs
In this episode we are pleased to share an interview featuring J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed Editions, 2016), in conversation with guest host Michael Kleber-Diggs. The interview was recorded at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis in 2017. J. Drew Lanham is …
Hope in the Struggle: Josie R. Johnson, Carolyn Holbrook, and Arleta Little
On this episode, Lissa sits down with civil rights icon Josie R. Johnson and her co-authors Carolyn Holbrook and Arleta Little to discuss Johnson's memoir Hope in the Struggle: A Memoir (University of Minnesota Press, 2019). https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=10919197 Dr. Josie R. Johnson has been an educator, activist, and public servant for more than seven decades. Along …
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