Podcast & radio show on KAZI 88.7 FM featuring interviews with culturally diverse authors
Check out the interview with Renée Watson, author of the novel SKIN & BONES, by Diverse Voices Book Review contributor, Amanda Moore on: Apple Podcast - https://bit.ly/3zVt4DC, Spotify - https://bit.ly/3xWtuck, Podomatic - https://bit.ly/4bU0EqI, or the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
What a delightful interview I recorded today with Nicola Yooon, author of the new novel ONE OF OUR KIND, for Diverse Voices Book Review. The podcast will be out soon.
Checkout my latest Diverse Voices Book Review interview with Larry Tye, author of THE JAZZMEN: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America by Larry Tye. Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/4dbthAV, Spotify- https://spoti.fi/4fbpHbS or the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
Looking forward to taping an interview with Gabino Iglesias about his new book HOUSE OF BONE AND RAIN on July 28.
I recorded a very cool interview with John Vercher yesterday, author of the novel DEVIL IS FINE for Diverse Voices Book Review. About the book, his publisher writes: “…Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovery―and a fight for reclamation―of a painful past. With the wit of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and the nuance of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Devil Is Fine is a darkly funny and brilliantly crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind and those we inherit.” The interview will be posted soon.
Coming soon to Diverse Voices Book Review with Hopeton Hay is Amanda Moore’s interview with Renée Watson, author of the novel SKIN & BONES. On book’s web site, the publisher describes the book: “…Through Watson’s poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.”
Reading the book THE JAZZMEN, I’m listening listening to jazz tunes on my phone. I started with West End Blues by Louis Armstrong then King Oliver’s West End Blues, Take The A Train and Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington. Then I listened to Nina Simone’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s versions of Mood Indigo. Listening to Ella reminded me why she is the GOAT vocalist.
This morning journey of jazz listening inspired by reading about Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie.
I’m currently reading THE JAZZMEN: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America by Larry Tye and the new novel by John Vercher, DEVIL IS FINE, which is about a biracial Black professor who loses his son and inherits a former plantation from his white mother’s side of the family. I’m looking forward to interviewing these authors.
In 2014, I interviewed Danielle Allen about her newly published book, OUR DECLARATION: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts at https://apple.co/4cpvicP, on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/3XPzwWo, or on the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
Featured on the front page of the New York Times, her book publisher writes in its description of the book: "Our Declaration is already regarded as a seminal work that reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. ..Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty."
Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy.
Checkout my second crime fiction pick for the month of June with Walter Mosley as we discuss his latest Easy Rawlins novel FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE, on Diverse Voices Book Review. Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
Checkout my second crime fiction pick for the month of June with Walter Mosley as we discuss his latest Easy Rawlins novel FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE, on Diverse Voices Book Review. Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/4clyxlb, Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3XELq5A, or the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
After a long break, my Crime Fiction Picks of the Month podcast is back! I’m a long time fan of Meg Gardiner thrillers. So it should come as no surprise that one of my crime fiction picks of the month is her latest thriller SHADOWHEART. Listen to my interview with her on Diverse Voices Book Review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
Checkout my interview with historian Annette Gordon-Reed, author of ON JUNETEENTH at Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/3RS0UQ7, Spotify - https://spoti.fi/45t2BIZ or on podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts.
Reading the latest novel by Walter Mosley, FAREWELL AMETHYSTINE, I’m reminded how long Easy Rawlin’s has been part of my reading life. I’ve been reading his novels over 30 years and I keep coming back to Easy because his character has grown and changed as has the timeline and his family. In FAREWELL AMETHYSTINE, Easy is now 50, and the novel is set in 1970 Los Angeles. I just started reading it, but I’m already falling comfortably into the rhythm of his characters and setting. It’s a treat.
Checkout Diverse Voices Book Review contributor Amanda Moore’s interview with Kellye Garrett, author of the novel Missing White Woman:
Show Hopeton Hay Podcasts, Ep Kellye Garrett's New Mystery Novel Missing White Woman - May 11, 2024
Currently listening to Trees by Percival Everett and The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Both have superb narrators.
With the new Netflix series the 3 Body Problem, debuting this week, I thought about another novel where a Chinese physicist is a protagonist, Little Gods written by Meng Jin. But it’s not a science fiction work, it’s a literary novel. Set in China, the novel largely looks back in time at the life of a brilliant Chinese physicist, Su Lan, before she immigrated to the United States. Like 3 Body Problem, her novel open at a key time in Chinese history, except it begins at the Tiananmen Square massacre. The novel chronicles Su Lan’s battles as a woman scientist in a man’s world, and her attempts to leave behind her rural upbringing. When Su Lan dies unexpectedly dies, her 17 year old daughter Liya goes to China to learn more about her life before she immigrated.
I absolutely loved the novel and highly recommend it.
What a cool interview I recorded with George Pelecanos about his new novellas collection OWNING UP. I’m a long-time fan of Pelecanos novels and his work on the HBO series The Wire and Treme. The stories in Owning Up chart the consequences of crime and violence with complex characters that don’t fit neatly into boxes of good and evil. Some characters put innocents in harms way with their nefarious actions. In one story, Pelecanos exposes the dangers of no-knock warrants, and the trauma it causes for a family. We closed out our interview discussing the Washington sports scene and our mutual fondness for NBA legend Earl Monroe and Pelecanos appreciation of the New York Knick’s team that won NBA titles in 1970 and 1973. I hope to edit and post the interview this weekend.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: With this interview, Diverse Voices Book Review with Hopeton Hay is celebrating historian Peniel E. Joseph, author of The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century. Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts at https://apple.co/48AspmC, on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/49TbD35, or on the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts, episode BLACK HSTORY MONTH: Historian Peniel E. Joseph, Author of the Third Reconstruction.
In The Third Reconstruction, Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era.
Peniel Joseph holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding director of the LBJ School's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). His career focus has been on "Black Power Studies," which encompasses interdisciplinary fields such as Africana studies, law and society, women's and ethnic studies, and political science.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: With this interview Diverse Voices Book Review with Hopeton Hay is celebrating activist Ernest McMillan, author of the memoir Standing: One Man’s Odyssey Through the Turbulent 60s. Listen to the interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts, episode Texas Civil Rights Leader Coming of Age with SNCC: Ernest McMillan.
Standing serves up an authentic memoir of a young Black boy growing up in a highly segregated environment: the heart of Dallas, Texas, during the era where segregation was the law of the land. Ernest McMillan came of age within a loving family and a nurturing community, virtually shielded from the outside—rampaging tides of white supremacy and a caste system squarely based on color. Dallas is often portrayed as a city in which the Civil Rights movement bypassed, but those claims are mythical in word and deed.
McMillan’s emergence into manhood fighting for equal rights in the “Black Belt” South and his return to his birthplace to challenge the status quo of the white power structure brought him face to face with forces that were dead set on wiping him off the planet entirely, or imprisoning him in perpetuity.
M. Ernest McMillan is a veteran human rights activist with a history of working through the 60’s in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and throughout the 80’s with the National Black United Front and the United League of Mississippi. McMillan served as the Chairman of the Dallas SNCC from 1967- 1969. He is deeply involved in the work of connecting arts with the community and developing avenues to foster and engage multigenerational, multicultural bridges for community uplift.
At Huston-Tillotson University tonight, I met Ernest McMillan, author of the memoir STANDING: One Man’s Odyssey Through the Turbulent 60s. He had quite an engaging conversation with HT students. Thanks to 100 Black Men
of Austin for brining him to
town.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: With this interview Diverse Voices Book Review with Hopeton Hay is celebrating Ytasha L. Womack, a critically acclaimed author, filmmaker, dancer, independent scholar, and champion of humanity and the imagination. Her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture (2013) is the leading primer on the exciting subject which bridges science fiction, futurisms, and culture. The book is a 2014 Locus Awards Non Fiction Finalist. In November of 2023, I interviewed Ytasha about her 2023 book BLACK PANTHER: A Cultural Exploration. In the interview, Womack discussed the impact of the Black Panther comics, and its significance within the context of Afrofuturism. She also related the history of the Black Panther in Marvel comics, and how different writers have handled the character over the years, each bringing their own perspectives and cultural references to the stories.
Listen to the interview at on Apple Podcasts at https://bit.ly/3Rht6ue, on Spotify at https://bit.ly/3GyCCEt, , or on the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts, episode Exploring the Cultural Impact and Legacy of the Black Panther Comics.
Womack tours the world championing Afrofuturism and the role of the imagination. Her works in Afrofuturism have been translated into Portuguese and Spanish for markets in Brazil and Latin America. Afrofuturism is taught in high schools and universities across the world.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: With this interview Diverse Voices Book Review with Hopeton Hay is celebrating Randal Maurice Jelks, an award-winning author, documentary film producer, and professor. In July of 2019 I interviewed Dr. Jelks about his book Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, and Eldridge Cleaver and Muhammad Ali. Dr. Jelks was also the guest of honor for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of KAZI Book Review which is now Diverse Voices Book Review.
In Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans, Dr. Jelks examined their autobiographical writings, interviews, speeches, letters, and memorable performances to understand how each of these figures used religious faith publicly to reconcile deep personal struggles, voice their concerns for human dignity, and reinvent their public image. Listen to the interview at on Apple Podcasts at https://bit.ly/42PFabJ, on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/49oXP0z, or on the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts, episode Black History Month: Randal Maurice Jelks, author of FAITH AND STRUGGLE IN THE LIVES OF FOUR AFRICAN AMERICANS: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali.
Dr. Jelks has published three other books. African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights Struggle in Grand Rapids (The University of Illinois Press, 2006), which was awarded the State History Award, University and Commercial Press, Historical Society of Michigan). Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography (University of North Carolina Press 2012), awarded the 2013 Lillian Smith Book Award and the 2013 Literary Award, Black Caucus of the American Library Association; and Letters to Martin: Meditations on Democracy in Black America (January 2022) awarded Kansas Notable Book 2023.
Learn more about Dr. Jelks and his books at https://bit.ly/3ORwU53.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: With this interview, Diverse Voices Book Review with Hopeton Hay is celebrating award winning novelist, screenwriter, and TV producer Attica Locke. In 2018, she became the first African American to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America with her 2017 novel Bluebird, Bluebird. In 2019, she was the first African American to win the Texas Writers Award from the Texas Book Festival. Listen to my 2019 interview with her about Heaven, My Home, her last novel, on Apple Podcast at https://apple.co/3SGxfZK, on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/3wiGAPM, or on the podcast platform of your choice under Hopeton Hay Podcasts, episode Black History Month: Attica Locke's 2019 Novel Explores Race and Justice in East Texas. Her latest novel, Guide Me Home, featuring Black Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, comes out on September 3, 2024.
Born and raised in Houston with family roots in East Texas, Locke has brought Black Texan characters to the forefront of the crime fiction world like no other writer. On a personal note, she was the first fiction author I interviewed on KAZI Book Review, appearing on my second show on June 7, 2009, to discuss her debut novel, Black Water Rising.
Attica Locke is a New York Times best-selling author of five novels. Heaven, My Home, sequel to the Edgar Award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird; Pleasantville, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction; The Cutting Season, winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence; and her debut, Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer, with credits that include Empire, When They See Us, and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image award for television writing. She co-created and executive produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home for Netflix, which was a top 10 hit in 50+ countries during its first weeks on air. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.
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Be sure to see one of my favorite speculative fiction writers Cadwell Turnbull, author of WE ARE THE CRISIS at the Texas Book Festival Sunday, 11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. on the panel The Space Between: Cerebral Speculative Fiction Addressing Real-World Problems with Yume Kitasei, author of THE DEEP SKY. Check out this video of Cadwell describing his novel.
I had this video created as a thank you to all the authors that were interviewed for Diverse Voices Book Review the first six months of 2023. The order of authors is random: Farah Jasmine Griffin, Courtney Duke Foster, Ivy Pochoda, Joe R. Lansdale, Jesse Q. Sutanto, Jamie Kreiner, Walter Mosley, Joe Ide, Chaitali Sen, Tananarive Due, Silvia Rodriguez Vega, Anastasia C. Curwood, Cheryl A. Head, Wanda M. Morris, and Maya Payne Smart. They all wrote books that I believe warrant your attention. Whether you looking to be entertained, informed, or educated, these are all books worth reading. You can listen to the interviews with them under Hopeton Hay Podcasts at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast streaming platforms. Also in the description of each author interview there are hot links to their web page. Thank you also to Amanda Moore for being a contributor to DVBR. #crimefiction #diversebooks #nonfiction #blackhistory #biography #latinxauthors #blackauthors #asianauthors #history #immigration
One of my failed attempts to make a tiktok video on the five most important books on race and ethnicity featured on Diverse Voices Book Review. My daughter Maya has tried to tutor me, but the lessons are not taking. So I have resolved to make her the producer and director of my first tiktok video on books, if her fee isn’t too high. Also the t-shirt is a plug for my alma mater, Xavier University of Louisiana. If your high schooler wants to be a doctor, there is no better undergraduate preparation than at #xavieruniversityoflouisiana #tiktokbooks
My good friend and wonderful Austin writer Jennifer Hritz just published her latest novel, SMOKE AND GLASS. I recorded a very short interview with her today where we discussed her feelings about publishing third novel and her upcoming virtual book launch Friday, October 23. Her website is www.jenniferhritz.com and the link to register for her book launch, which includes the zoom link, is http://evite.me/fuYEcR7xWY.
Nicky Drayden, author of ESCAPING EXODUS, discusses her Afro-futristic novel in the enclosed short video. She is one of the four fiction authors featured at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas coming Saturday, June 13, 10 a.m. -12 p.m. CDT online. Register at Eventbrite at https://bit.ly/2y5knqB.
Check out Richard Z. Santos, author of the debut novel TRUST ME, discussing it in this short video clip. He is one of the four fiction authors featured at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas coming Saturday, June 13, 10 a.m. -12 p.m. CDT online. Register at Eventbrite at https://bit.ly/2y5knqB.
My daughter Maya loved interviewing Lilliam Rivera, author of the dystopian/fantasy YA novel DEALING IN DREAM, today live by phone on Teens Choice Book Show on KAZI 88.7 FM in AustinTX. Watch what Maya has to say. #diversereads #weneeddiversebooks #yanovels
Tune in for a live interview on Teens Choice Book Show at approximately 2:15 p.m. on KAZI 88.7 FM. Maya interviews Lilliam Rivera, author of DEALING IN DREAMS.
Meet the moderators and book club leaders participating in A Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas: Evelyn M. Anderson, Velva L. Price, Peggy Terry, and Jeffrey Travillion.
Here are my favorites books published in 2017 that were featured on KAZI Book Review. The list consists of nine novels and five nonfiction books. The novels selected are from a variety of genre’s including science fiction, literary fiction, thrillers, and mysteries. The nonfiction includes a look at the criminal justice system and the war on drugs impact on blacks in the 1970s, a biography of the first great black crime fiction writer, Chester Himes, the history of the federal government’s health policy, the history of the ghost dance religion of Native Americans and the circumstances that caused its rise, and the history of black high school football in Texas during segregation from 1920-1970.
At 12:30pm today live on KAZI 88.7 FM, join me and Peggy Terry, Co-Chairperson of Folktales' Black Women's Literary Society, as we discuss our favorite books by African Americans in 2016 on KAZI Book Review.
UT Austin professor of English John Moran Gonzalez will be discussing Mexican American literature on a live edition of KAZI Book Review Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on KAZI 88.7FM The Voice and Soul of Austin. Gonzalez is the author of BORDER RENAISSANCE: The Texas Centennial and the Emergence of Mexican American Literature. He is also Director of the University of Texas at Austin Center for Mexican American Studies.
KAZI Book Review 2016: Year in Pictures
Take a listen to the most culturally diverse array of audio Texas author interviews ever featured - 19 different authors on KAZI Book Review web page: PODCASTS: Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices in Austin and Texas: http://bit.ly/2ijkTUP. The authors featured are Anthony Brown, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, Attica Locke, Chitra Divakaruni, Evelyn Palfrey, Jacob Grovey, Irene Mata, Julissa Arce, Karan Mahajan, Keffrelyn Brown, Marcus Guillory, Monica Anderson, Natalia Sylvester, Nina Godiwalla, Sherry Matthews, Simel Bey, Tyina Steptoe, Varian Johnson, and Willie Anderson.
Tune in at 8 a.m. CST today for a special KAZI Book Review Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices in Austin and Texas featuring 1 to 2 minute excerpts from interviews with 14 authors that grew up in Texas or currently live in Texas. Each inteview excerpt is mixed with hip hop, jazz, and R&B music. The authors featured in order of appearance, the musical artist and song accompanying their interview excerpts are: 1. Attica Locke – The O’Jays: Family Reunion 2. Evelyn Palfrey – Phyllis Hyman: Betcha By Golly Wow 3. Chitra Divakaruni – Mary J. Blige : MJB Da MVP 4. Antonio Ruiz-Camacho – Wayman Tisdale: Mexicoco 5. Jacob Grovey – Aretha Franklin: Young, Gifted, & Black 6. Natalia Sylvester – Marvin Gaye: Inner City Blues 7. Karan Mahajan – Stevie Wonder: Love’s In Need of Love Today 8. Anthony Brown – Public Enemy: Can’t Truss It 9. Keffrelyn Brown – Nina Simone: Feeling Good 10. John Moran Gonzalez – Terrence Howard: Spanish Love Affair 11. Willie Anderson – Anita Baker: Summertime 12. Simel Bey – Lupe Fiasco: Around My Way 13. Monica Anderson – Gladys Knight & The Pips: Friendship Train 14. Julissa Arce – Alicia Keys: Girl On Fire
John Moran Gonzalez, Director of the UT Austin Center for Mexican American Studies and one of the authors featured at the Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices in Austin and Texas on December 3, provides an overview of his book BORDER RENAISSANCE: The Texas Centennial and the Emergence of Mexican American Literature. Dr. Gonzalez is also an Associate Professor of English. Mariel Lindsay, Associate Editor of Fields Magazine, will moderate his session. For more information on the Celebration or to register go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/1634186796873673/?ti=icl
Award winning author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni talks about her novel, BEFORE WE VISIT THE GODDESS, and why it is important to support the Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices in Austin and Texas on December 3.
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