Our September guest on Literary Ashland Radio was Louis Sahagun, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and author of Master of the Mysteries: the Life of Manly Palmer Hall. As a journalist, he covers issues ranging from religion, culture and the environment to crime, politics and water. He was on the team of L.A. Times writers that earned the Pulitzer Prize in public service for a series on Latinos in Southern California and the team that was a finalist in 2015 for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. He is a board member of CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California.
Literary Ashland with Betty LaDuke
Ed and I were so pleased to interview Betty LaDuke for our August show. Betty is an internationally known artist and writer whose career has spanned several decades. Her books include Compañeras: Women, Art, and Social Change in Latin America, Africa Though the Eyes of Women Artists, Women Artists: Multicultural Visions and more. Her paintings have been exhibited internationally since 1951. Part of her cycle on local farmers and farm workers is now a permanent installation at the Medford Rogue Valley International Airport. Her art have been used as cover art on numerous books and journal issues.
Literary Ashland with Dennis Powers
Our June guest was Dennis Powers, Professor Emeritus at SOU and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. We talked about his maritime series of non-fiction books which began with The Raging Sea, an account of the worst Tsunami on the US West Coast, and includes the volumes The Treasure Ship, Sentinel of the Seas, Taking the Sea and Tales of the Seven Seas. Each book explores a fascinating topic along the West Coast of the United States.
Literary Ashland with Bill Gholson
For our May interview, Ed and I caught up with Bill Gholson. Bill teaches rhetoric and the nonfiction essay. He has a PhD in English with concentrations in rhetoric and contemporary American literature. A former high school English teacher, he has directed writing programs and has published on Kurt Vonnegut and rhetoric. More recently, he’s been writing poetry, which is the topic of our conversation.
Literary Ashland with Sharon Dean
It was a pleasure interviewing fellow author Sharon Dean on my radio show last Friday. Sharon is the author of the Susan Warner mysteries and a member of my writing group. She grew up in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. From Massachusetts, it was a small leap to the University of New Hampshire and a degree in English. When her husband was assigned to Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire, she seized the opportunity to enter graduate school at UNH.
Armed with a Ph.D. and facing a declining job market, Sharon spent several years laboring on the adjunct teaching circuit before she began a full-time career at Rivier University in Nashua, New Hampshire. Four academic books later, Sharon has become professor emerita and has moved with, yes, the same husband to Ashland, Oregon. She has sworn off books that require footnotes and is reinventing herself as a writer of mystery novels.
