Community of Writers Podcasts
Stay abreast of our summer workshops in Fiction, Nonfiction and Memoir by following to hear panels, and craft talks from esteemed agents and editors. Later in the year we will be adding selected craft talks from previous summers.
Year-round, we also host Bibliocracy Radio , a weekly half-hour books discussion and interview program hosted by Santa Monica Review editor Andrew Tonkovich featuring writers of literary fiction and nonfiction, poetry, memoir and cultural criticism.
Episodes
59 episodes
Bibliocracy Radio: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez on California Southern
This week: journalist and poet Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, out with a collection decades in the making. Published by Hinchas Press, he joins me this week to read from and talk about California Southern: Writing from the Road 1992-2025
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Season 3
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Episode 28
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28:41
Bibliocracy Radio: Emily Greenberg on Alternative Facts
Emily Greenberg joins us this week. She is the author of a debut short story collection, Alternative Facts, one of the most remarkable literary, political, and sociologically urgent --- not to mention funny and smart --- ...
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Season 3
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Episode 27
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28:11
Amy Gerstler on Is This My Final Form?
This week: Acclaimed poet Amy Gerstler, author of 11 collections including Scattered at Sea, long-listed for the National Book Award and Creature, a New York Times Notable Book. Amy Gerstler’s newest book is ou...
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Season 3
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Episode 26
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43:38
Bibliocracy Radio: Sameer Pandya on Our Beautiful Boys
This episode contains both parts of a two-part show featuring novelist and short story writer Sameer Pandya on his newest novel, Our Beautiful Boys. It is receiving enthusiastic reviews as well as both popular and critical...
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Season 3
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Episode 25
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55:42
Andrew Nicholls: As Man is to God
My guest is Andrew Nicholls. He's written extensively for television print and stage, and produced both a memoir and a how-to comedy writing book. Now he’s out with a long poem on the making of filmmaker Werner Hertzog’s film Fitzcarraldo
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Season 3
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Episode 24
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28:04
Bibliocracy Radio: Janice Shapiro on Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship
I welcome back screenwriter and short story writer Janice Shapiro, out with her full-length graphic novel Honoria: A Fortuitous Friendship, a coming-of-age story about young women who discover their place in the world.
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Season 3
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Episode 23
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27:41
Bibliocracy Radio: Nolan Higdon on the Industrial Information Media Complex
I welcome Dr. Nolan Higdon, a longtime media/civic literacy expert and critical media scholar, as well as activist and educator.
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Season 3
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Episode 22
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29:15
Bibliocracy Radio: The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism
My guest is the art historian Stephen F. Eisenman, collaborator with legendary artist Sue Coe on the new collection The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism, out now from O/R Books.
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Season 3
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Episode 21
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28:51
Bibliocracy Radio: Lisa Alvarez Reads "False Flag"
This week we simultaneously mark a maddening anniversary and celebrate joyful creative resistance with a reading of her 2021 short story “False Flag” by writer, teacher, and editor Lisa Alvarez.
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Season 3
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Episode 20
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35:34
Bibliocracy Radio: Andrew Tonkovich on A Lovely Wallpaper
For this month’s fund drive first edition I air an edited version of a terrific podcast hosted by writer Abby Walthausen featuring me --- of all people! --- as a guest. Its topic is the writer and artist whose work I curated for an exhibi...
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Season 3
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Episode 19
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46:25
Bibliocracy Radio: Chuck Rosenthal on Awake For Ever in a Sweet Unrest
I host novelist and memoirist Chuck Rosenthal, author of the Loop trilogy and Never Let Me Go, among many books. His latest, Awake For Ever in a Sweet Unrest, is what writer Michael Ventura calls a “gentle phantasm,” ...
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Season 3
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Episode 18
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28:55
Bibliocracy Radio: David L. Ulin on Thirteen Question Method
I host editor, anthologist, book reviewer, and essayist David L. Ulin, who has written about Los Angeles and Southern California for decades, assembling the defining Joan Didion collection for the Library of America, reviewing books and ...
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Season 3
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Episode 17
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27:33
Bibliocracy Radio: Gary Amdahl reads "The Breezeway"
Today, a reading by a favorite writer, Gary Amdahl, author of Visigoth, I Am Death, The Intimidator Still Lives in Our Hearts and, out now, The Creative Writers: A Burlesque of the Imagination on Totalitarian Them...
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Season 3
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Episode 16
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29:21
Bibliocracy Radio: Brittney Corrigan on The Ghost Town Collectives
My guest for today is poet and, lately fiction writer Brittney Corrigan. Her recent poetry collection Solastalgia explored themes of ecological crisis and now, with The Ghost Town Collectives, she creates i...
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Season 3
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Episode 15
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29:33
Bibliocracy Radio: Banned Books Week with ALA President Cindy Hohl
I present my annual program celebrating Banned Books Week (September 22-29) with special guest American Library Association (ALA) President Cindy Hohl. This year’s Banned Books Week 2024 theme is “Freed Between the Lines,” an observance of the ...
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Season 3
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Episode 12
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28:54
Bibliocracy Radio: Steve Wasserman: Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It’s a Lie
My guest for the first of a three-part series is Steve Wasserman, the legendary editor, publisher, writer, agent, and arts and literature advocate with decades of experience and engagement and friendships which are now ours to read about in his...
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Season 3
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Episode 14
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53:38
Bibliocracy Radio: Corey Robin on the Reactionary Mind
I present excerpts from one of the most requested, most popular, and perhaps, alas, most enduring and relevant of the hundreds of shows I have hosted over more than fifteen years of Bibliocracy Radio. Corey Robin’s landmark <...
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Season 3
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Episode 13
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29:11
Bibliocracy Radio: Peter Carr: “Artist for Survival”
A program celebrating a long-ago artist and writer whose work I am curating at an upcoming gallery show. Today I read his self-published book, Aliso Creek, a singular and defining introduction to the work of Peter Carr (1925-1981) and ...
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Season 3
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Episode 11
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29:14
Bibliocracy Radio: Jackie Wu: On the Front Lines of Democracy
My guest is Jackie Wu, who worked for the Orange County Registrar of Voters. She's written a firsthand account titled On the Front Lines of Democracy: An Election Official’s Story of Protecting the Vote in 2020. It's an i...
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Season 3
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Episode 10
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28:55
Bibliocracy Radio: Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California
I attended the recent launch party reading celebrating the arrival of a must-read, must-own anthology. Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California is out from the new collaborative publisher Ange...
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Season 3
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Episode 9
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30:24
Bibliocracy Radio: Larry Beinhart on Salvation Boulevard
Today, my guest is Larry Beinhart, perhaps best known for a novel adapted into the film Wag the Dog (American Hero) but today talking about and reading from Salvation Boulevard. It’s both a detective sto...
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Season 3
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Episode 8
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28:45
Bibliocracy Radio: Victoria Patterson on Drift
Today, my 2009 interview with Victoria Patterson on her debut book, Drift, a defining —- for the author and her hometown, Newport Beach —- short story collection from and about Orange County, California. This is where it s...
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Season 3
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Episode 7
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29:19
Bibliocracy Radio: Luis Alberto Urrea on Into the Beautiful North
Today, my 2010 interview with Luis Alberto Urrea on his smart, funny, sincerely moving Into the Beautiful North, a comic and woman-centered take on the classic film The Magnificent Seven by way of a border adventure sto...
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Season 3
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Episode 6
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29:27
Bibliocracy Radio: Dylan Landis on Normal People Don’t Live Like This
Today, my 2009 interview with Dylan Landis on her debut novel-in-stories, Normal People Don’t Live Like This, a singularly poignant, tough and smart coming-of-age novel set in 1970s New York City. This is a good one, folk...
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Season 3
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Episode 5
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29:05
Bibliocracy Radio: Mary Jones on the Goodbye Process
My guest this week is short story writer Mary Jones. She has written and published dozens of short stories for many years, earning acclaim, and establishing a reputation, all of which is affirmed in her debut collection, 28 short stories...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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29:50
