Recorded live at the Rialto Center for the Arts in Atlanta on February 22, 2026, this episode features novelist Tayari Jones in conversation with playwright and essayist Pearl Cleage about Jones’s new novel, Kin.

What began as a different contracted project became a deeply personal story about friendship, motherlessness, ambition, and the emotional inheritance passed between generations of Black women. Set in mid-century Atlanta, Kin follows two girls whose lives take very different paths—one toward respectability and upward mobility, the other toward a search for her absent mother—while their bond endures.

Jones and Cleage discuss creative risk, the pull between writing for a contract and writing from the heart, the specificity of Atlanta as both setting and character, and the ongoing questions of literary recognition and legacy. Thoughtful and candid, this live conversation explores what it means to tell the stories that insist on being told.

In this episode of the Ideas Festival Emory podcast, Maya Kroth interviews Chris Appleton, founder of Art Pharmacy. discusses the growing mental health and loneliness crises and explains how social prescribing—connecting people to arts and cultural experiences as part of healthcare—can serve as a powerful, evidence-based intervention. Drawing on personal experience, emerging clinical data, and real-world success stories, Appleton makes the case for creativity as a vital public health resource, one that fosters connection, resilience, and whole-person health while addressing gaps in the U.S. healthcare system.

In this episode of the Ideas Festival Emory podcast, host Maya Kroth speaks with Anne Basting, founder of TimeSlips, about creativity, aging, and the power of storytelling to foster connection and dignity. Drawing on Bastings’ pioneering work using imaginative engagement with people living with dementia, the conversation explores how creative expression can transform care, challenge assumptions about aging, and strengthen our capacity for empathy. Produced by the Center for Public Scholarship and Engagement and rooted in Emory University’s Ideas Festival, this episode invites listeners to consider how imagination can be a practical, humane tool for building more inclusive and compassionate communities.