There’s a scene in Walter Bennett’s new novel "Leaving Tuscaloosa" (Fuze Publishing/2012) that will send chills down your spine. It’s 1962 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and a group of young white men ride through the African-American part of town throwing eggs and hurling racial taunts. The scene is based on an experience from Walter Bennett’s adolescence and it still bothers him.
How much influence does a first lady have on the president? According to historian William Chafe, in the case of Bill and Hillary Clinton the answer is: an incalculable amount. In his new book, "Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal"
Before Allan Gurganus’s debut novel, "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All," (Vintage/1984) spent eight months on the New York Times bestseller list, he was a kid from Rocky Mount who wanted to be a painter.
Kate McGarry is the latest in a long line of female jazz musicians, and she doesn’t want to forget her forebears.
Her latest album, “Girl Talk” pays homage to the women who came before her. Host Frank Stasio talks to her about her music and her new album, and Kate McGarry plays live in the studio with guitarist Keith Ganz.
Joseph Bathanti was born and raised in Pittsburgh. He even went to college and graduate school there. So it's a testament to his passion for North Carolina that he was just announced as the Tar Heel state's newest poet laureate. Bathanti came to North Carolina in the late 1970s to be a VISTA volunteer.
Nathan Kotecki's first young adult novel is haunted by the moody alternative rock of the 1980s which haunted his own youth. Even though the Durham writer's book is set in the present, it's heavy on nostalgia. Kotecki says that for high school kids trying to find their identity as serious, creative types, looking backwards is the easiest way to reject the status quo. Courting the supernatural also helps. Nathan Kotecki joins host Frank Stasio to talk about his book, "The Suburban Strange" (Houghton Mifflin/2012).
Wage theft has been called "America's silent crime wave." It’s when businesses steal from their employees through a variety of unconscionable methods. Twenty-six percent of low wage workers don't get paid the minimum wage they are entitled to by law. Seventy-six percent of the country's work force doesn't get paid for the over time they work.
More than 85 people were murdered in the Triangle and Triad regions of North Carolina last year. You may have heard about the crimes in the news, but you probably don’t know much more than that. The National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children aims to raise awareness about these losses of life.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops famously reclaimed traditional mountain music for African-Americans. Their efforts were celebrated from Nashville to Hollywood and by the folks who give out the Grammy Awards. That legacy took on some poignancy this past year when their mentor, master fiddler Joe Thompson, passed away.
