A conversation with historian Michael W. Childers about their book, The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park (University of Nebraska Press, Environment and Region in the American West Series, 2026).

Michael W. Childers is Associate Professor of History at Colorado State University. He is also author of Colorado Powder Keg: Ski Resorts and the Environmental Movement (University Press of Kansas, 2012; 2nd edition, 2024).

----more----

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 Emilie Connolly about their book, Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Disposession in the United States (Princeton University Press, 2025).

Emilie Connolly is Assistant Professor of History at Yale University. Vested Interests has been recognized with the following awards and honors:

• Bancroft Prize in American History
• James A. Rawley Award from the Organization of American Historians
• Stuart L. Bernath Best First Book Award from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
• Finalist, Hagley Prize in Business History

----more----

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 María E. Montoya about their book, A Workplace of Their Own: Rockefeller, Roche, and Labor's Battle Over Industrial Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2026).

María E. Montoya is Professor of History at New York University and Global Network Professor at NYU Shanghai where she recently served as Dean of Arts and Sciences.

----more----

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 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

----more----

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.

----more----

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.

----more----

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.

----more----

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.

----more----

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 or Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com