Arts and Culture

 The Great Lakes mobile, by Melanie Ariens

Melanie Ariens has become known for her water-themed art, a focus of her combined loves of art and environmental activism. She uses mostly recycled materials to make art that makes people think about the Great Lakes, the rivers, and the water we drink.More

Jacqueline Woodson

Author Jacqueline Woodson writes the kind of “black girl narrative” that didn’t exist when she was younger — and she’s always wished she had to read.More

Potato gleaners in France

Influential French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda has passed away at 90. She died of breast cancer in her home in Paris. In 2002, Steve spoke to her about her seminal work "The Gleaners and I."More

Zoe Quinn

Game developer Zoe Quinn on how her game "Depression Quest" brought a torrent of harassment and abuse to her doorstep. She tells Anne about the steps she took to protect herself, and why she's still optimistic about the potential for living and working online.More

Jeff Chang

Jeff Chang has long known that art can be a catalyst for social change. For Chang, a journalist and culture critic who’s written extensively about the political influence of hip-hop, artists play a pivotal role in helping society imagine new realities.More

Mariela Shaker

In 2013, violinist Mariela Shaker escaped the Syrian Civil War and relocated to the US, moving from Aleppo, a city of 2 million, to a small Illinois town of less than 10,000.More

lemon and kale

After listening to the food mavens and masters in our show on chasing "authentic" food, you might be mentally gathering tips on how to better enjoy food in your own home. So let's gather some tips for better eating in one place.More

Terese Mailhot

Author Terese Mailhot's best-selling debut book "Heart Berries" is a slim, devastating memoir of a childhood filled with abuse, set on the Seabird Island Band in British Columbia. She reads a passage to demonstrate the lyric quality of her prose.More

Books on the shelf

David Treuer is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation. He’s a literature professor at the University of Southern California, as well as a writer and a novelist. And he does not believe in putting fiction into ethnic boxes.More

Kevin Goodan with all his brothers and step-father this summer.

Do you have to be Native American to write Native American fiction? Kevin Goodan grew up among the Salish people. His brothers and stepfather are tribal members. But Kevin is white.More

The IAIA campus

A new wave of Native writers is coming of age. And at the center of it is a one-of-a-kind MFA program at the IAIA, in Santa Fe. Director Jennifer Foerster told Charles that the goal is to rewrite the literary landscape.More

Teens on stage

Charles Monroe-Kane recently sat down to talk with the founder of the "Louder Than A Bomb" youth poetry — poet Kevin Coval — as well as two high school poets — Luis Carranza and Kee Stein — to hear more about how poetry is empowering teens.More

broken heart

Every week, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond host the popular "Dear Sugars" podcast, where they read listener letters and give relationship advice. Sometimes, they have to parse the questions people think they're asking from the ones simmering beneath the surface.More

Choose something from 2018 and leave it behind.

Anne shares a yearly ritual for leaving behind something you regret, and moving into the new year a little bit lighter. More

David Giffels and his dad

A few years ago, David Giffels took on an unusual woodworking project — he started building his own coffin. With his 80-year-old father. But after losing his mother and best friend suddenly, his woodworking project took on a whole new meaning.
 More

Mark's facebook ephemera

We shared our lives on Facebook, and in return, we got rampant privacy abuse. It might feel right to end our relationship, but as digital producer Mark Riechers discovered, that's more complicated than you might think.More

Ways to help Jay

In 2015, Jay Costello was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer. His family couldn't handle it alone, so his daughter Megan started asking for help online, fundraising via a GoFundMe page. More

gift giving

Is it actually possible to give a truly selfless gift? Anthropologist David Graeber says it's not only impossible, the entire concept of a "free gift" is a capitalist construct shaped by impersonal market economies.More

Pages