Search

Fiction writing begins with a story idea. In this audio story, the idea comes from a young Arab-American girl who is a fan of mysteries. She works with an adult Arab-American writer to develop her original story idea into the first draft of a cliffhanger–a story that stops at a suspenseful moment, leaving the characters in a desperate state. Listen to learn more about the fiction writing process as well as how authors sometimes give readers an invitation to imagine what might happen next in the story.

Poet Joshua Bennett has published a poetry collection of odes titled Owed that celebrates people, places, and objects that he feels have not received the positive recognition they deserve. In this interview, he reflects on his experience as a Black teenager attending an elite private school. He explains how it influenced the subjects of his poetry. Bennett also shares how his perspective has changed about his writing process and his family. Listen to learn more about Owed and to hear Bennett read excerpts of his work.

A robot is a machine programmed for a purpose—to perform a human task. But can a robot survive on its own? That’s the existential question in The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown, in which a robotic heroine, Roz, breaks during a tornado and gets blown to a remote island. This audio story presents an excerpt from the book, in which Roz interacts with various forest animals. Listen to hear students discuss the characters, events, and ideas in the story, and learn how the author came up with the idea of sending a robot into the wilderness.

Sudan, a country in northeast Africa, has suffered many tragedies in its history, including civil war, drought, and famine. This audio interview focuses on A Long Walk to Water, a story about two young survivors of those tragedies. One character, Salva, is based on an actual person who escaped from war and searched for his family. The other character, Nya, is a fictional composite of several girls from Sudan’s refugee camps. Listen to hear students discuss the book and learn how the author created a work of fiction based on a factual story.

Narratives imagined by children are often delightfully unbounded by adult conventions and logic. In this audio interview, a 6-year-old author and 13-year-old illustrator describe how they imagined and created an unusual picture book about some chickens who leave their farm to become pirates. Their parents, who collaborated on the project, compare their children’s creative processes to their own and analyze how observing and helping their children changed their own ideas about creativity. Listen to hear about a multi-generational collaboration that transformed one young child’s imaginative tale into an actual book.

Margot had planned to vacation with her rich prep school friends, but instead, she’s spending the summer working at her parents’ supermarket in the Bronx. This is where Lilliam Rivera’s novel, “The Education of Margot Sanchez,” begins. It’s a tale of a teen who’s caught between two different worlds, trying to decide who she really is. Listen to hear the author of the book describe what she loves about writing “unlikable” characters like Margot and how her own experiences shaped the story.

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” has been an American classic for 75 years. This novel centers around a poor young Irish girl and her family struggling to make it in Brooklyn. It’s loosely based on the author’s experiences growing up in New York. Listen to find out what middle schoolers think of this celebrated novel and what the author changed when she turned her real life into fiction.

An acclaimed Nigerian author’s award-winning new novel, “An Orchestra of Minorities” is a tragic love story. It is like many classic tales, but with a unique twist: it’s told by the main character’s guardian spirit, or chi, in the Igbo religion. Listen to learn how having a non-human narrator affects this story and its characters’ destinies.

Jose Antonio Vargas is an award-winning author who arrived in the U.S. as a young boy. Like thousands of other immigrants, his parents brought him into the country illegally in pursuit of the American Dream. In this audio story, Vargas explains how he found out his family’s secret and why he decided to tell the world he is undocumented. The story examines why America is seen as an ideal country for opportunity for thousands of people around the world and why some people send their children alone to the U.S. in pursuit of the American Dream.

In this interview, actor Henry Winkler discusses his own learning difference and that of Hank Zipzer, the main character in Winkler’s children’s book series. Hank, who is based on Winkler’s own experience as a child, struggles with learning to read, but works hard to succeed despite his challenges. Listen to learn more about Winkler’s story, how he persevered through his dyslexia and achieved success, and what he considers his greatest accomplishment.

The New York Botanical Garden created an exhibit to honor Emily Dickinson. She was a nineteenth-century American poet who wrote unique verses, often about the nature of life and death. The new exhibit celebrates her hobbies, family, and experiences from a surprising perspective. Listen to learn what Dickinson was actually known for in her lifetime (hint: it’s not poetry!).

The classic novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is essentially a story about belonging. In this audio story, a British author has written a contemporary novel that borrows elements from Emily Brontë’s life and her novel to tell a modern story about belonging. The author of The Lost Child was born in St. Kitts in the West Indies and moved to Britain when he was just four months old. Listen to learn more about how one author’s search for identity and belonging influenced his craft.

Whether or not to use the “Oxford comma” is a big debate among grammar lovers, journalists, and English teachers. The punctuation mark appears at the end of a series, right before “and” or “or.” Recently, the Oxford comma came into the spotlight during a lawsuit about overtime pay. A close look at the law revealed that its punctuation, or lack thereof, made possible two entirely different interpretations. Listen to hear more about how one missing comma could cost a dairy company millions of dollars.

American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway exemplified his literary style with novels like, “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea.” Hemingway’s adventurous life inspired these stories. From running with the bulls in Spain to fighting in World War II, Hemingway was a larger than life celebrity known for his machismo and literary skill. Hemingway’s talent was recognized with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His writing style, which consists of short sentences that describe the external world, changed American literature forever.

Jane Austen wrote a new type of female character. Emma Woodhouse of "Emma" and Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice" are two memorable characters. They were charming but normal, flawed but winning. The legend of Austen is that she wrote her novels exactly as they were published, but the release of her original manuscripts suggests she had an active editor. Does it matter that an editor helped clean up Austen’s prose or is it her genius that shines through?

Playwright Arthur Miller wrote plays that spoke to the common man. From his commentary on the American dream in "Death of a Salesman" to McCarthyism in "The Crucible," Miller wrote hard-hitting personal dramas that also resonated with a wide spectrum of American people, especially the working class. Listen to learn more about Miller’s roots, his writing process, and how his personal background—particularly his house and writing space—compare to backgrounds shared by his characters.

Charles Dickens was the first literary celebrity of his era. He wrote about the working poor and the dangerous working conditions in England. A visit to the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts served as an inspiration for Dickens to continue writing about these London realities. Listen to this story to learn how Dickens reflected and questioned English society in his work.

Roald Dahl’s life was plagued by tragedy, and yet he wrote some of the most famous children’s books of our time, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. This public radio story takes you into Dahl’s life and explores what motivated his writing. Listen to learn more about his relationship with his wife and children, his special writing hut, and the legacy he left behind.