Write On! Radio

We Will Rise Again w/ Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz, and Malka Older – Write On! Radio

The book cover for We Will Rise Again. [https://kfai.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/we-will-rise-again-9781668095959_lg.jpg] WE WILL RISE AGAIN: SPECULATIVE STORIES AND ESSAYS ON PROTEST, RESISTANCE, AND HOPE This week, Molly sits down with the editors of We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Will-Rise-Again/Malka-Older/9781668095959], just out from Saga Press. Bringing organizers and activists together with genre luminaries and exciting new voices in fiction, We Will Rise Again is an anthology of stories, essays, and interviews that offer inspiration for the social justice movements of tomorrow. You can read a story from the book online! “Where Memory Meets the Sea” by Laia Asieo Odo was previewed at Electric Literature [https://electricliterature.com/where-memory-meets-the-sea-by-laia-asieo-odo/]. Air Date: December 30, 2025   Want more Write On! Radio? We’re working on making all new episodes searchable on the website! You can browse recent episodes here [https://kfai.org/?s=Write+On%21+Radio] or find the Write On! Radio podcast in your podcatcher of choice. GUEST BIOS DR. KAREN LORD is a Barbadian writer and editor. Her debut novel Redemption in Indigo won the 2011 William L. Crawford Award and was nominated for the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her most recent novel, The Blue, Beautiful World was longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and she is also the editor of the collection New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean. You can find her on Bluesky, Instagram, and Tumblr @drkarenlord. ANNALEE NEWITZ is a writer of science fiction and science nonfiction. They have a monthly column in New Scientist magazine, and their books include USA Today bestseller Automatic Noodle, The Terraformers, which was nominated for the Nebula Award; and Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age. Previously they have been the co-host of the Hugo-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, which just wrapped its seven-year run this year, and a contributor to the New York Times. You can find them on Bluesky @annaleen and find all their updates at www.techsploitation.com [https://www.techsploitation.com/]. MALKA OLDER is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. She is the Executive Director of Global Voices, a community of journalists, editors, translators, and activists providing community journalism from all over the world and advocating for Indigenous and minority languages, media literacy, digital rights, and online freedom of expression.. Her science fiction works have been finalists for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte awards, and The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, the third book in her cozy space-opera mystery series, was released in July 2025. You can listen to her explore disasters and their aftermath on the podcast miniseries “Not Now, But Soon” [https://issues.org/not-now-but-soon/] and you can find her on Bluesky @older.

The House on Rondo w/ Debra J. Stone – Write On! Radio

The cover of The House on Rondo by Debra J. Stone. [https://kfai.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-House-on-Rondo.jpg] This week, Emma sits down with Debra J. Stone to discuss The House on Rondo [https://www.amazon.com/House-Rondo-Debra-J-Stone/dp/1517919304], just out from University Of Minnesota Press. In this coming-of-age story, a young girl reckons with the demolition of a Black Saint Paul neighborhood to make way for the Interstate in the early 1960s. As Zenobia gradually learns about what’s planned for the Rondo neighborhood and what this means for everyone who lives there, she discovers how her story is intertwined with the history of her family, all the way back to Great Grandma Zenobia. The House on Rondo [https://www.amazon.com/House-Rondo-Debra-J-Stone/dp/1517919304] is available now: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517919306/the-house-on-rondo/ [https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517919306/the-house-on-rondo/] Air Date: November 18, 2025

Little Rex w/ Gary Porter - Write On! Radio

[https://kfai.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Little-Rex-FRONTCOVER-675x1080.jpg]This week, Josh sits down with Gary Porter to discuss Little Rex: A Night at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a heartfelt prequel to Duffy: The Tale of a Terrier.  Told from the afterlife, Little Rex follows a small Boston Terrier on an extraordinary journey through Concord, Massachusetts, where the ghosts of Concord’s greatest writers return for a single night. We get into: How a street dog became an unlikely witness to literary history What Alcott, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Emerson can still teach young readers The challenge of writing for both young readers and adults Turning historic landmarks into magical spaces of […]

Write On! Radio – Joseph Whitson

Cover of 'Marketing the Wilderness' by Joseph Whitson [https://minnesota-us.imgix.net/covers/9781517915117.jpg?auto=format&w=145] This week, Emma sits down with Joseph Whitson about his debut book, Marketing the Wilderness: Outdoor Recreation, Indigenous Activism, and the Battle over Public Lands, which is an analysis of how outdoor recreation companies market public land as wilderness instead of land stolen from Indigenous people. In this interview, Emma and Joseph Whitson discuss how the myth of outdoor recreation as a pure good ignores the history and current politics of public land.

Write On! Radio – Leif Weatherby

This week, Josh Weber speaks to Leif Weatherby, founding director of the Digital Theory Lab at New York University, about his new monograph ‘Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism’. The monograph discusses how what is currently described as AI is not displaying cognition, but instead revealing culture. In this interview, Josh and Leif discuss what AI is being marketed as, what AI is capable of, and how it can be used in the future.