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. 

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'. 

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.

Ms Haigh also discusses her literary influences, the way she writes (in long hand for novels), her own family and the tendency of old boyfriends to try and spot themselves in her work.

Her first book, Mrs. Kimble, won the 2004 PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Her second, Baker Towers, was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. Both have been published in nine languages. Other fiction has been published in Granta, Ploughshares, Five Points, Good Housekeeping and other places. Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Jennifer Haigh is a graduate of Dickinson College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She now lives in the Boston area but says she "doesn't get out much". She maintains a large, lively circle of imaginary friends.

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.

Her debut novel in 1982, The House of the Spirits, told the tale of four generations of a Chilean family and at ths time of this interview her latest work was  a memoir The Sum of Our Days. This picks up the story where her last memoir, Paula, ended. She recently discussed politics and Pinochet, feminism, her home in Marin County with her second husband, the lawyer Willie Gordon and her extended family, the death of her daughter Paula, as well as the death of Willie's daughter, Jennifer. from a drug overdose and other details of her fascinating life with Claudia Cragg.

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.

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.

And, BTW, that Daily Show Titian Red skit took 3 hours in the studio to shoot, Kucinich says, because they were laughing so much....