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Upstart Crow

Upstart Crow

著者： Upstart Crow Podcast
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Dedicated to promoting books and culture through engaging and informative podcasts. Our mission is to inspire our listeners to explore the literary arts and appreciate the diversity of ideas within our amazing world. We invite a diverse range of writers, historians, and cultural influences to share their expertise. From established artists to up-and-coming creatives, our guests provide unique perspectives on writing, the literary arts, and culture. Hosted by Ken Budd, Jennifer Disano, and William Miller.Upstart Crow Podcast アート 文学史・文学批評 社会科学
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  • Liam Callanan - Stone Age Astronaut

    Liam Callanan - Stone Age Astronaut
    2026/10/29
    What makes an extraordinary accomplishment disappear from the history books? And what does it take to leave one life behind and begin another?Liam Callanan, author of four novels, a short story collection, and his first work of nonfiction, Stone Age Astronaut, joins host William Miller for a conversation about aviation history, the art of storytelling, and the surprising connections between the two.Stone Age Astronaut tells the story of Lester Maitland, who piloted the first plane to cross the Pacific Ocean in 1927, just weeks after Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. While Lindbergh became a household name, Maitland's achievement largely faded from public memory. Callanan explores why, examining the extraordinary risks of the flight, the experimental navigation technology that helped guide the plane toward Hawaii, and the courage required to cross thousands of miles of open ocean in an era when aviation was still in its infancy.The conversation also explores Callanan's fiction, including The Cloud Atlas, Listen, All Saints, Paris by the Book, and When in Rome. Callanan discusses the historical research behind his work, the recurring presence of water and bears in his stories, the importance of emotional honesty, and the mysteries that draw readers deeper into a narrative. He also reflects on redemption, the possibility of changing one's life, and the people who help us find our way when we take a chance on something new.Find out more about Liam Callanan and his writings here.Topics DiscussedLester Maitland and Albert Hegenberger's historic 1927 flight from California to HawaiiWhy Maitland's achievement became less famous than Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flightThe dangers of early aviation and the experimental technology used to navigate the PacificThe radio-beacon system, sextants, chronometers, and other tools used during the flightThe disastrous Dole Air Derby and the risks of early attempts to fly to HawaiiThe growth of aviation and the development of commercial air travel across the PacificThe archival research behind Stone Age Astronaut and the challenge of reconstructing forgotten historyThe Japanese balloon weapons that inspired Callanan's novel The Cloud AtlasHow Callanan's short stories and novels evolve through research, revision, and discoveryThe role of water as both a barrier and a means of connection in Callanan's fictionThe use of gesture, silence, and emotion to reveal a character's inner lifeThe mysteries, unexpected turns, and recurring themes that connect Callanan's booksHow characters confront major life changes, leave familiar circumstances behind, and seek new beginningsRedemption, mercy, and the people who help us navigate life's turning pointsKey TakeawaysLester Maitland's historic flight deserves a place alongside Lindbergh's achievement.Maitland and navigator Albert Hegenberger crossed the Pacific to Hawaii in 1927, accomplishing a remarkable feat at a time when aviation technology was still developing. Their flight was dangerous, technically demanding, and important to the future of military aviation. Yet its significance was overshadowed by Lindbergh's solo flight and the publicity surrounding it.Early aviation required extraordinary courage and ingenuity.The pilots and navigators of the 1920s had to rely on experimental equipment, astronomical navigation, radio signals, and careful calculations. Even the most promising technology could fail, leaving crews to fall back on older methods. The risks were real, and subsequent attempts to fly to Hawaii demonstrated just how unforgiving the Pacific could be.Historical research can uncover remarkable details hiding in the archives.Callanan describes finding original documents from Maitland and Hegenberger's flight, including a note passed between the men as they attempted to determine their position over the ocean. These artifacts brought the experience to life and helped Callanan reconstruct not only what happened, but what the flight felt like for the people involved.The best fiction often begins with a question that will not go away.Callanan's The Cloud Atlas grew out of research into Japanese balloon weapons used during World War II. A postcard discovered in the historical record helped spark the story. He explains how research can lead a writer toward a narrative that eventually becomes something more than the original facts alone could tell.Water, time, and survival connect many of Callanan's stories.Across his fiction and nonfiction, Callanan returns to people crossing boundaries, confronting the past, and discovering what it means to survive. Water can divide people and places, but it can also provide a route between them. Looking back across time can reveal patterns and connections that were not apparent in the moment.Emotion is most powerful when it feels honest rather than forced.Callanan discusses how writers can communicate emotion through physical gestures, silence, and carefully chosen words. He aims to ...
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    58 分
  • Lois Romano – Mary Todd Lincoln: An Inconvenient Widow

    Lois Romano – Mary Todd Lincoln: An Inconvenient Widow
    2026/10/20
    Lois Romano – Mary Todd Lincoln: An Inconvenient WidowThis is the first of four interviews in the Upstart Crow–Fairfax County Public Library Interview Series, presented as part of the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. Details about the remaining three interviews appear below.“Tell people you’re reading a book about Mary Todd Lincoln, and they might well say something like, ‘Oh, wasn’t she crazy?’”When Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd at a soiree, she was a young, intelligent, well-educated, and stylish woman from an affluent family. He was a country lawyer of humble origins. Both had big-time aspirations, and both were whip-smart. Together, they helped engineer his election to the highest office in the land.Lincoln became one of the most pivotal presidents in American history, taking office at a time when the presidency and the role of the first lady were under intense public scrutiny. Neither Abraham nor Mary was quite prepared for the unprecedented pressures that came with those positions.But crazy? Far from it. Mary had lost three sons and was sitting beside her husband when an assassin entered the room and fired a single shot into the back of his head. Lincoln died hours later. During those hours, Mary was unable to be alone with her husband because so many others wanted to be in the room. Men—all of them men.In the months that followed, Mary struggled to access money to support herself, despite her husband having left a substantial estate. The man responsible for managing that estate refused to release the funds to her. Her son Robert eventually brought her before a court, where testimony about her ability to care for herself and manage her finances led a jury to determine that she should be placed in a treatment facility. A few months later, Mary managed to secure her release.Lois Romano is a veteran national journalist who has worked as a reporter, editor, and columnist for The Washington Post and Politico. A keen observer of the relationship between politics and human nature, Romano brought her insights and extensive research to An Inconvenient Widow, telling Mary Lincoln’s story from beginning to end in a way that has rarely been explored before.In this episode of Upstart Crow, Romano joins host William Miller to discuss the research behind the book, the truth about Mary Todd Lincoln, and how she began a project that consumed more than five years.The conversation concludes with a live-stream audience Q&A, in which Romano answers questions about Mary Lincoln’s life, legacy, and treatment by history.Topics DiscussedLois Romano’s research and the writing of An Inconvenient WidowMary Todd Lincoln’s childhood, family background, and relationship with Abraham LincolnMary’s political ambitions and influence on Lincoln’s careerHow nineteenth-century media coverage shaped Mary Lincoln’s public reputationThe myths and historical assumptions surrounding Mary’s mental healthMary’s charitable work and support for formerly enslaved peopleThe financial struggles and public scrutiny she faced after Lincoln’s assassinationHer relationship with her son Robert and her confinement in a mental institutionHow Mary Lincoln’s story challenges traditional views of first ladies and women in American political historyKey TakeawaysMary Todd Lincoln’s reputation was shaped by bias as much as by history.Romano explains how inaccurate reporting, political hostility, and repeated stories helped establish a negative image of Mary that persisted for generations. Her research revisits the historical record to distinguish documented facts from long-standing assumptions.Mary Lincoln was a politically astute partner, not simply a burden to her husband.Mary was ambitious, intelligent, and deeply interested in politics. Romano argues that she and Abraham Lincoln shared a meaningful partnership and that Mary played a more consequential role in his rise than many accounts have acknowledged.The media scrutiny Mary faced was extraordinary for a first lady of her era.Unlike many women who had occupied the role before her, Mary was extensively covered in newspapers. Digitized historical reporting allowed Romano to compare contemporary accusations with the evidence and uncover how sensational coverage affected Mary’s legacy.Mary’s private struggles were compounded by the expectations placed on women.In a time when women could not vote and were expected to remain within the domestic sphere, Mary navigated political life, family responsibilities, public criticism, and financial uncertainty with limited control over her own circumstances.Mary’s efforts to survive were often portrayed as personal failings.After Lincoln’s death, Mary struggled to access her husband’s estate and fought for a pension. Her attempt to sell clothing to support herself became a public scandal, illustrating how harshly she was judged even when trying to secure her financial independence.Revisiting the ...
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    1 時間 6 分
  • Ilan Stavans – A Nation Wrestles with God

    Ilan Stavans – A Nation Wrestles with God
    2026/09/08
    Internationally known, award-winning writer and editor Ilan Stavans sees an anthology as something akin to a library where the books come down from the shelves at night and fly around, mixing and mingling and enriching each other in a great time of sharing.So it makes perfectly good sense that Stavans would mark the 250th birthday of his adopted country by editing a book of more than 100 works spanning four centuries—all connected by a shared theme: How Americans have grappled with God.The anthology includes fiction, essays, political pieces, songs, poems, speeches, sermons, comic strips, and even a photograph of a TIME magazine cover. Together, they explore a country founded on the principle that its people were “endowed by their Creator” with certain rights; a country that, a little more than 200 years later, put “In God We Trust” on its money and “One Nation, Under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.Yet America is also a country where record numbers of people identify as religiously unaffiliated, while roughly 90 percent still profess to believe in a higher power.In this episode of Upstart Crow, Ilan Stavans talks with William Miller about the idea behind his anthology, the works he chose and why, and some of the nearly 100 pieces he removed from an early draft. They explore what Americans have done with the idea of God—and what that idea has done to the people of America.About Ilan StavansIlan Stavans has published more than 30 books and is well known for his investigations of language and culture, as well as his work in anthologies.Born in Mexico in 1961 to a Jewish family with roots in Eastern Europe, Stavans was raised in a multilingual environment. His autobiography, On Borrowed Words, appeared in 2001.He is known for his research on English, Spanish, Yiddish, Ladino, and, in particular, Spanglish. In 2003, he published Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, which includes a lexicon of approximately 6,000 terms and a Spanglish translation of the first chapter of Don Quixote. He subsequently completed a Spanglish translation of the entire novel by Miguel de Cervantes.Stavans is the author of several award-winning short-story collections. The internationally released, award-winning feature film My Mexican Shivah, co-produced by John Sayles, was based on his story “Morirse está en hebreo.” His story The Disappearance, adapted for the stage by the experimental theater troupe DoubleEdge, has toured the world. His one-man show The Oven has been seen in cities across the United States.Stavans is also the author of Resurrecting Hebrew, books on love and the Bible, Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion, Quixote: The Novel and the World, and a biography of Gabriel García Márquez's career through the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude.His work has been translated into fifteen languages. His lectures on Don Quixote and on visions of the divine across cultures are available from Recorded Books. Stavans is also editor-in-chief of Oxford Bibliography: Latino Studies.KEY TAKEAWAYS• America’s relationship with God is complicated. Ilan Stavans explores how Americans have questioned, negotiated, embraced, and sometimes weaponized religion throughout the country’s history.• Religion can be both medicine and illness. It can provide morality, community, and structure while also becoming a source of division, violence, and destruction.• Doubt is essential to being human. Stavans argues that questioning—not certainty—is at the heart of intelligence, belief, and personal growth.• An anthology is a conversation across time. A Nation Wrestles with God brings together more than 100 voices and perspectives, allowing writers from vastly different eras and backgrounds to “speak” to one another.• Literature gives us access to interior life. The conversation explores how writers such as Flannery O’Connor and Mark Twain reveal the complexity of what happens inside a character’s mind.• Language matters. Stavans discusses the importance of allowing dialects, slang, Spanglish, Yiddish, and other forms of language to retain their complexity rather than being “streamlined.”• America is shaped by perception. The discussion moves from Walter Lippmann and Rashomon to the question of whether there is a single reality—or simply the realities we perceive.• Technology and AI may threaten our interior voices. Stavans worries that increasingly powerful technology could diminish the space we have for uncertainty, reflection, and internal dialogue.• America’s religious identity is changing, but religion isn’t disappearing. Even as traditional religious participation declines, belief in some form of God remains widespread.• Outsiders can help us understand ourselves. Stavans sees the immigrant and outsider perspective as a valuable way of challenging assumptions held by people immersed in their own culture.“Doubt is the mother of intelligence. Doubt is the...
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    53 分
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