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KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

KPFA - Radio Wolinsky

By: KPFA
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 A podcast posted every Sunday featuring extended interviews and discussions from Bookwaves, Art-Waves, and Bookwaves Artwaves Hour programs on KPFA, and newly digitized and edited archive interviews from the pre-digital Probabilities series dating back to 1977. Literature, theater, film, the visual arts: in-depth interviews from a progressive and artistic viewpoint, with long-time KPFA/Pacifica host Richard Wolinsky.2025KPFA 312700 Political Science Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Carl Hiaasen, Master of the Comic Thriller

    Carl Hiaasen, Master of the Comic Thriller
    Aug 31 2025
    Carl Hiaasen is a novelist best known for writing humorous and satiric crime thrillers set in Florida. His latest novel, Fever Beach, satirizes the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, corrupt nepo Florida Congress-critters, and rich right-wing geriatric billionaires. Until 2021, he was a regular columnist for The Miami Herald, appearing every Sunday to discuss political and social issues. He is interviewed by host Richard Wolinsky. In this in-depth interview, he discusses the writing of “Fever Beafch and how difficult it has been to create satire during the Trump years, his views on what’s happening in Washington and Florida, the adaptation of his novel “Bad Monkey” for Apple Plus, and his process of writing. Recorded August 13, 2025. The post Carl Hiaasen, Master of the Comic Thriller appeared first on KPFA.
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    1 hr and 54 mins
  • The Probabilities Archive: Frederik Pohl (1918-2013) Acclaimed Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelist and Editor

    The Probabilities Archive: Frederik Pohl (1918-2013) Acclaimed Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelist and Editor
    Aug 24 2025
    Frederik Pohl (1918-2013) recorded at the Octocon Science Fiction Convention, October 15-16, 1978. Interviewers: Richard Wolinsky, Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, for KPFA’s Probabilities radio program. Digitized, remastered and re-edited February, 2021 by Richard Wolinsky. Frederik Pohl, who died in 2013 at the age of 93 in September, 2013, did almost everything in the world of science fiction, as a writer, an agent, and a magazine and book editor. He grew up in Brooklyn, began writing at an early age, and in his twenties was a member of a leftist group of science fiction writers known as The Futurians, publishing for pennies a word in the sf pulps of the era. In 1937, in order to make money, he became an agent, and two years later a pulp magazine editor himself, often buying his own stories along with collaborations with various other writers, all under pseudonyms. In the late 1960s, he became editor of Galaxy Magazine, and its sister publication, Worlds of If, and in the 1970s became the science fiction editor at Bantam Books which he left shortly before this interview. In the mid 1970s, Fred Pohl emerged as one of science fictions pre-eminent novelists with Man Plus in 1976 and Gateway in 1977. In 1978, on the heels of novelist Damon Knight’s memoir, The Futurians, he came out with his own memoir, The Way the Future Was. And that was where his career stood when the three of us interviewed him. We were all still new at interviewing, particularly in placement of the microphone. Fred Pohl’s success continued for many years after this interview. Jem, published in 1979, won the National Book Award the only year there was an award for science fiction. The sequel to Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon was a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1980. In all, there eventually were seven novels in the Gateway (Heechee) series, and after 1979, all told, he wrote 17 more novels, the last being The Lives He Led, published in 2011, along with several collections, even more collaborations, and some non-fiction as well. At the time of his death at 93 in 2013, he was working on a second memoir, which has to date not been published. NOTES. Judy Lynn Del Rey was the sf editor at Ballantine Books starting in the early 1970s and soon had her own imprint, Del Rey Books (in collaboration with her husband, writer Lester Del Rey). Judith Merrill was a writer and anthologist, noted for her Year’s Best SF Stories collections, which she edited from 1956 to 1968. John Michel was a key member of the Futurians who never fulfilled his promise. John W. Campbell was the editor of Astounding Stories, later Analog, from 1937 into the 1970s, and is credited with discovering such writers as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. His influence on science fiction was all-encompassing, even as his politics were, as Isaac Asimov quipped, somewhere to the right of Hitler. Horace Gold was the first editor of Galaxy, before Fred Pohl. It was the magazine that brought literary style into science fiction. Other names mentioned are Anthony Boucher and F. Francis McComas, the first editors of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, F&SF. This podcast was first posted February 14, 2021. Three Futurians in 1938: Donald Wollheim, later publisher of DAW books, Fred Pohl, and John Michel. Creative Commons photo donated by the Wollheim family. The post The Probabilities Archive: Frederik Pohl (1918-2013) Acclaimed Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelist and Editor appeared first on KPFA.
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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • The Probabilities Archive: Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) Visionary Science Fiction Author

    The Probabilities Archive: Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) Visionary Science Fiction Author
    Aug 17 2025
    Ursula K. Le Guin in 2014. Ursula K. Le Guin, who broke the artificial wall between science fiction and literature, died on January 22nd, 2018 at the age of 88. An essayist and poet along with being a fiction writer, she transcended all genres with the quality of her prose and the allegorical nature of her work. Best known for her novels The Left Hand of Darkness, which dealt with gender; The Dispossessed, which dealt with a utopian civilization; her series of novels in the fantasy realm of Earthsea; and her short stories, especially “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula K. Le Guin broke ground in several directions over the course of her writing life. But she started in science fiction fantasy. On September 29th, 2000, Richard Wolinsky and his then co-host Richard A. Lupoff spoke with Ursula K. Le Guin about her career as a writer and about her latest novel, a political and social science fiction allegory, “The Telling.” This podcast is taken from that interview, with segments from a short 1983 interview conducted by Richard A. Lupoff. The official interview ends at around the 36 minute mark, and the final fifteen minutes consist of a free-form discussion about Ursula LeGuin’s history in the science fiction field and her thoughts on several writers, including Philip K. Dick and James Tiptree Jr. This interview was first posted on January 19, 2018. The post The Probabilities Archive: Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) Visionary Science Fiction Author appeared first on KPFA.
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    1 hr and 46 mins
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