Podcast - Amy Franklin-Willis "The Lost Saints of Tennesee"

Stephen Usery interviews Amy Franklin-Willis about her debut novel, The Lost Saints of Tennessee. Zeke Cooper is a Hardeman County, Tennessee native who is having a hard time in the mid-1980s. His marriage has fallen apart, much as he did after his twin brother died ten years earlier. Desperate, he drives east looking for a way out of the regret for a tough past and a life of unfulfilled potential. Plus, a live performance by Andrew Castro, who wrote an album based on the book!

Podcast - Alex George "A Good American"

Stephen Usery interviews English expat Alex George about his new novel, A Good American, which follows Frederick and Henriette Meisenheimer as they emigrate from Germany to the United States in 1903. The story of the family's relationship with their new home in central Missouri spans almost a century, and the many upheavals in their lives mirror America's tumultuous history. many upheavals in their lives mirror America's tumultuous history.

Podcast - Eugenia Bone "Mycophilia"

 Stephen Usery interviews Eugenia Bone about her book Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms. In it we learn about the essential roll of fungi in all areas of life on earth, the wonderful diversity of edible wild mushrooms that one can pick, and the scientific discoveries about the nutritional and medicinal values of the humble mushroom.

Podcast - Patrick deWitt "The Sisters Brothers"

Stephen Usery interviews Patrick deWitt about his bestselling and critically-acclaimed novel, The Sisters Brothers. Set in the midst of the California gold rush, professional killers Charlie and Eli Sisters make their way from Oregon to San Francisco aiming to eliminate a miner who has crossed their powerful employer, The Commodore. Hilarious and melancholy, The Sisters Brothers won two major awards in deWitt's native Canada.

Podcast - Gin Phillips "Come In and Cover Me"

Stephen Usery interviews Gin Phillips, acclaimed author of The Well and the Mine. Her new novel, Come in and Cover Me, is the story of archaeologist whose study of early Southwest cultures is complicated by her own past.

Podcast - Kim Edwards "The Lake of Dreams"

Stephen Usery interviews Kim Edwards (The Memory Keeper's Daughter) about her latest novel, The Lake of Dreams, which is now available in paperback. Lucy Jarrett returns home to upstate New York after working in Asia for almost a decade. Family secrets new and old surface as Lucy is pulled at by loves old and new.

Podcast - Joshilyn Jackson "A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty"

Stephen Usery interviews Joshilyn Jackson about her fifth novel, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty. It's an funny yet tense story of three generation of Slocumb women, eldest Ginny, Liza, and youngest Mosey, who have to deal with secrets coming to light after Liza has a stroke and a mysterious silver box is found in their backyard, exposing many lies in the process.

Podcast - Adam Johnson "The Orphan Master's Son"

Stephen Usery interviews Adam Johnson about his critically-acclaimed second novel, The Orphan Master's Son. It's the story of Pak Jun Do, a young man thought to be an orphan, and the incredible path his life takes inside the repressive and mysterious political system of North Korea. It's a harrowing tale that also allows room for love and humanity to bloom in the cracks of this totalitarian regime.

Podcast - John M. Barry "Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul"

Stephen Usery interviews John M. Barry, the New York Times best-selling author of Rising Tide and The Great Influenza. Barry's new book is Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, which traces America's approach to freedom of religion back to Williams's reaction to supression of Puritans by the English crown and his banishment by early Massachusetts colonists.

Podcast - Margi Preus "Heart of a Samurai"

Stephen Usery interviews Margi Preus about her debut novel, Heart of A Samurai. This Newberry Honor winner is now in paperback and is based on the true story of John Manjiro, a 14 year-old Japanese boy who survived a shipwreck in 1841 and led to adventures leading him farther away from home than he could have ever imagined.

Podcast - Stuart Dill "Murder on Music Row"

Stephen Usery interviews Stuart Dill about his debut thriller, Murder on Music Row. Drawing on over two decades of artist management, Dill has created a tense, behind-the-scenes look at the country music industry as someone is trying to kill the biggest star in Nashville, Ripley Graham. 23-year-old intern Judd Nix has gotten in over his head and is as concerned about his own survival as solving the mystery.

Podcast - Hillary Jordan "When She Woke"

Hillary Jordan comes back to the program to talk about her new novel When She Woke. In a near, dystopian future, Hannah Payne awakes and finds her skin colored red for a committing a crime, which today would be perfectly legal. It's a bit of a riff on The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne that also investigates how our information technology could conspire to deprive us of our basic freedoms.

Podcast - William B. Jones, Jr. "Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History"

Stephen Usery interviews William B. Jones, Jr. about his new book, Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History. More than just a beautiful coffee table book, Jones traces the history of Classics Illustrated from their pre-World War II beginnings through through peak of popularity in the 1950s, until their end in the 1960s, and subsequent attempts to revive bringing the great books to young and older readers alike in comic book form.

Podcast - Justin Torres "We The Animals"

Stephen Usery interviews Justin Torres about his critically-acclaimed debut novel, We The Animals. It's the story of a very young family with three boys in Upstate New York stuggling with identity on all fronts in addition to economic hardship. Concentrated, unflinching, and impressionistic, We The Animals is one of the most talked about debuts of the year.

Podcast - Marisa de los Santos "Falling Together"

Stephen Usery interview Marisa de los Santos about her third novel, Falling Together. It's the story of three friends who were inseperable in college, but several years after graduation the friendship disintegrates, and as their ten-year reunion approaches, they must come to grips with this and other losses.

Podcast - Robert Morgan "Lions of the West"

Stephen Usery interviews acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan. Best known for his novel Gap Creek, Morgan has been branching out into biography recently, and his new book Lions of the West takes a look at ten men who played huge roles in America's expansion from the original thirteen colonies all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Podcast - Diana Abu Jaber "Birds of Paradise"

Stephen Usery interviews Diana Abu Jaber about her new novel, Birds of Paradise. Set in southern Florida in 2005, a family struggles with after effects of a runaway daughter who stays in just enough touch to keep the wounds open as her mother, father, and brother all try to move forward in their lives.

Podcast - Lisa Patton - "Yankee Doodle Dixie"

Stephen Usery interviews former Memphian Lisa Patton about her second novel Yankee Doodle Dixie. A sequel to Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'Easter, Yankee Doodle Dixie finds Leelee Satterfield back in Memphis and having trouble readjusting to home after having run an inn in Vermont for over a year. A new job in radio makes things more interesting than Leelee could have ever imagined.

Podcast - Robert Olen Butler "A Small Hotel"

Stephen Usery interviews Pulitzer-Prize winner Robert Olen Butler about his new novel, A Small Hotel. It's the story of the end of a marriage between Michael and Kelly Hays, but travels back in time to their first meeting, their childhoods, and other points along their histories that let us know how their marriage came to be so troubled.

Podcast - Jesmyn Ward "Salvage the Bones"

Stephen Usery interviews Jesmyn Ward about her second novel, Salvage the Bones. It's August of 2005, and as the hurricane season begins heating up, a Mississippi Gulf Coast teenage girl named Esch tries to get by from day to day, as her brother raises pit bulls for fighting, her father obsesses about the coming storms, and the world at large seems to have little to no sympathy for the rural poor.