Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

On this episode of Writer’s Voice, we talk with novelist Justin C. Key about The Hospital at the End of the World, a gripping speculative story that explores the ethical and human stakes of AI in medicine.

“Technology is best when it’s a tool wielded by humans.”

Then, memory champion Nelson Dellis joins us to talk about Everyday Genius—and how ordinary people can train their minds for sharper memory, deeper focus, and far-reaching intuition.

“I never had a good memory growing up. It was something that I was inspired to change and learned all about it and really started to work on it about 15 years ago. And my mind has been different ever since.” 

Two conversations that explore what the human mind can do — and what AI never will.

Read or Listen to A Sample from The Hospital At The End of the World

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Tags: AI ethics, AI in medicine, speculative fiction AI, human vs machine intelligence, physician patient relationship, memory techniques, memory palace, cognitive training, intuition, remote viewing, Writer’s Voice podcast, Nelson Dellis, Justin C. Key,

Segment One: Justin C. Key

What happens when artificial intelligence becomes more than a tool—and starts making decisions for us?

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Justin C. Key’s gripping novel imagines a world where AI controls medicine, exposing the ethical and human stakes of technological dependence.

The Hospital At The End of the World is a speculative novel set in a near-future America where an AI corporation controls not only medicine but society at large. The story follows a young medical student forced to flee New York for a human-centered hospital in New Orleans—the last city resisting AI dominance.

Key explores the tension between machine efficiency and human intuition, the risks of technological dependency, and the political forces shaping how technology is used.

Segment Two: Nelson Dellis

What if the reason you forget things has nothing to do with your memory — and everything to do with how you retrieve information?

Nelson Dellis, six-time USA Memory Champion and author of Everyday Genius, joins Writer’s Voice to explain how ordinary people can develop extraordinary mental skills.

Dellis — who grew up with no exceptional memory — began studying memory techniques 15 years ago and transformed his mind entirely.

In this conversation, he breaks down the ancient method of the memory palace, explains why multitasking is a myth built on dopamine, offers practical tricks for anyone who fears numbers, and describes his unexpected encounter with a classified government program that trained psychics to gather Cold War intelligence.

His book, Everyday Genius, covers memory, focus, number sense, creativity, decision-making, and intuition — making the case that every one of us has an inner genius waiting to be developed.

Check Out Nelson Dellis’ YouTube Channel

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

This week on Writer’s Voice, two authors explore fascinating episodes from women’s history—stories of bold individuals who challenged the boundaries of power, speech, and social convention.

Journalist Eden Collinsworth discusses The Improbable Mrs. Woodhull, her biography of Victoria Woodhull—an astonishing figure who rose from poverty to become a stockbroker, newspaper publisher, and the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872.

“I, like you and most Americans, knew nothing of her.”

Then novelist Shelley Noble joins us to talk about The Sisters of Book Row, a historical novel set in 1915 New York during Anthony Comstock’s aggressive crusade against books and information he deemed “obscene.” Noble’s story centers on three sisters running a bookstore in Manhattan’s famous Book Row, where booksellers faced censorship, raids, and the threat of imprisonment.

“My thing as an author is to find those little niches of people who actually make history that we should know about, but we very often don’t know about.”

Together, these conversations illuminate forgotten histories about the power of books and the struggle for women’s rights.

Read or Listen to A Sample from The Improbable Victoria Woodhull

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Tags: Victoria Woodhull, Eden Collinsworth, Shelley Noble, The Improbable Mrs. Woodhull, The Sisters of Book Row, Writer’s Voice podcast, women’s history,

Segment One: Victoria Woodhull: Radical Reformer – Eden Collinsworth

Victoria Woodhull was one of the most remarkable and controversial figures of the nineteenth century. Born into poverty with little formal education, she reinvented herself repeatedly—first as a spiritualist, then as a stockbroker on Wall Street, a newspaper publisher, and eventually the first woman to run for President of the United States.

Journalist Eden Collinsworth first encountered Woodhull’s story in an unlikely place: the archives of the British Museum. There she discovered the transcripts of a lawsuit Woodhull brought against the museum—a discovery that opened the door to a life story filled with audacity, ambition, and reinvention.

In this conversation, Collinsworth explores Woodhull’s complex legacy. Woodhull was a fierce advocate for women’s rights, labor reform, and what she called “free love,” arguing that women should have control over their own bodies and marriages. Her ideas shocked Victorian society and earned her both devoted supporters and bitter enemies.

Woodhull’s run for the presidency in 1872 was largely symbolic—women could not even vote at the time—but it made her a national sensation. Her life intersected with many of the major social movements of her era, from suffrage to spiritualism to the labor movement.

Collinsworth’s biography brings new attention to this extraordinary figure and examines why Woodhull’s story has largely been forgotten despite the boldness of her achievements.

Segment Two: The Sisters of Book Row – Shelley Noble

In her novel The Sisters of Book Row, Shelley Noble recreates a vanished literary world: Manhattan’s famous Book Row, a stretch of Fourth Avenue that once housed dozens of rare and secondhand bookstores.

The story takes place in 1915, when Anthony Comstock’s anti-obscenity crusade cast a long shadow over American publishing. Comstock, a powerful moral reformer and postal inspector, used federal law to seize and destroy books, artworks, and even information about women’s health.

Noble’s novel follows three sisters who inherit their father’s bookstore and struggle to keep the shop alive amid increasing censorship and social pressure. As the sisters navigate their own ambitions and secrets, they become entangled in the broader struggle over knowledge, books, and freedom of expression.

Drawing on the rich history of Book Row and the world of early twentieth-century bookselling, Noble portrays a vibrant community of merchants, collectors, and readers who believed deeply in the cultural importance of books.

The novel also touches on the underground circulation of information about women’s health during the era of the Comstock laws, connecting the story of censorship with the emerging fight for reproductive rights.

Through the lives of ordinary people—booksellers, printers, activists—The Sisters of Book Row shows how cultural change often begins with individuals quietly resisting authority.

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with bestselling author Jung Chang about her memoir Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, and China, the long-awaited sequel to her landmark book Wild Swans.

Chang recounts how her parents — once devoted Communists — became disillusioned by famine, repression, and the violence of the Cultural Revolution. Their refusal to betray their beliefs shaped her own commitment to truth and integrity.

“My mother was made to kneel on broken glass… but she still refused to denounce my father.”  

She also reflects on her extraordinary journey from Mao’s isolated China to becoming one of the first Chinese students to study in Britain, and how that experience transformed her thinking.

“I must only follow the evidence and arrive at conclusions from the evidence gathered.”  

Finally, Chang discusses the resurgence of authoritarianism under Xi Jinping and why she still believes China’s people ultimately desire freedom.

Read A Sample from Fly, Wild Swans

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Tags: Jung Chang interview, Fly Wild Swans, Wild Swans author, Chinese history memoir, China under Xi Jinping, authoritarianism China, Writer’s Voice podcast

Segment: Jung Chang — Fly, Wild Swans

After Jung Chang wrote her first memoir, Wild Swans, she went on to write biographies of Mao Tse Tung and the last Empress of China. 

Now, 25 years after her first book, Chang returns with Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself, and China, continuing the story after she became one of the first Chinese students allowed to leave Communist China and study in the West.

Jung Chang recounts how her parents — once devoted Communists — became disillusioned by famine, repression, and the violence of the Cultural Revolution. She describes how her father’s protest against Mao’s policies led to brutal punishment — and how her mother refused to denounce him despite immense pressure. Their refusal to betray their beliefs shaped her own commitment to truth and integrity.

She also reflects on her extraordinary journey from Mao’s isolated China to becoming one of the first Chinese students to study in Britain, and how that experience transformed her thinking.

Finally, Chang tells us about the resurgence of authoritarianism under Xi Jinping and why she still believes China’s people ultimately want to be free.

In addition to her other books, Jung Chang is the author of Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister.

Key Topics

• Jung Chang’s memoir Fly, Wild Swans

• The legacy of Wild Swans

• Mao’s China and the Cultural Revolution

• Political courage and moral integrity

• The Great Chinese Famine

• Intellectual freedom and scholarship

• China under Xi Jinping

• Resistance to authoritarianism

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with political philosopher Lea Ypi about Indignity: A Life Reimagined, a genre-blending work of memoir, history, and philosophical inquiry that explores dignity under authoritarian regimes.

“I think of [dignity] as a property that is really what makes us human.” — Lea Ypi

Then novelist Eleanor Shearer discusses Fireflies in Winter, a lyrical historical novel following Jamaican Maroons exiled to Nova Scotia after the Second Maroon War. Through the story of Cora, Agnes, and Thursday, Shearer examines freedom, queer love, grief, and the moral tension between survival and solidarity.

“You were only ever a kind of set of stolen papers away… from having your freedom snatched from you.” — Eleanor Shearer

Together, these conversations probe enduring questions:

• What is dignity?
• What does it mean to be free inside systems designed to deny freedom?
• How do we maintain moral agency when our survival is at stake?

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Read The Transcript on Substack

Tags: Lea Ypi interview, Indignity book, Eleanor Shearer interview, Fireflies in Winter novel, Jamaican Maroons history, historical fiction about slavery, queer historical fiction, Writer’s Voice podcast.

You may also like: Jacob Mikanowski, GOODBYE EASTERN EUROPE, DaMaris Hill, A Bound Woman Is A Dangerous Thing

Segment One: Lea Ypi

A haunting honeymoon photograph of her grandmother — posted online by a stranger and met with accusations and insults — launches Lea Ypi into a philosophical and archival investigation.

Ypi’s grandmother lived through the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, fascism, communism, and neoliberal capitalism. The book asks: What does it cost to defend dignity when systems of power are dedicated to erase it?

Ypi explores:

• Dignity as a universal human capacity for moral agency
• The archive as an instrument of power
• Communist surveillance and modern surveillance capitalism
• Nationalism, fascism, and historical repetition
• The responsibility of art to “rescue dignity”

Read An Excerpt

Segment Two: Eleanor Shearer

Shearer brings to life the little-known history of Jamaican Maroons exiled to Nova Scotia in the 1790s.

Her protagonist Cora has never been enslaved — yet her freedom is deeply precarious. In Nova Scotia, she encounters Agnes, a formerly enslaved woman surviving in the forest, and Thursday, an indentured laborer whose freedom hangs by a thread.

Shearer explores:

• The ambiguity between legal freedom and lived freedom
• Indentureship and stolen contracts
• Queer love as resistance
• The moral collision between survival and solidarity
• Grief as a shaping force

Read or Listen to A Sample

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Resistance Is the Story

When we tell the history of slavery, too often we tell it as a story of suffering relieved by benevolent reformers. But what if resistance — not submission — was the central thread all along?

This week on Writer’s Voice, we begin with historian Sudhir Hazareesingh, whose groundbreaking book Daring to Be Free reframes the history of Atlantic slavery as a history of rebellion: from African defense militias and shipboard revolts to maroon communities and the Haitian Revolution. He restores enslaved women and men to the center of their own liberation struggles — not as passive victims, but as strategists, spiritual leaders, and revolutionaries.

“From the very moment slave raiding parties are sent out… people begin to resist.” — Sudhir Hazareesingh

Then we revisit my 2012 conversation with novelist Jacqueline Sheehan about The Comet’s Tale, her powerful work of historical fiction about Sojourner Truth. Through Truth’s childhood in bondage, her spiritual awakening, and her emergence as a fearless abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, we explore resilience, moral courage, and the making of a revolutionary life.

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Tags: Sudhir Hazareesingh, Daring to Be Free, Atlantic slavery, slave resistance, Haitian Revolution, Solitude of Guadeloupe, maroon communities, Sojourner Truth, Jacqueline Sheehan, The Comet’s Tale, Abolition movement, Black history, Writers Voice podcast,

You May Also Like: Aaron Robertson, THE BLACK UTOPIANS, Ben Passmore on Black Resistance

Read The Transcript

Segment One: Sudhir Hazareesingh

There are many histories of the Atlantic slave trade. Few center the enslaved as agents of their own freedom.

In Daring to Be Free, Sudhir Hazareesingh challenges the myth that resistance was rare or exceptional. Instead, he shows that resistance was woven into the fabric of slavery from the very beginning.

Solitude and the Erased Women of Resistance

Hazareesingh opens with the story of Solitude of Guadeloupe — a freedom fighter who resisted Napoleon’s 1802 attempt to reinstate slavery and was executed while remaining defiant . Her story, erased for generations, symbolizes what he calls a “hidden history” of resistance.

For too long, he argues, histories focused on male leaders and major revolutions, especially Haiti. But enslaved resistance was constant — and women were central actors: strategists, healers, organizers, spiritual leaders .

Resistance Began in Africa

Hazareesingh emphasizes that rebellion did not begin in the Americas. It began in Africa itself.

From the moment slave raiders entered African villages, communities organized militias, fought capture, resisted transport, and even planned revolts while confined on the coast .

Shipboard insurrections were often planned before captives even boarded the ships. Resistance was integral to the system — not an exception to it.

Spiritual Traditions as Sources of Power

African religious traditions — including Obeah and Islam — fortified resistance movements . These spiritual systems preserved identity, offered psychological protection, and helped organize rebellion.

Under conditions of near-total domination, enslaved people carved out autonomous interior worlds — sustaining languages, faiths, and networks of solidarity .

Women as Network Builders

Women, often working inside plantation households, gathered intelligence and helped coordinate revolts . They maintained kinship networks that countered what one historian called slavery’s “social death.”

Hazareesingh discovered instead a story of social persistence: communities forming bonds across plantations, across ethnic lines, and even across racial boundaries.

Palmares and Cross-Boundary Alliances

One astonishing example: Palmares in 17th-century Brazil — a vast maroon society of thousands that developed political systems, agriculture, trade, and military defenses .

Palmares blended African and Indigenous military traditions and even attracted poor whites seeking more humane community .

Resistance was multiracial, transnational, and sustained.

Haiti: Rank-and-File Revolution

While Hazareesingh has written on Toussaint L’Ouverture, in this book he emphasizes rank-and-file insurgents .

The Haitian Revolution became a beacon of Black sovereignty — and a terror to slaveholding powers . News of the uprising spread rapidly via sailors and refugee networks .

Yet Haiti paid a devastating price: punitive indemnities imposed by France in 1825, U.S. intervention under Woodrow Wilson, and ongoing destabilization .

The Enslaved as the True Abolitionists

Hazareesingh challenges the narrative that white reformers abolished slavery. Most abolitionists advocated gradualism. The enslaved demanded — and fought for — immediate freedom .

Their revolts and persistent pressure forced political change.

Honoring Our Debts

In concluding, Hazareesingh calls for a “debt of memory” — telling the story truthfully — and for serious engagement with material reparations .

And he offers a lesson for today: unity, resilience, and moral courage in the face of authoritarianism .

Read An Excerpt

Segment Two: Jacqueline Sheehan

The Comet’s Tale — A Novel of Sojourner Truth

In our encore conversation from 2012, novelist Jacqueline Sheehan explores the inner life of Sojourner Truth.

Isabella’s Childhood in Bondage

Born Isabella Baumfree in Dutch New York, Sojourner Truth’s first language was Dutch .

Sheehan spent five years researching Truth’s early life, drawing from the dictated narrative recorded by Olive Gilbert in Massachusetts .

Her novel focuses intensely on childhood — the psychological resilience required to survive being treated as property and sold away from family .

The Power of Story

The title The Comet’s Tale comes from a fictionalized birth story told by Isabella’s mother — illustrating how oral tradition helped enslaved parents maintain connection with children sold away .

Storytelling becomes an act of survival.

Spiritual Seeking and Dangerous Faith

After gaining freedom, Isabella moved to New York City during a period of religious ferment .

She became involved in the cult of Matthias — a charismatic religious leader who manipulated followers and dictated their lives .

Later, after a profound spiritual epiphany, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth — believing God had called her to preach .

Though illiterate, she became a mesmerizing orator; newspaper accounts described the hair standing on listeners’ necks .

Florence, Massachusetts: Political Awakening

Truth eventually found community at the Northampton Association for Education and Industry — a utopian, abolitionist community based on equality of labor and one person, one vote .

There she interacted with Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles, and blended her spirituality with abolitionism and women’s rights activism .

She later supported Black soldiers during the Civil War and met Abraham Lincoln .

Resilience as Choice

Sheehan emphasizes Truth’s moral agency: despite enduring profound injustice, she chose not to live in hatred .

Her life illustrates that even under brutal conditions, individuals retain the capacity for courageous choice.

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary

Something feels wrong with our attention — and with reality itself.

In Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement, editors D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt argue that this crisis is not about individual willpower. It’s about a multi-trillion-dollar industry built to monetize human attention.

They call it “human fracking.”

“These phones are the final node in a… $7 to $14 trillion industry that’s all about maximizing the amount of time that we engage with these devices… capturing our attention and turning it into money. And we call that ‘human fracking.’” — Peter Schmidt

In this conversation, we explore how the commodification of attention reshapes nearly every aspect of our lives.

We talk about attention as relational and ethical — not just measurable. And we examine why reclaiming attention must be a collective political movement, not a private detox.

Then, we listen to an excerpt from our 2025 conversation with Cory Doctorow about his book Enshittifcation.

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Tags: Attention Liberation Movement, Attensity book, D. Graham Burnett, Peter Schmidt, Alyssa Loh, human fracking, attention economy, digital capitalism, social media harm, attention activism, Cory Doctorow enshittification, attention sanctuaries, Writers Voice podcast

You may also like: Cory Doctorow, Enshittification, Cory Doctorow, Picks and Shovels

Read The Transcript

Segment Summary

The Crisis of Attention

• Why attention is “the key question of our moment”
• The metaphor of “human fracking”
• The internal environmental crisis of the mind

Attention as World-Making

• Attention as relational and ethical
• Simone Weil and the spiritual dimensions of attention
• How degraded attention makes reality feel unreal

Movement, Not Detox

• Converting private shame into collective anger
• Why willpower isn’t enough
• Parallels to environmental and civil rights movements

Sanctuaries of Attention

• Study, organizing, sanctuary
• Libraries, classrooms, coffee shops, Sabbath
• Reimagining civic institutions as attention infrastructure

A Positive Vision

• Designing technologies for human flourishing
• What a liberated attentional world might feel like for the next generation

Listen to or Read a Sample from the book

Read the Poem: St. Francis and the Sow

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary:

Historian Andrew Burstein joins us to talk about his biography, Being Thomas Jefferson. It’s an intimate portrait that looks beyond the marble statue and into the emotional life of one of America’s most influential founders.

Burstein explores Jefferson as a political moralist, a lyrical writer, and as someone who imagined democracy while profiting from slavery, who preached equality while exercising enormous power over others, and as someone who believed passionately in the nation’s destiny while fearing the forces of centralized power that could tear it apart.

“The Jefferson that I write about in this book is a political moralist who converts knowledge into feeling.” — Andrew Burstein

We’ll talk about Jefferson’s psychological world, his relationship with Sally Hemings, his battles with Federalism, and how his inner life helped shape our nation and the ideals we’re struggling to protect today.

Then, we listen to an excerpt from our 2014 conversation with Danielle Allen about her book Our Declaration, A Reading Of The Declaration of Independence In Defense of Equality.

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Tags: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Burstein, Being Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, slavery, Founding Fathers, Federalism, Jeffersonian democracy, American Revolution, Writer’s Voice, Danielle Allen, Declaration of Independence,

You Might Also Like: Danielle Allen, OUR DECLARATION, Sojourner Truth, Her Story & Meaning,

Read the Transcript

Andrew Burstein

Francesca Rheannon speaks with historian Andrew Burstein about Being Thomas Jefferson, a biography that examines Jefferson not just as a political figure, but as an emotional and psychological one.

Burstein describes Jefferson as “a political moralist who converts knowledge into feeling,” explaining how Jefferson’s seductive, lyrical writing helped forge America’s moral identity while masking deep personal fears and contradictions

The conversation explores Jefferson’s inner life, his need for control, his relationship with Sally Hemings, his rationalizations around slavery, and his enduring influence on American democracy. Burstein also traces Jefferson’s conflict with Federalism, his vision of an agrarian republic, and his belief that “the whole art of government is the art of being honest.”

It’s a candid discussion about legacy, race, power, self-deception, and what Jefferson’s emotional world still reveals about the United States today.

Andrew Burstein recently retired as Professor of History at Louisiana State University. In addition to Being Thomas Jefferson, He is the author of The Passions of Andrew Jackson, Jefferson’s Secrets, and several other books on early American politics and culture.

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, Francesca Rheannon speaks with biographer Robert M. Dowling about his biography, Coyote: The Dramatic Lives of Sam Shepard.

Dowling explores Shepard’s groundbreaking theatrical innovations, his jazz-inspired rhythms, and his shamanistic approach to performance — along with the deep fear that powered his work. 

“He feared the estrangement — our estrangement from the earth, from ourselves, from reality even.” — Robert Dowling

Another writer who loved the deserts of California, as Sam Shepard did, was the poet Forrest Gander. We re-air a conversation with him from April of 2025 about his book-length poem, Mojave Ghost.

And finally, Francesca reads a powerful ode written by former US Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman to Renee Nicole Good, “For Renee Nicole Good Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026.”

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Tags: Sam Shepard biography, Robert M. Dowling, Coyote, American playwrights, Forrest Gander, Renée Nicole Good, Amanda Gorman, Writer’s Voice podcast

Read the Transcript

Robert M. Dowling

In our conversation about Coyote, Robert M. Dowling traces Sam Shepard’s evolution from “punk rock cowboy playwright” to cultural visionary, explaining how Shepard rejected realism to project inner turmoil directly onto the stage.

Dowling discusses Shepard’s use of humor as a survival mechanism, his musical sense of theater rooted in jazz and percussion, and his lifelong struggle with fear — shaped by a violent father and mirrored in what Shepard saw as America’s own self-loathing.

The episode also examines Shepard’s ideas about masculinity, political polarization, and alienation, before closing with a moving account of his final months and relentless devotion to writing.

Robert M. Dowling is s professor of English at Central Connecticut State University. In addition to Coyote, He is the author of the biography, Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts.

Listen to or Read a Sample from Coyote

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, journalist Nell Bernstein examines the decades-long movement to end youth incarceration in the United States, drawing on her book In Our Future We Are Free. Bernstein traces how incarcerated young people, their parents, lawyers, and organizers pierced the invisibility of youth prisons and achieved a historic 75% reduction in youth incarceration nationwide.

“Youth prisons are inherently abusive by design.” — Nell Bernstein

In the second segment, chef and writer Tamar Adler discusses Feast On Your Life, a deeply personal calendar-based book that explores how cooking, leftovers, sobriety, ritual, and attention can transform the ordinary into something sustaining—even during periods of despair.

“The bean broth wouldn’t let me be.” — Tamar Adler

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Key Words: youth incarceration, prison abolition, juvenile justice reform, Nell Bernstein, In Our Future We Are Free, Tamar Adler, Feast On Your Life, sustainability, leftovers,

You Might Also Like: Nell Bernstein, BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE, Katherine Harvey, The Bare Bones Broth Cookbook

Read the Transcript on Substack

Segment One: Nell Bernstein

Bernstein reflects on the evolution of her reporting from Burning Down the House to In Our Future We Are Free, documenting how youth prisons—institutions she describes as abusive by design—have been challenged and dismantled through organizing led by incarcerated young people and their families.

She explains why youth incarceration is not rehabilitative but criminogenic, how racialized fear narratives like the “super predator” myth enabled abuse, and why abolition—not cosmetic reform—is necessary. Bernstein also draws connections to present-day immigration detention and reflects on what this movement teaches us about sustained social change under authoritarian conditions.

Segment Two: Tamar Adler

Segment Two Summary: Tamar Adler

Adler describes writing Feast On Your Life during a period of depression, using daily attention to food and cooking as a way to heal. Organized month-by-month, the book reflects on sobriety, leftovers, seasonal abundance, restraint, imagination, ritual, and gratitude.

She discusses cooking “as if people mattered,” the ethical and ecological connections embedded in everyday meals, and how small rituals—packing lunches, saving bean broth, sharing fruit—create meaning and resilience. Drawing on Ursula K. Le Guin’s carrier bag theory, Adler frames her work as a quiet, gathering-oriented alternative to spectacle-driven narratives.

Read An Excerpt

Key Topics

• Youth prison abolition and organizing
• Racialized incarceration and the “super predator” myth
• Solitary confinement and institutional invisibility
• Trauma, criminogenic systems, and community care
• Cooking as attention, connection, and ethics
• Ritual, seasonality, and everyday meaning
• Sobriety, restraint, and renewal

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Today we explore what it really means to share the planet with other forms of life. We’ll talk with writer Bridget Lyons about her acclaimed book, Entwined: Dispatches from the Intersection of Species, a collection of essays that invites us to see animals, plants, and even ourselves in a radically more connected way.

“Part of the reason I wrote this book was to encourage people, inspire people to just go outside and look around and see who else is living around you.” — Bridget Lyons

And then we’ll hear an excerpt from our conversation with ecologist and author Carl Safina about his book Alfie and Me, the extraordinary story of a baby owl that helped him rethink what animals know — and what humans believe. 

“People have often said humans are the only logical animals, but I think that’s almost completely backward. We’re really the only illogical animals.” — Carl Safina

Follow us on Bluesky @writersvoice.bsky.social and subscribe to our Substack. Or find us on Instagram @WritersVoicePodcast.

Key Words: Bridget Lyons, Entwined, Carl Safina, Alfie and Me, Writers Voice podcast, animal intelligence, anthropomorphism, biodiversity, environmental ethics, sea stars, interspecies relationships

You Might Also Like: Adam Nicholson on BIRD SCHOOL, Richard Louv, OUR WILD CALLING & Carl Safina, BEYOND WORDS

Read the Transcript on Substack

Segment One — Bridget Lyons on Entwined

Bridget Lyons describes how her essays begin with encounters with other species — kelp, whales, sea stars, fireweed, octopuses — and expand into questions about value, empathy, humility, and how humans might live differently on the planet.

She explains that real connection begins with paying attention:

“Part of the reason I wrote this book was to encourage people, inspire people to just go outside and look around and see who else is living around you.”

Lyons argues that wonder leads to empathy and responsibility:

“As you become more connected to them, you feel more empathy for their life situation and what’s going on with them.”

One of the book’s core themes is rethinking value — not just in economic terms, but in terms of being:

“Can I, as a person, learn to value this creature for just being who it is, rather than for how it serves me, how it bothers me, etc.”

Lyons also speaks about humility in the face of ecological complexity:

“We all need a hefty, hefty dose of humility.”

And about how curiosity builds respect across species:

“The more you learn, or the more you learn that you don’t know, or the more that you marvel at something that another creature is doing, the more I think you’re creating a bridge.”

Segment Two — Carl Safina on Alfie and Me (archival excerpt)

Carl Safina tells the story of raising a baby screech owl named Alfie and what that relationship revealed about how animals experience the world — and how humans misunderstand it.

Safina challenges the idea that humans are uniquely rational:

“People have often said humans are the only logical animals, but I think that’s almost completely backward. We’re really the only illogical animals.”

He explains how human beliefs often override evidence:

“We’re the only ones who carry on through the world based on our beliefs rather than on evidence about how the world is and what the world around us is.”

Safina describes why freedom matters even when safety is available:

“That is not life. It’s pure safety, but there’s no shot at being part of the world or part of the future.”

And he reflects on what it means to witness another being’s full life unfold:

“I got to know something about these birds, and then I started to ask myself, well, why are we so blind to all of this?”

Key Topics

• The “intersection of species”
• Anthropomorphism and connection
• Wonder, humility, and ecological awareness
• How humans assign value
• Extinction and regeneration
• Animal intelligence and culture
• What owls — and other animals — reveal about how the world works

Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Eric Lichtblau joins Writer’s Voice to discuss his new book, American Reich, a gripping investigation that begins with the murder of Blaze Bernstein in Orange County and expands into a sweeping analysis of white nationalism in 21st-century America.

“We’ve seen an enormous surge in hate crimes across the board… and this is horribly symptomatic of the rise of the neo-Nazis in the 21st century.” — Eric Lichtblau

Lichtblau traces how online extremism, political normalization of hate, and leaderless neo-Nazi networks have collided to shape a dangerous new era—one that has produced waves of hate crimes, radicalized young white men, and emboldened supremacist movements.

Lichtblau also explores the role of Trump-era politics, the mechanics of recruitment and radicalization — and what gives him hope for resistance and solidarity.

We also re-air a clip from our 2017 interview with photojournalist Zach Roberts about his viral photos of the brutal beating of De’Andre Harris by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia during the Unite the Right rally on August 12 of that year.

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Key Words: American Reich, Eric Lichtblau, Writer’s Voice podcast
white supremacy, neo-Nazis, hate crimes, online extremism
replacement theory, Trump white nationalism

You Might Also Like: Zach Roberts on Charlottesville attack, Michael German on POLICING WHITE SUPREMACY

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Key Topics

• The murder of Blaze Bernstein as a window into national extremism
• How Trump-era rhetoric normalized white supremacist ideology
• Historical cycles of xenophobia and racism in America
• Online radicalization & social platforms as recruitment engines
• Atomwaffen Division, James Mason, and leaderless resistance
• Replacement theory explained
• Why young white men become targets for recruitment
• The reality of modern hate-crime statistics
• Community resistance and hope