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Upstart Crow

Upstart Crow Podcast

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

arts books

All Episodes

46:20

Olufunke Grace Bankole - The Edge of Water

Upstart Crow ·

2026/04/03

Olufunke Grace Bankole – The Edge of WaterIn an immigration novel not like others, a Nigerian daughter wants to try life in America, and so once more she enters the visa sweepstakes. Her mother says nothing, though she has been forewarned by a conduit of the oracle, “this time, the order of things will be shaken. The souls will lose their own way.” These are the tensions within Olfunke Grace Bankole’s first novel, The Edge of Water.There are matters here of faith in self and faith in matters larger

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41:13

Jung Yun - All the World Can Hold

Upstart Crow ·

2026/03/09

Jung Yun – All the World Can HoldIt is Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001. The Sunday after 9/11. Five days after the Tuesday when hijacked planes are flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. As searchers still comb through smoldering wreckage, a cruise ship that should have left from New York’s Passenger Ship Terminal in Manhattan instead sets off from Boston for a cruise to Bermuda. Aboard are more than 600 passengers, and in Jung Yun’s

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50:53

Cristina Jimenez - Dreaming of Home

Upstart Crow ·

2026/03/05

Cristina Jimenez – Dreaming of HomeThe subtitle of Cristina Jimenez’s memoir is, “How we turn fear into pride, power, and real change.” In the book, she defines “home” as a place of self-acceptance, which was not an easy place for her to find after she, her parents and her brother, fled the chaos of her hometown in Ecuador and settled in New York in 1998. She tried to be a “good” immigrant, but because she was undocumented, what is sometimes called an “illegal” immigrant, it didn’t matter how hard

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43:07

Shubha Sunder - Optional Practical Training

Upstart Crow ·

2026/02/27

Shubha Sundra – Optional Practical TrainingIn 2006, when this novel is set, American immigration law allows students, scholars, trainees, teachers, etc., on temporary visas to have a year of practical training not required by the person’s basic program. Optional Practical Training. The novel covers just such a year in the life of Pavitra, a young woman from Bangalore, India, who has finished her bachelor’s degree in physics and gotten a job teaching at a private high school near Cambridge,

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51:13

Margaret Hutton - If You Leave

Upstart Crow ·

2026/01/27

Margaret Hutton – If You LeaveWith the intrusive, catalytic forces of two wars, World War II and Vietnam, Margaret Hutton’s debut novel, If You Leave, tells of two women who mother one baby girl into her own young womanhood. Each of the three discovers the strength of herself as an individual as well as the strength of unity. Thus does this quietly vibrant story illustrate the way one life impacts others, decisions made either quickly or slowly can have similarly devastating consequences, and the

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41:17

Linda Chavez - The Silver Candlesticks: A Novel of...

Upstart Crow ·

2026/01/20

Linda Chavez – A Novel of the Spanish Inquisition: The Silver CandlesticksLinda Chavez began working on The Silver Candlesticks after appearing on the PBS series Finding Your Roots during which she discovered that members of her family were Converso Jews who fled Spain in 1597. Using details the PBS researchers uncovered as well as her own work on the Spanish Inquisition, she created a fictional weave of love and faith, and the perils of ardent religious faith transformed by the obdurate endurance

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01:02:10

W. Ralph Eubanks - When It's Darkness on the Delta

Upstart Crow ·

2026/01/13

W. Ralph Eubanks – When It’s Darkness on the DeltaSome today would cross off the Mississippi Delta as a backwater beyond redemption or a region where bad history happened, but W. Ralph Eubanks drives the area roads and small-town streets, meets the people who live and work there, some of whom strive hard to make it more than it is, and through his evocative writing he portrays not just the economic oppression but also the area’s resilience.In his newest work of nonfiction, Eubanks, a son of

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53:05

Mary Kay Zuravleff – American Ending

Upstart Crow ·

2025/12/23

Mary Kay Zuravleff – American EndingMary Kay Zuravleff is the author most recently of the novel American Ending, a story inspired by the experiences of her grandparents, Old Believer Russian Orthodox emigres. She combined those experiences to tell the story of immigrants recruited into the dangerous work America needs to have done but which workers are reluctant to do. The book seems entirely appropriate to our times.Her characters live in the Appalachian mining town of Marianna, Pennsylvania,

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40:44

Library Reads Special Edition – Fairfax Local Author...

Upstart Crow ·

2025/11/28

Upstart Crow: Library Reads Special Edition – Fairfax Local Author FestivalIn this special edition ofUpstart Crow, host Jennifer Disano visits the Fairfax Regional Library for the Local Author Festival, recorded November 15, 2025 in Fairfax, VA. Jennifer sat down with 16 talented authors and received submissions from 2 additional writers, exploring a wide variety of books, from memoirs and children’s stories to historical fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Each author shared insights into their

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51:05

Andy Shallal - A Seat at the Table

Upstart Crow ·

2025/11/14

Andy Shallal – A Seat at the TableAndy Shallal has been a voice for social causes in and around Washington, DC, so consistently and for so many years that many who stop in at one of his Busboys and Poets restaurants, bookshops and event spaces may think of him more as a social activist than as a restauranteur. But he grew up in a restaurant. His father, who came to the U.S. as a diplomat, bought a pizza restaurant in Northern Virginia when Andy was 13. His father hired someone to run the restaurant

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53:24

Amy Stuber & Rebecca Burke – Sad Grownups

Upstart Crow ·

2025/11/11

Amy Stuber wrote the stories and Rebecca Burke edited them to produce the book Sad Grownups that won the 2025 PEN/Bingham Prize for Best Debut Short Story Collection. A big deal in literary circles, the book becomes a milestone for its publisher, Stillhouse Press, a teaching press at George Mason University staffed by students and alums who learn the book business by publishing and selling books. Together, Amy and Rebecca discuss the writing process and editing processes, book production and

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51:11

Matthew Davis – A Biography of a Mountain: The Making...

Upstart Crow ·

2025/11/07

In his new book, Matthew Davis explores one of the most iconic monuments in America—and perhaps the world. For nearly a century, Mount Rushmore has loomed large in the American imagination, but its origin story is far more complex than most visitors ever realize. From the slow, decades-long path to its creation, to the artistic and engineering challenges faced by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and the 400 men who carved the mountain, the monument’s history reveals layers that extend well beyond its granite

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36:24

Olufemi Terry - Wilderness of Mirrors

Upstart Crow ·

2025/10/31

Set in South Africa, Olufemi Terry’s first novel is, on one level, a straightforward story of an affluent Creole man coming of age, but on another level, it is the story of a post-apartheid country where a lot of Whites have fled and left behind Creoles, Blacks, and some Whites, all of whom face an uncertain future, politically and economically. On this level, the story evokes the possibilities of what has happened and what still can happen in many countries in the world. It dramatizes the roles of

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01:00:39

Steven Mintz and Peter Stearns - The American Child

Upstart Crow ·

2025/09/26

Steven Mintz and Peter Stearns – The American ChildHave a child? Want to have a child? Listen to this podcast episode. The book—The American Child: The Transformation of Childhood Since World War II—by Steven Mintz and Peter Stearns, draws on a wealth of sources to bring an historical perspective to the profound transformations that have occurred in American childhood over the last 70 years, and their impact on children’s well-being. The authors, award-winning historians, analyze how shifts in

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50:30

Richard Bausch - The Fate of Others

Upstart Crow ·

2025/08/29

Since publishing his first book of fiction in 1980, Richard Bausch has produced ten collections of stories and thirteen novels. The tenth of those story collections, The Fate of Others, appeared this year. Already, he is working on his next novel. Here, he discusses the stories in this most recent collection, the novel he is working on, and a few of the stories from previous collections, revealing along the way how he does his work, where his stories come from, and the elements of craft he employs

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49:49

Robert Luckett Jr. and Jerry Mitchell –...

Upstart Crow ·

2025/07/21

Veteran journalist Jerry Mitchell discusses his work that led to four reopened murder cases from the Civil Rights era including those of Medgar Evers and the three men whose story was told in the movie Mississippi Burning, with the resulting trials leading to convictions of the murderers.Historian Robert Luckett joins to discuss the sorts of changes in society, public awareness, and the justice system that allowed for the trials’ outcomes—including the addition to the juries of blacks, both men and

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49:07

David Baldacci - What is a Calamity of Souls

Upstart Crow ·

2025/07/03

David Baldacci – What is A Calamity of Souls?The title of his most autobiographical novel occurred to David Baldacci the day he penned the first words. And it was literally penned—he started the book in a blank notebook his wife gave him on Christmas Day, 2011. He wrote that title and about 150 pages. He wasn’t even sure himself what the phrase a calamity of souls meant. He set it aside. Several years and novels later, he came back to this unfinished work. In the swirling events of 2020, he picked

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46:33

Catherine Nixey - Heretics and History

Upstart Crow ·

2025/06/17

Journalist and writer Catherine Nixey and host William Miller discuss her books that focus on early church history and some of the other men who lived lives not unlike that of Jesus—men whose deeds are recorded in ancient texts.Catherine studied classics at Cambridge University and works as a journalist at The Economist. Her writing also has appeared in The Times and the Financial Times. Her two books are:The Darkening Age, which was an international bestseller and a New York Times notable book and

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57:38

Robert T. Luckett Jr. - Evolving Resistance to Black...

Upstart Crow ·

2025/05/03

A professor at Jackson State University in Mississippi, Robert T. Luckett Jr. discusses his book analyzing the career of Joe T. Patterson, the attorney general of Mississippi from 1956 to 1969. While the book focuses on Patterson, the study behind it looks at the larger scale of the effort to achieve equality for all. Patterson, an avowed segregationist, tried to preserve the system of white hegemony by allowing some compromises with the civil rights movement but fighting with every legal means

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49:19

Dinaw Mengestu - Someone Like Us

Upstart Crow ·

2025/04/18

Dinaw Mengestu is the author of four novels—Someone Like Us (2024), All Our Names (2014), How to Read the Air (2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2007)— each of which was named a New York Times notable book. He was chosen as a MacArthur Fellow and has received a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, National Book Foundation 5-Under-35 Award, Guardian First-Book Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and he recently was chosen by the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center to deliver

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