John Marshall tells KGNU's Claudia Cragg the story of 'Wide Open World' and how he and his family needed a change. His 20-year marriage was falling apart, his 17-year-old son was about to leave home, and his 14-year-old daughter was lost in cyberspace. Desperate to get out of a rut and reconnect with his family, John dreamed of a trip around the world, a chance to leave behind, if only just for a while, routines and responsibilities. He didn’t have the money for resorts or luxury tours, but he did have an idea that would make traveling the globe more affordable and more meaningful than he’d ever imagined: The family would volunteer their time and energy to others in far-flung locales. 
 
Wide-Open World is the inspiring true story of the six months that changed the Marshall family forever. Once they’d made the pivotal decision to go, John and his wife, Traca, quit their jobs, pulled their kids out of school, and embarked on a journey that would take them far off the beaten path, and far out of their comfort zones.
 
Here is the totally engaging, bluntly honest chronicle of the Marshalls’ life-altering adventure from Central America to East Asia. It was no fairy tale. The trip offered little rest, even less relaxation, and virtually no certainty of what was to come. But it did give the Marshalls something far more valuable: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conquer personal fears, strengthen family bonds, and find their true selves by helping those in need. In the end, as John discovered, he and his family did not change the world. It was the world that changed them.

Trans author and activist Matt Kailey has, very sadly indeed, passed away this past weekend.

In 2006, KGNU's Claudia Cragg spoke with Matt about his memoir, Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide to the Transsexual Experience. The work relayed Matt's experience as a 42­-year­old straight woman turned gay trans man with a highly personal account of his gender transition that is known to have given a great many others the courage to transition themselves.

"Matt didn’t just blaze trails as a gay trans man demonstrating how the T fit with the LGB. He wasn’t just a role model for those of us who transitioned late in life." He was also one of the first visible trans journalists, who wrote for one of the oldest LGBT publications in the West, Colorado’s Out Front. His 2007 promotion to managing editor made Matt the highest­ ranking trans journalist at a queer publication, a distinction he continues to hold.

Although he was dedicated to his work at Out Front, Matt also became an award ­winning activist and educator. He represented the trans male community in numerous news articles, television spots and five documentary films. He founded the award­ winning blog Tranifesto. He spoke at dozens of conferences and colleges and developed his own training program for employers who needed guidance embracing trans people into the workplace

In 2011, after eight years with Out Front, Matt stepped down to focus on his other writings and teaching. He published a collection of essays, Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects, about his life before and after transition — and as always he managed to balance heartfelt moments with his great sense of humor.

Matt also created the guidebook, My Child is Transgender: 10 Tips for Parents of Adult Trans Children for parents of transitioning adult children.

During the past few years, Matt also embraced teaching. As an adjunct instructor at Red Rocks Community College, Matt taught courses in psychology and human sexuality. At the same time, he worked at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, where he designed several courses, including a transgender studies course and a class called “Writing Your Gender.”

CLICK 'Pod' icon (above left) to listen to the interview

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 Congressman 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....