Author Interview Videos

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

Block head? Listen here as famed author of Life of Pi and self proclaimed political gadfly Yann Martel 1) Absorbs a barrage of punishing jabs I throw at him over his latest book What is Stephen Harper Reading? and 2) Punches back at a Canadian Prime Minister whom he considers to be a visionless, âfactâ-mired, fiction-eschewing ideologue. Subscribe to The Biblio File Podcast here Tweet this!

(last night at Art Matters) Kate Pullinger is a novelist who also writes for film and various digital platforms. Born in Cranbrook British Columbia she went to high school on Vancouver Island, dropped out of McGill University, worked for a year in a copper mine in the Yukon, traveled, and eventually settled in London. Pullinger has written two short story collections; her novels include When the Monster Dies (1989), Where Does Kissing End? (1992), A Little Stranger and most recently The Mistress of Nothing which has just won Canadaâs GG Literary Award for best English Fiction (to be awarded this evening). She has lectured and taught at, among other institutions: the Battersea Arts Centre, the University of Reading, and Cambridge University, as well as in various prisons. She currently teaches Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University, Leicester. The Mistress of Nothing (2009), takes its inspiration from the life of Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, and is set in nineteenth-century Egypt. I met with Kate yesterday afternoon. Among other things we talk about what itâs like to win the GG, class structures, and the future of the book (check out her website here). Please listen here: Subscribe to the Biblio File Podcast here

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

NB Authors Galway Kinnell was born February 1, 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island. He has been hailed as one of the most influential American poets of the latter half of the 20th century. Educated at Princeton and Rochester Universities, he served in the United States Navy, after which he spent several years traveling, in Europe and the Middle East. His first book of poems, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960, followed by Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock (1964). Upon his return to the United States, Kinnell joined CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) as a field worker and spent much of the 1960s involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Social activism during this time found its way into his work â Body Rags (1968), and especially The Book of Nightmares (1971), a book-length poem concerned with the Vietnam War. Other books of poetry include Selected Poems (1980), for which he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Imperfect Thirst (1996); When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990) and A New Selected Poems (2000), a finalist for the National Book Award; He has also published translations of works by Yves Bonnefroy, Yvanne Goll, FranÃois Villon, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. He has served as poet-in-residence at numerous colleges and universities, and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. We met recently at his home in Vermont to talk about his work. Please listen here:

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002) was born in Armenia in 1908. His photographer uncle, George Nakash, brought him to Canada in 1924. After apprenticing in Boston with John H. Garo, Karsh settled in Ottawa in 1932, where he began his professional career. By 1936 he was photographing visiting statesmen and dignitaries, among them President Franklin Roosevelt. His December, 1941 portrait of a bulldoggish Winston Churchill, symbolizing Britainâs wartime resolve, brought Karsh international attention. Among the most widely reproduced portraits in the history of photography, âChurchillâ was also one of the first to carry the famous Karsh of Ottawa copyright. I met recently with Jerry Fielder, Curator and Director of the Estate of Yousuf Karsh to talk about Karsh and the books that contain his works. Please listen here:

This from the incomÂparÂable BritÂish Councilâs conÂtemÂporÂary writers webÂsite: Born in SouthÂport in 1969, David Mitchell grew up in MalÂvern, WorcesterÂshire, studyÂing for a degree in EngÂlish and AmerÂican LitÂerÂatÂure folÂlowed by an MA in ComÂparÂatÂive LitÂerÂatÂure, at the UniÂverÂsity of Kent. He lived for a year in Sicily before movÂing to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught EngÂlish to techÂnical stuÂdents for eight years, before returnÂing to England. In his first novel, GhostwritÂten (1999), nine narÂratÂors in nine locÂaÂtions across the globe tell interÂlockÂing storÂies. This novel won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortÂlÂisÂted for the GuardÂian First Book Award. His second novel, number9dream (2001), was shortÂlÂisÂted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize for ficÂtion. It is set in modÂern day Tokyo and tells the story of Eiji Miyakeâs search for his father. In 2003 David Mitchell was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty âBest of Young BritÂish NovÂelÂistsâ. In his third novel, Cloud Atlas (2004), a young Pacific islander witÂnesses the nightÂfall of sciÂence and civilÂisaÂtion, while quesÂtions of hisÂtory are explored in a series of seemÂingly disÂconÂnecÂted narÂratÂives. Cloud Atlas was shortÂlÂisÂted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. David Mitchell lives in IreÂland. His latest novel is Black Swan Green (2006) We met recently in Toronto to talk about experÂiÂmentÂaÂtion and realÂism, plot, charÂacÂter and all that good stuff, but also about the greatÂness of John Cheever, high brow and pulp ficÂtion, good pot boilÂers, the cosÂmos, cosmi, conÂnecÂtions, meldÂing verbs, platÂitÂudÂinÂous proÂfunditÂies, critÂics as platyÂpus taxiÂdermÂists, poetry in prose, the oriÂginÂalÂitÂies of happy blunÂders and culÂtural juxÂtaÂposÂiÂtions, Perecâs W, monÂkeyÂing with strucÂture, planÂning your funeral, evalÂuÂatÂive criÂtiÂcism and the delightÂful experÂiÂence of readÂing Chekhovâs short storÂies. Please listen here:

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

A reader's entertainment destination! A variety show that lets you get to know authors and their work. A look, a listen and a laugh for all! Friday nights at 8:30PM EST!readers | entertainment | books | author interview | COS Productions

Crime novelist Denise Mina is the author of a trilogy of novels set in Glasgow: Garnethill (1998), which won the Crime Writersâ Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger; Exile (2000); and Resolution (2001). Sanctum (2002), is the story of a forensic psychiatrist, convicted of killing a serial killer. The Field of Blood (2005) is the first in a new series, the second in the series, The Dead Hour, was published in 2006, and the third, Slip of the Knife, in 2007. Mina also writes short stories, one of which, âHelena and the Babiesâ from Fresh Blood 3 (1999), won the Crime Writersâ Association Macallan Short Story Dagger. Two short stories and a play, Hurtle (2003), have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her latest play is Ida Tamson. Her lastest novel is Still Midnight (2009). We met recently in Ottawa where Mina was the international guest of honour at Bloody Words, Canadaâs national mystery conference. Our conversation cuts a wide swath across the socio-political (alcoholism, the accurate depiction of mental illness, the courage of the mentally ill) the psychoanalytic (detective stories as re-enactments of the primal act) and the technical (cozy endings, realistic puzzles); please listen here: