Literature

Our guest is Katherine May, a writer of fiction as well as nonfiction based in the seaside community of Whitstable, England. She joins us to discuss her enjoyable new book, "Wintering," which draws many engaging and far-flung lessons from literature, history, nature, and mythology about the transformative -- and even inspiring -- power of rest, retreat, and recuperation. As was noted of this book by a critic writing for BookPage: "Beautiful.... [May] is a poetic observer of the natural world, and quotable lines abound....

As readers anxiously await the final volume of Hilary Mantel's trilogy on novels on the life of 16th Century royal advisor Thomas Cromwell, we bring you a conversation from December 2018, when Mantel received the Peggy V Helmerich Distinguished Author Award.

On this edition of ST, we speak with the acclaimed poet and writing instructor Quraysh Ali Lansana (born 1964 in Enid, Oklahoma). Now based in Tulsa and recently named a Tulsa Artist Fellow, Lansana has published several books over the years: poetry collections, children's books, edited or co-edited anthologies, textbooks, etc. Long based in Chicago, and greatly influenced by the African-American cultural, social, and political life of that city -- and more generally, by the Black Arts Movement in American life and letters -- Lansana has a new book out.

Nancy Pearl is our guest on ST. An editor, novelist, literary critic, retired librarian, and internationally acclaimed reading and literacy advocate, Pearl used to live and work in Tulsa -- way back in the day -- and that's when she started appearing occasionally on our radio show. Pearl returns today (by phone) to share several bookish gift-giving ideas.