In this episode Stella talks about her tastes in TV, Cinema, Arts, Podcasts ans Music TV: Hill Street Blues: One of the first ensemble productions. Innovative and highly diverse cast.  Came out in 1981. Great scripts. Runner Up: West Wing. Movies: Moana, Reminds her of growing up in New Zealand,  Runner Up All about Eve–some of the best lines in cinema. Novels: Russell Hoban, Ridley Walker Pedra Chodron, When Things Fall Apart Poems: Emily Dickinson, Because I Could not Stop for Death, Album: David Bowie, Honky Dory, particularly Is there Life on Mars? Comforting tunes, Fleetwood Mac, Rumors, particularly Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow, Regina Spektor, Eva Cassidy. Performances: All female production of A Merchant of Venice Mathew Bourne, New Adventures, production of Red Shoes. Podcasts: The Jungian Life, Podcast On Being, Krista Tippett Classic Myth Orpheus

Welcome back to the first part of a two part conversation with Novelist, Short story writer, Director,  Actor, all round creative Stella Duffy.  In the first part we talk generally about  her experiences of lock down and her speculations  about the future of the arts.  We also discuss her Fun Palaces project.  In the second part we explore her tastes in media at this current time.  I look forward to you all enjoying this marvelous conversation with a fully engaged artist.  Stella Duffy is a writer and  performer born in London who spent her childhood in New Zealand before  returning to the UK. She has written plays, and novels and directs. Stella Duffy has written fourteen novels including her latest, London Lies Beneath which Virago will publish in November 2015. The Room of Lost Things and State of Happinesswere  both long-listed for the Orange Prize. She has written ten plays and  over fifty short stories, including several for BBC Radio 4. Her  collected stories are published by Salt inEverything is Moving, Everything is Joined. She won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2002 (Martha Grace) and 2013 (Come Away With Me), and Stonewall Writer of the Year in 2008 (The Room of Lost Things) and 2010 (Theodora). HBO have optioned her two Theodora novels for a TV series. She wrote and presented the BBC4 documentary How to Write a Mills and Boon and has reviewed for The Review Show (BBC2), Front Row(BBCRadio4)  and written articles for most major newspapers in the UK. In addition  to her writing work she is a theatre director and performer. Stella is also the co-founder of Fun Palaces -- an annual, free, nationwide celebration of  culture at the heart of community, using arts, science, craft, tech,  digital, heritage and sports activities as a catalyst for community  engagement.  This takes place over the first weekend in October every  year.  Fun Palaces are community events, created by and for local  people.  They are held in a variety of locations, ranging from  libraries, shopping centres, schools, parks, village squares, community  halls, swimming pools, etc.  The original (never built) Fun Palace was  the brainchild of celebrated theatre director Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price.  Their never-realized vision was re-interpreted for the 21st century  with the Fun Palaces campaign for cultural democracy, with community-led  events in many locations. The first weekend of action took place in  2014, with 138 Fun Palaces taking place across the UK and  internationally and in 2015 the number rose to 142, 292 Fun Palaces in  2016, and 362 in 2017.

Joan Wickersham's most recent book of fiction is The News from Spain (Knopf). Her memoir The Suicide Index (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) was a National Book Award Finalist. She is also the author of a novel, The Paper Anniversary (Viking). Her fiction has appeared in magazines including Agni, One Story, Glimmer Train, The Hudson Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Story, and has been published in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her op-ed column runs regularly in The Boston Globe. She has published essays and reviews in The Los Angeles Times and The International Herald Tribune; and has read her work on National Public Radio’s “On Point” and “Morning Edition.” She also writes frequently about architecture, including “The Lurker,” a column she created for Architecture Boston magazine. She has received the Ploughshares Cohen Award for Best Short Story and has been awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. She has taught at Harvard, Emerson, the University of Massachusetts (Boston), and the Bennington Writing Seminars. Joan graduated from Yale with a degree in art history. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Boris Fish­man was born in Min­sk, Belarus. He is the author of the nov­els A Replace­ment Life (win­ner of the VCU Cabell First Nov­el­ist Award and the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion’s Sophie Brody Medal) and Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo. Both were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Sav­age Feast, a fam­i­ly mem­oir told through recipes, will be out in paper­back in ear­ly 2020. His jour­nal­ism has appeared in The New York­er, The New York Times Mag­a­zine, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. He lives in New York and teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at Prince­ton University. Boris's choices include: Books Sophie's Choice, William Styron King of the Jews, Leslie Epstein Netflix etc Give Me Liberty Two Lovers, James Gray Better Call Saul Music Def Leppard, Stand up, Kick Life into Motion Podcast I'll Drink to That Poetry Lucky, Tony Hoagland

Michael's Choices: Streaming Better Call Saul Babylon Berlin Ozark Novel Joseph Karon: The Defectors Michael's Podcast--First Rough Draft of History (FRDH) ___________ Remember to Listen to Four Dead in Ohio Archive on 4 May 4th 2020 marks the 50th anniversary  of the Kent State massacre.  Through archive and personal memory, Michael  Goldfarb explores what  America was like on that terrible weekend.

In November 1985, Goldfarb moved to London to pursue a career in  journalism. He has reported from 25 countries on five continents. He reported on the arts for British and American newspapers, particularly The Guardian and Newsday. He became a critic for BBC Radio 4 and this work led him into broadcast journalism with National Public Radio (NPR). From 1990 to 1998, Goldfarb worked for NPR, from 1996 to 1998 as its London Bureau Chief. He covered British politics, the Royal Family and the five-year-long peace process in Northern Ireland for, but also reported from Bosnia and Iraq. Throughout this period he also worked with the BBC and in 1994 won British radio's highest honor, the Sony Award, for his essays on the American Midwest, titled Homeward Bound. In 1999 he was a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. In 2016, he launched the FRDH podcast. He frames his storytelling  through the idea that journalism is the First Rough Draft of History  and draws on the history he has reported and lived and written about. He continues to make documentaries for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, the World Service and Radio 5 and is a regular panelist on the BBC News program Dateline London.  He writes op-eds for The New York Times and contributes occasionally to The Guardian.[3Michael's choices include Hillary Mantel, The Mirror and the Lamp Four Dead in Ohio, covered by  Isely Brothers, Ben Harper, Hannah Wicklund --more choices in Part 2 of the Interview

Preti Taneja I had a delightful conversation with Preti whose recent novel We That are Young has received many rave reviews and prizes. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle and teaches Creative Writing in prisons for LEARNING TOGETHER, Cambridge Universty. Preti is also a New Generation Thinker and broadcasts for Radio 3 and 4 on world literature and culture. Podcast with Preti Taneja PRETI’S QUARANTINE ISLAND CHOICES: Music Alice Coltrane : Journey in Satchidananda British Grime Dave Stormzy Nick Cave: The Boatman’s Call Live Concerts Gil Scott Heron Poetry Adrienne Rich, Collected Poems Claudia Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric Novels Mark Haddon: The Porpoise: A Novel Films Mood for Love 2046 Both directed by Wong Kar-wai Podcast This American Life

Preti Taneja I had a delightful conversation with Preti whose recent novel We That are Young has received many rave reviews and prizes. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle and teaches Creative Writing in prisons for LEARNING TOGETHER, Cambridge Universty. Preti is also a New Generation Thinker and broadcasts for Radio 3 and 4 on world literature and culture. PRETI’S QUARANTINE ISLAND CHOICES: Music Alice Coltrane : Journey in Satchidananda British Grime Dave Stormzy Nick Cave: The Boatman’s Call Live Concerts Gil Scott Heron Poetry Adrienne Rich, Collected Poems Claudia Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric Novels Mark Haddon: The Porpoise: A Novel Films Mood for Love 2046 Both directed by Wong Kar-wai Podcast This American LifeI had a delightful conversation with Preti whose recent novel We That are Young has received many rave reviews and prizes. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle and teaches Creative Writing in prisons for LEARNING TOGETHER, Cambridge Universty. Preti is also a New Generation Thinker and broadcasts for Radio 3 and 4 on world literature and culture. PRETI’S QUARANTINE ISLAND CHOICES: Music Alice Coltrane : Journey in Satchidananda British Grime Dave Stormzy Nick Cave: The Boatman’s Call Live Concerts Gil Scott Heron Poetry Adrienne Rich, Collected Poems Claudia Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric Novels Mark Haddon: The Porpoise: A Novel Films Mood for Love 2046 Both directed by Wong Kar-wai Podcast This American Life

Ralph's choices Movies Anything with Peter Sellers Laurel and Hardy Radio The Goon Show Music Singer Songwriters: Randy Newman, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan Guitarists Rev Gary Davis, Blind Bob Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Jango Reinhardt  Books/Biographies Oscar Wilde Richard Ellmann Is That It? Bob Geldorf's  autobiography Ariel, Sylvia Plath Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flats, Mice and Men

Robin  Renée claims personal favorites and influences from acts as disparate  as Elvis Costello, Jai Uttal, James Taylor, Gary Wilson, and Devo. In  the biracial, multicultural family in which she grew up, the blended  experience extended easily to music. She was just as likely to take a  ride on Gladys Knight's "Midnight Train to Georgia" as to drive along  Kraftwerk's "Autobahn," and the easy-going sounds of "You've Got a  Friend" were as common as Dylan's acerbic "Masters of War." Her choices for Quarantine Island Discs are: Music David Newman's Leap of Grace See the YouTube video for a sample of this beautiful music Poem A Concert of Lions by Robin Renne Films The Room and The Disaster Artist  Documentary, Won't You Be My Neighbor?    TV Ozzy and Drix Novels For Hire& Audition, Kevin Patterson and Alana Phelan   Podcast                   What a Day