Our guest is writer and philosopher Chloe Cooper Jones, author of the memoir Easy Beauty.  Jones was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that affects her gait and her stature.  In Easy Beauty, she details how that informs her experience of the world – and delivers a powerful philosophical examination of how society thinks about beauty. Jones is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2000 for her profile of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner, as well as in 2023 for Easy Beauty.  On April 26, 2024, Jones came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Catherine Lacey. 

Victoria Chang is the author of 8 books of poetry, including “Obit” and “Barbie Chang”, a work of creative nonfiction, and two children’s books. Her newest collection of poems is called “With My Back to the World.” It’s inspired by the art and writing of Agnes Martin, a painter who was an influential part of the abstract art movement beginning in the 1950s.  On May 31, 2024, Chang came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about her creative process and some of the themes in her new collection, including feminism, mental illness, and creative expression.

Serj Tankian, lead singer of the heavy metal band “System Of A Down.” Tankian founded the group in 1997, releasing five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200.  His solo career also includes work as a painter, composer and filmmaker.  The musician’s new book is called Down with the System: A Memoir (of Sorts).On July 21st, 2024, Tankian came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Zack Ruskin about music and activism – particularly his work in support of Armenia, his ancestral homeland. 

Since their foundational philosophical critique of gender and sexuality, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler has been a singularly important contributor to our contemporary understanding of those categories, including what it can mean to be queer.  Butler’s revolutionary cultural influence and constant drive towards better understandings of our world guarantee that they will remain a widely read canonical writer for decades to come. In recent years, Butler’s theoretical and activist work on gender performance and nonviolence has placed them in conversations around transgender rights, Black Lives Matter, and the Occupy Movement. Their forthcoming book, Who’s Afraid of Gender?, examines why recent authoritarian governments and transexclusionary feminists have focused so much of their energy and ire on gender.On June 13, 2024, Judith Butler came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to be interviewed on stage by Poulomi Saha,  the co-Director of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley.

Artist Kara Walker has investigated race, gender, sexuality, and violence through her installations, paintings, silhouettes, and films. Walker’s art has won awards and is collected by museums around the world. Her work with stereotypes and the history of racial violence has pushed viewers to confront the continuing violence against Black people in America. With beloved writer Jamaica Kincaid, winner of the American Book Award, Walker is publishing An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children, a brilliant collection of essays and illustrations revealing the beauty of the natural world and the terrible history of colonialism. In July 2024, SFMOMA is releasing a site-specific installation by Walker, focusing on the global loss due to COVID-19, trauma, and technology. On June 6, 2024, Kara Walker came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by New Yorker staff writer Doreen St. Félix.

Author and creator Miranda July isn’t bound by medium nor by expectations. From films like Me and You and Everyone We Know  and Kajillionaire, to books like No One Belongs Here More Than You and The First Bad Man, to an iPhone app that reroutes text messages to strangers, July’s powers of creativity and observation are wise, surprising, and always delightful. Her second novel, All Fours, is the story of a woman’s artistic cross-country quest that  has already won praise from George Saunders, Emma Cline, and Vogue for its intimacy, humor, and boundary defying freedom.On May 23, 2024, Miranda July came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Anna Sale, host of the podcast Death, Sex & Money. 

Before his novel Erasure was adapted into the hit film American Fiction, Percival Everett was already one of the literary world’s most acclaimed talents, appreciated for his inimitable characters and storylines, as well as his uncommon variety of genres. Since Everett’s first novel in 1983, he has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, for Telephone, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Trees. His newest novel, James, is a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn, and has already been touted as “a canon-shattering great book.” Cord Jefferson made his feature writing and directorial debut with American Fiction, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His television credits include Watchmen, The Good Place, Succession, Station Eleven, Master of None, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. On June 3, 2024, Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed by Jelani Cobb.

Our guest today is Maggie Nelson, an author and academic whose deeply personal and analytical writing has covered such topics as gender, sexuality, and freedom. She’s published nine books of poetry, essays, and memoir, including The Argonauts. Many of her books combine or re-imagine genres, like her 2009 work Bluets, a collection of 240 short pieces – ranging from the philosophical to the lyrical – about the color blue.  On June 1st, 2024, Nelson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco where she spoke to Frances Richard about the themes in her newest essay collection, Like Love. 

Amy Tan is best known for her novels of Asian American life, such as The Joy Luck Club, the Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter.  Now she’s written and illustrated a book inspired by her love of birding.  The Backyard Bird Chronicles tracks the thoughts and lessons gathered through birding, mixing memoir with Tan’s own sketches of birds. Tan’s calm focus on watching and drawing the wild birds who visit her home makes for a brilliantly composed breath of fresh air. On May 18, 2024, Amy Tan came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about her book with the teacher who guided her, artist and naturalist John Muir Laws. 

Justice Stephen G. Breyer returns to the City Arts & Lectures stage to discuss his first book since retiring from the United State Supreme Court, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not TextualismDuring his 28-year tenure on the United States Supreme Court, which began with his appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Justice Stephen G. Breyer authored 551 opinions. As a liberal voice in the federal judiciary, he has played a key role in reforming criminal sentencing procedures, protecting the environment, and preserving abortion rights. In 2022, Justice Breyer was succeeded by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, his former law clerk. The Justice credits his time at Lowell High School in San Francisco for helping to instill in him a commitment to civic engagement. Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism is his first book since retiring from the Supreme Court.Sarah Isgur is a legal analyst at ABC News and a staff writer for The Dispatch. She was a leader in political campaigns for Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, and Mitt Romney, and was the spokeswoman for The Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump. Isgur now hosts the legal podcast Advisory Opinions and is the “R” panelist for KCRW’s Left, Right, & Center.

Our guest is actor and comedian Tiffany Haddish. Since her breakout role in the movie Girls Trip, she’s been stealing scenes in films like Night School and Bad Trip. Her comedy specials Tiffany Haddish: She Ready! From the Hood to Hollywood! and the Grammy-winning Black Mitzvah are unfiltered, and deeply personal, from stories of failed comedy performances, to being unhoused, to remarkable perseverance. On May 15, 2024, Haddish came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco where she spoke to writer and KQED host Alexis Madrigal on the occasion of her new book, I Curse You With Joy.

As the 19th and 21st U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy has faced some of the most difficult health crises in recent history. Murthy, appointed by Presidents Obama and Biden, shaped the federal response to the opioid epidemic, the rise of e-cigarettes, the Flint Michigan water crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He also co-founded Doctors for America, which works to promote more affordable health care, and TrialNetworks, a biotechnology company that helps improve clinical drug trials. Murthy has pushed to reduce access to social media for young children, pointing out the harmful effects of bullying, a lack of in-person interactions, and harassment.  Recently, Murthy has written about and spoken on the negative health effects of loneliness, calling it an “epidemic” that increases the risk of early death and other social problems. On April 16, 2024, Vivek Murthy came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about how to combat loneliness with public radio journalist David Greene.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is the preeminent scholar of American presidents. For more than 45 years, in books like the Pulitzer-Prize winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt The Homefront in World War II and Team of Rivals, the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, Goodwin has informed millions of readers (and politicians) about the history and power of Executive branch. Before her career as a historian, Goodwin taught at Harvard for a decade, helped Lyndon Johnson draft his memoirs, and, in 1979, became the first woman to enter the Red Sox’s locker room. Her new book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, uses the notes, journals, and letters of Goodwin’s late husband, Richard Goodwin, to tell a very intimate, and astute, story of the 1960s.  On April 29, 2024, Doris Kearns Goodwin came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by writer and critic Steven Winn.  

The concept of de-growth - purposefully moving away from an ever-growing gross domestic product as the definition of a successful economy - may seem like a tough sell to Americans.  But Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito sees de-growth as part of a new and sustainable way of living that consumes less of the planet’s resources. His new book Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, points an urgent, yet gentle path toward a more equal and less harmful society.  On April 20, 2024, Saito talked to Astra Taylor about what a more sustainable economy and culture might look like.

Activists and organizers Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix have co-written a new book that presents a detailed examination of solidarity, and its potential for creating lasting change. They spoke with Kate Schatz about their book Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea at the KQED studios on April 17, 2024.

Beloved for her enchanting, lyrical writing, Anne Lamott takes on the most complex, intimate parts of life with grace and precision. Lamott’s novels and memoirs have be awarded some of the most sought-after literary prizes, and her collection of essays on writing, Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, has become required reading for all authors. Her new book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love, delves into the struggles of love with her trademark honesty and humor, finding the transformative power of intimate relationships. Lamott’s faith and candor, perfected across her long career in literature, are on display as she discusses finding love late in life, the changing ways we love our children, and the ways love can keep us going in a painful world.  On April 13, 2024, Anne Lamott came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Barbara Lane, the book columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and the current director of events at Copperfield Books.

Since his 2016 debut poetry collection The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib’s writing has earned him numerous accolades as a poet, essayist, and music critic. Easily moving from emotionally riveting examinations of Black identities to academic explorations of punk scenes to analyses of contemporary popular artists, Abdurraqib’s work is full of uninhibited curiosity, revolutionary honesty, and a singular intelligence. His first essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, Pitchfork, the Los Angeles Review, and Esquire. His new memoir, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, traces his relationship with basketball while uncovering how we decide who is deserving of success. On April 3, 2024, Hanif Abdurraqib came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Shereen Marisol Meraji. Meraji is a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, and a founder of NPR’s award-winning podcast Code Switch.

Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University and the principal investigator at The Eviction Lab, a research group that published the first-ever dataset of evictions in America, going back to 2000.  His Pulitzer-Prize-winner book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City quickly made Desmond one of America’s most important thinkers and activists. His new book, Poverty, By America, broadens the scope of his research, demonstrating how wealthy Americans keep poor people poor. On March 27, 2024, Matthew Desmond came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Bernice Yeung, the managing editor of Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program. Her first book, In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.

Our guest today is Angela Davis, one of the world’s most important voices for justice. The philosopher and activist came to prominence in the 1960s. Six decades later, Davis is still on the front lines fighting for equality and freedom on a range of issues from prison abolition to racial justice to gender rights. On March 20, 2024, the iconic activist and scholar came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about her new book "Abolition, Volume 1" with Hilton Als, New Yorker staff writer and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Our guest today is award-winning novelist Tommy Orange. Orange’s debut novel, There There, centered on a Native American experience that is less commonly featured in US literature - the lives of urban Native Americans. It was one of 2019’s most critically acclaimed books, and now, he’s written a followup. It’s called Wandering Stars. This new book features many of the same characters, while tracing the traumatic legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and government-run boarding schools, like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. On February 27th, 2024, Orange came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to author Dave Eggers. Hundreds of students and teachers attended - and among other things, Orange talked about what it’s like to have his book as assigned reading in schools.

Our guest today is Tariq Trotter, also known as Black Thought. He’s a founding member of the seminal hip hop band, The Roots and the author of the memoir The Upcycled Self. Trotter’s released more than a dozen albums and these days, he can be seen every week on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.  In his new memoir, Trotter paints a riveting portrait of his childhood in South Philadelphia and life as a young artist, from meeting Questlove in high school to finding his own path in the music industry. On February 24, 2024, Trotter came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Jelani Cobb, Dean of the Columbia Journalism School.

 Our guest is Calvin Trillin.  The journalist, humorist, poet, and novelist started his professional career in the early 1960’s at Time Magazine, and soon after became a staff writer for The New Yorker, where he continues to contribute.  He also writes for The Nation.  He is the author of 32 books, including memoir, novels, verse, and food writing.  His new book,“The Lede: Dispatches From A Life in the Press”, collects writings about journalism and its practitioners.  This conversation with writer Steven Winn was recorded at the studios of KQED in San Francisco on February 22, 2024. This was hardly Trillin’s first appearance on City Arts & Lectures - he’s been on our stage more than any other guest, a total of 19 times since his first appearance in 1982.  So we close out this hour with excerpts from three of those programs that showcase some of Trillin’s many talents beyond serious journalism.  Calvin Trillin began writing about regional food specialties during his travels as a reporter, and then in books like “American Fried” and “Alice, Let’s Eat”. In 2008, Trillin was joined by two distinguished women of the culinary world, former Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl. and the founder of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, Alice Waters - to discuss one of his obsessions – Buffalo chicken wings.   Calvin Trillin also developed a journalistic sideline that he describes as “Deadline Poet” and in 2012, he explained how that got started to Steven Winn. And finally, no Calvin Trillin City Arts & Lectures program would be complete without the story of the tic-tac-toe-playing chicken of New York’s Chinatown.  In a 1998 appearance, Trillin introduced the chicken to actor and comedian Robin Williams and interviewer Wendy Lesser.

Throughout every era of digital technology, from the dot com bubble to artificial intelligence, journalist Kara Swisher has been a key figure in understanding the rapid growth in Silicon Valley, whether reporting for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other major outlets, or as co-host of the podcast Pivot. Swisher is founder of the All Things Digital conference and the technology news website Recode, and the author of three books, including her new memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. On March 7, 2024, Kara Swisher came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by one of the technology leaders she frequently covers – Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.

This week, our guest is Ada Limón, he United States Poet Laureate. Limon has published six books of poetry, including The Carrying, The Hurting Kind, and Bright Dead Things. On February 22nd, 2024, Limón came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal about the ways in which the natural world inspires her work – from the landscape of her youth in Sonoma County, California, to Kentucky, where she lives today. She also talked about writing a poem to be engraved on a NASA spacecraft that will launch in the autumn of 2024. Limon says that poetry isn’t just meant to be read – it’s meant to be read out loud - and this program also includes her reading several poems.

Our guest today is Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist at UC San Francisco who studies abortion and adoption. Her new book, “Relinquished”, is the culmination of a decade-long study in which Sisson interviewed mothers from across the country who had given their children up for adoption. Sisson examines the myths and realities associated with these mothers – for example, only 14% are teenagers. But the majority live in poverty - over half have an income of less than $5,000 a year, and some experts suggest up to 20% are homeless. On February 6, 2024, Gretchen Sisson came to the studios of KQED in San Francisco to talk about “Relinquished” with Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the author of "Ambitious Like A Mother".

This week, a pair of studio conversations with the authors of recently published books. First, New Yorker writer Nick Romeo talks about his new book "The Alternative: How To Build a Just Economy" with Courtney Martin. It examines how people around the world are reshaping economies and businesses to be more equitable and ethical. Then, poet Kaveh Akbar talks with Corey Antonio Rose about his debut novel "Martyr". It centers around a young Iranian-born American coping with grief, addiction, and family drama.

This week, we reach into the archives for a 2009 appearance by the late A. S. Byatt.  The author and critic published 11 novels, 6 collections of short stories, and 9 volumes of short stories, as well as editing the Oxford Book of English Short Stories and several other anthologies.  Byatt’s best-known novel, Possession, won the Booker Prize and was made into a film; the book she discusses in this City Arts & Lectures appearance, The Children’s Book, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  In 1999, she was made a Dame of the British Empire for her contributions to English literature.  On October 26, 2009, A. S. Byatt came to the Herbst Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by poet Robert Hass.

This week, we present an encore of our 2016 conversation with songwriter and musician Paul Simon. Simon has been the recipient of many honors and awards including 12 Grammy Awards, three of which (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “Graceland”) were albums of the year. In 2003 he was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as half of the duo Simon and Garfunkel. He is in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Simon and Garfunkel and as a solo artist. He was a recipient of The Kennedy Center Honors in 2002 and was named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 People Who Shape Our World” in 2006. In 2007, Mr. Simon was awarded the first annual Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. On June 6, 2016, Paul Simon came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Dave Eggers, after performing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on June 3 and 4.  His album “Stranger to Stranger” had been released that same week.  Paul Simon’s latest work, “Seven Psalms” came out in 2023.

Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Benjamin Moser is the author of biographies of Susan Sontag and Claire Lispector. He’ll talk to us about his most recent book, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with Dutch Masters. It’s about the lives of artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer, as well as lesser known figures of the Dutch Golden Age. It’s a coming of age story too; Moser spent twenty years working on the book. He was interviewed on January 18, 2024, arts critic and journalist Steven Winn interviewed Moser in the studio.

Our guest is Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB-GYN and pain medicine physician.  Gunter’s work both as a clinician and a writer, is aimed at helping women understand and care for their bodies.  That includes countering a large amount of misinformation about women’s health - which she does with great wit on social media.  Her books include “The Vagina Bible”, “The Menopause Manifesto” and her newest, “Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation”.  On January 9, 2024, Jen Gunter came to the studios of KQED in San Francisco to talk with Indre Viskontas. 

Our guest is renowned neuroscientist and primatologist Robert Sapolsky.  He’s spent his career investigating behavior across the animal kingdom, including humans.  In books like The Trouble With Testosterone and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Sapolsky translates decades of research into fascinating stories and lessons accessible to non-scientific audiences. His latest book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works—the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. On January 3, 2024, Sapolsky joined Caterina Fake for a conversation recorded at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.

Tracy K. Smith is the author of five acclaimed poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the National Book Award. From 2017 to 2019, she served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States. In 2020, heartsick from constant assaults on Black life, Smith found herself soul-searching, and digging into the historical archive for help navigating the “din of human division and strife.” In her new book, To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul, Smith draws on several avenues of thinking – personal, documentary, and spiritual– to understand who we are as a nation and what we might hope to mean to one another. On November 10, 2023, Tracy K. Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with john a. powell, Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute and a Professor of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California.

This week, an encore of one of last year’s most popular programs - a conversation between two unconventional artists, director, visual artist and author, John Waters and Aubrey Plaza, actor, comedian and producer. For nearly 50 years, John Waters has been making subversive films that playfully push all sorts of boundaries - movies like “Pink Flamingos”, “Hairspray”, and “Serial Mom”. Actor and comedian Aubrey Plaza cites Waters as a major influence of hers. She's best known for roles in “Parks and Recreation” and the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus”. On May 9, 2023, John Waters and Aubrey Plaza came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for a rapid-fire conversation on a variety of topics -  including Waters’ first novel, “Liar Mouth: A Feel-Bad Romance”.  As any fan of John Waters would expect, the night was as filthy as it was hilarious, so this program may not be suitable to all listeners.

This week, our guest is David Brooks. As an Op-Ed contributor to The New York Times, Brooks writes about subjects ranging from politics and foreign affairs, to cultural trends and spirituality. Brooks started as a humorist, penning satires for his college paper, before becoming a film critic and then a reporter at The Wall Street Journal. You can see him regularly on the PBS Newshour. He’s also the author of bestselling books like Bobos in Paradise and The Social Animal. Like several of his more recent books – including The Second Mountain – his newest is more personal in nature. It’s called  How To Know A Person, and it’s a guide to fostering deeper relationships, at home, in the workplace, or elsewhere. On November 18th, 2023 Brooks came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about what it means to really see each other.  

NOTE: This program was not broadcast, because as you’ll hear, it contains a lot of explicit language and content - so much that we felt it would be hard to listen to with all the bleeps and edits that would be necessary for the radio. The language in this podcast has NOT been edited or bleeped, so please listen to it with that in mind. Leslie Jones is a three-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee as well as a Writer’s Guild Award and NAACP Award nominee for her work on Saturday Night Live. She has also been honored as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. Jones recently wrapped production on season two of the MAX series “Our Flag Means Death”. In January 2023, Jones kicked off a new era of The Daily Show as the program’s first guest host. She also co-hosts the podcast THE FCKRY with comedian Lenny Marcus. Her new memoir is “Leslie F*cking Jones”. On October 24, 2023, Leslie Jones came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater for an on-stage conversation with novelist Jasmine Guillory.

Viet Thanh Nguyen's debut novel, The Sympathizer, earned him the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Now he’s written A Man of Two Faces. It’s a memoir about his family, as well as larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Viet Nam and America. On November 9, 2023, Nguyen came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Shereen Marisol Meraji to talk about the new book - why he chooses to call himself a refugee, not an immigrant - and his conflicted feelings about his hometown, San Jose, California.

Since 1978, when her very first cartoon appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, Roz Chast has been chronicling modern life’s anxieties and absurdities. Neurotic characters with frizzy hair and mouths agape sit on sofas or walk along New York sidewalks worrying, observing, and making us laugh. Her more than a dozen books include Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, a memoir about her parents aging, and a collaboration with Steve Martin called The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!.  On November 2, 2023  Chast came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to share stories from her newest book, I Must Be Dreaming.

This week, legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog. He’s made over 70 movies – most of them documentaries like Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Grizzly Man. Herzog’s style is so distinctive that his films are recognizable practically from the moment they start. His techniques can be controversial too, when it comes to his unusual casting, and his own presence in the stories he’s telling. On Oct 21st, 2023, Herzog came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Caterina Fake about filmmaking and writing, including his new memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All.

This week, comedian Maria Bamford. She’s been called one of the most unusual – and bizarre – comedians performing today - addressing her own mental health struggles including obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. You can see her semi-autobiographical television series, Lady Dynamite, on Netflix. On October 14th, 2023, Bamford came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to podcaster and author Anna Sale about her work and experiences – much of which is explored in her memoir, Sure I’ll Join Your Cult.

This week, we’ll hear from journalist Michael Lewis about a year in the life of crypto-currency king Sam Bankman-Fried. The FTX founder became the world’s youngest billionaire. Now, he’s been convicted of taking billions of dollars in customer deposits to fund political donations, luxury real estate and his own personal investments. It’s the subject of Lewis’ newest book, Going Infinite. On November 13, 2023, Lewis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Indre Viskontas about Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall.

This week, a conversation about global aid efforts, and another one about the power of art to address humans’ relationships with animals. In the first part of the program, Dr. Raj Shah, president of The Rockefeller Foundation, talks about his work addressing global health crises and economic challenges both within the private sector and government. It’s the topic of his new book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens. On October 25th, 2023, Shah came to the KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Indre Viskontas. Award-winning photographer Jo-Anne MacArthur’s work explores our complex relationship with animals. From conservation efforts to the fashion and food industry, her images show the ways in which humans impact the lives of animals.  On October 18th, 2023, MacArthur came to KQED studios in San Francisco to talk to Indre Viskontas about the challenges of her work - which includes shooting in feedlots and other restricted areas. Her photos are featured in a new book: Women Photographers Expose our Planet.

Our guest this week is writer Jhumpa Lahiri. Her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, earned Lahiri a Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Many short story collections followed, as well as novels like The Namesake, which was the basis of a 2006 film directed by Mira Nair. Lahiri now translates and produces her own work in Italian too. On October 13, 2023, Jhumpa Lahiri came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Peter Stein about her latest collection, Roman Stories - which centers around Rome, not as a setting, but as a protagonist. Translated from Italian, the stories capture Rome as both a metropolis and a monument, multi-faceted and metaphysical, suspended between past and future – and prove that Lahiri is now master of form in her adopted language.

Comedian Keegan-Michael Key is best known for his work with Jordan Peele, performing in numerous skits as half of the comedy duo “Key & Peele.” One of his most famous roles was President Obama’s anger translator, a part he played at the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Dinner with Obama himself. Now, alongside wife and collaborator Elle Key, he’s written a book – The History of Sketch Comedy.” On October 7th, 2023, the Keys came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about it with Jesse Thorn, host of the podcast “Bullseye.” The program was co-presented with SF Sketchfest.

This week, George Saunders, a wildly inventive writer with an equally colorful background: Saunders worked as a geophysical prospector in Indonesia, a roofer in Chicago, and a doorman in Beverly Hills. Saunders’ short stories are often funny and frequently take place in a slightly futuristic, dystopian America. His novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” earned him the prestigious Man Booker Prize. On October 11th, 2023, George Saunders came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with KQED’s Alexis Madrigal.

This week, Sir Patrick Stewart, best known for the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek. After a working-class childhood in Yorkshire, Stewart trained as a classical actor at England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, where he appeared on stage for more than two decades. In 1986, he was invited to star in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. No one could predict the success of the program, in fact, when Stewart traveled to California to take the role, he didn’t expect the show to last beyond than that first season. The program continued for seven years, and was followed by four films and three seasons of a sequel starring Stewart, "Star Trek: Picard". On October 8th, 2023, Stewart came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal on the occasion of the publication of his memoir “Making It So”.

It doesn’t feel so long ago that Zadie Smith exploded onto the literary scene with her stunning debut novel, “White Teeth.” Twenty-three years later, she has cemented her reputation as one of the most important voices of her generation, whether in the form of fiction, criticism, or cultural observation. Her many novels include “Swing Time” and “On Beauty” - and her new book - “The Fraud. ” It’s a work of historical fiction set in Victorian England. On September 22th, 2023, Smith came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Cathy Park Hong, poet and author of “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning.”

This week, Dr. Bettina Love… Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and author of “We Want to Do More Than Survive.”  Her writing, research, teaching, and educational advocacy focus on abolitionist teaching, antiracism, Black joy, and educational reparations. Love’s new book “Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal” is an unflinching reckoning with the impact of forty years of racist public school policy on generations of Black lives. On September 19th, 2023, Dr. Bettina Love came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to comedian, activist, and  W. Kamau Bell. You can see Bell’s new documentary, “1000% Me: Growing up Mixed.” on HBO. The evening was presented in association with San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora.  Join us now for a conversation with Dr. Bettina Love and W. Kamau Bell.

Bobby Berk is the interior designer on the hit Netflix series Queer Eye. It’s a reality makeover show in which Berk and 4 other hosts, each an expert in a different category, transform peoples homes, wardrobes, and cultural tastes. The series has won two Emmys. On September 16th, 2023, Berk came to one of the San Francisco locations of independent bookstore Books Inc., to talk to writer Rebecca Handler*,* author of the novel “Edie Richter is Not Alone.” The two discussed Berk’s role on Queer Eye, and his new book “Right at Home: How Good Design Is Good for the Mind.”

Our guest is writer, bookstore owner, and literary evangelist Ann Patchett. She’s the author of several novels including the best-selling Bel Canto, about a hostage situation at a lavish opera-themed birthday party. Patchett’s other books include The Patron Saint of Liars, and Commonwealth; and her newest novel, Tom Lake. It’s the story of three sisters in their 20s as they return home to Michigan during the pandemic, and the lives their parents lived before they were born. .On September 8th, 2023, Ann Patchett came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Steven Winn about the new book, her early experiences as a budding writer, and her book recommendations.  

This week, our guest is poet Natalie Diaz in conversation with essayist and author Hilton Als.  Natalie Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community and is the director of the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program, where she works with the last remaining speakers of the Mojave language. Language and loss are explored throughout Diaz’s poetry, in collections including When My Brother Was an Aztec and Postcolonial Love Poem, which won her the Pulitzer Prize. Hilton Als is another writer whose work explores American identity, in theater reviews, articles, and essays for The New Yorker, where he’s contributed since 1989. Als received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, “for bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context.”  His writing explores race, sexuality, class, art, and American identity provocatively, exploding the boundaries of the genre in which it is contained.  His most recent book is a memoir, My Pinup. On February 9, 2023, Natalie Diaz and Hilton Als came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation, during which Diaz read from her work.

In the first half of this program, literary critic Carmela Ciuraru talks about her new book, Lives of the Wives, which shines a light on the lesser-known partners of historic literary giants. Weaving together themes of marriage, power, ego, and equity, this riveting deep dive explores relationship dynamics that are still relevant today. Then, artist and author Paul Madonna, who’s known for combining drawing and stories in a wide range of genres - from his enigmatic art series All Over Coffee which ran for twelve years in the San Francisco Chronicle, to his large-scale public murals, to his entertaining and sharply-plotted mystery novels. Madonna’s new book, The Commissions, is a riveting mystery set between San Francisco and Amsterdam.

This week, we talk to the authors of two new books – one about our relationship to work, and another one about hospice and art. In the first half of this program, we talk to Simone Stolzoff. He’s the author of a new book, “The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming life from Work”. It takes a critical look at the way work has become so central to our identities - oftentimes at the expense of family, community and health. For artist Wendy MacNaughton, drawing is a vehicle for connection. Her subjects are often people and places typically over-looked. That’s certainly the case with her new book, “How to Say Goodbye.” It’s a collection of portraits she drew during her time as artist in residence at a hospice center in San Francisco.  MacNaughton was joined in this interview by her colleague Ladybird Morgan - a nurse, social worker, and palliative care consultant. Both interviews were conducted in the studios of KQED in San Francisco on August 14, 2023, by neuroscientist, musician, and podcaster Indre Viskontas.

This week, a conversation with two brothers, both distinguished members of the federal judiciary, Justice Stephen Breyer and his brother, Judge Charles Breyer. Stephen Breyer retired in summer 2022 after nearly 28 years as a member of the Supreme Court. Prior to that, he served nearly 14 years as a Court of Appeals Judge. He is especially appreciated for his pragmatism, issuing decisions most often informed by their real life consequences, and his firm belief that judges are loyal to the law, not to a political party. Born in San Francisco, both he and brother Judge Charles Breyer attended Lowell High School. Their father served as legal counsel to the San Francisco Board of Education, and their mother focused on public service. Senior United States District Judge Charles Breyer has served on the bench for 25 years. He was an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force from 1973 to 1974, and then entered private practice 1974 to 1997, interrupted by a brief stint as chief assistant district attorney of San Francisco in 1979.  On January 7, 2023, the Breyer brothers appeared on stage at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Judge Vince Chhabria, who served as a law clerk for both Breyers.  This is an encore presentation of a program which originally aired in January 2023.

This week, a conversation between two unconventional artists, director, visual artist and author, John Waters and Aubrey Plaza, actor, comedian and producer. For nearly 50 years, John Waters has been making subversive films that playfully push all sorts of boundaries - movies like “Pink Flamingos”, “Hairspray”, and “Serial Mom”. Actor and comedian Aubrey Plaza cites Waters as a major influence of hers. She's best known for roles in “Parks and Recreation” and the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus”. On May 9, 2023, John Waters and Aubrey Plaza came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for a rapid-fire conversation on a variety of topics -  including Waters’ first novel, “Liar Mouth: A Feel-Bad Romance”.  As any fan of John Waters would expect, the night was as filthy as it was hilarious, so this program may not be suitable to all listeners.

Ocean Vuong was not quite 30 years old when his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, became a major literary sensation. It’s a coming of age story about a queer Vietnamese refugee, set against a backdrop of violence, poverty, and addiction. Much of it parallels Vuong’s own upbringing. Vuong is also the author of the poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and a new collection, Time is a Mother. On June 9th, 2023, Vuong came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San francisco to talk to writer/director Mike Mills, whose films include Beginners, 20th Century Women, and C’mon C’mon. 

Epidemiologist Dr. Monica Gandhi will talk about the lessons learned from COVID-19 and why she thinks new vaccines and public health methods make us well-prepared for future pandemics.  It’s the subject of her new book “Endemic: A Post-Pandemic Playbook”. She’s director at Ward 86, the HIV clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, and a professor at the University of California San Francisco.  Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Gandhi was a leading voice on every aspect of the disease, from its transmission to its treatments.  On July 24, 2023, Gandhi talked to Indre Viskontas at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.

In 2020, Brandon Taylor burst onto the literary scene with Real Life, a novel about a gay black doctoral student and his predominantly white colleagues.  A finalist for the Booker Prize, Real Life offered a comedic take on themes like privilege and prejudice. Taylor followed that with another book about young creatives, the short story collection Filthy Animals. His highly anticipated new novel, The Late Americans, follows a circle of lovers and friends during a volatile year of self-discovery. On June 2, 2023, Brandon Taylor came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Kate Schatz. Schatz is the bestselling author of the “Rad Women” book series, and Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book, co-written with W. Kamau Bell. 

Up-and-coming comedian Jamie Loftus has drawn comparisons to Andy Kaufman and Maria Bamford  for work that’s equal parts absurd and intellectual – from a web series born from an exercise with her therapist, to a podcast about the comic strip character Cathy.  Her new book Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, invites you to “grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.” On May 24, 2023, Jamie Loftus came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with writer, podcaster, and media critic Sarah Marshall – which culminated in a hot dog eating contest.

By the time Javier Zamora was just five years old, both his parents had fled El Salvador to escape a United States-funded Civil War.  Zamora lived with his grandparents until the age of nine. That’s when he migrated to the U.S. In his debut memoir, Solito, Zamora retells the experience of traveling alone as a young child.  The nine-week odyssey took him across Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert – before he was able to reunite with his parents in California. The memoir has resonated deeply with other asylum seekers in this country. And Zamora has gone on to become an activist and acclaimed poet. On May 18th, 2023, Zamora came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Courtney Martin about being an adult, writing a book from his perspective as a child, overcoming trauma, and what it means to be an outsider in the country you call home.

  Our guest is actor and author Tom Hanks. From his breakout role in “Splash,” to his award-winning performances in “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump,” Hanks has mesmerized audiences for nearly four decades.  On May 16, 2023, Tom Hanks came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed by activist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs. Always a storyteller, Hanks shared anecdotes about author Nora Ephron, studying acting at Chabot Community College in Hayward, California and some of his most famous roles. He also talked about the crew members and other people on set who inspired his first novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece.

Nancy Pelosi has represented San Francisco in Congress for more than 35 years. She served as the 52nd Speaker of the House of Representatives, having made history in 2007 when she was elected the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House. Pelosi made history again in January 2019 when she regained her position second-in-line to the presidency – the first person to do so in more than six decades. As Speaker, Pelosi spearheaded passage of the historic Affordable Care Act in the House and led the Congress in passing strong Wall Street reforms. Her legislative accomplishments also include the passage of historic investments in college aid, clean energy and innovation, and initiatives to help small businesses and veterans. On June 19, 2023, Nancy Pelosi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Jelani Cobb, the Dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism and a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015.

Award-winning television host and producer Andy Cohen is best known for Watch What Happens Live, Bravo’s late-night interactive talk show, and as executive producer of the Real Housewives franchise. His new memoir, The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up, details his experience as a glamorous but ultimately human father. Late-night parties are replaced by early mornings, Housewives drama is no match for what happens on the playground, and Cohen finds meaning in the most important job of his life. On May 19, 2023, Andy Cohen came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage interview with Manny Yekutiel.

Stacey Abrams is a political leader, voting rights activist, and bestselling author. She served as Minority Leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, and she was the first Black woman to become gubernatorial nominee for a major party in United States history.  Abrams has launched multiple nonprofit organizations devoted to democracy protection, effective public policy, and voting rights. She was instrumental in driving an enormous number of voter registrations in Georgia and those voters were central to turning Georgia blue in the 2020 presidential election and the Senate races. She’s the author of the non-fiction books Lead from the Outside and Our Time is Now; eight romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery; and the legal thrillers While Justice Sleeps and her new book, Rogue Justice.  On June 3, 2023, Stacey Abrams came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of the popular political podcast, Pod Save America, and a former senior advisor to President Obama.

Abraham Verghese is a best-selling novelist, and a physician whose focus on healing and empathy stands out in an era when technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine. His novel Cutting for Stone is the story of twin brothers in Ethiopia coming of age on the brink of the country’s revolution. That book remained on the NYT Bestsellers List for over two years. His newest novel, The Covenant of Water, tells much of the story of twentieth-century India through a single family. Verghese’s nonfiction books are My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story and The Tennis Partner. Abraham Verghese is Professor and Vice Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the School of Medicine at Stanford University. On May 11, 2023, Abraham Verghese came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Michael Krasny, host of the Grey Matters podcast and former host of the award-winning KQED program Forum. Krasny is the author of Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life, Let There Be Laughter, and Spiritual Envy.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Gene: An Intimate History, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and The Laws of Medicine. Told in six parts and laced with his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and a prolific reader, Mukherjee’s new book The Song of the Cell, tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher.  On November 10, 2022, Mukherjee came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Indre Viskontas, a cognitive neuroscientist who co-hosts the popular science podcast Inquiring Minds. This is an encore broadcast.

Actor Laura Dern has been captivating audiences since her breakout role in Blue Velvet in 1986. Since then, she’s appeared in dozens of films including Jurassic Park, Wild At Heart, Rambling Rose, The Last Jedi, Little Women, and Marriage Story, for which she won an Academy Award. Her television appearances include Enlightened, Twin Peaks: The Return and Big Little Lies. Her new book, Honey, Baby, Mine, co-written with her mother and fellow actor Diane Ladd, is a collection of intimate reflections, photos, family recipes, and other mementos. On May 7, 2023, Laura Dern came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater for an onstage conversation with Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film - starring Laura Dern.

This week, a conversation with theoretical physicist and futurist Dr Michio Kaku. Kaku is a co-founder of string field theory and he's one of today's most recognizable scientists appearing regularly on news programs, documentary films and as host of two weekly radio programs, Exploration and Science Fantastic. In his latest book, Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything, Kaku suggests how powerful computers might eventually solve some of humanity's biggest problems from incurable disease to global warming and world hunger. On May 4th, 2023, Dr Kaku came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Caterina Fake, a serial entrepreneur, investor at Yes VC, and host of the upcoming podcast ingenious. Join us now for a conversation with Dr. Michio Kaku.

Richard Mosse is a photographer and filmmaker who’s documenting some of the world’s most significant environmental and humanitarian crises – and his work lies at the intersection between journalism and conceptual art. For his recent projects, Mosse used military-grade cameras to create detailed images from miles away. It’s a way to humanize his subjects and give new perspective on urgent issues. His new immersive video installation “Broken Specter” is on display at the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, where he came to the studios of KQED on May 2, 2023, to be interviewed by Steven Winn.

The definitive account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the tragic legacy of Timothy McVeigh, leading to the January 6 insurrection, comes from jourrnalist Jeffrey Toobin (The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court,The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson). In Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right Wing Extremism, Toobin has combed nearly a million previously unreleased tapes, photographs, and documents, including detailed communications between McVeigh and his lawyers, as well as interviews with such key figures as Bill Clinton. Jane Mayer talks to Toobin about how McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished, reaching an apotheosis on January 6 when hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol, and how the story can serve as a warning for the future. The last few minutes of this program are an excerpt from a 2017 appearance by actor, filmmaker, and author Tom Hanks, who will appear later this spring to discuss his debut novel. filmmaker, and author Tom Hanks, who will appear later this spring to discuss his debut novel, The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece. 

Poets Clint Smith and Terisa Siagatonu address issues like climate change, while also looking back at American history. Clint Smith is the author of the best-selling narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America and the poetry collection Counting Descent. His latest, Above Ground, traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, particularly Black fatherhood. Terisa Siagatonu is an award-winning poet, teaching artist, mental health educator, and community leader born and rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her writing blends the personal, cultural, and political in a way that calls for healing, courage, justice, and truth. On April 12, 2023, Clint Smith and Terisa Siagatonu came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.  

What is “cheating” in the era of generative AI and cognitive enhancers? What rights do we have against institutional misuse of AI and nanotechnology? These technologies have permeated everything from criminal justice to the future of work – and without proper safeguards, they have the power to wreak havoc on our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination. Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, podcast host, and author Preet Bharara (Doing Justice) talks with futurist and legal ethicist Nita Farahany (The Battle for Your Brain) about these questions, and how we can navigate the complex legal and ethical dilemmas that lie ahead. They also discuss the charges against former President Donald Trump. This program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on April 6, 2023.

Laurel Braitman is the Director of Writing and Storytelling at The Medicine and the Muse Program at Stanford School of Medicine.  There, she helps clinical students, staff, and physicians communicate more clearly and vulnerably – for their own benefit as well as that of their patients. Braitman is also the founder of “Writing Medicine”, a global community of health care professionals. Her new memoir, What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love, examines grief and chronicles a life spent learning how to outfish fishermen, keep bees, and fix cars – all against the backdrop of a parent with terminal illness. On March 31, 2023, Laurel Braitman came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater for an on-stage conversation with her longtime friend Samin Nosrat.  Nosrat’s a cook, teacher, podcaster, and the author of the cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which became a Netflix series.

Atul Gawande is a surgeon and author who’s well-known for his clear and eloquent writing on medicine. He was a staff writer for “The New Yorker” magazine from 1998 until 2022, when President Biden appointed him to lead global health at the ​​US Agency for International Development. Gawande is the author of four best-selling books including “The Checklist Manifesto,” and most recently, “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End”. In that book, Gawande considers what medicine can not overcome - death. Along with the lessons he’s learned treating patients who are facing death, Gawande writes about his own family’s experience as his father’s health declined. Dr. Gawande’s unique perspective on the practice of medicine, especially things not so often discussed, has inspired us to invite him back to our stage numerous times. This conversation - with cognitive neuroscientist Indre Viskontas - is from 2017. It was recorded at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco.

This week, our guest is Jennifer Egan, who writes with nuance on an astounding range of subjects and disciplines. Her novels include The Invisible Circus, Look at Me, and Manhattan Beach, That intellectual breadth also shows up in her journalism, featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere. Her most recent novel, The Candy House, is a sort of sibling to the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad, featuring some of that book’s most beloved characters.  It’s set in a near-future in which a technology allows you to access any memory you’ve ever had. From first person plural, to third person, to a chapter written in tweets, The Candy House demonstrates why Egan is one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in recent years.  On March 16, 2023, Jennifer Egan came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Steven Winn.

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His many acclaimed titles include How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire. In his recent essay collection, This is Your Mind on Plants, Pollan takes a deep dive into three psychoactive plants: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. Pollan co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The center combines research, training, and public education to explore the psychological and biological effects of psychedelics on cognition, perception and emotion. Pollan was interviewed on stage at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on July 26, 2022, by Lauren Schiller. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book It’s a Good Day to Change the World, and the creator and host of Inflection Point, an award-winning podcast and public radio show about how women rise up, build power and lead change.

Tsitsi Dangarembga is a novelist, playwright, activist, and filmmaker. She is the author of the Tambudzai Trilogy, which traces the life of a rural girl from her childhood in colonial Zimbabwe to her adulthood in a country repressed by political elites. The first novel in the series, Nervous Conditions, was “hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature”.  On February 28, 2023, Tsitsi Dangarembga came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to read from her new essay collection, Black and Female, and to talk with the legendary Black activist Angela Davis.

This week, we’ll dive into the curious world of criminals and crooks with journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and author of the bestsellers Empire of Pain: The Secret of the Sackler Dynasty and Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.  Keefe is also the writer and host of Wind of Change, an 8-part podcast which investigates the strange convergence of espionage and heavy metal music during the Cold War. On February 21, 2023, Patrick Radden Keefe came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with KQED’s Mina Kim about his latest book, Rogues: True Stories of Grifters Killers Rebels and Crooks, and the reporting process that has made him one of today’s most respected long-form journalists.

This week, our guest is poet Natalie Diaz in conversation with essayist and author Hilton Als.  Natalie Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community and is the director of the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program, where she works with the last remaining speakers of the Mojave language. Language and loss are explored throughout Diaz’s poetry, in collections including When My Brother Was an Aztec and Postcolonial Love Poem, which won her the Pulitzer Prize. Hilton Als is another writer whose work explores American identity, in theater reviews, articles, and essays for The New Yorker, where he’s contributed since 1989. Als received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, “for bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context.”  His writing explores race, sexuality, class, art, and American identity provocatively, exploding the boundaries of the genre in which it is contained.  His most recent book is a memoir, My Pinup. On February 9, 2023, Natalie Diaz and Hilton Als came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation, during which Diaz read from her work.

In a cultural landscape filled with endless pundits and talking heads, Fran Lebowitz stands out as one of our most insightful social commentators. Her essays and interviews offer her acerbic views on current events and the media – as well as pet peeves including tourists, baggage-claim areas, after-shave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. All of this (and more) is captured in the beloved Netflix series Pretend It’s a City, directed by Martin Scorsese. The New York Times Book Review calls Lebowitz an “important humorist in the classic tradition.” Purveyor of urban cool, Lebowitz is a cultural satirist whom many call the heir to Dorothy Parker. On February 1, 2023, Fran Lebowitz appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco in conversation with Manny Yekutiel and the audience.

This week, we have two in-studio conversations. First, Jeremy A. Greene, a doctor and professor at Johns Hopkins University, talks with Hannah Zeavin about his book “The Doctor Who Wasn’t There”. It traces the history and pitfalls of technology in health and medicine – specifically electronic media.  That includes electronic health care records, which can make medical care more efficient and less expensive – but can also lead to mixups and dangerous errors. This program was recorded on October 21, 2022 at the studios of WYPR in Baltimore. In the second half of the program, travel writer, novelist, and essayist Pico Iyer - whose work is contemplative, quiet, and always uplifting. Iyer often writes about – and from – different parts of the world, including Nara, Japan, where he lives most of the year.  In his new book, “The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise”, he explores ideas of utopia, and considers how to find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering.  On January 19, 2023, Pico Iyer talked to Isabel Duffy at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.

Songwriter, performer, and multi-instrumentalist Thao Nguyen is celebrated for her richly percussive music and her fiercely delivered vocals. She has released five albums with the band Thao & The Get Down Stay Down including the most recent, Temple, a powerful exploration of Nguyen’s identity as a queer person and the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Her collaborations with Joanna Newsom, Andrew Bird and many others have earned her an esteemed place in the indie rock world. In 2019, Nguyen assumed the role of host for the popular podcast Song Exploder. Samin Nosrat is a cook, teacher, and author of the James Beard Award-winning cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. She is an Eat columnist at The New York Times Magazine and the host and executive producer of the Netflix original documentary series based on her book. Nosrat learned to cook at Chez Panisse, alongside Benedetta Vitali and Dario Cecchini in Italy, and at the former restaurant Eccolo in Berkeley. As an undergrad at UC Berkeley, Nosrat studied poetry with Bob Hass, Shakespeare with Stephen Booth, and journalism with Michael Pollan. She currently hosts a popular podcast Home Cooking, alongside musician Hrishikesh Hirway. On January 20, 2023, Samin Nosrat and Thao Nguyen had an onstage conversation at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco about their work, their experiences as children of immigrants, and dealing with unexpected fame. Thao Nguyen also performed two songs.

This week – Jeff Chang talks to Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of today’s foremost investigative journalists.  Her reporting on civil rights and racial justice, including school segregation, has earned her numerous awards, chief among them a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the 1619 Project.  It’s an ongoing initiative from the New York Times that reframes the way we understand America’s history by examining the modern legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans.  This month, an adaptation for video premieres on Hulu. On November 29, 2021, Nikole Hannah-Jones came to San Francisco to celebrate the release of the book version of the 1619 Project.  Joining her was one of the book’s contributors, Barry Jenkins, the Academy-Award-winning director of Moonlight, and most recently, a television adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad”.  But before the two sat down to talk to Jeff Chang, Forrest Hamer read his poem “Race Riot”.

This week, a conversation with two brothers, both distinguished members of the federal judiciary, Justice Stephen Breyer and his brother, Judge Charles Breyer. Stephen Breyer retired in summer 2022 after nearly 28 years as a member of the Supreme Court. Prior to that, he served nearly 14 years as a Court of Appeals Judge. He is especially appreciated for his pragmatism, issuing decisions most often informed by their real life consequences, and his firm belief that judges are loyal to the law, not to a political party. Born in San Francisco, both he and brother Judge Charles Breyer attended Lowell High School. Their father served as legal counsel to the San Francisco Board of Education, and their mother focused on public service. Senior United States District Judge Charles Breyer has served on the bench for 25 years. He was an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force from 1973 to 1974, and then entered private practice 1974 to 1997, interrupted by a brief stint as chief assistant district attorney of San Francisco in 1979.  On January 7, 2023, the Breyer brothers appeared on stage at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Judge Vince Chhabria, who served as a law clerk for both Breyers.

Rachel Kushner is the author of novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. Her career-spanning book of essays The Hard Crowd, solidified her place of authority amongst today’s writers, covering everything from a Palestinian refugee camp to her young life in the San Francisco music scene. Kushner has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. Ottessa Moshfegh is a stand-out in contemporary literature. With worlds and minds that manage to be both dark and intricate, as well as elegant and neurotic, her writing trails a unique and poignant thread of what it means to live in the now. She is the author of the novels My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Eileen, the novella McGlue, the short story collection Homesick for Another World, and she has three film adaptations in the works. Her newest book, Lapvona, is a medieval fantasy set in a fictional village struggling with the sordid aftermath of a plague; “part Dostoevsky, part Poe, and entirely her own” (The Millions), the book showcases Moshfegh at seemingly her darkest.

This week, our guest is Richard Powers. He’s the author of thirteen novels on everything from neuroscience, to artificial intelligence to the environment. His book, “The Overstory” earned him a Pulitzer prize in fiction. The Financial Times called it “A Great American Eco-Novel.” His latest book is called “Bewilderment”, and it also deals with environmental catastrophe. It’s the story of a widowed father and his son, and their journey into the wilderness. On April twenty-fifth, 2022, Richard Powers came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to neuroscientist Indre Viskontas. Mutual admirers, the two had much to discuss, from the cognitive basis of creativity to our relationship with the natural and digital worlds.

Our guest is Jeremy Denk, one of America’s foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has recently appeared with ensembles including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to phenomenal technique, Denk brings a deep knowledge of music history and composition to his performances – and to his writings on music, including his memoir, “Every Good Boy Does Fine”.  On February 15, 2022, Jeremy Denk talked with Steven Winn about his love of classical music – and performed parts of Bach’s Fugue in B minor from “The Well-Tempered Clavier” – in a conversation recorded in the San Francisco home of music legend Linda Ronstadt.

Kim Stanley Robinson is widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. In The Ministry for the Future, Robinson imagines a near-future where climate change has wreaked havoc, from severe heat waves, to flooding, limited resources, and a global refugee crisis. It’s a terrifying set of circumstances, but it’s not without hope —Robinson brings to life a possible path for survival. Robinson has also published a memoir, The High Sierra: A Love Story, a “sublime” and “radically original” exploration of the Sierra Nevadas. On Wednesday, December 7, Kim Stanley Robinson came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage bu designer and science fiction fan Eric Rodenbeck.

Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist who gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released numerous albums and books including her seminal record Horses, hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time; Just Kids, a beautifully crafted love letter to her lifelong friend, the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; and M Train, a collection of essays about memory, loss, and the simple pleasures of everyday life. Her new book, A Book of Days, is an intimate view into Smith’s life, particularly as it played out during the pandemic, and it features over 365 of her own photographs. The brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book features a year’s worth of images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram. Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.  On November 28, 2022, Patti Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with novelist Michael Chabon.

 Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is a popular professor at UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and the author of eighteen books, including the bestsellers The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, The Common Good, Saving Capitalism, Aftershock, Supercapitalism, and The Work of Nations, which has been translated into twenty-two languages. He is co-creator of the 2017 Netflix original documentary Saving Capitalism and of the award-winning 2013 film Inequality for All. Now, with the nonprofit he co-founded called Inequality Media, Reich is using digital media and storytelling to explain complex political and economic issues to a younger audience.  On November 16, 2022, Robert Reich came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse.

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is the preeminent authority on the culinary culture of the African Diaspora.  Harris has spent over three decades studying African food and its migration.  To understand the rich and complex flavors of African American cuisine requires looking at the culinary cultures of the African continent and the slave trade that brought Africans to America. Harris is the author of twelve critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking and The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking. Her most recent book is My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir. Netflix has just made a series based on Harris’s seminal book “High on the Hog”. On May 13, 2021, Harris spoke with chef and author Samin Nosrat, whose book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” was also made into a Netflix series.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Gene: An Intimate History, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and The Laws of Medicine. Told in six parts and laced with his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and a prolific reader, Mukherjee’s new book The Song of the Cell, tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Mukherjee is an associate professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher.  On November 10, 2022, Mukherjee came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Indre Viskontas, a cognitive neuroscientist who co-hosts the popular science podcast Inquiring Minds. 

Jemele Hill is the Emmy Award–winning former cohost of ESPN’s SportsCenter and 2018 NABJ Journalist of the Year. Hill is a contributing writer for the Atlantic, where she covers the intersection of sports, race, politics, and culture. She is also the producer of a Disney/ESPN documentary with Colin Kaepernick. She grew up in Detroit, graduated from Michigan State University, and now lives in Los Angeles. In her new unapologetic, character-rich, and eloquent memoir Uphill, Hill shares the story of her work, the women of her family, and her complicated relationship with God. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, How to Be an Antiracist, and Antiracist Baby. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor and host of the new action podcast Be Antiracist. On November 3, 2022, Hill and Kendi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation.

Anand Giridharadas is the author of the international bestseller Winners Take All, The True American, and India Calling. His new book The Persuaders offers an insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy–from disinformation fighters to a leader of Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more. A former foreign correspondent and columnist for The New York Times for more than a decade, he has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Time, and is the publisher of the newsletter The.Ink. He is an on-air political analyst for MSNBC. Anand Giridharadas lives in Brooklyn, New York. On October 25, 2022, Anand Giridharadas came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Alexis Madrigal, co-host of KQED’s Forum and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. 

Actor and activist Jane Fonda has redefined herself again and again.  Born into Hollywood royalty, she’s been an acclaimed actor, an anti-war activist, a fitness guru, and in her seventies and eighties, a comedic partner to actor Lily Tomlin in the Netflix series “Frankie and Grace”.  Now, at 84, she says she’s never been happier, and we’ll hear why.  In early 2022, she founded the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, endorsing climate champions at all levels of government.  On October 24, 2022, Jane Fonda spoke to Steven Winn about the liberating effects of aligning her values and her film work.

As new information emerges about the impacts of social media and screens on young people, so do new strategies to guide and protect teens. Our guests, Harvard University researchers Emily Weinstein and Carrie James, set out to try and understand more about this complex and complicated issue. Their years of research included interviews with over 3500 teens. And much of what they found - from the teens’ own fears and concerns, to the unique ways in which they use technology, is surprising. On October twelfth, 2022 Emily Weinstein and Carrie James talked to Lauren Schiller at KQED studios in San Francisco about their new book “Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (and Adults are Missing).”

This week, a conversation with artist George McCalman. His new book, “An Illustrated Black History”, features 145 Black artists, scientists, and public intellectuals whose enormous contributions to US history are in stark contrast with their frequent absence from the public eye. McCalman envisioned the book as a sort of bible - a compendium that’s accessible to all ages, and with vibrant art that draws the reader in. George McCalman is an artist and creative director based in San Francisco. His studio, McCalman.Co, designs brands for a range of clientele. Additionally, he’s a visual columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, featured in the “Observed” and “First Person” columns. On October 14th, 2022, George McCalman came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with journalist Carvell Wallace. Wallace is a New York Times Bestselling author, memoirist, and award-winning podcaster who covers race, arts, culture, film and music for a wide variety of news outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, GQ, and more. He lives in Oakland and lectures in the Narrative Department at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism.

A native of Oakland, California, Leila Mottley uses her writing as a tool to call for social justice reform and advocate for victims of sexual violence. Her acclaimed poetry has appeared in Oprah Daily and The New York Times, and her incandescent debut novel Nightcrawling was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her 2022 Book Club, making Mottley - who is 20 - the club’s youngest author ever. Inspired by true stories of the exploitation of young women by police departments in the United States, including a 2015 case in Oakland and its subsequent cover-up, the book has earned widespread acclaim. “Leila Mottley’s writing erupts and flows like lava,” writes Tommy Orange, “makes hot bright an Oakland that runs the city’s uncontrollable brilliance… Nightcrawling bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole.” On October 6, 2022, Leila Mottley came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Michelle Lee. The program was a co-presentation with Youth Speaks.

For the millions of Americans asking “What can I do?” to dismantle white supremacy comes an answer: Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book. The revolutionary antiracism workbook by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz addresses institutional racism in the United States, giving readers a hands-on understanding of systemic racism, white privilege, and Black disenfranchisement–and what to do about it all. Kamau Bell is a dad, a husband, and a comedian. He directed and executive produced the 2022 Showtime documentary We Need To Talk About Cosby, and he is the host of the Emmy-Award-winning CNN docu-series United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell. Bell has appeared on just about every late night comedy show, daytime news program, and broadcast media outlet you can think of, and his writing has been featured widely, including in his memoir and manifesto The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6′ 4″, African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian. He has two stand-up comedy specials, Private School Negro and Semi-Prominent Negro. Kate Schatz is the New York Times bestselling author of the “Rad Women” book series. She is the co-founder of Solidarity Sundays, a political action network that hosts monthly “activist house parties” in dozens of cities nationwide aimed at showing women how to take meaningful, coordinated political action. After the 2016 election, the group grew from one chapter with fifty members to over 200 chapters with more than 20,000 members. An educator for more than fifteen years, Schatz has worked with a wide range of age groups teaching Women’s Studies, creative writing, and journalism. On September 24, 2022, the two came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with podcaster and author Anna Sale.

Andrew Sean Greer’s novels include The Story of a Marriage, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, and a satire of the literary world, Less - which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018.  Now, he’s out with the followup, Less is Lost, which catches up with the lovable Arthur Less as he and his pug travel across the country in a rusty camper van on a literary tour. Greer is the winner of the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and his work has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and many more. On September 20, 2022, Andrew Sean Greer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Adam Savage, the host and executive producer of MythBusters Jr. as well as Savage Builds on the Science Channel. The program begins with an excerpt from the audiobook of Less is Lost.

Andy Borowitz is an award-winning comedian and New York Times bestselling author. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Harvard College, where he became President of the Harvard Lampoon. In 1998, he began contributing humor to The New Yorker‘s “Shouts and Murmurs” and “Talk of the Town” departments, and in 2001, he created “The Borowitz Report,” a satirical news column, which has millions of readers around the world. In 2012, The New Yorker began publishing “The Borowitz Report.” As a storyteller, he hosted “Stories at the Moth” from 1999 to 2009. As a comedian, he has played to sold-out venues around the world, including during his national tour, “Make America Not Embarrassing Again,” from 2018 to 2020. His new book, Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, received a starred review from Kirkus, which called it “devastatingly funny.” He is the first-ever winner of the National Press Club’s humor award. He lives with his family in New Hampshire. On September 17, 2022, Andy Borowitz came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by KQED politics and government correspondent Marisa Lagos. The program also includes a dramatic reading by actress Vivien Straus of Dan Quayle quotations compiled by Borowitz.

Angela Garbes’s first book, Like a Mother, looked at the science, myths, and inequities surrounding pregnancy and motherhood. Her latest book, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change, continues to examine obstacles and injustices faced by parents and other caregivers. In this book, Garbes also looks at her own family’s history as members of the Filipino American community, many of whom are tasked with the least desirable caregiving duties.  On September 9, 2022, Garbes spoke with Shereen Marisol Meraji, award-winning journalist, professor at UC Berkeley, and founding co-host and senior producer emerita of Code Switch, NPR’s podcast about race and identity in America. 

Dave Eggers is the author of many books, including Zeitoun, What Is the What, and You Shall Know Our Velocity. In 2000, Eggers made his enormously popular literary debut with his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. His latest book, The Every, is a follow-up to his 2013 dystopian novel, The Circle. It follows protagonist Delaney Wells as she tries to take down a dangerous monopoly from the inside. Eggers is founder and editor of McSweeney’s and co-founder of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth started in San Francisco’s Mission District in 2002 now with branches in over seven cities nationwide. This program was originally recorded in October of 2021.

Mary Roach is the author of the books Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Gulp, Grunt, and Packing for Mars, all of which bring her distinctly funny voice to popular science subjects. Her new book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, combines little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, trespassing squirrels, and more of “nature’s lawbreakers,” offering hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat. Roach has written for National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine. Malia Wollan is director of the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She co-founded the fellowship in 2013 with Michael Pollan. Wollan is also a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine where she writes the weekly Tip column. This program was recorded live at the Sydney Goldstein Theater on September 29, 2021.

This week, a story of transformation with Los Angeles chef and restaurateur Keith Corbin. Corbin grew up in Watts, his early years entangled in drugs and gangs. After serving time in one of California’s most notorious maximum security prisons, Corbin experienced the employment challenges all too common for the formerly incarcerated. A model employee at one of his jobs, Corbin was promoted to a manager, only to be fired simply for having a criminal record.  Then he encountered a restaurant startup in his neighborhood that wasn’t concerned with its employees’ pasts - Locol, the joint venture by Daniel Patterson and Roy Choi, that aimed to bring a quality alternative to fast food to underserved neighborhoods. Corbin became a chef and kitchen manager for Locol in Watts and Oakland, and although the restaurant ultimately closed, Corbin says it was not a failure - it put him and many others on the path to success. Now a chef and co-owner of one of America’s best restaurants, Corbin’s paying it forward to others. Keith Corbin’s new book “California Soul” tells the story of his uneven journey.  On August 10, 2022, Corbin talked to KQED’s Brian Watt.

This week, we’re going into the City Arts and Lectures archives for highlights from the many times Salman Rushdie has come to San Francisco.  Rushdie is the author of fifteen novels, including Victory City, which is expected to be published in early 2023, as well as non-fiction works and short stories. Of course, he’s much in our thoughts these days after being attacked on August 12th, 2022, minutes before he was to appear onstage in New York. In the first half of this program, we’ll hear part of Rushdie’s most recent visit to City Arts and Lectures in 2017 where he talked with fellow author Michael Chabon.  In the second half, we’ll hear excerpts from conversations recorded in 2008, 2010, and 2015 Rushdie had with his most frequent partner on our stage, KQED’s Michael Krasny.   Rushdie talks about his writing and the creative process – as well as becoming an unwilling “celebrity fugitive” and spokesman for free speech after the publication of The Satanic Verses.  In these wide-ranging, funny, and thoughtful conversations, he also touches on The Marx Brothers, Kurt Vonnegut, Bollywood, the Wizard of Oz, baseball, and his chance encounters with Donald Trump.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of five novels, including The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West. All display Hamid’s lyrical prose, his acute understanding of some of the most dire conflicts faced by our modern world, and his belief in the immense and near-magical power of fiction. In his newest novel The Last White Man, Hamid writes about racial metamorphosis. On August 2, 2022, Mohsin Hamid came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Alexis Madrigal, co-host of KQED’s Forum and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. 

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His many acclaimed titles include How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire. In his recent essay collection, This is Your Mind on Plants, Pollan takes a deep dive into three psychoactive plants: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. Pollan co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The center combines research, training, and public education to explore the psychological and biological effects of psychedelics on cognition, perception and emotion. Pollan was interviewed on stage at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on July 26, 2022, by Lauren Schiller. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book It’s a Good Day to Change the World, and the creator and host of Inflection Point, an award-winning podcast and public radio show about how women rise up, build power and lead change.

This week, we look at the connection between the state of our bodies and the state of the planet, with physician Rupa Marya and journalist Raj Patel, Their new book Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, draws on Dr. Marya’s work as a physician, as well as scientific research and scholarship on the social and environmental causes of poor health. On July 21, 2022, the two spoke to author Anna Lappé about how we ought to be re-thinking medicine, and the links between illnesses that reside inside our bodies and the injustices that exist in society at large.

An encore of a two-part miniseries from 2020, in which past City Arts & Lectures guests talk across, among, and around one another. In the second half of Crosstalk, our guests discuss genre. What is a novel? What is autofiction? What is poetry, a fable, creative nonfiction, a short story? Does perfect writing exist? Then, some of our writers speak to cancel culture – the contentious concept of striking from the cultural ledger figures who have villainous personal histories, whose actions are deemed too abhorrent to allow us to continue consuming their work. Finally, these artists celebrate the other artists they are engaging with, and sharing community among. Meg Wolitzer, Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Ben Lerner, Marlon James, Rebecca Solnit, Sally Rooney, Rachel Cusk, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and more defend, dismiss, and celebrate.

An encore presentation from 2020: Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from recent years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is produced by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo.

A conversation on the science of sleep and how we can improve it for better health with Dr. Matt Walker. Walker is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science whose research examines the impact of sleep on human health and disease. He is the author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreaming and over 100 scientific research studies on everything from sleep’s effects on memory, diet and motor skills to the consequences of sleep deprivation. Indre Viskontas is a cognitive neuroscientist with the University of California, San Francisco and a faculty member at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity, and co-hosts the popular science podcast Inquiring Minds. This program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on June 10, 2022.

In The Ministry for the Future, science fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a near-future where climate change has wreaked havoc, from severe heat waves, to flooding, limited resources, and a global refugee crisis. It’s a terrifying set of circumstances. But it’s not without hope - and Robinson brings to life a possible path for survival.  Robinson has also published a memoir, The High Sierra: A Love Story. On June 7, 2022, Kim Stanley Robinson talked with his friend, author and environmental activist, Bill McKibben, about his work, the challenges facing environmentalists, and how older people can play an important role. This program also includes an excerpt from the audiobook of The High Sierra read by the author, courtesy Hachette Books.

This week, a conversation with one of today’s most beloved and historically imaginative authors: Amor Towles. Towles earned wide critical acclaim and a loyal international audience with his 2016 novel, A Gentleman in Moscow. His new book, The Lincoln Highway, follows four boys on an exhilarating ten-day trip across America, from the farmlands of Nebraska to the bustling streets of New York City. On June 7, 2022, Amor Towles came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Steven Winn. 

Our guest is writer, scholar, and activist Angela Davis. For more than 5 decades, Davis has been fighting for Black liberation, equal rights for women, queer and transgender people. Davis first received national attention in 1969, after being removed from her teaching position at UCLA for her social activism and membership to the Communist Party. In 1970, she was placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List” on false charges, which culminated in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history. A massive international “Free Angela Davis” campaign was organized, leading to her acquittal in 1972. Davis is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to dismantling the prison-industrial complex, and the author of books including Freedom is a Constant Struggle and Women, Race & Class. On May 24, 2022, Angela Davis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to choreographer and activist Alonzo King.

This week, we’ll listen to a conversation with David Mitchell and Pico Iyer, recorded on May 8, 2021. David Mitchell’s many novels include Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and Ghostwritten. . His most recent novel, Utopia Avenue, follows the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Mitchell’s stories often weave together the supernatural and the philosophical.  He’s also one of the most structurally inventive writers of our time, featuring nonlinear storylines and multiple genres within a single book. Pico Iyer is a travel writer, essayist, and novelist, whose many books include Video Night in Kathmandu and The Lady and the Monk.

This week,  journalist Michael Lewis is in conversation with his fellow writer and friend Dave Eggers. Michael Lewis is the author of books including Moneyball and The Big Short, and most recently The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. It’s a nonfiction thriller filled with the unforgettable characters that Lewis is known for. His knack for storytelling is also what makes his podcast Against the Rules so captivating.  It’s about the state of “fairness” in American life – and each episode tackles the issue through the lens of people who depend on public trust - from sports referees to health care providers. On May 19, 2022, Michael Lewis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Dave Eggers about season three of the podcast, and share stories of his own life too.  

Neil Gaiman has been called one of the modern masters of fantasy writing, but his work includes other genres too, from novels like American Gods and Neverwhere, to song lyrics, and poetry. His groundbreaking series The Sandman was the first comic ever to receive a literary award. It’s now being adapted into a show on Netflix. Coraline, his dark fantasy for children, was made into a movie too. In this bonus podcast taken from his appearance at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on May 3, 2022 , Gaiman reads his story “Chivalry”, which he published in 1998 as part of the collection “Smoke and Mirrors”. It’s the story of an elderly woman who finds the Holy Grail in a thrift shop. .

This week, our guest is Neil Gaiman. He’s been called one of the modern masters of fantasy writing, but his work includes other genres too, from novels like American Gods and Neverwhere, to song lyrics, and poetry. His groundbreaking series The Sandman was the first comic ever to receive a literary award. It’s now being adapted into a show on Netflix. Coraline, his dark fantasy for children, was made into a movie too. On May 3, 2022, Neil Gaiman appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to read and take questions from fans.

This week, our guest is Richard Powers. He’s the author of thirteen novels on everything from neuroscience, to artificial intelligence to the environment. His book, “The Overstory” earned him a Pulitzer prize in fiction. The Financial Times called it “A Great American Eco-Novel.” His latest book is called “Bewilderment”, and it also deals with environmental catastrophe. It’s the story of a widowed father and his son, and their journey into the wilderness.  On April twenty-fifth, 2022, Richard Powers came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to neuroscientist Indre Viskontas. Mutual admirers, the two had much to discuss, from the cognitive basis of creativity to our relationship with the natural and digital worlds.

This week, a conversation between two accomplished multi-disciplinary minds - writer Jennifer Egan and computer scientist and artist Jaron Lanier. Egan won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel A Visit from The Goon Squad. Now, a decade later, she’s written a sort of sibling to that book. It’s called The Candy House and it imagines a technology that allows people to access every memory they’ve ever had, and give away those recollections in exchange for access to the memories of other people. Technology’s dystopian potential is something scientist Jaron Lanier has given a lot of thought to… Lanier is a composer, artist, and a pioneer in the field of virtual reality. He’s both developed new technologies, as well as taken a critical approach to them – particularly in his research into their social impacts and political ramifications. Lanier’s books include You Are not A Gadget, and Who Owns the Future. On April 18, 2022, Jaron Lanier and Jennifer Egan sat down to talk to one another about the relationship between fiction and consciousness, and technology’s impacts - both good and bad.

Musician, actor, and fashion icon Janelle Monáe has long been creating sci-fi worlds through her albums and performances. With her new short story collection The Memory Librarian, Monáe, along with a team of collaborators, expands on the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, Dirty Computer.  Dirty Computer introduced us to a world where people’s memories—a key to self-expression and self-understanding—could be controlled or erased by an increasingly powerful few. And whether human, A.I., or something in-between, citizen’s lives and sentience were dictated by those of the New Dawn, who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide fate—that was, until Jane 57821 remembered and broke free. On April 24, 2022, Monáe came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to appear in conversation with one of the Memory Librarian collaborators, short story writer Yohanca Delgado, and George M. Johnson, whose memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue, has been banned in a recent wave of censorship of books dealing with themes like race and gender identity.

This week, our guest is Krista Tippett, host of the On Being podcast. Tippett started the program in 2003.  It features conversations about faith, ethics and moral wisdom. Tippett often begins her interviews by asking guests what their relationship to faith was like growing up. It’s a prompt that grounds them in memory before Tippett takes the conversation into an expansive examination of their views on everything from their work, to how they see the world and what wisdom they can impart. On April 23, 2022, Tippett came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Pico Iyer, another uncommonly thoughtful host. Iyer is the author of numerous books, including one on his friend, the Dalai Lama, and The Art of Stillness, a beautiful investigation of the benefits of quiet contemplation and travel to “nowhere.

Lauren Groff is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the author of four novels and two collections of short stories.  The relatively young author gathered major attention for her novel Fates and Furies – from literary awards to a nod from President Barack Obama.  Her newest novel, Matrix, imagines the life of Marie du France, a medieval writer who became France’s first woman poet. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere, and she was named one of Granta’s 2017 Best Young American Novelists. On April 12, 2022, Lauren Groff came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about Matrix with Isabel Duffy.  The two also discussed the utterly unique way in which Groff writes her novels.  After copious research, she writes a complete first draft, tosses that away without reviewing it, writes a new draft, and repeats the process again. With Matrix, she went through eight full drafts before arriving at the final version.

Rachel Cusk is a writer of considerable range and depth, and her most recent works, dubbed the Outline Trilogy, embody a new and distinctive style. The novels take the form of a succession of monologues delivered not by the protagonist, but by the people she encounters.  Little is revealed about a central character who serves principally as a conduit for others.  The themes and questions that arise from those stories are weighty – as is Cusk’s choice to subvert traditional positions and form.  On April 8, 2019, Rachel Cusk came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Steven Winn about her unconventional work and its reception. 

This week, our guest is author and academic Azar Nafisi. Her books include Reading Lolita in Tehran and Things I’ve Been Silent About. Nafisi was born in Iran, and first came to the United States to study in the 1970s. After earning her Ph.D., she returned to her home country to teach at the University of Tehran, where in 1981, she was expelled for refusing to wear the mandatory Islamic veil. Nafisi went back to teaching six years later, with a series of lectures that examined the role of Western literature and culture in Iran after the 1979 revolution. She returned to the United States in 1997 to advocate on behalf of Iran’s intellectuals, youth, and especially young women. Her new book Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times examines some of the most probing questions of our time through the works of Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin, and more. On March 31, 2022, Azar Nafisi talked to Steven Winn at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.

This week, we’re listening back to a conversation on creativity from 2018 with two artists whose work span multiple genres. Boots Riley is the leader of the radical funk/hip-hop band “The Coup,” and the director of the 2018 film “Sorry to Bother You.” Ahmir Khalib Thompson, better known as Questlove, is the drummer and joint frontman for The Roots, author of several books, and as of March 27, 2022 - an Academy Award-winning director. His debut film documentary Summer of Soul is about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It features performances by music legends like Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, and others. On April twenty-first, 2018, Questlove and Boots Riley came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to host Carvell Wallace.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was elected to office in 2020 after a campaign focused on improving public safety and reforming the criminal justice system.  Kimberly M. Foxx is the first African American woman to lead the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office –the second largest prosecutor’s office in the country– with a vision for transforming the office into a fairer, more forward-thinking agency focused on rebuilding the public trust, promoting transparency, and being proactive in making all communities safe. On March 22, 2022, the two spoke with Lara Bazelon about what it looks like to be a progressive prosecutor. They addressed data about crime rates, the misleading notion that progressives aren’t interested in convicting criminals, tensions between prosecutors and the police force, and formative childhood experiences that led each of them to work in criminal justice reform.

We’re celebrating the life of the late Madeleine Albright this week with an encore of her 2008 City Arts & Lectures appearance..  Madeleine Albright was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1937. She and her family were refugees who fled Nazi invaders, eventually emigrating to the US in 1948. Albright went on to earn 8 academic degrees, including both a master’s and doctorate from Columbia University.  Her tenacity and flair for foreign policy led Bill Clinton to appoint her as the first female Secretary of State. During her tenure, Albright concentrated on a bipartisan approach to foreign policy, which made her remarkably popular both at home and abroad. Albright died on March 23, 2022, at the age of 84. On October 13, 2008, Madeleine Albright came to the Herbst Theater in San Francisco to be interviewed on stage by Roy Eisenhardt.  She had just published “Memo to the President-Elect”.

Journalist Jacob Ward of NBC News talks about our growing reliance on artificial intelligence.  His new book is “The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices, and How to Fight Back”.  He draws on interviews with over 100 scientists, as well as his own reporting on behavior shaping technology.  It’s both an investigation into the negative effects of artificial intelligence and a plan for combating them.  On March 15, 2022, Jacob Ward talked with Lauren Schiller, host of the radio show and podcast “Inflection Point”.

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and was one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He is co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and a founding teacher of the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. Over the past 40 years, Kornfield has taught around the world, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings with the Dalai Lama, and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. His many books include The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, A Path with Heart, and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. Loved for her ability to write eloquently, gracefully, and often hilariously about complicated subjects, Anne Lamott has written on subjects ranging from alcoholism and single parenting to religion and writer’s block. She is the author of seven novels including Hard Laughter, Rosie, and Crooked Little Heart, as well as four bestselling books of nonfiction: Operating Instructions, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life,Traveling Mercies, and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. Her latest book, Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage serves as an inspiring guide to restoring hope and joy in our lives. On February 15, 2022, the two friends talked about navigating uncertain times – what Lamott calls the “COVID College” - and finding compassion for others, even those who hurt us.

Our guest is Jeremy Denk, one of America’s foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has recently appeared with ensembles including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to phenomenal technique, Denk brings a deep knowledge of music history and composition to his performances – and to his writings on music, including his memoir, “Every Good Boy Does Fine”.  On February 15, 2022, Jeremy Denk talked with Steven Winn about his love of classical music – and performed parts of Bach’s Fugue in B minor from “The Well-Tempered Clavier” – in a conversation recorded in the San Francisco home of music legend Linda Ronstadt.

This week, we’re celebrating the life of Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist who dedicated his life to caring for the world’s poorest people.  Farmer believed that addressing the social roots of illness was as important as treating its symptoms; so, in addition to direct care, he undertook advocacy work that significantly influenced public health approaches to diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, and Ebola. On May 23, 2013, Farmer spoke to Adam Hochschild about his nonprofit, Partners in Health; the aftermath of the 2010 Haitian earthquake; and how his Catholic upbringing informed his work.  Paul Farmer died on February 21, 2022, at the age of 62, while working in Rwanda.

In January of 2022, after more than three decades on the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer announced that he’ll retire at the end of the current term, once his successor has been confirmed. Born in San Francisco, Breyer received a BA in philosophy from Stanford, attended Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and earned his law degree from Harvard University. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1994 by President Clinton. Breyer is known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, urging judges to consider both the purpose of statutory and constitutional text, as well as the potential consequences of specific rulings when deciding cases.  His optimistic viewpoint, well-articulated in his books, describes judges as essential in building “productive working relationships with other institutions,” especially Congress and the Executive branches. His latest book, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics (2021), is a reflection on the authority of the Supreme Court—both how that authority was gained, and how measures to restructure it could undermine the Court itself as well as the constitutional system of checks and balances that depends on it. Stephen Breyer has been a guest on City Arts & Lectures several times.  In this conversation, recorded on September 25, 2015, he talked with Marcia Coyle about his recently published book “The Court and the World”. Coyle is a lawyer, journalist, and the Chief Washington Correspondent for The National Law Journal, covering the U.S. Supreme Court and national legal issues.

Wajahat Ali is a playwright and lawyer who writes and speaks on race, religion, politics, and social justice with insight and humor. He is the author of The Domestic Crusaders, the first major play about Muslim Americans post-9/11. In his new memoir, Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American, Ali shares stories, both hilarious and poignant, of his experience growing up a Muslim Pakistani-American in an effort to inspire a new vision of America’s multicultural identity.  Ali served as a national correspondent for Al Jazeera America, where he told stories of communities and individuals often marginalized or under-reported in mainstream media. His writing also appears regularly in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. On February 1, 2022, Wajahat Ali talked to Dave Eggers, the author of many books, including Zeitoun, What Is the What, You Shall Know Our Velocity, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. 

Tongo Eisen-Martin is the current poet laureate of San Francisco. He is the author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes, published as part of City Lights’ Pocket Poet series, and someone’s dead already. Eisen-Martin is also an educator and organizer whose work centers on issues of mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of Black people, and human rights. He has taught at detention centers around the country and at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, and is the founder of Black Freighter Press. His most recent collection, Blood on the Fog, further explores themes of love and loss, family and faith, refracted through the lens of the Black experience.  On December 15, 2021, he came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with journalist and music critic Jeff Chang.

Billy Collins is one of the most popular contemporary poets.  His 12 collections include “The Trouble With Poetry” and “The Rain in Portugal”.  He’s known for conversational poems that welcome readers with humor, but often slip in profound observations on the everyday, reading and writing, and poetry itself.  Collins served two terms as the US Poet Laureate, from 2001 to 2003, and was New York State Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006.   On October 23, 2021, Billy Collins spoke with Steven Winn about his newest collection, “Whale Day”.  

Temple Grandin is an author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior. She is a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, and consults on both livestock handling equipment design and animal welfare. She is the author of many books on animal science and autistic experience, including the bestsellers Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation. Her new book, Navigating Autism: 9 Mindsets For Helping Kids on the Spectrum, presents nine strengths-based mindsets necessary to successfully work with young people on the autism spectrum. Grandin shares her own personal experience, as well as anecdotes from parents and professionals who have sought her advice, providing parents and caretakers of autistic children with new, empowering mindsets they can apply to develop the full potential of every child. On October 18, 2021, Temple Grandin came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater for an onstage conversation with Indre Viskontas, a cognitive neuroscientist at UC San Francisco and co-host of the podcast Inquiring Minds.

This week, we reach into the City Arts & Lectures archives for a conversation with E. O. Wilson.   The biologist and author was the world’s leading authority on ants – but he was also often referred to as “the father of biodiversity”.  In addition to significant scientific research, Wilson made major contributions to the public’s understanding of larger issues of science, nature, and conservation.  He won the Pulitzer Price twice, for his books “The Ants” and “On Human Nature”.  His other popular works include “Letters to a Young Scientist” and “The Meaning of Human Existence”. Wilson was a professor at Harvard University and also taught at Duke University, which houses the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.  E. O. Wilson died on December 26, 2021, at the age of 92.  In this program, recorded on October 10, 2006, he talks with Roy Eisenhardt about his newly published book “The Creation: A Meeting of Science and Religion”.   In it, Wilson appeals for the combined efforts of scientific, political, and religious leaders to help prevent species extinction, save biological diversity, and be good stewards of the Earth.  

Painter Wayne Thiebaud is best known for his carefully studied still lifes of ordinary objects such as hot dogs, sweets, and lipsticks. It’s his cherry-topped cakes, lush with frosting, and brightly hued slices of pie that first come to mind for many of his fans. The pleasures of diners and dessert carts, rendered in thick paint, evoke a bygone era. But what could be misinterpreted as saccharine nostalgia is often cut through by a sort of sadness. The blue shadow around a plate … the downward gaze of a pair of swimmers.  Thiebaud’s landscapes, showcasing the steep streets of San Francisco, and the golden hills of California, feature an intensity of light and color, as well as his distinctive brushwork and lush paint. Thiebaud lived in California for most of his long life, settling in Sacramento and teaching at UC Davis. Wayne Thiebaud died on December 25, 2021 at the age of 101. The artist worked until the end of his life — he was 100 years old in August of 2020 when The New Yorker magazine featured one of his iconic ice cream cones as its cover image.  We’re celebrating Thiebaud’s life with a rebroadcast of his 2005 appearance at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco where he spoke to Wendy Lesser, founding editor of the Threepenny Review. He talks about his early career, the artists he most admires, and his approach to teaching.

This week, we present an archival City Arts & Lectures program recorded in 2010 with the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, in conversation with Roy Eisenhardt. Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu dedicated his life to fighting for basic civil and human rights for all. Born a teacher’s son in South Africa, Tutu followed his father’s path and taught for several years before studying theology.  From there, he became the first Black general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and then the Archbishop of Cape Town.  In 1997, Nelson Mandela asked him to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the abolition of apartheid.   Archbishop Tutu presided over the ordination of his daughter Mpho Tutu into the Anglican priesthood in 2004.  This program, recorded at Davies Symphony Hall on March 17, 2010, was just after the publication of a book they wrote together, “Made for Goodness, And Why This Makes All the Difference”.   Desmond Tutu died on December 26, 2021, at the age of 90.

This week, we reach into the City Arts & Lectures archives for a conversation with Joan Didion. One of the most influential writers of our time, Didion both chronicled and shaped American culture with a sharp, witty, and distinctively Californian sensibility.   The Sacramento native graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. Her novels include “Play it as it Lays”, “A Book of Common Prayer”, and “The Last Thing He Wanted”.  With her husband John Gregory Dunne, she co-wrote screenplays including “True Confessions”, “Up Close and Personal”, and “The Panic in Needle Park”.  Didion’s nonfiction, beginning with the 1968 “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, exemplifies the New Journalism movement – a subjective approach to reporting that employs literary techniques. Didion’s inimitable voice was brought even more to the foreground in her memoirs “The Year of Magical Thinking”, and “Blue Nights”, which describe the loss of her husband and daughter and her anxieties about parenting and aging.  Joan Didion died in Manhattan on December 23, 2021, at the age of 87. Joan Didion appeared on City Arts & Lectures six times between 1996 and 2011.  In her last visit, recorded on November 15, 2011, she spoke with novelist Vendela Vida, shortly after the publication of “Blue Nights” at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.  The program was a benefit for the 826 Valencia College Scholarship program. 

This week, we celebrate the life and work of trailblazing poet, feminist, and cultural critic, bell hooks. bell hooks changed the course of feminism, demanding that the voices of women of color, queer women, and working-class women be included at a time when feminism was seen as a white middle-class movement. Her more than three dozen books, include collections of poetry and essays, and her groundbreaking 1981 book Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. bell hooks died at her home in Kentucky on Wednesday, December 15, 2021. She was 69 years old.  In this wide-ranging conversation recorded in San Francisco in 1995, bell hooks spoke to Walter Mosley––novelist best known for his historically based crime and mystery fiction including Devil in a Blue Dress, Black Betty, and White Butterfly––about the power of language, about racism and sexism in America, the importance of discourse and more.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louise Erdrich has written many novels including Love Medicine and The Roundhouse, as well as works of non-fiction, poetry, and children’s books.  She’s written extensively on Native American identity, and is the owner of an independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books, which specializes in Native American writing.  Her new novel, The Sentence, takes place in such a bookstore. It's a ghost story, set against the real-life backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. On November 19, 2021, Louise Erdrich spoke to Steven Wynn at the studios of KQED in San Francisco.

This week – Jeff Chang talks to Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of today’s foremost investigative journalists.  Her reporting on civil rights and racial justice, including school segregation, has earned her numerous awards, chief among them a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the 1619 Project.  It’s an ongoing initiative from the New York Times that reframes the way we understand America’s history by examining the modern legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans.  On November 29, 2021, Nikole Hannah-Jones came to San Francisco to celebrate the release of the book version of the 1619 Project.  Joining her was one of the book’s contributors, Barry Jenkins, the Academy-Award-winning director of Moonlight, and most recently, a television adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad”.  But before the two sat down to talk to Jeff Chang, Forrest Hamer read his poem “Race Riot”.  

For this special archive edition of City Arts and Lectures, we present a 2008 interview with the lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim.  Since his Broadway debut at age 27 as the lyricist for “West Side Story”, Stephen Sondheim has stretched the conventions of musical theater with sophisticated storylines and complex musicality.  Though his work has always been controversial, and met with mixed reviews from critics and audiences, Sondheim’s impact on music theater is undeniable. His landmark shows include “Company”, “Into the Woods”, “A Little Night Music”, “Sunday in the Park with George”, “Assassins”, and “Sweeney Todd”.  Sondheim has won eight Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, eight Tony Awards, and received the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.   Stephen Sondheim died on Friday, November 26, 2021, the day after enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner with friends.  He was 91 years old.  At the time of his death, he was working on a new musical called “Square One”. In this program, recorded on March 9, 2008, Sondheim was interviewed on the stage of the Herbst Theater in San Francisco by Frank Rich of the New York Times.  Join me now for a 2008 conversation with the late Stephen Sondheim.

Gary Shteyngart’s new book is “Our Country Friends”, which he began writing during the first month of the pandemic.  It’s the story of eight friends who shelter in place at the upstate New York home of a Russian-born American writer.  His previous books include “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Absurdistan”.  On November 8, 2021, Gary Shteyngart joined Andrew Sean Greer, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of “Less”, to talk about finding humor in dystopic times. 

Jelani Cobb is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, historian, and professor of journalism at Columbia, and one of today’s most important public intellectuals.  He is the co-editor of  a new anthology, The Matter of Black Lives, which compiles New Yorker essays on race in America through time, by writers including James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hilton Als, and Zadie Smith. On November 5, 2021, he came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation with Jeff Chang and a live audience. They spoke about diversity in the newsroom, the controversy surrounding Dave Chappelle, and the findings of a task force created by Lyndon Johnson in the wake of racial riots in the 1960s.

In 1991, Anita Hill testified at the Senate confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas.  It was an act of enormous bravery, and Hill immediately became a symbolic figure of extraordinary controversy.  Anita Hill’s role in bringing gender-based discrimination to America’s consciousness cannot be understated.  In fact, prior to her testimony, sexual harassment simply wasn’t part of our collective consciousness. Her work for fair treatment in the workplace, and for a society free of harassment and violence, continues to this day. On October 22, 2021, Anita Hill came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to speak with USF law professor Lara Bazelon, about the arc of her remarkable life, and her new book Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence. 

Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, and The Library Book, returns with On Animals. The book is a collection of essays she’s written for The New Yorker-- where she is a staff writer-- that catalogue her love and wonder of animals. On October 13, 2021, Susan Orlean talked to Steven Winn about her fascination with all kinds of creatures, and some truly bizarre animal owners, like a woman who has twenty-three pet tigers.

Dave Eggers’ books include A Hologram for the King, What is the What, and many more since his breakout memoir in the year 2000, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He’s written a new novel, called The Every. It’s follow up to his 2013 book The Circle, and both take a very skeptical view of technology’s impact not only on our daily lives, but our capacity for focus and empathy. On September 23, 2021, Eggers talked to Tom Barbash about the problems with big tech and about social media’s addictive and destructive algorithms - and the disappointment he feels when an adult friend or colleague resorts to an emoji to express a serious emotion.

Congressman Adam Schiff represents California’s 28th Congressional District. In his 11th term in the House of Representatives, Schiff currently serves as the Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies. In his role as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Schiff led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump. Before he served in Congress, he worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and as a California State Senator. His new book Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy And Still Could offers a vital inside account of American democracy in its darkest hour, and a warning that the forces of autocracy unleashed by Trump remain as potent as ever.

Andrea Elliott is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times and a former staff writer at The Miami Herald. In 2012, Elliott set out to report about what it was like to be an unhoused child in New York City. She met 11-year-old Dasani Coates, living in a shelter with her parents and seven siblings.  The conditions were unsurprisingly horrible, and the challenges faced by Dasani’s family enormous and multigenerational. Elliott followed Dasani and her family for eight years, and her book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City, weaves together Dasani’s story - including her time at a boarding school designed to help disadvantaged girls escape poverty – with the history of Dasani’s family, tracing the passage of their ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. It’s the story of a fierce, resilient, and overburdened child – and the profound impacts of poverty and racism.  On October 5, 2021, Andrea Elliott spoke with Isabel Duffy about the book - what it took to write it and what she’d like readers to take from it.

Mary Roach is the author of the books Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Gulp, Grunt, and Packing for Mars, all of which bring her distinctly funny voice to popular science subjects. Her new book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, combines little-known forensic science and conservation genetics, with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, trespassing squirrels, and more of “nature’s lawbreakers,” offering hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat. Roach has written for National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine.  On September 29, 2021, Mary Roach came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an on-stage conversation before a live audience with Malia Wollan, director of the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship at the Graduate School of Journalism.

Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard is best known for the autobiographical series “My Struggle.” The six volumes total more than 3,000 pages. And the books manage to be both epic and intimate. In them, Knausgaard meticulously catalogs the minor details of his daily life, like cleaning his father’s house and checking out books at the library.  He also tackles fundamental questions about existence -- laying bare his personal relationships and anxieties about family, career, and purpose. The stories move slowly and calmly and their effect on the reader can be almost hypnotic. On September 23, 2021, Karl Ove Knausgaard spoke to Judson True about his newest book, a novel called The Morning Star.

Colson Whitehead is the only novelist to win a Pulitzer Prize for consecutive books: The Underground Railroad, now a television miniseries directed by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins, and The Nickel Boys. His novels span a wide range of genres, including satire (Apex Hides the Hurt), post-apocalyptic zombie horror (Zone One), and an autobiographical coming-of-age story (Sag Harbor, which is slated for an HBO adaptation produced by Laurence Fishburne). With his highly-anticipated new heist novel, Harlem Shuffle, Whitehead tries his hand at yet another literary category. On September 17, 2021, Colson Whitehead talked to Alexis Madrigal about his writing before an audience at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, the first live on-stage program for City Arts & Lectures since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This week, we’ll hear from Frances Moore Lappé, whose groundbreaking book “Diet for a Small Planet” was controversial when it first came out in 1971.  World hunger was a major news topic and a genuine concern; many believed there simply wasn’t enough food to feed the planet.  But Lappé argued that hunger wasn’t caused by a scarcity of food, but a scarcity of power among those who go hungry.  She believed democracy – and a plant-centered diet – could solve the problem.  On September 9, 2021, Frances Moore Lappé spoke to her daughter, Anna Lappé, about what drove her to write the book, and what she’s learned in the intervening 50 years.  Anna Lappé is also an author and an advocate for sustainability and food justice.

Under the pen name Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler is responsible for the beloved thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events and the four-volume All the Wrong Questions, among other books. Mr. Snicket is back with his first book for readers of all ages, a whimsical and philosophical novel that begins with the protagonist Snicket finding a note that informs him: “You had poison for breakfast.” On August 30, 2021, Daniel Handler talked to his sister, the writer Rebecca Handler, about writing again as Mr. Snicket, about craft, and about family. Daniel Handler is the author of the novels Why We Broke Up, We Are Pirates, All the Dirty Parts, and most recently, Bottle Grove. Under the name Lemony Snicket, Handler has written numerous children’s books, including The Dark, the four-volume All the Wrong Questions, and the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has sold more than 60 million copies and was the basis of a feature film. Poison for Breakfast, Snicket’s most recent book––for readers of all ages––was published in August 2021. The whimsical and philosophical novel begins with the protagonist Snicket finding a note that informs him: “You had poison for breakfast.” Rebecca Handler is a writer who lives and works in San Francisco. Her stories have been published and awarded in several anthologies. Her recent debut novel Edie Richter Is Not Alone features a protagonist who moves with her family to Perth, Australia following the death of her father. There, she finds herself isolated and forced to confront a painful secret from her past. On August 30, 2021, Daniel Handler and Rebecca Handler talked about writing again as Mr. Snicket, about craft, and about family.

Dr. Andrew Budson is a cognitive and behavioral neurologist, a cognitive neuroscientist, and author. He has written and co-authored a number of books that focus on Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and related disorders –– including his most recent work, Six Steps to Managing Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia, is a guide for families who are navigating caring for a loved one. Budson is incredibly active in his field: he is the founder and medical director of the Boston Center for Memory; Associate Director & Education Core Leader for Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center; and a professor and lecturer of neurology at both Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Medicine.  On August 31, 2021, Budson spoke with Simone Silverstein, a writer and performer living in San Francisco.

This week…. a encore of a 2018 conversation with Michael Pollan. When it was originally recorded in 2018, the idea of using psychedelics for therapeutic intervention was new to many people. Today, just a few years later, treating mental health disorders like depression and PTSD with drugs like psilocybin, LSD or MDMA, better known as a component in Ecstasy, is much more familiar. Some might say it’s rapidly gaining public acceptance. Michael Pollan has written numerous books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect - on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. His books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, are all meticulously researched and wonderfully engaging to read. With “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence” -- Pollan takes a deep dive into the historical record and current research on psychedelics, as well as his own personal journey. On May twenty-first, 2018, Michael Pollan came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco to talk about the science of psychedelics with Dacher Keltner.

Rita Dove was the youngest person ever to be named United States Poet Laureate.  She was also the first African American to hold the title.  Her poems imbue historical events with personal detail and experience.  Dove is also a novelist and acclaimed lyricist.  On August 15, 2021, she talked with Steven Winn about her most recent collection. “Playlist for the Apocalypse”.

Joy Harjo is a performer and writer of the Muskogee Creek Nation. She’s currently serving her second term as United States Poet Laureate.  Much of Harjo’s poetry incorporates indigenous myths.  She also addresses social justice and feminism.  Her newest book is a memoir, “Poet Warrior”.  On August 16, 2021, Joy Harjo talked with Steven Winn about her work.

Alison Bechdel‘s cult following for her early comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For grew wildly in response to her family memoirs, the best-selling graphic memoir Fun Home, adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical, and Are You My Mother? She has become a cultural household name for the concept of the Bechdel Test, a metric used when considering the representation of women in film. Bechdel has been named a MacArthur Fellow and Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont, among many other honors. On May 7, 2021, she talked to artist George McCalman about her latest book “The Secret to Superhuman Strength”.  It’s a history of exercise trends, from Jack LaLanne in the 1960s to spin classes and yoga studios.  It’s also a very personal examination of Bechdel’s own fascination with fitness.

When journalist Courtney Martin learned that white families in her gentrifying neighborhood in Oakland largely avoided the majority-Black, poorly-rated public school down the street, she began asking why. In Learning in Public: Lessons For a Racially Divided America From My Daughter’s School, Martin examines her own fears, assumptions, and conversations with other parents as they navigate school choice.  The book is part memoir, part investigation into the persistence of school segregation in the United States. It’s a vivid portrait of integration’s virtues and complexities. Courtney E. Martin is the author of five books, including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream, as well as the popular newsletter Examined Family. She is the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, FRESH Speakers, and the Bay Area chapter of Integrated Schools, as well as the Storyteller-in-Residence at The Holding Co.  On August 11, 2021, Courtney Martin spoke with Anna Sale, host of the podcast “Death, Sex, and Money”. 

Brian Greene is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of superstring theory. His ability to clearly communicate cutting-edge science - even bringing humor to abstruse mathematical concepts -- has made Greene a sort of rock star physicist. On February 25, 2020, Brian Greene came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Gina Pell about his newest book “Until The End of Time: Mind, Matter and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”.

This week, we’ll hear how distance has played a key role in psychotherapy – even before the pandemic. Starting with Freud’s treatments by mail, to crisis hotlines, and now mobile phones and Zoom sessions, therapy has long existed outside the doctor’s office.  Hannah Zeavin calls it teletherapy, and she explores its history in a new book “The Distance Cure”.  On July 17, 2021, Zeavin talked to Adam Savage.

Michelle Zauner is a musician who plays indie pop under the name “Japanese Breakfast”.  Zauner grew up in the Pacific Northwest, raised by her mother, a Korean immigrant.  As an adult, she moved back to become a caregiver at the end of her mother’s life.  Her memoir “Crying in H-Mart” grapples with grief and trauma - but also provides delicious detail about her family’s Korean cooking.  On May 6, 2021, Zauner spoke with comedian Bowen Yang of Saturday Night Live.

Lucy Corin is the author of the novel “Everyday Psycho Killers: A History for Girls”, and two short story collections, the most recent being “100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses”.  On June 23, 2021, Corin talked with Daniel Handler just before the publication of her second novel, “The Swank Hotel”.  The book explores mental illness, familial grief, and love.

Poet Victoria Chang’s new collection, “Obit”, is about grief and grieving.  Chang wrote the book in the wake of her mother’s death.  The poems are written as obituaries, and their creation gave Chang a way to process her loss and contemplate her own mortality.  Victoria Chang spoke with Daniel Handler on January 19, 2021.

Dr. Jen Gunter is an ob-gyn and a pain medicine physician who writes on topics of sex, science, and social media. A fierce advocate for women’s health, Gunter is devoted to correcting the misinformation perpetuated by the internet around women’s well-being and reproductive health. She is the author of The Preemie Primer and The Vagina Bible. Her new book, The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism, counters stubborn myths about menopause with hard facts, real science, fascinating historical perspective, and expert advice. On June 7, 2021, Gunter talked with Isabel Duffy about the book and the history of medical understanding – and misunderstanding – about this stage of women’s lives.

Twenty years ago, Jhumpa Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, her debut story collection that explores issues of love and identity among immigrants and cultural transplants.  She went on to write more short stories, poems, essays, and novels, such as The Namesake.  Since moving to Italy in 2011, Lahiri has worked as a translator of Italian literature, and produced her own work in Italian.  For her latest book, Whereabouts, she first wrote the story in Italian before translating it into English. On May 18, 2021, Jhumpa Lahiri spoke with Monica Seger, Program Director for Italian Studies at William & Mary University.

Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, people have faced unprecedented emotional challenges.  Our guests this week are both experts in the relationship between physical and emotional well-being.  Dr. Elissa Epel’s research includes the ways that chronic stress affects the process of aging. She’s a professor of psychology at UC San Francisco.  Dr. Dacher Keltner studies the biological and evolutionary origins of feelings like compassion, awe, and love.  He’s the director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. On May 10, 2021, the two discussed stress and how we can improve our resilience and response to it, and how the solution for pandemic stress should be a communal and not an individual one.

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is the preeminent authority on the culinary culture of the African Diaspora.  Harris has spent over three decades studying African food and its migration.  To understand the rich and complex flavors of African American cuisine requires looking at the culinary cultures of the African continent and the slave trade that brought Africans to America. Harris is the author of twelve critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking and The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking. Her most recent book is My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir. Netflix has just made a series based on Harris’s seminal book “High on the Hog”. On May 13, 2021, Harris spoke with chef and author Samin Nosrat, whose book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” was also made into a Netflix series.

In 2018, Stacey Abrams lost her bid to be governor of Georgia.  It was a huge disappointment – she was the first Black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee of a major party in the US.  It was also unexpected – Abrams won more votes than any Democrat in Georgia’s history.  The surprise outcome had much to do with the state’s mismanagement of the election.  After she lost, Abrams created the voting rights organization Fair Fight.  Since 2018, she’s been instrumental in driving an enormous number of voter registrations in Georgia – those voters were critical in turning Georgia blue in the 2020 presidential election and in electing two Democratic Senators.  On May 13, 2021, Stacey Abrams talked to journalist Rebecca Traister about protecting our democracy, and some of her many other pursuits – including writing legal thrillers, including her newest “While Justice Sleeps”.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who’s brought national attention to the failures of America’s criminal justice system. He’s the founding director of the Equal Justice Institute in Montgomery, Alabama.  Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and of the mentally ill, and exonerating innocent Death Row inmates.  We’ll hear Stevenson talk to Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s District Attorney, and Rachel Marshall.  This conversation was recorded on December 14, 2020, for “Chasing Justice”, a podcast hosted by Boudin and Marshall.

  As an activist fighting for racial and social equality, Tamika Mallory has inspired countless others to get involved with these issues – and never more so than when the speech she made during the protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis went viral.  Mallory grew up in an activist family; her parents were founding members of the civil rights organization National Action Network.  She would go on to become its youngest ever executive director.  On May 14, 2021, Tamika Mallory talked with Courtney Martin, about her book “State of Emergency” and her life as an activist.

This week, we’ll listen to a conversation with David Mitchell and Pico Iyer, recorded on May 8, 2021. David Mitchell’s many novels include Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, and Ghostwritten. . His most recent novel, Utopia Avenue, follows the strangest British band you’ve never heard of. Mitchell’s stories often weave together the supernatural and the philosophical.  He’s also one of the most structurally inventive writers of our time, featuring nonlinear storylines and multiple genres within a single book. Pico Iyer is a travel writer, essayist, and novelist, whose many books include Video Night in Kathmandu and The Lady and the Monk.  

Rachel Kushner is the author of several novels including The Mars Room and The Flamethrowers.  Her work has been compared to Joan Didion’s, and that of Don DeLillo, a literary mentor to Kushner. Kushner’s newest book, The Hard Crowd, is a collection of essays from the past 20 years that showcase her intellect and diverse interests, from muscle cars to postmodern art and politics.  She has received grants and prizes from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. On April 29, 2021, Rachel Kushner talked with Heidi Julavits about the art of writing and the places and people that inspire her.

This week, our guests are Astra Taylor and Robert Reich.  Taylor is an activist, author, and documentary filmmaker whose films include What is Democracy? (2018) and An Examined Life (2008). Last year, at the onset of the pandemic, Taylor joined economist Robert Reich to discuss his just-published book, The System.  It was the very beginning of COVID-19’s complete upheaval of normal life, and Reich made a plea for government to understand the moment as a health crisis, not an economic one. On April 19, 2021, Taylor and Reich returned to reflect on the past year, from racial reckoning to widening income inequality – and to discuss Taylor’s new book, Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions.  In it, Taylor invites us to imagine how things could be different while never losing sight of the strategic question of how change actually happens.

This week, we present a conversation with choreographer Alonzo King.  He’s the artistic director of LINES Ballet, a contemporary dance company in San Francisco.  He founded it in 1982, and has revolutionized the way we view dance.  King’s choreography includes a blend of powerful and tender emotion, and unbelievable feats of athleticism.  LINES Ballet looks and moves unlike any other ballet company, and King’s art has always spoken to the moment, politically and spiritually.  On April 14, 2021, Alonzo King spoke with Steven Winn about his artistic process and the inspiration he took from his parents, who were both civil rights activists.  

 Playwright Lauren Gunderson’s work is often based on the lives of historical figures – scientists like Marie Curie and Isaac Newton, and political figures such as the first woman elected to Congress.  Gunderson didn’t have to travel far to research her newest play, The Catastrophist – the one-man play centers on her husband, virologist Nathan Wolf. One of Wolf’s areas of expertise – biological threats that can lead to pandemics.  On April 8, 2021, Adam Savage talked to Gunderson and Wolf about the play, their respective careers, and the pandemic’s effect on theater.

This week, we’ll hear a conversation between two writers with unique perspectives on America.  Ocean Vuong is a poet and the author of the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.  The story closely mirrors Vuong’s own life: born in Viet Nam, he was two years old when his family left a refugee camp in the Philippines to come to the US.   Tommy Orange published his debut novel, There There, in 2018; it’s about the complex and painful history of a multi-generational Native American family in Oakland.  On February 3, 2020, Ocean Vuong and Tommy Orange came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.  It was a powerful evening – a few times you could hear members of the audience gasp as conversation literally took their breath away.  It was City Arts & Lectures’ last live event before the COVID-19 pandemic kept us from gathering – of course we didn’t know that at the time, but we’ve returned to this conversation for inspiration many times since then.

This week, our guests bring us unique perspectives on life during a pandemic.  Larry Brilliant is a renowned epidemiologist whose work with the World Health Organization helped eradicate smallpox, giving him keen insights into how governments can help tackle global disease. In a new book, Sometimes Brilliant, he reflects on his remarkable life and his extraordinary experiences as a doctor, innovator, philanthropist, and cultural revolutionary.  Jack Kornfield was one of the first people to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practices to the West over 40 years ago.  His many books include The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, A Path with Heart, and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. On March 23, 2021, Larry Brilliant and Jack Kornfield joined us for a conversation about mindfulness and medicine.  The two talked about our individual and collective responses to the coronavirus pandemic, what it will take to move beyond it, and how we might promote well-being during this uncertain time.  

Jenny Offill is the author of the novels Last Things, Dept. of Speculation, and, most recently, Weather. One of the pleasures of reading Offill’s books is hearing the emotional struggles and ambivalent attitudes of very honest narrators.  In Weather, the concerns of daily life and parenting combine with the looming apocalypse of climate change. Both hilarious and heartbreaking, the novel asks readers to think about the mundane ways we live and grapple with our rapidly deteriorating environment.  Offill lives in upstate New York and teaches at Syracuse University and Queens University. On March 18, 2021, Jenny Offill talked via videoconference with Brit Marling, an actor and writer who has focused on creating projects that offer counter-narratives to the more common ones diminishing women’s worth. 

There are over 2 million people incarcerated in the United States – but tens of millions more who are living with criminal records.  This week, we’ll hear about the constraints and challenges faced by formerly incarcerated people.  Reuben Jonathan Miller is a sociologist, criminologist and a social worker who teaches at the University of Chicago in the School of Social Service Administration where he studies and writes about race, democracy, and the social life of the city. His book, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, shows that the American justice system was not created to rehabilitate, and how parole is structured to keep classes of Americans impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they’ve paid their debt to society. On March 8, 2021, Dr. Miller had a conversation with Terah Lawyer, an advocate for incarcerated people for more than a decade. Ms. Lawyer is herself a formerly incarcerated person, and that experience informs her commitment to improving the justice system.

In this City Arts & Lectures Podcast exclusive, Daniel Handler and Rebecca Handler talk about family and work in a uniquely familiar conversation that only siblings could have. Rebecca Handler is a writer who lives and works in San Francisco. Her debut novel Edie Richter Is Not Alone features a protagonist who moves with her family to Perth, Australia following the death of her father. There, she finds herself isolated and forced to confront a painful secret from her past. Daniel Handler is the author of many books, perhaps best known for A Series of Unfortunate Events, penned under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket.

Poet, memorist, and essayist Patricia Lockwood is perhaps best known for her memoir Priestdaddy, an extraordinarily funny account of growing up the daughter of the most singular Catholic priest in America. Lockwood has just published her first novel, No One is Talking About This, reckons with the feeling of being eternally online, unable to shut off the feed that keeps on scrolling, no matter what we do to stop it. She’s a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, and has a vast following on Twitter, which regularly features her Internet-famous cat, Miette. Lockwood is the author of the two poetry collections Balloon Pop Outlaw Black and Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals.  On March 1, 2021, Patricia Lockwood spoke with author Sheila Heti about her new book.  The two writers also shared their perspectives on grief, creativity, and the ephemeral and addictive world of the internet.

This week, our guest is novelist Susan Choi.  She’s the author of five books, most recently “Trust Exercise”. It centers on a group of teenagers at a competitive art school in 1980s suburbia.  What starts out as something straightforward becomes more complex – and with an experimental narrative structure that concludes with a surprise twist.  The book won the 2019 National Book Award for fiction.  Choi teaches fiction writing at Yale and lives in Brooklyn. On February 16, 2021, Susan Choi spoke with Rachel Khong, the author of “Goodbye, Vitamin”. Choi described growing up as one of a few people of color in her Indiana town, and how teaching writing has made her a better writer.

Our guest is Lily King, the award-winning author of five novels.  Her 2014 novel “Euphoria” was inspired by the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead.  Last year, King published “Writers and Lovers”, the story of an aspiring author finding her way in the world.  Written with her trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, “Writers & Lovers” explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another. On February 18, 2021, Lily King talked with Isabel Duffy about her creative process and how she herself forged a literary path.

Why do humans sleep?  What is sleep’s evolutionary basis? And what is really going on while we sleep?  This week, we broadcast a conversation with cognitive neuroscientist Matthew Walker, talking to Indre Viskontas, originally recorded in 2015.  Walker is an expert in sleep science, and his research reveals that every tissue in the body and every process within the brain is enhanced as we sleep – and impaired when we’re not sleeping enough.  His research also examines the effects of stress, medications, and alcohol on sleep, and the ways we can improve our sleeping habits.

Dr. Carl Hart is a neuroscientist and psychologist at Columbia University whose research focuses on the effects of psychoactive drugs on the brain.   He’ll talk about his positions on recreational drug use, which continue to spark controversy and are often at odds with others in his field. Hart’s latest book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue that the criminalization and demonization of drug use, rather than drugs themselves, has been a scourge on America and reinforced this country’s enduring structural racism.  Hart is also the author of High Price, and co-author of the textbook Drugs, Society and Human Behavior.  On January 27, 2021, Carl Hart spoke with Lara Bazelon, a professor of law at the University of San Francisco.

This week, a conversation with filmmaker Cheryl Dunye.  Dunye first emerged in the 1990’s as part of the “Queer New Wave”, and much of her work explores questions of race and gender, using her own experience as a lens.  Her debut feature film, “The Watermelon Woman”, is now considered a classic of queer cinema, and her style – a mixture of documentary aesthetic and fictive elements – has earned the term “Dunyementary”.  Her films, including a collection of her documentary shorts, were recently added to the Criterion Channel. More recently, Dunye has directed television shows including “Dear White People”, “Queen Sugar”, and “Lovecraft Country”.  On November 16, 2020, Cheryl Dunye talked with Ra Malika Imhotep, in a conversation co-presented with the Criterion Channel.

  We’ve long admired Gabriel Byrne for his nuanced performances in films like The Usual Suspects, Miller’s Crossing, and Dead Man, and the television series In Treatment, for which he won a Golden Globe. Byrne’s thoughtful, understated acting style is reflected in his writing.  His new memoir, Walking with Ghosts, far from a celebrity tell-all, is an exquisite portrait of an Irish childhood and a remarkable journey to Hollywood and Broadway success. The book follows Byrne from his childhood in the outskirts of Dublin, to seminary in England where he hopes to become a priest, to his growing interest in theater and poetry in 1960’s Dublin. Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame. On January 12, 2021, Gabriel Byrne talked to Stephen Winn via videoconference. 

This week, a conversation with two veteran political opinion researchers about the future of polling. They’ll explore to what extent election outcomes can accurately be anticipated. Many believe the predictions before our last two presidential elections were misleading. How much validity is there to that belief? And can polling evolve to better serve us? We’ll hear from Peter Hart and Neil Newhouse, two veteran pollsters from different ends of the political spectrum.

This week, we are presenting an encore of a 2017 conversation with Dr. Robert Sapolsky. Sapolsky is a primatologist and neurologist with a unique gift for storytelling.  Oliver Sacks called him “one of the best scientist-writers of our time”.  Sapolsky has spent decades studying primate behavior.  One of his most consuming fascinations is how humans are both the most violent species on earth – as well as the most altruistic, cooperative, and empathetic. That paradox, and the factors behind it, are the subject of his most recent book “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst”.  On May 22, 2017, Robert Sapolsky talked with psychology professor Dacher Keltner at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco. 

This week, a conversation with two of the creators of Ear Hustle, the first podcast created and produced in prison. The show features stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it. Ear Hustle was launched in 2017; at the time, Earlonne Woods was an inmate at San Quentin. His sentence was commuted in 2020.  Now, Woods co-hosts the podcast from outside the prison walls, along with Nigel Poor, a well-respected photographer whose work teaching inside prison changed the focus of her practice.  Today, Poor spends the majority of her time focused on, and working alongside, the incarcerated. On November 19, 2020, Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor.spoke with Alexis Madrigal about the making of the latest season of Ear Hustle.

Thomas Keller is the first and only American chef to have two Michelin Guide three-star-rated restaurants, The French Laundry and per se, both of which continue to rank among the best restaurants in America and the world. He is also the author of The French Laundry Cookbook, Bouchon, Under Pressure, Ad Hoc at Home, Bouchon Bakery, and his new book The French Laundry, Per Se. On October 26, 2020, Keller spoke with food journalist Amanda Hesser, co-founder and CEO of Food52.  They discussed diversity in restaurant kitchens, the difference between influence and inspiration in the culinary world, and the post-pandemic future of the industry.

In the past year, journalists have been out in the streets covering racial reckoning and protest.  Inside newsrooms – which are overwhelmingly white – media organizations are beginning to confront inequity in their own ranks.  When journalism is mostly led by a privileged class of white men, what does that mean for the kinds of stories that get covered, missed, or undervalued? On November 20, 2020, in a co-production with the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, cultural critic, comedian, and CNN docu-series host W. Kamau Bell joined graduate student Chan’Cellore Makanjuola for a conversation about race, storytelling, and the future of journalism.

Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from the previous three years, discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Crosstalk is a two-part series of compiled conversations between City Arts & Lectures guests from the previous three years discussing literary identity and the sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, act of writing. Guests include Ocean Vuong, Zadie Smith, Marlon James, Ottessa Moshfegh, Tommy Orange, Eileen Myles, Rebecca Solnit, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Crosstalk is produced by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo.

Our guests are a chef and a scientist who are tackling climate change through creating sustainable food.  Pat Brown is a biochemist and founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. Traci Des Jardins is the chef-owner of several restaurants, from fine dining to casual eateries.  She was one of the first chefs to put the Impossible Burger on her menu and worked closely with the company on their new “Impossible: The Cookbook”.  On November 9, 2020, Pat Brown and Traci Des Jardins talked with Adam Savage via videoconference.

Our guest is chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi, whose best-selling cookbooks have earned him a cult following among home chefs around the world.  Born in Israel, Ottolenghi now lives in London where he operates six restaurants and delis.  On October 15, 2020, Ottolenghi spoke to Isabel Duffy from his test kitchen in London.  The two discussed his latest book, “Ottolenghi Flavor”, which includes more than 100 plant-based recipes, and how the chef is feeding his own family during the pandemic.

This week, we’re broadcasting a conversation with Alicia Garza and Megan Rapinoe, recorded four days before the presidential election.  Alicia Garza is an activist and writer.  In 2013, she posted a Facebook response to the murder of Trayvon Martin in which she used the hashtag “Black Lives Matter”, and it sparked a major social movement.  Garza has now written a book, “The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart”.   Megan Rapinoe is a soccer player, two-time World Cup champion and co-captain of the US Women’s National Team.  She’s also an outspoken advocate for social justice and the issue of equal pay for female athletes. On October 28, 2020, Alicia Garza and Megan Rapinoe spoke about activism, organizing, and tactics for achieving structural change.

This week, a conversation with Bruce Springsteen, originally recorded in 2016. The legendary rock star, referred to by his countless fans as “The Boss”, had just published his autobiography, Born to Run. It took Springsteen seven years to write the memoir, covering everything from his childhood and early days performing to his fear of failure and his ambivalence about success. Bruce Springsteen came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on October 5, 2016, to talk about his life in rock and roll. Fans had traveled from around the country to attend, and the energy in the room was at a fever pitch more along the lines of a stadium concert than a literary talk. Still, the conversation with Dan Stone managed to be both intimate and deeply personal.

This week, disability activist Alice Wong talks with comedian and journalist W. Kamau Bell. Wong is founding director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating and amplifying disability media and culture.  She has edited an anthology of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers to mark the 35th anniversary of the ADA, “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century”.  On October 19, 2020, Alice Wong talked about the book with her good friend, comedian and journalist W. Kamau Bell.  The two also spoke about the extra challenges faced by voters during the time of COVID-19, the importance of abled allies advocating for the disabled community, and their shared admiration for Denzel Washington. 

Chanel Miller was just twenty-seven years old when she published her memoir, Know My Name, the book recounts her experience as the victim of sexual assault. It’s a keen examination of gender, power, and the failures of our criminal justice system. It’s also exquisitely written. Among the book’s many fans is her interviewer for this program, Jia Tolentino, a contributor at the New Yorker and the author of Trick Mirror. On October 15, 2020, they discussed the challenges of becoming a public figure and the essential work of forging ones own identity. Miller and Tolentino also spoke about their creative processes, including Miller’s visual art, now on display at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum.

This week, a conversation with poet and essayist Claudia Rankine. Rankine is the author of Citizen: An American Lyric and four previous books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely. Her newest book, Just Us: an American Conversation, weaves together essays, poems, and images. Some of its most memorable scenes are those where Rankine examines the moments of discomfort between herself and those around her, urging us to begin discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and seemingly stuck moment in American history. On October 1, 2020, Claudia Rankine spoke to Stephen Best, Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She also answered questions from teachers and students, offering advice to readers and today’s young poets.

This week, a conversation with novelist Yaa Gyasi.  Gyasi was just 26 years old when her debut, Homegoing, was published.  It spans eight generations, tracing the lives of two half-sisters and their descendants from eighteenth-century Ghana to present-day America.  The book garnered major critical acclaim and praise from fellow authors like Zadie Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Four years later, Gyasi has written another powerful work, Transcendent Kingdom.  The protagonist, Gifty, is a doctoral candidate in neuroscience.  Her mother, an immigrant from Ghana, suffers from depression and comes to stay with her.  The novel examines the challenges of addiction and grief, as well as the tensions between science and faith.  On September 22, 2020, Yaa Gyasi spoke with Courtney Martin about her work.

Jill Lepore is a professor of American History at Harvard University and also a staff writer at The New Yorker. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths and This America. Her latest book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, is a revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, unearthing from archives the shocking story of a long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. She recorded this conversation on September 16, 2020, with Mina Kim, host of KQED's Forum.

This week, we present an encore of a 2014 conversation on the neuroscience of music and creativity with Dr. Indre Viskontas, a cognitive scientist and opera singer. Viskontas has published groundbreaking work on the neural basis of memory and creativity. She is the author of "How Music Can Make You Better" and co-host of the podcasts "Inquiring Minds" and "Cadence". Viskontas came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco in May of 2014 to speak with Dr. Kelly McGonigall about music's effect on and relationship with the brain.

From the City Arts & Lectures archives, a conversation with Trevor Noah originally recorded November 21, 2016…. just following Donald Trump’s election. Noah is the host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” He first joined the show as a contributor in 2014 and succeeded Jon Stewart as host in 2015.  Trevor Noah spoke in 2016 with Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder and president of Emerson Collective, an organization that supports social entrepreneurs, about growing up the son of a black South African mother and a white European father, in South Africa during one of the most turbulent times in the country’s history. They also discussed the role of comedy in speaking truth to corruption - and to process events taking place.

From the City Arts & Lectures archives, a conversation with Whoopi Goldberg, originally recorded in 1987, just after Goldberg’s explosive performance in the film adaptation of The Color Purple. Even before Goldberg achieved celebrity status and critical acclaim, she never shied away from voicing her incisive and irreverent perspectives on race, sexism, the film industry, and American politics. In fact, many of the causes she discussed in 1987 with Mary Lou Manalli, a reporter for KGO radio in San Francisco, remain regrettably relevant. Whoopi Goldberg is currently one of the hosts of ABC’s The View.

Our guests this week is Jeffrey Toobin, whose latest book is “True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump”.  How is it that so many close associates of President Trump have been convicted of federal crimes – some, like his campaign chair and personal lawyer, even going to jail – yet Trump himself has survived to run for reelection.  Toobin is a staff writer for the New Yorker, and the author of numerous best-selling books.  On August 6, 2020, he talked to Preet Bharara, former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, about his deep dive into the Mueller investigation, and how the legal and political battles surrounding Trump might affect the next election, and beyond.

For 30 years, renowned Buddhist thinker Jarvis Jay Masters has lived on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison. His spiritual practice has helped him deal with violent and difficult experiences in prison, inspiring Masters to teach meditation to many of his fellow inmates. In his new book, The Buddhist on Death Row, David Sheff explores Masters’ gradual transformation from a man consumed by violence to one who has helped those around him find meaning and peace in their lives. On June 11, 2020, Jarvis Jay Masters and David Sheff spoke with author and activist Rebecca Solnit, discussing among other issues how the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic were affecting incarcerated people.  Several weeks after the recording, Masters contracted the virus himself as it swept through San Quentin; he is recovering.

Maria Bamford uses comedy to confront her lifelong struggles with OCD, bipolar disorder, and suicidal thoughts. She is the star of “Lady Dynamite”, a surrealist series based on her life, as well as several comedy specials. Bamford’s deeply personal comedy goes well beyond self-deprecation, using genuine vulnerability to examine mental health issues rarely discussed. On November 15, 1999, Maria Bamford came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Cara Rose DeFabio.

Steve Kerr, head coach for the Golden State Warriors, is one of the most important figures in basketball today. A former NBA championship player, Kerr was named head coach of the Warriors in 2014, leading the team to win three championships in four seasons and set a new record for most wins in a season. Kerr is also an activist, who uses his platform to talk about politics and human rights issues like Middle East policy, national-anthem protests, and gun control.  On February 26, 2020, Steve Kerr came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Alexis Madrigal about the experiences that have led him to become the outspoken and effective coach and activist he is today.

One of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time, Charlie Kaufman is best known for movies like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His unique style, sometimes labeled surrealist, features characters that reflect back on themselves, stories within stories that blur the boundaries between dream and event. Now, with his debut novel “Antkind”, Kaufman continues to explore the absurd – and often lonely – nature of human consciousness. On June 15, 2020, Charlie Kaufman spoke to Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel Less, about the freedoms, and challenges, of writing a book.

How might substances like LSD, psilocybins, and other hallucinogens provide relief to people suffering from conditions such as depression, addiction, and anorexia?  Robin Carhart-Harris is a neuroscientist and head of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research, which builds on over a decade of pioneering work including a clinical trial that has kickstarted global efforts to develop psilocybin therapy into a licensed treatment for depression. On June 29, 2020, Dr. Carhart-Harris spoke with Dr. Mellody Hayes, an anesthesiologist and founder of a psychedelic wellness clinic, by videoconference during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anna Wiener is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, covering Silicon Valley, startup culture, and technology. In her mid-twenties,as the tech industry was rapidly transforming into a locus of wealth andpower, Wiener left a job in book publishing to join the startup workforce. Part memoir, part cultural analysis, her book Uncanny Valley, reflects on the absurdities, excesses, and aspirations of the startup world.  It’s also a coming-of-age story, with Wiener charting her own disillusionment with and complicity in work she frequently found empty and inauthentic. On March 12, 2020, Wiener came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Robin Sloan about her memoir, and where tech has – and hasn’t – taken us.

Brian Greene is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of superstring theory. His ability to clearly communicate cutting-edge science - even bringing humor to abstruse mathematical concepts -- has made Greene a sort of rock star physicist. On February 25, 2020, Brian Greene came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Gina Pell about his newest book “Until The End of Time: Mind, Matter and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe”.

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic.  Abdurraqib’s writing fuses cultural commentary with intimate poetic language.  His subjects – everything from A Tribe Called Quest to his own childhood in Columbus, Ohio, Bruce Springsteen to Muhammad Ali.  Abdurraqib’s latest collection is “A Fortune for Your Disaster”, which wrestles with histories both personal and shared, the process of rebuilding after heartbreak, and the people and things that helped us heal. On May 29, 2020, just as protests were breaking out across the country after the death of George Floyd, Hanif Abdurraqib spoke via videoconference with the journalist and music critic Jeff Chang.  

Ruha Benjamin studies the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine.  In books like “Race After Technology”, and “People’s Science”, Benjamin examines how racial inequality plays out in every corner of civic, scientific, and social life.  Meredith Whittaker co-founded the AI Now Institute, a research center examining the social implications of artificial intelligence in criminal justice, law enforcement, housing, and education.  On June 1, 2020, Ruha Benjamin and Meredith Whittaker spoke via video conference. The two talked about biases built into every day technologies, how COVID-19 disproportionately harms marginalized communities, and ethical concerns over the increased power tech elites now have over our educational systems.

This week, a conversation between two of today’s most fearless writers, addressing topics of addiction, spirituality, and existence. Mary Karr is the author of "Lit" and "The Liars Club" -- memoirs that have come to define the genre as we know it today. Her poems bear the same markers of intelligent observation, humor, and visceral emotion. Kaveh Akbar is a major voice in contemporary poetry and author of the collections "Pilgrim Bell" and "Calling a Wolf a Wolf". On May 20, 2020, Mary Karr and Kaveh Akbar spoke and read poems via video conference on the occasion of the paperback release of Karr’s newest poetry collection, “Tropic of Squalor.”

This week, we present a conversation between two of today’s most incisive thinkers and creators. Rebecca Solnit is a writer, activist and public intellectual. Her broad curiosity has fueled over twenty books on topics ranging from the environment to feminism, literary criticism to social change. Brit Marling is best known as the star and creator of the television series, “The OA”. It’s just one among many projects Marling herself created as an alternative to narratives that diminish women’s worth, all too common in Hollywood.  On May 11, 2020, Rebecca Solnit and Brit Marling spoke via video conference on the occasion of Solnit’s newly published memoir, “Recollections of My Nonexistence.” 

This week, two phenomenally smart observers of culture, Jia Tolentino and Jenna Wortham.  Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of the essay collection “Trick Mirror”. Wortham co-hosts the New York Times podcast “Still Processing”. On May 6, 2020, what was to be an on-stage conversation at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco ended up being a far more intimate exchange about the logistics and emotional realities of life in self-isolation.  The two spoke by videoconference, discussing their new relationships to productivity, an urgent desire to do good in the world, and some of the lighter aspects of their pandemic lives – such as reality television.

What are some of the insidious designs behind the technology we engage with? How are algorithms designed to convince you to keep scrolling? Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, is devoted to thinking about the tools built into technology that persuade us to keep returning to it. Harris believes the unmitigated race for our attention has multiple and profound negative consequences --- shortened attention spans, increased mental health issues, mass narcissism and other effects are among what Harris calls “human downgrading.” On April 29, 2020, Tristan Harris spoke with Jacob Ward, technology correspondent for NBC News, via video conference while under orders to shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our guests are Camilla Carper and Janelle Abbott, the co-creators of FEMAIL Forever, a project dedicated to sustainability and zero waste.  The two met in design school, and after graduation, returned to their respective homes of Oakland and Seattle. To continue their collaboration, Abbott and Carper mail garments back and forth through the US Postal Service. Each time that work passes from one to the other, new scraps and remnants are added, sometimes, things are taken away. On April 29, 2020, befitting their long-distance process, the two spoke via videoconference with Avery Trufelman, who  produces original pieces about architecture and design for the award-winning podcast 99% Invisible by Radiotopia.  The three discussed how we can all commit to dressing more sustainably, wearing ugly clothing with confidence, and maintaining a collaborative friendship at a physical distance.

Miranda July is a multi-disciplinary artist with enormous output who has honed an entirely unique voice, one that provides unconventional perspectives on bizarre nuances of human connection. She is the author of "No One Belongs Here More Than You" and "The First Bad Man", and the writer-director of the movies "The Future", "Me and You and Everyone We Know", and the forthcoming "Kajillionaire". On April 20, 2020, she spoke via videoconference with Jenny Odell, a professor at Stanford and the author of "How to Do Nothing".

The pioneering writer and neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015, was beloved for his compassion and creativity. Sacks was deeply invested in the lives and well-being of his patients – people with neurological conditions that included Tourette’s, hallucinations, and autism.  He was a phenomenal storyteller, whose many case studies – he called them ‘neurological novels’ – include “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat” and “Awakenings”.  On April 17, 2020, author Steve Silberman hosted a conversation with Sacks’ longtime collaborator Kate Edgar, and Temple Grandin, one of the world’s best-known autistic adults.  Their memories of Sacks are interspersed with clips from a new documentary about his life and work, “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life”.  

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” and other books about the cultural constraints that affect young women.  Orenstein has now turned her attention to boys - conducting comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, and academics about consent, vulnerability, hookup culture, and many other issues relating to boys’ emotional lives. These are collected in her new book “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity”. On March 19, 2020, Peggy Orenstein talked to author Daniel Handler via video conference, under orders to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our guests are Carmen Maria Machado and Namwali Serpell. Carmen Maria Machado’s “In The Dream House,” is a memoir about queer domestic abuse, beautifully and meticulously told through an array of forms, entirely eschewing convention. Machado is also the author of the short story collection “Her Body and Other Parties.” Namwali Serpell is a professor of literature at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel “The Old Drift” tracks three Zambian families across three generations, from the pre-colonial past into the near future. **** On April 8, 2020, Namwali Serpell and Carmen Maria Machado spoke via video conference, under orders to shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other things, the two reflected on writing post-apocalyptic narratives while they themselves live through a time of pandemic.

Our guests are Dolores Huerta and Alice Waters, legendary activists working in different, but complementary areas of our food systems.  Huerta is co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association, and one of the most influential labor activists of our time. Waters is a chef and owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. A proponent of organic produce, and farm to table cuisine, Waters has brought a sustainable food curriculum -- and free, organic lunch -- to numerous schools through the Edible Schoolyard program.  On April 1, 2020 Dolores Huerta and Alice Waters talked to Davia Nelson of the Kitchen Sisters via video conference at their respective homes, under orders to shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our guest is Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  Contrary to what many politicians are saying, Reich believes that the global pandemic is a public health emergency - but not necessarily an economic crisis. And he believes that in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we must halt the economy, and assist the poor. On March 23, 2020, Reich talked to filmmaker and activist Astra Taylor. Under shelter-in-place orders, the two spoke from their respective homes via video conference.

Our guest is poet Ocean Vuong. His debut novel "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" takes the form of a letter written to the narrator's mother. The details closely mirror Vuong's own life. Vuong was raised by his mother and grandmother in Hartford, Connecticut. Born in Viet Nam, he was two years old when they left a refugee camp in the Philippines to immigrate to the United States. Ocean Vuong came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on February 3, 2020, to talk with fellow writer Tommy Orange about making art, the power of language, and what it means to be an American.

Ottessa Moshfegh is the author of the novels "My Year of Rest and Relaxation", and "Eileen", and the novella "McGlue". Moshfegh is known for writing characters wracked with depression and neurosis - and for the care with which she tends to them. Dark subject matter like grief and alcoholism are tempered by Moshfegh's keen sense of humor. On January 13, 2020, Ottessa Noshfegh came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Isabel Duffy.

Dan Pfeiffer was one of the first people to volunteer on Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency in 2008. He was one of the last people to leave, in 2015. Over those eight years, Pfeiffer served in the Obama Administration in a number of key roles, including White House Communications Director and Senior Advisor. Today Pfeiffer co-hosts the podcast “Pod Save America” with fellow Obama administration alumni. On February 27, 2020, Dan Pfeiffer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Lara Bazelon about the Democratic primaries and his just-published book “un-trumping America.”

Not yet thirty years old, the Irish novelist Sally Rooney has quickly amassed an international following. In “Conversations with Friends” and “Normal People”, Rooney’s nuanced depictions of complex characters confront structures of intimacy, friendship, and class. On February 12, 2020, Sally Rooney and fellow writer Heidi Julavits had a conversation - originally scheduled before an audience at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in January, but postponed due to Rooney’s illness, the program was recorded in a New York studio.

Adam Mansbach is a screenwriter and cultural critic whose books include “Angry Black White Boy,” and “The End of the Jews.” But he achieved his greatest commercial success with his first adult parody of children’s books, “Go the Fuck to Sleep”. He’s joined by political comedian Kamau Bell, host and executive producer of the CNN docu-series United Shades of America. On January 6, 2020,  Mansbach and Bell, friends and collaborators, came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk about writing, raising daughters, getting vasectomies. and more.

This week our guest is Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of the darkly funny animated series “BoJack Horseman,” now in its final season on Netflix.  The show has received wide acclaim for its concurrent hilarity and exploration of more serious themes like depression, failure, and alcoholism.  His new book, *Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory, *is a collection of short stories about love. On December 16, 2019, Rafael Bob-Waksberg came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with television critic Emily Nussbaum.

Our guest is poet, podcaster, and novelist Melissa Broder. Broder’s sardonic humor and genuine vulnerability have garnered a loyal following through her twitter persona @sosadtoday - as well as her novel “The Pisces”, a story of a woman fleeing heartbreak and a failed dissertation, finding comfort and passion in a love affair with a merman.  On December 11, 2019, Melissa Broder came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to perform a live episode of her podcast “Eating Alone in My Car.”

Our guest is historian Ibram X. Kendi, the author of “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.” Kendi’s newest book, “How to be an Antiracist”, tasks readers with identifying their own racism, and working to challenge racist policies that underlie society. On December 12, 2019, Ibram Kendi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Jelani Cobb, staff writer for the New Yorker.

Ben Lerner and Maggie Nelson are two of the foremost writers working at the intersections of poetry, nonfiction, and memoir. They talk about Lerner's book "The Topeka School", a semi-autobiographical work that examines language, masculinity, and today's political and cultural crises. This program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater on November 21, 2019.

Mo Rocca, humorist, history buff, and a regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!, is fascinated by obituaries. He coined the term "Mobituaries" as a second remembrance for people or things that didn't get a proper one the first time around - from obscure presidents to lawn darts to disco. On November 18, 2019, Mo Rocca came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Adam Savage.

Our guest is writer, activist, and feminist organizer Gloria Steinem.  In 1971, when Steinem founded the groundbreaking “Ms.” women’s magazines focused on finding a husband, or the right lipstick. But Ms. carried articles on de-sexing the English language, abortion, and the real challenges women were facing. The feminist icon continues to fight for equality across race and gender. And at eighty-five years of age, her energy is undiminished.  On November 13, 2019, Gloria Steinem came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Amy Richards about today’s political climate, the need for organizing across generations, and her lifelong wish to be a stand-up comic.

Our guest is Chris Hughes. In May of 2019, Hughes published an Op-Ed in the *New York Times, *entitled “It’s Time to Break Up Facebook.” Hughes called for government regulation of the platform, and reflected on the troubling directions he believes Facebook has moved in since he co-founded the company. On November seventh, 2019, Chris Hughes came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with journalist and author Courtney E. Martin about his successes and failures as a young person working in tech, and the societal problems he sees Facebook and other large corporations contributing to. Hughes also talked about the notion of a universal basic income, and anti-monopoly fund he is working on right now.

In 1993, Liz Phair flipped the indie rock landscape with frank lyrics about sexuality and anxiety on her debut album “Exile in Guyville.” In her memoir “Horror Stories,” Phair recounts the most transformative moments in her life as an unabashed musician and mother. On October 21, 2019, Liz Phair came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to sit down with photographer Tabitha Soren for a candid conversation about her sudden rise to fame, and the often unrecognized, universal experiences of shame and fear that make up our common humanity.

Our guests are writers Andre Aciman and Andrew Sean Greer. Aciman is a memoirist, essayist, and scholar of seventeenth-century literature. His best-known novel, “Call Me By Your Name”, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. He’s just published a sequel to the book, “Find Me.” Andrew Sean Greer is the author of “The Confessions of Max Tivoli” and “Less,”  a comedy about a man fleeing the humiliations of love, middle-age, and failure. “Less” won last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. On November 6, 2019, Andre Aciman and Andrew Sean Greer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Steven Winn.

Our guest is actor, artist, and now - published poet John Lithgow, known for his television and film roles including “Third Rock From the Sun,” “The Crown,” and “The World According to Garp” - and numerous stage credits, most recently playing Bill Clinton in “Hillary and Clinton.” Lithgow plays Roger Ailes in the 2019 film “Bombshell” and he’s just published “Dumpty: The Age of Trump in Verse”. The book, featuring Lithgow’s own illustrations, chronicles the last few years in politics with his characteristic sharp wit. On October 30, 2019, John Lithgow came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with New Yorker staff writer and humorist Calvin Trillin.

Zadie Smith is known for her emotionally rich stories and unique perspective on contemporary culture. Smith wrote her widely acclaimed debut novel “White Teeth” as an undergraduate. She soon cemented her reputation as one of the most important voices of her generation with books like “Swing Time,” “The Autograph Man,” and "On Beauty.” On October 16, 2019, Zadie Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Isabel Duffy about her debut short story collection, “Grand Union.”  Their far-ranging conversation ruminated on living abroad, maturing as a writer, and the catharsis of reading fiction and philosophy.

Our guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates. His debut novel, “The Water Dancer,” merges the slavery narrative with fantasy, and draws on themes, stories, and research from his past non-fiction, including from his books “Between the World and Me” and “We Were Eight Years in Power.” On October 14, 2019, Ta-Nehisi Coates came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk with fellow writer Michael Chabon about craft, the role of the writer in public discourse, and much more.

Our guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of today’s most respected voices on race relations in the United States. Catapulted to fame with the publication of “Between The World And Me,” Coates has maintained his focus on institutional injustice, as well as the very personal work of honing his writing craft. In his newest work, Coates tackles fiction. “The Water Dancer” merges slave narrative and fantasy, and draws on historical research. On October 15, 2019, Ta-Nehisi Coates came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk with his editor Chris Jackson about writing his first novel.

Known to many as a travel writer,  Pico Iyer is not so much a guide to foreign lands as he is a sage interpreter of our interior lives. His many books include Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, and The Art of Stillness, a poetic investigation of the benefits of quiet contemplation and travel to “nowhere.” With his two newest works, Iyer turns his attention to Japan, his adopted home of thirty-two years. Autumn Light is a personal account of grief and family. A Beginner’s Guide to Japan looks outward, drawing on readings, reflections, and conversations to illuminate aspects of Japanese culture. On October 10, 2019, Pico Iyer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to be interviewed by Dan Stone.

This week, we pay tribute to the activist, essayist, and critic Susan Sontag. 15 years after her death, Sontag's perspectives on language, sexuality, and politics still resonate. She elevated art forms like film and photography, and believed that dedication to high culture was in itself a form of activism. On October 2, 2019, biographer Benjamin Moser and writer and activist Rebecca Solnit came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to discuss the life, work, and legacy of Susan Sontag.

Our guests are former California governor Jerry Brown and journalist Miriam Pawel. In 1975, Jerry Brown became the youngest governor in modern American times. Three decades later, he returned as the oldest, to face unprecedented challenges, including rampant wildfires and a statewide financial crisis.  Miriam Pawel has just written a biography of the Brown family - a dynasty that led the state for nearly a quarter of a century.  On October 25, 2019, Brown and Pawel came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Lara Bazelon.

Poet, artist, and musician Patti Smith first gained recognition in the 1970s for her merging of rock and poetry. Later, she would become a punk icon and the author of numerous books including “Just Kids,” and “M Train.”  Her new memoir “Year of the Monkey” is a beautifully written account of loss and friendship -- over the course of a single year. On October 7, 2019, Patti Smith came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Dan Stone and perform a few songs.

Demi Moore is an actress, producer, director and activist known for her roles in St. Elmo’s Fire, Ghost, A Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal, and G.I. Jane, among many others. For decades, Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight — or the headlines. In her memoir "Inside Out", Moore opens up about her career and personal life – her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, addiction, her struggles with balancing stardom with raising a family, a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception, and her journey toward open-heartedness. Krista Smith is the host of the Netflix podcast “Present Company with Krista Smith”. Previously, Smith served as Executive West Coast Editor for Vanity Fair. On September 27, 2019, Demi Moore came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco for an onstage conversation with Krista Smith.

Our guests this week are Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters who first broke the story of Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct. They’ll talk about the many obstacles Weinstein created to stop women from going public with their stories, and how he prevented reporters from investigating. Their new book, “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement,” is an in-depth account of Weinstein’s incredibly disturbing treatment of women, and an unflinching look at the people and systems that aided and abetted this behavior. On October 11, 2019, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Bernice Yeung. They were joined by Rowena Chiu, a former assistant to Weinstein who recently went public with her allegations of harassment and attempted rape.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow talks about the oil and gas industry’s impact on democracy around the world, tying in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, and more. On October 6, 2019, Rachel Maddow came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to read from her new book “Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth”. Maddow spoke to Dan Pfeiffer, a former advisor to President Barack Obama who now co-hosts “Pod Save America”.

Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker and has written numerous books at the intersection of sociology, economics, and behavorial science. Gladwell has now brought his passion for storytelling to the world of podcasting with two projects: the music podcast “Broken Record”, and “Revisionist History”, which reexamines the past and asks whether we got it right the first time. He came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on September 19, 2019 to talk with Al Letson about the surprising lessons in his newest book “Talking to Strangers”.

Jen Gunter is a physician who's been nicknamed "Twitter's resident gynecologist", whose new book is "The Vagina Bible". Within the private confines of her examining room, women ask deeply personal questions and share intimate details about their bodies rarely discussed in public. How can it be that so many women can know so little about their own bodies? Dr. Gunter is determined to help them know more, and frustrated by the dangerous myths and misperceptions perpetuated by online misinformation and wellness gurus. On May 21, 2019, Jen Gunter came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with writer Ayelet Waldman.

This week, a conversation about privacy, ethics, and organizing in the world of technology.Who benefits from the lack of diversity in the tech industry? Does artificial intelligence reflect the biases of those who create it? How can we push for regulation and transparency?  These are some of the questions discussed by our guests, Meredith Whittaker, co-founder of AI Now at NYU and the founder of Google’s Open Research Institute; and Kade Crockford, Director of the ACLU Massachusetts’ Technology and Liberty Program. They appeared at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on June 7, 2019.

Before Amor Towles became a bestselling writer, he spent two decades working for an investment firm, staying countless nights at luxury hotels. That’s where he had the idea for "A Gentleman in Moscow", the story of a Russian aristocrat who is sentenced by the Bolsheviks to a lifetime of house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel. Amor Towles came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on June 4, 2019, to talk with Michael Krasny of KQED.

A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker now writing for The Atlantic, George Packer has reported extensively on global unrest, from Bosnia, to the Iraq War, to the civil war in Syria. In his new book “Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century,” Packer writes about one of America’s greatest diplomats. He compares Holbrooke’s larger than life character, utterly self-absorbed, in turns revered and reviled, to an era of enormous global influence. On May 23, 2019, George Packer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater talked with Clara Jeffrey about Richard Holbrooke, the slow deterioration of American influence, and the country’s retreat into nationalism.

Jared Diamond, the author of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” discusses his new book about the rise and fall of civilizations around the globe. "Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change" combines history, geography, economic, and cultural analysis. Its broad scope and vast historical sweep are what fans of Diamond have come to appreciate. On May 15, 2019, Jared Diamond came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Roy Eisenhardt.

Maker Adam Savage, best known as the host of Mythbusters, and artist Tom Sachs have long been obsessed with outer space - from the engineering and aesthetics of NASA to the immensity of interstellar exploration. The gear, architecture, fashion, and dreams are all part of an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through January 2020, “Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space”. Sachs and Savage, and exhibition curator Joseph Becker, talked at the Fog Design and Art Fair.

In 2015, Anand Giridharadas delivered a speech at the Aspen Institute that took direct aim at the philanthropists and thought leaders in attendance. Giridharadas argued that the corporate world’s attempts at doing good, and many of the goals and deeds of philanthropy, actually do great harm by preserving a corrupt and unfair system of capitalism. The speech made waves, and inspired the book “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.” On May 7, 2019, Anand Giridharadas came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Courtney Martin.

David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times, and a regular on PBS News Hour and Meet The Press. In his new book, “The Second Mountain,” Brooks writes about his religious and spiritual journey, our country’s current political state of detachment, and how he learned to move from a state of disengagement to one of fulfilling connection in his personal life. On May 1, 2019, David Brooks came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk with Rabbi Ryan Bauer of Congregation Emanu-El.

In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report that served as a stark wake up call for many in the movement to combat climate change. Its key takeaway -- we only have about 12 years for aggressive action to keep global warming below one and a half degrees Celsius. Since then, the climate movement has experienced a surge of action, from school strikes in cities across the world, to the Sunrise Movement with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez leading the charge for a Green New Deal. On April 30, 2019, Bill McKibben and Mustafa Santiago Ali came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk to May Boeve of 350.org about the future of the climate change movement.

Samin Nosrat and Lindy West join us this week to talk about how they developed their individual voices, the process of adapting their work for television, and how to make delicious food. Samin Nosrat is author of the cookbook “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” and the executive producer of the Netflix series of the same name. Lindy West is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. Her essay collection “Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman,” is now a critically acclaimed television series starring Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant. On April 29, 2019, Samin Nosrat and Lindy West came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk with Allison P. Davis, senior culture writer for New York Magazine’s The Cut.  

A staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Jelani Cobb writes with eloquence and urgency on topics of race, politics, history, and culture. He is a professor of journalism at Columbia University, and the author of several books including “The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress” and “To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic.” On April 16, 2019, Jelani Cobb came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk with New Yorker colleague Hilton Als.

Whether writing about the business of baseball, or the strange and surprising subcultures of the financial world, Michael Lewis has a penchant for iconoclasts of industry, and characters so fascinating they seem imagined. Several of his bestselling books, including “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” have been made into movies. On April 11, 2019, Michael Lewis came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk with Jacob Weisberg about his career in journalism, from reading Tom Wolfe on the floor of his childhood home to the overnight success of his debut publication “Liars Poker.” The conversation was interspersed with clips from Lewis’ new podcast “Against the Rules.”  

Our guests are Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris, hosts of “Still Processing”... a culture podcast from the New York Times. Each week, Wesley, a critic-at-large, and Wortham, a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, lovingly debate pop-culture products and people, from queerness to unpacking black male privilege, Michael Jackson to Marie Kondo. On April 10, 2019, Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco. The event was a co-presentation with The New York Times.

In 2018, Stacey Abrams made United States history when she became the first black woman to be nominated by a major party for governor. Despite winning more votes than any other Democrat in Georgia’s history, Abrams lost the hotly contested election. But her impact can’t be understated. Abrams continues to work against voter suppression, and her plans to run for future office are a major source of curiosity among media and electorate alike. On May 19, 2019, Stacey Abrams came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Alexis Madrigal about her family, her desire to build a template for future Democratic campaigns, and the question of whether or not she will run for president.

Ruth Reichl served as restaurant critic for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, before becoming Editor in Chief of Gourmet Magazine during the Golden Era of print journalism. In her latest memoir, “Save Me The Plums,” Reichl reveals the realities of her time at Gourmet, and the lasting ways in which she innovated food journalism as we know it. On April 9, 2019, Ruth Reichl came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with arts journalist and fiction writer Steven Winn.  

Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and futurist, and the co-founder of string field theory, a branch of string theory. Thanks to his many books, regular television appearances, and robust Twitter presence, Dr. Kaku is one of the rare scientists with an enormous public following, particularly among young people. In his newest book, “Our Destiny Beyond Earth,” Kaku argues that human civilization can and will move to outer space. On April 8, 2019, Dr. Michio Kaku came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Alexis Madrigal, a staff writer at the Atlantic.

Rachel Cusk is a writer of considerable range and depth, and her most recent works —  dubbed the “Outline” trilogy -- embody a new and distinctive style. The novels take the form of a succession of monologues delivered not by the protagonist, but by the people she encounters. Little is revealed about a central character who serves principally as a conduit for others. The themes and questions that arise from those stories are weighty, as is Cusk’s choice to subvert traditional positions and form. On April 8, 2019, Rachel Cusk came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Steven Winn about her unconventional work and its reception.

Started three years ago in the media lab of California’s San Quentin Prison, the podcast Ear Hustle tells the daily realities of life inside prison, shared by those living it. On March 29, 2019, two of the podcast’s creators, visual artist Nigel Poor and former inmate Earlonne Woods, came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk to Al Letson. After twenty-one years of incarceration, Earlonne Woods’ sentence had recently been commuted by Governor Jerry Brown. This was his first major public appearance since his release.

Dr. Daniel Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry, and the author of multiple books on child-rearing, including “The Whole Brain Child” and “No Drama Discipline.” Siegel’s books are popular with parents and and teachers alike, with their strategies for cultivating calmer, happier children. While mindfulness techniques -- and patience -- help foster healthy brain development, Siegel also suggests that improving children’s health and well-being requires addressing our own problems. On March 4, 2019, Dr. Daniel Siegel came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Steven Winn.

Rebecca Solnit is a writer and activist whose work addresses a wide range of issues, from climate change to feminism, and literary criticism to police brutality. She is the author of over twenty books, including Hope in the Dark and  Men Explain Things to Me. On February 27, 2019, Rebecca Solnit came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk with Astra Taylor, a filmmaker and political organizer*. *  

Among this year’s most acclaimed books is Tommy Orange’s debut novel “There, There”. The book begins with a poignant prologue describing the devastating history of genocide and violent removal of Native Americans from their lands, setting the stage for a contemporary story about the urban Native American experience in the city of Oakland. The characters’ lives are informed by their ancestors’ suffering, as well as the continued systematic discrimination against Native people. On February 25, 2019, Tommy Orange came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to be interviewed by Jeff Chang, author of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop” and the Vice President of Narrative, Arts, and Culture at Race Forward.

Preet Bharara served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017, before being fired by President Trump within a few weeks of his inauguration. Bharara is the host of the podcast Stay Tuned with Preet, and author of the book Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law. On March 26, 2019, Preet Bharara came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Jeffrey Toobin, a staff writer at The New Yorker and a senior legal analyst at CNN.

Marlon James is best known for “A Brief History of Seven Killings”, a sweeping, violent novel about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2015. His new novel  “Black Leopard, Red Wolf”  is the first in the “Dark Star Trilogy,” a fantasy series which James describes as an African Game of Thrones. On February 19, 2019, Marlon James came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with fellow author Jeff Chang.

Michael Tubbs has devoted his political life to fighting economic inequality in Stockton -- the Northern California city where he was born and raised.  Elected Mayor in 2016, Tubbs has worked to reinvent the formerly bankrupt city. This past year, he spearheaded a universal basic income pilot program. Already identified as a rising figure in the progressive movement, Tubbs isn’t even thirty years old yet, making him the youngest mayor of an American city of more than 100,000 people. On February 13, 2019, Mayor Tubbs came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Dan Pfeiffer, co-host of Pod Save America and a former senior advisor to President Obama. Join me now for a conversation with Mayor Michael Tubbs.

Jad Abumrad is the creator and co-host of Radiolab, a program with a unique brand of storytelling that explores science, philosophy, and the human experience. Abumrad is also the creator of “More Perfect,” a podcast about how the Supreme Court shapes everything from marriage and money to public safety and sex. On February 8, 2019, Jad Abumrad came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Alexis Madrigal, staff writer at “The Atlantic”.

Rebecca Traister has spent her career writing about politics, media, and entertainment from a feminist perspective.  In her most recent book, “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger,” Traister tracks the history of female anger as political fuel - from suffragists protesting outside the White House during the First World War, to office workers vacating their building after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. On February 4, 2019, Rebecca Traister came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk with Lara Bazelon, a professor of law at the University of San Francisco.  

Author Meg Wolitzer brings readers deep into the lives of others. A feminist thread runs through all of her work, including novels like “The Interestings” and “The Wife,” but nowhere is the subject of power more deeply investigated than in her newest book, “The Female Persuasion.” Campus assault, intergenerational feminism, debate, mentorship and ambition make it an especially timely story. On January 24 2019, Wolitzer came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to be interviewed by The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik.

Dr. BJ Miller is a palliative care expert who has spearheaded a nationwide effort to change the way we approach death and dying. Rather than hospitalization and endless attempts at sustaining life, Miller advocates for a mindful, human-centered model of care that embraces dying not as a medical event, but a universally shared life experience. On January 22, 2019, BJ Miller came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater to talk with author Pico Iyer.

It has been twenty-five years since Jeff Tweedy founded the seminal alt-country band Wilco. The band still performs together, while Tweedy contributes his talents to other projects too - musical,  and now literary, with the publication of a 2018 memoir, “Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc.” Tweedy’s newest solo album, “Warm,” is his most personal to date. On January 11, 2019, Jeff Tweedy came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with the writer George Saunders, author of  “Lincoln in the Bardo.”

Our guests are activist and scholar Angela Davis, and historian Ibram X. Kendi. Throughout her lifetime, Angela Davis has been a passionate voice for human rights, working from the position that the battles for African American rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and prisoners’ rights, are interconnected. Dr. Kendi profiled Dr. Davis in his book “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.” On January 10, 2019, Angela Davis and Ibram X. Kendi came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, to talk with Jeff Chang about the connections between capitalism, racism and sexism, and ways that activists, and all citizens, can move forward.

James Forman Jr., a legal scholar and author, has devoted his life to fighting institutionalized racism. In his book,  “Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America,” Forman writes about the war on crime that began in the 1970s, examining the role that African American judges, prosecutors, and leaders played and how it contributed to the mass incarceration of people of color. On December 13, 2018, Forman came to The Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Lara Bazelon, a professor of law at the University of California San Francisco. Join me now for a conversation with James Forman Jr.

This week on City Arts & Lectures, pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris talks about how exposure to violence and stress affects the developing brains and bodies of children - resulting in increased instances of substance dependence, and even heart disease or cancer. Harris is the founder of the Center for Youth Wellness and author of The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity. On December 3, 2018, Nadine Burke Harris came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco to talk with Indre Viskontas.

Kirsten Gillibrand has represented New York in the US Senate since 2009, where her major accomplishments include leading the effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and providing permanent health care and compensation to 9/11 first responders. She talks with KQED’s Marisa Lagos about her time in the Senate, being a mother and a legislator, the MeToo movement, and her new childrens’ book “Bold and Brave” profiling women suffragists.

Our guest is Jonathan Franzen, the author of celebrated novels including “The Corrections” and “Freedom.” On November 27, 2018, Franzen came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco to read from his new essay collection, “The End of The End of The Earth.” Part social criticism, part personal examination, the essays consider Franzen’s love of birding, his writings and ruminations on climate change, and the underpinnings of family and friendship.

Our guest is comedian Al Madrigal, best known for his role as the "Senior Latino Correspondent" for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where he helped shed light on racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. The veteran of stand-up comedy has gone on to co-found the podcast network "All Things Comedy". Madrigal currently stars in Showtime’s “I’m Dying Up Here”. He was interviewed at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco by Adam Savage on November 10, 2018.

Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!”, is an accomplished playwright, actor, and now - marathoner, and author of the new book “The Incomplete Book of Running”. Sagal came to the Nourse Theater on November 9, 2018. He talked to Michael Krasny about the work of putting together one of public radio’s most popular humor news programs, as well as his dedication to running.

Eileen Myles is the author of more than twenty books of essays, fiction, and poetry including “Chelsea Girls” and “I Must Be Living Twice.”  On November eighth, 2018, Myles came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco to read from the new poetry collection, “Evolution,”and to talk with Stephen Best about struggling to be a writer in 1970s New York, running for president, and the experimental writing movement New Narrative.

Our guest is Abbi Jacobson, a comedian and author who’s best-known as half of the creative duo behind the series “Broad City” On November 3, 2018, Jacobson came to the Nourse Theater for a conversation with her longtime friend and fellow comedian, D’Arcy Carden. The two talked about friendship, collaboration, and Jacobson’s solo cross-country road trip last year on the heels of a devastating break-up - which forms the basis for her new book “I Might Regret This”.

Does artificial intelligence reflect the biases of those who create it? Can discrimination live on digital platforms and become part of the logic of everyday algorithmic systems? Kate Crawford, co-founder of the AI Now Institute at New York University and an expert on the social impacts of big data, discusses bias in artificial intelligence with Indre Viskontas.

This program presents a gathering of feminist thought leaders to celebrate the publication of Jill Soloway’s book “She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy.”  Soloway is the creator and showrunner of “Transparent” and “I Love Dick”. On October twenty-fifth, 2018, City Arts & Lectures hosted Hannah Gadsby, best-known for her comedy performance “Nanette”, Lili Loofbourow, Susan Stryker, and Faith Soloway, for an evening of comedy, music, debate and conversation, hosted by Jill Soloway, Favianna Rodriguez, and Cara Rose deFabio.

Director, producer, and writer *Barry Jenkins *has received sweeping critical acclaim for his films, which notably depict black and queer experience through a nuanced and expressive lens. His 2016 film Moonlight received the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture — Drama. Jenkins is currently in production on The Underground Railroad, a series based on Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name, and his forthcoming film, an adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel If Beale Street Could Talk, will be released in late November.

A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, Susan Orlean has written with wit and endless curiosity about subjects ranging from umbrella inventors to origami artists, from the figure skater Tonya Harding to treadmill desks, gospel choirs, and taxidermy. She is the author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief, which was the basis for the feature film adaptation starring Meryl Streep. In her newest work, The Library Book, Orlean reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history. Weaving her life-long love of reading with the fascinating history of libraries and the sometimes-eccentric characters who run them, Orlean presents a uniquely compelling story of the legendary Los Angeles Public Library fire, to showcase the crucial role that libraries play in our lives.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book, Leadership in Turbulent Times, is a culmination of five decades of studying American Presidents. Combining her signature storytelling with essential lessons from four of our nation’s presidents—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson—Goodwin explores their unique journeys to recognize themselves as leaders, the ways in which they navigated adversity, and how they emerged to confront the challenges and contours of their times.

This week, City Arts & Lectures features Michelle Goldberg, Jennine Capó Crucet, and Roxane Gay, all of whom are contributors to the New York Times Op-Ed section. The program includes stand-up comedy, conversation, and a live version of Roxane Gay’s advice column. This co-presentation with The New York Times was recorded at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco on October 19, 2018, and hosted by Rachel Dry, editor of the Times’ Sunday Review.

In a cultural landscape filled with endless pundits and talking heads, Fran Lebowitz stands out as one of our most insightful social commentators. Often considered heir to the crown of Dorothy Parker, her essays and interviews have been featured in Interview and Mademoiselle. Her books include Metropolitan Life, Social Studies, the children’s book Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meets the Pandas, and the novel Exterior Signs of Wealth. Lebowitz has long been a talk show regular, appearing on those hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, and Bill Maher, among others. Lebowitz lives in New York City. She’s interviewed by Lawrence Rinder, Director and Chief Curator of the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. 

Our guest is Sally Field. She got her start acting on TV in situation comedies like “Gidget" and “The Flying Nun”, before doggedly pursuing a career in film at a time when television talent was not always welcome in Hollywood. Against those odds, Field went on to portray dozens of iconic characters, in films including “Steel Magnolias,” “Norma Rae,” and “Lincoln.” Her new memoir is “In Pieces”. On September twenty-eighth, 2018, Sally Field came to the Nourse Theater in San Francisco and talked with Steven Winn about her life and career, and how her love of acting helped her find her way out of a difficult childhood.

Gary Shteyngart reads from his latest book, "Lake Success", and talks with Isabel Duffy about his writing methods, his love of luxury watches and roadside diners, and Soviet humor.

This week, Questlove and Boots Riley join us for a conversation about art, activism, and the creative process. Questlove is a founding member of The Roots, a seminal hip hop band out of Philadelphia. Boots Riley is the writer and director of the film Sorry to Bother You and frontman of The Coup, a radical hip-hop band from Oakland. On April twenty-first, 2018, Questlove and Boots Riley were interviewed by Carvell Wallace at the Nourse Theater in San Francisco.

Hilton Als spoke with Stephen M. Best on February 8, 2018 at the Sydney Goldstein Theater.