© 2024 Public Radio Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, OK 74104
(918) 631-2577

A listener-supported service of The University of Tulsa
classical 88.7 | public radio 89.5
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Focusing on Kansas (& the American Dream) in "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard & Being Broke...."

Aired on Tuesday, September 10th.

Our guest is the journalist Sarah Smarsh, whose book, "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth," is now out in paperback. It's a far-reaching account of her coming of age in smalltown Kansas that sharply explores matters of poverty, class, family, income inequality, Midwestern values, personal ambition, faith, womanhood, and other key social and economic concerns. A bestselling and widely acclaimed American autobiography that feels especially timely, the book was thus priased in The New York Times Book Review: "A deeply humane memoir that crackles with clarifying insight, 'Heartland' is one of a growing number of important works -- including Matthew Desmond's 'Evicted' and Amy Goldstein's 'Janesville' -- that together merit their own section in nonfiction aisles across the country: America's postindustrial decline.... With deft primers on the Homestead Act, the farming crisis of the '80s, and Reaganomics, Smarsh shows how the false promise of the 'American dream' was used to subjugate the poor. It's a powerful mantra." Also, please note that Smarsh will appear at a free-to-the-public Magic City Books event tonight, Tuesday the 10th, that will take place at the nearby Duet Jazz Club.

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
Related Content