A conversation with historian Elsa Devienne about their book, Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Elsa Devienne is Assistant Professor of History at Northumbria University.

Sand Rush was originally published in French by Éditions de la Sorbonne in 2020 as La ruée vers le sable: Une histoire environnementale des plages de Los Angeles au XXe siècle.

Along with numerous articles, Devienne is also co-editor or co-author of:

• Le chemin, la rive et l’usine : Faire de l’histoire environnementale avec Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud (Paris: Presses des Mines, 2023).
• D’Après nature: Frederick Law Olmsted et le park movement américain (Pari : Éditions Fahrenheit, 2014).

Below are links to an article and two podcast episodes that Devienne mentions towards the end of this episode:

• “Making Plastics Count: Citizen Science Beach Cleanups and the Ocean Plastic Pollution Crisis (1980s-2020s),” Environmental History, 30, no 4(October 2025): 646-673. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/737351
• "Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Judie)," Plastisphere Podcast, 2025. https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/coastal-cleanup-judie?in=plastisphere-podcast/sets/changemakers
• "Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Linda)," Plastisphere Podcast, 2025. https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/coastal-cleanup-linda?in=plastisphere-podcast/sets/changemakers

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with journalist Jonathan Bach their book, "High Desert, Higher Costs: Bend and the Housing Crisis in the American West"

(Oregon State University Press, 2025).

Jonathan Bach is a journalist and staff reporter covering housing and commercial real estate for The Oregonian/OregonLive.com.

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian David-James Gonzales about their book, Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange Country, California

(Oxford University Press, 2025).

David-James Gonzales is Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He holds a BA in History from the University of California - San Diego, and n M.A. and Ph.D in History from the University of Southern California.

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with author George Frazier about their book "Riverine Dreams: Away to the Glorious and Forgotten Grassland Rivers of America" (University of Chicago Press, 2025).

George Frazier is Assistant Professor of Computer Information Science at Washburn University in Topeka Kansas. His previous book, The Last Wild Places of Kansas: Journeys into Hidden Landscapes (University of Kansas Press, 2017) won the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award from the Kansas Authors Club, the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History from the Midwestern History Association, a Midwest Book Award from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, and was named a Kansas Notable Book by the State Library of Kansas' Center for the Book.

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with literary scholar Sara Gallagher about their book

Black Wests: Reshaping Race and Place in Popular Culture

(University of Oklahoma Press, 2025)

Sara Gallagher is Professor of Liberal Studies at Durham College in Ontario, Canada.

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Martha A. Sandweiss about their book The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West (Princeton University Press, 2025).

Martha A. Sandweiss is Professor Emerita of History from Princeton University. A historian of the American West and photography in particular, Sandweiss is the recipient of innumerable awards and honors, served as President of the Society of American Historians and Western History Association, and was the founder of the Princeton and Slavery Project. In addition to an extensive record of articles, chapters, and sundry other publications, she is author or editor of 13 books, including:

• Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Penguin Press, 2009)
• Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (Yale University Press, 2002)
• The Oxford History of the American West (Oxford University Press, 1994)
• Photography in Nineteenth-Century America (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991)
• Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989)
• Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace (Amon Carter Museum, 1986)

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with Neil Mathison about their book Airstream Country: A Geologic Journey Across the American West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025)

Neil Mathison is an award-winning author based out of the Pacific Northwest. In addition to essays published in a wide variety of outlets, he is the author of two books:

• Volcano: an A to Z and Other Essays About Geology, Geography, and Geo-Travel in the American West (Bauhan Publishing, 2017)

• Airstream Country: A Geologic Journey Across the American West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025)

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with Mark Sundeen about their book Delusions + Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025)

Mark Sundeen is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. In addition articles for The New York Times Magazine, Outside Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, McSweeney's, and other outlets, Sundeen is the author of 5 books.

• Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures (Quill HarperCollins, 2000)
• The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts, and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
• The Man Who Quit Money (Riverhead Books, 2012)
• The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America (Riverhead Books, 2018)
• Delusions + Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025)

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The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com