It's one of his most beloved tales, but was written in a hurry and under duress. On this holiday episode of Dialogue, Marcia Franklin talks with Boise writer Samantha Silva about "A Christmas Carol," penned by Charles Dickens in 1843. In her debut novel, "Mr. Dickens and His Carol," Silva melds fact with fiction to imagine how Dickens came up with the plot for his now-classic story. Of Silva's work, Pulitzer Prize-winner and Boise resident Anthony Doerr says, "It's as foggy and haunted and redem...
Dec 22, 2024•29 min
Author Adam Johnson, who has won both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his works, talks with host Marcia Franklin about his writing philosophy. The two also discuss his thoughts on North Korea, which he has visited and about which he wrote in The Orphan Master's Son. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/2/2018 The interview is part of Dialogue ’s series “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Confer...
Dec 15, 2024•29 min
Host Marcia Franklin talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson, then a financial editor and columnist at the New York Times who covered the country’s financial crisis since its inception. They discuss the federal government’s push to increase home ownership, which Morgenson sees as the underpinning of the financial collapse. The two also talk about various taxpayer-funded bailouts of companies such as AIG, and whether Morgenson sees any light at the end of the tunnel for th...
Dec 08, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with playwright Samuel D. Hunter about his work, including “The Whale,” which was adapted into a movie with Brendan Fraser, who won an Academy Award. The two also discuss the role of Idaho in his works, and the importance of the humanities.
Dec 01, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with historian Tiya Miles about her book, “All That She Carried,” which won the National Book Award. It tells the story of “Ashley’s sack,” a bag given to an enslaved girl by her mother in the 1850s. The two discuss how a material object can bring untold history alive, and also talk about Miles’ book, “Night Flyer,” which looks at the effect of the outdoors on Harriet Tubman.
Nov 24, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with Clarissa Ward, the chief international correspondent for CNN, about her start in the business, her assignments in some of the most dangerous parts of the world and the continuing need for journalistic ethics. The two also discuss her memoir, “On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist.” The conversation was taped at the 2024 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference.
Nov 17, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR, a Jewish congregation in Los Angeles. The two discuss how the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel affected her and her congregants, Israel’s bombing of Gaza, increasing antisemitism, and a path forward to peace.
Nov 10, 2024•29 min
Host Marcia Franklin talks with author Margaret Atwood about her work, which includes the bestselling novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale” and its sequel, “The Testaments.” Atwood also shares her thoughts on whether the United States could head towards totalitarianism. The conversation was recorded at the 2024 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference.
Nov 03, 2024•29 min
In this episode, host Marcia Franklin talks with Dr. Abraham Verghese about his latest blockbuster novel, The Covenant of Water . The epic, which includes a mystery at its core, covers more than 70 years in the intertwined lives of families in the Indian state of Kerala. Verghese discusses the ties the story has to his own family history and shares his joy of writing. Originally Aired: 12/01/2023 The interview is part of the series “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference” and was ...
Oct 27, 2024•29 min
In this episode, Hernan Diaz joins Marcia Franklin to discuss his latest novel, Trust , which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The intricately braided tale about characters in the world of high finance gives readers four different takes on the same story, playing with the idea of “truth.” Diaz explains why he constructed the novel using multiple voices, and what it was like to win the Pulitzer Prize. Originally Aired: 12/08/2023 The interview is part of the series “Conversations from the...
Oct 20, 2024•29 min
In this episode, David Grann regales viewers with some of the amazing true stories surrounding the wreck of The Wager, a British ship that sank off the tip of South America in 1741. In his book The Wager , Grann uses rare primary source documents to reconstruct the harrowing experiences of the ship’s castaways and shows how the aftermath of the saga is still relevant today. The book will be adapted into a film directed by Martin Scorsese, as was another of Grann’s bestsellers, Killers of the Flo...
Oct 13, 2024•29 min
Conversations From the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference is back for a 16th season! In this episode, journalist Andrea Elliott joins host Marcia Franklin to talk about her book, Invisible Child , which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. The book chronicles eight years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child in Brooklyn. Elliott shares what compelled her to spend that much time covering the story, and how Dasani’s life exemplifies the challenges of being poor in America. Elliott also ...
Oct 06, 2024•29 min
In this episode, host Marcia Franklin speaks with writer Mohsin Hamid about his latest novel, The Last White Man . The story follows the transformation of a man who wakes up one day to find that his skin color has changed. Hamid, who often incorporates his own multicultural background into his work, talks with Franklin about how his life changed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and how he aims with his writing to “imagine the world into a better place.” Originally Aired: 12/29/2023 The inter...
Sep 29, 2024•29 min
More of Marcia Franklin’s 2019 conversation with National Book Award-winning author and world traveler Barry Lopez about his life, his philosophy of writing and his new memoir, Horizon . In December 2020, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference awarded Barry Lopez with the inaugural Writer in the World Prize in recognition of his singular voice in the landscape of English Literature. Lopez died December 25, 2020. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that ma...
Sep 22, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with National Book Award-winning author and world traveler Barry Lopez about his philosophy of writing and his penultimate memoir, Horizon. In December 2020, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference awarded Barry Lopez with the inaugural Writer in the World Prize in recognition of his singular voice in the landscape of English Literature. Lopez died on December 25, 2020. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired...
Sep 15, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with author Brando Skyhorse about his life and works, focusing on his memoir, Take This Man. In the book, Skyhorse writes about what it was like to grow up thinking he was Native American and then to find out that was not true. He also discusses the topic of his next novel, Wall. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/15/2019 The interview is part of Dialogue ’s series “Conversations from the Sun Va...
Sep 08, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with Emily Ruskovich, the author of Idaho: A Novel. In 2019, the novel won the Dublin Literary Award, worth more than $100,000. Ruskovich reflects on what it has been like to win the award. The two also discuss the plot of Idaho, whose setting is based on the landscape of Ruskovich’s childhood in northern Idaho. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/1/2019...
Sep 01, 2024•29 min
Host Marcia Franklin talks with political scientist Yascha Mounk about identity, political divides and his outlook on America. Mounk is the author of several books, including “The People vs. Democracy,” “The Great Experiment,” and “Stranger in My Own Country.” Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/18/2022 The interview is part of Dialogue ’s series “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference” and was taped at...
Aug 25, 2024•29 min
Catherine Grace Katz talks with host Marcia Franklin about “The Daughters of Yalta,” her first book. In it, she illuminates the contributions that Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill and Kathleen Harriman made during the seminal 1945 meeting of world leaders at Yalta, which included their fathers, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Averell Harriman. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 12/17/2021 The interview ...
Aug 18, 2024•29 min
Host Marcia Franklin talks with author Kalani Pickhart about her debut novel, “I Will Die in a Foreign Land.” Based on the Maidan uprising in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, the book’s publication coincidentally occurred a few months before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Pickhart talks about what that’s been like, and why she was drawn to write about Ukraine. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/25/2022 The interview ...
Aug 11, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with Yale Professor of History Joanne Freeman about her book The Field of Blood. In it, Freeman illustrates how the U.S. Congress leading up to the Civil War was a more violent body than previously thought. Franklin asks her about parallels to current tensions in Congress. Freeman also discusses her next book, “Hunting for Hamilton,” and the value of studying history. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Ai...
Aug 04, 2024•29 min
Host Marcia Franklin talks with author Kali Fajardo-Anstine about her short story collection, “Sabrina & Corina,” which was a finalist for a National Book Award, and her novel, “Woman of Light.” Both draw on her own multicultural history to tell stories set in Colorado. Originally Aired: 11/11/2022 The interview is part of Dialogue’s series, “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference,” and was taped at the 2022 conference . Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together so...
Jul 28, 2024•29 min
Sarah Broom unpacks her National Book Award-winning memoir, “The Yellow House,” which chronicles the devastating effects that decades of neglect and bureaucratic amnesia have had on her childhood neighborhood of New Orleans East. The book also pays homage to the house she and her 11 siblings grew up in, which was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, but which lives on in Broom’s prose. Originally Aired: 12/24/21 The interview is part of Dialogue’s series, “Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers’ C...
Jul 21, 2024•30 min
Marcia Franklin talks with author Rebecca Donner about “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days,” which chronicles the life of Mildred Harnack, her great-great-aunt. Harnack and her husband helped found one of the largest resistance groups against the Nazis. They were both discovered, however, and killed. Mildred is the only known American woman to be executed on the direct orders of Hitler. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter! Originally Ai...
Jul 14, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with author Patricia Nelson Limerick about her books about the American West. Limerick shares her views that the West has been overly romanticized and that history has ignored the contributions of women and people of color in settling the West. Originally aired: 04/17/1997
Jul 07, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with maritime writer and historian Nathaniel Philbrick, the speaker at the 2013 Idaho Humanities Council Distinguished Humanities Lecture. Philbrick is the author of numerous books, including most recently "Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution," which looks at the deadliest battle of the American Revolution and how it influenced the birth of our country. A sailor, Philbrick is also known for his book, "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex," whic...
Jun 30, 2024•29 min
Journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eliza Griswold talks with host Marcia Franklin about her book Amity and Prosperity , which investigates the effects of fracking in a southwestern Pennsylvania community. The two discuss how Griswold researched the book and the rural-urban divide in American politics. Griswold also talks about her forthcoming book of poetry. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/9/2018 The int...
Jun 23, 2024•30 min
Dialogue host Marcia Franklin talks with historical novelist Lois Leveen about two of her works: The Secrets of Mary Bowser , about a former slave who was a spy in the Confederate White House, and Juliet's Nurse , which imagines the life of the nurse in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Franklin asks Leveen about how she researches her ideas and what she hopes readers will glean from her works. Originally Aired: 02/13/15...
Jun 16, 2024•29 min
As the United States heads for what portends to be a raucous convention season, Dialogue host Marcia Franklin talks with Eric Liu, the founder of Citizen University in Seattle, about whether it’s even possible in a seemingly fractured society to have a civil discussion about politics. Liu, also the executive director of the Citizenship and American Identity Program at the Aspen Institute, is trying to reclaim civic education from the doldrums and encourage Americans to act on their rights. His T...
Jun 09, 2024•29 min
Marcia Franklin talks with author Richard Ford, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Independence Day, a book in his Frank Bascombe series, and who was nominated for a Pulitzer for his most recent book in the series Let Me Be Frank With You. Ford talks with Franklin about his themes, his writing style, his muse and his thoughts on race relations. Don’t forget to subscribe, and visit the Dialogue website for more conversations that matter. Originally Aired: 11/6/2015 The interview is part of Dialogue ’s ...
Jun 02, 2024•29 min
