Wed, 8 May 2013
Here KGNU host, Claudia Cragg, talks for 'It's The Economy' with Judy Wicks, author of Good Morning, Beautiful Business. The book is a memoir about her White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, as well as about the evolution of Judy to becoming an entrepreneur who would not only change her neighborhood, but would also change her world—helping communities far and wide create local living economies that value people, nature and place more than money. Wicks recounts her life as a girl coming of age in the sixties, living a year in an Eskimo village, cofounding the Free People’s store, her accidental entry into the restaurant business, the creation of the White Dog Cafe and her eventual role as a pioneer in the localization movement. Passionate, fun, and inspirational, Good Morning, Beautiful Businesse explores the way entrepreneurs, as well as consumers, can follow both mind and heart, cultivate lasting relationships with each other and the planet, and build a new compassionate economy that will bring us greater security, as well as happiness. |
Sat, 2 April 2011
PHOTO (with kind permission) taken in the Washington DC independent bookstore, Politics and Prose by Kirstin Fearnley (Copyright ©2011). CLICK POD BUTTON ABOVE TO LISTEN Claudia Cragg talks here with Jasper Fforde who spent his early career in the film industry working on films such as 'Goldeneye' and 'The Mask of Zorro' as a focus puller. Today, though, he is the author of several novels, which cross over genres, a mixture of fantasy, crime thriller, and humorous fiction and which glory in an abundance of metafictional devices. They are noted for their literary allusions, wordplay and tight plots. His latest books in the 'Thursday Next' series has just come out and is called 'One of Our Thursdays is Missing'. It was in 2001 that The Eyre Affair introduced the world to the wilful Thursday Next who has also featured in Lost in a Good Book (2002), The Well of Lost Plots (2003), Something Rotten (2004), and First Among Sequels (2007). She is a Swindon-based literary detective or LiteraTec. She rescues characters kidnapped from great works of literature, marries a man who then falls out of existence, meets Miss Haversham and the Cheshire Cat, hides out in unpublished novels and investigates the premature demise of Sherlock Holmes. She also becomes a reluctant celebrity, a single mother, and pits her considerable wits against the shamelessly all-powerful Goliath Corporation. Swindon is shorthand for a dreary, forgettable and rather depressing town, but nevertheless the community there was so flattered that new roads in the town have been named after Fforde characters and it was also home to the Ford Fiesta, a literary event for his fans.
His other well-known series centres on the 'Nursery Crime' theme, the first two of which were The Big Over Easy (2005) and The Fourth Bear (2006). In these, Jack Spratt and his female aide, Mary Mary are the chief characters. Fforde is currently working on the third in the trilogy.
Jasper Fforde's website can be found atwww.jasperfforde.com.
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Wed, 16 July 2008
Jennifer Haigh is a novelist and short story writer (especially for Granta) whose latest novel at the time of this interview was 'The Condition'. In this interview with Claudia Cragg, Ms. Haigh discusses this new work which relates the story of a dysfunctional New England family struggling toward normalcy with the children of a resentful, controlling mother, Paulette, and a distracted, needy father Frank. Even during a childhood in idyllic Cape Cod, there are hints of a rocky future. At the core of this are explorations in fine prose of the family, identity, gender and rebellion, all woven masterfully into a compelling tale. |
Tue, 27 May 2008
Believe it or not, the esteemed poet Pablo Neruda once called Isabel Allende "the worst journalist he had ever met..." This was because she had the affrontery to try and write his memoirs. Nevertheless, today Allende is the author of over a dozen books and memoirs of her own which together have sold fifty-one million copies. Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation on December 9, 1996 to pay homage to her daughter, Paula Frías Allende who experienced a coma after complications of the disease porphyria placed her on a hospital bed. Paula was only twenty-eight years old when she died in 1992. The foundation is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected. |
Tue, 19 February 2008
The British-born and educated Elizabeth Kucinich is the wife of Dennis, the former 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate and Cognressman from Ohio. He may have now dropped out of the November race, but few doubt that Elizabeth was one of Kucinich's greatest assets. She spoke to Claudia Cragg on "Demoplicans and Republicrats" and to discuss impeachment, sustainable development, paper vs. electronic ballots, 9/11, her education, travels, life and love. |
