Tulsa City-County Library

On this edition of ST, we learn about the first-annual Wine, Jazz & World Fete, which will happen soon in downtown Tulsa -- from Thursday the 4th through Saturday the 6th -- at both the Guthrie Green and Duet (i.e., Tulsa's brand-new jazz club). This festival, to be hosted by Public Radio Tulsa's Scott Gregory on both Friday and Saturday, will boast outstanding jazz and world-music artists, fine wines, delicious culinary offerings, performance art, kids' activities, and more.

On this edition of ST, we listen back to our April 2017 chat with David Grann, the bestselling author and staff writer at The New Yorker Magazine, about his book, "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI." As was noted of this book by a critic writing for Time: "Nearly 100 years ago, the Osage tribe of Oklahoma were thought to be the wealthiest people per capita in the world, thanks to their oil-rich reservation, kindly sold back to them by the federal government that had snatched it away.

On this edition of ST, we speak with the well-regarded novelist and short-story writer Richard Ford, who is the recipient of the 2017 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Ford is the author of many critically acclaimed works of ficition, including "The Sportswriter," "Independence Day," and "Let Me Be Frank with You." His newest book, just out, is a memoir about his parents, which he discusses with us at length.

"To have great poets," as Walt Whitman once noted, "there must also be great audiences." And great cities, it would seem, likewise require great bookstores. On this edition of ST, we learn all about Magic City Books -- an indie bookstore owned and operated by the non-profit Tulsa Literary Coalition (or TLC) -- which will soon, at long last, open for business in downtown Tulsa. Indeed, after a series of construction-related delays, Magic City Books will open on Monday the 20th at 9pm...with Mayor G.T.

On this edition of ST, we welcome the Tulsa-based author Jennifer Latham back to our show. Her recently published YA novel, "Dreamland Burning," is a suspenseful narrative about the Tulsa Race Riot. As was noted of this book in an appreciative review from School Library Journal: "Latham follows up 'Scarlett Undercover' with a rich work that links past and present in a tale that explores racial prejudice. After the remains of a skeleton are found in her Tulsa, OK, backyard, 17-year-old Rowan Chase becomes consumed with finding out the story behind the death.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we are pleased to welcome Laurie Halse Anderson to our show. She's written many books of fiction and nonfiction over the years, and she's the winner of the 2017 Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature. She will been given this award at a special ceremony happening on Friday the 5th at the TCCL's Hardesty Regional Library, on East 93rd Street.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we speak with Kim Johnson, who became chief executive officer of the Tulsa City-County Library on January 1st. After more than 15 years as an employee of the TCCL, Johnson seems like a perfect fit for this leadership post. She's very committed, of course, to books and learning and literacy -- and to the vital purpose of libraries within society today -- and she's the first African American to lead the 24-branch system that is the TCCL.

On this edition of ST, we welcome Billy Collins back to our show. He is the winner of the Tulsa Library Trust's 2016 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, and he'll be reading from his work at an event here in Tulsa on Saturday the 3rd at the downtown Central Library. (This event begins at 10:30am and is free to the public.) Known and loved by readers everywhere for his accessible, conversational, clearly rendered, and often witty poems, Collins has been called "the most popular poet in America" by The New York Times.

On this edition of ST, we welcome back Tulsa City-County Library CEO Gary Shaffer. He joins us to describe in detail the TCCL's newly renovated Central Library, which will re-open to the public tomorrow morning (October 1st) with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. For the past two years or so, the Central Library branch -- which originally opened in 1965 near Fifth and Denver in downtown Tulsa -- has been getting a complete overhaul, both its exterior and interior.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we listen back to a 2008 discussion with author and journalist Steve Lopez about his bestselling nonfiction account, "The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music." At that time, this book -- which explores themes of mental illness, homelessness, artistic inspiration, and creativity -- had just come out; it was later the basis for major motion picture of the same title.

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we speak with Alton Carter, an Oklahoma Book Award-winning author whose memoir, "The Boy Who Carried Bricks," was originally published in 2015. It's a painful-to-read yet ultimately uplifting autobiography that details Carter's growing up in smalltown Oklahoma. Carter will be participating in the upcoming "Chapters" event at the TCCL's Hardesty Regional Library, on September 8th at 6:30pm; this event is a fundraiser in support of adult literacy programs, and the deadline to register for it is September 1st.

Tomorrow night, Thursday the 5th, the Tulsa Council for Holocaust Education and Tulsa City-County Library (or TCCL) will jointly present the 19th Annual Yom HaShoah, which is an Interfaith Holocaust Commemoration happening at Temple Israel (near Utica Square in Tulsa). It's free to the public and begins at 7pm; the theme for this year's gathering is "Close to Evil." The keynote speaker at this special event will be Tomi Reichental, who is our guest today on StudioTulsa.

On this presentation of ST, our guest by phone is Tavis Smiley, the renowned broadcaster, author, political commentator, publisher, and columnist. Tomorrow night, Thursday the 28th, Smiley will be given the Tulsa Library Trust's 2016 Sankofa Freedom Award during a free-to-the-public ceremony at the Rudisill Regional Library in North Tulsa. (The library is located at 1520 N.

Our guest on StudioTulsa today is the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, and military historian Rick Atkinson, who is the recipient of this year's Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. (This prize is awarded annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.) Atkinson grew up a self-described "military brat" and began his writing career as a newspaper reporter in Pittsburgh, Kansas, and today he's perhaps best known for his bestselling "Liberation Trilogy" about the U.S. Army's role in the liberation of Europe during World War II.

On this edition of ST, we speak with the popular New Yorker cartoonist and bestselling author Roz Chast about her latest book, an award-winning graphic memoir called "Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?" It's a book that is, as Michiko Kakutani noted in The New York Times, "by turns grim and absurd, deeply poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. Ms.

On this installment of ST, a fascinating discussion with the Tennessee-based storyteller and performer Jim Pfitzer, who will soon appear onstage in Tulsa in "A Standard of Change," the one-man play that he created about the life and work of Aldo Leopold (1887-1948). An influential American author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and conservationist, Leopold -- the "father of wildlife biology," as some have called him -- is probably best known as the author of "A Sand County Almanac," which is a literary classic that's especially popular with environmentalist readers.

On this installment of ST, we speak with the winner of the 2014 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, which is annually given by the Tulsa Library Trust. (Past recipients of this honor include Michael Chabon, John Updike, and Geraldine Brooks.) Ann Patchett is our guest today; she is a bestselling American novelist and essayist who's written six novels (among them "The Magician's Assistant," "Bel Canto," "Run," and "State of Wonder") and three books of nonfiction (including the recent "This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage").

When the TCCL's Martin Regional Library opened its Hispanic Resource Center in 1999, the noted author and journalist Roberto Suro was the inaugural speaker. Now, as this facility marks its Quinceañera (or 15th Anniversary), Suro returns to the Hispanic Resource Center to talk about his latest book, "Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue," and to discuss changes in the U.S. Latino community over the past decade and a half. Suro's address is free to the public, and it happens tonight (Thursday the 2nd) at 7pm at the Martin Regional Library (2601 S. Garnett Road).

On this edition of our show, we welcome Gary Shaffer, CEO of the Tulsa City-County Library. The TCCL's Central Library, in the heart of downtown Tulsa, has recently entered its "public phase," with direct fund-raising appeals being made to the public to complete the mid-century-modern building's vast, thorough, and state-of-the-art renovation. Demolition of the building's interior is now complete; the actual construction of the new Central Library has begun.

The Tulsa Library Trust's Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature, inaugurated in 1991, aims to "give formal recognition, on behalf of the Tulsa County community, to nationally acclaimed authors who have made a significant contribution to the field of literature for children and young adults." Past winners of the Zarrow Award include Jim Murphy, Jacqueline Woodson, Jane Yolen, Gary Paulsen, Katherine Paterson, Madeleine L'Engle, and S.E. Hinton -- and this year, the highly deserving recipient of this award is Jack Gantos.

Our guest on this edition of ST is the Japanese-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, one of the leading novelists of his generation, whose works have been translated into 28 languages, and who's also the recipient of the 2013 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award (which is bestowed annually by the Tulsa Library Trust).

On this edition of our show, we chat with Jim Murphy, winner of the 2013 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature, which is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust. Murphy will be given this award on Friday the 23rd at 7pm at Gilcrease Museum; he will then offer a 10am reading/talk/signing, on Saturday the 24th, as part of the TCCL's Young People's Creative Writing Contest Awards Presentation, which will happen at the Hardesty Regional Library.

On this edition of our program, we speak with Wendell Berry, who's worked as a prolific and highly principled writer of fiction, essays, and poetry for the past 50 years. Mr. Berry has been named the Tulsa Library Trust's 2012 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author, and he'll be in town to accept this honor later this week. Indeed, he'll give a free-to-the-public presentation at 10:30am on Saturday the 8th at the TCCL's Central Library, at Fourth Street and Denver Avenue in Downtown Tulsa.

On this edition of ST, we speak by phone with the Brooklyn-based children's and YA author, Jacqueline Woodson, who is the winner of the Tulsa Library Trust's 2012 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature. She's written more than 20 books thus far in her career --- many if not most of them concerning the modern African-American experience, especially from a young person's perspective --- and she's probably best known for "Miracle's Boys," her award-winning YA novel that filmmaker Spike Lee made into a mini-series in 2002.