LIVELY WORDS

Session 12

Having great neighbors is one thing, but having great neighbors who are also great writers is another thing altogether. I was lucky enough to live across a driveway from Augustus Rose and Nami Mun in North Berkeley for a while before they went off to Michigan a few years ago.We’ve all moved on from that neighborhood, but recently we got together there again to record this session. Augustus reads a wonderful excerpt from his novel “Revolutionaries,” which includes the beginning of what is surely an eventful night in San Francisco during the late ’60s.

Session 13

While the stories of Midge’s wonderful short story collection Forgetting English confidently forge into exotic geographical territory, the hearts of these stories remain firmly anchored in the mysteries of character and the interesting ways people make their way in the world.

You couldn’t have asked for more summer-like weather on the late-June day Midge and I met up at Live Oak Park in North Berkeley. But still, it was nothing compared with the tropical heat of the island nation of Tonga, where her story takes place.

In this session, Midge reads an excerpt from “First Sunday,” which follows a city dweller who ventures to Tonga to visit her sister and quickly becomes caught up in the complexities of a relationship.

Session 14

The only thing better than encountering Antonya Nelson’s fiction in the New Yorker is seeing her read it in person. I caught up with her in Berkeley in early August after she and her husband Robert Boswell finished teaching at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.
In this session, she reads an excerpt from the great short story “Or Else.”

Session 15

Once, while attending one of Robert Boswell’s readings in Santa Fe in the early ’90s, I heard someone declare that Boswell was one of the boldest writers our country had. With the recent publication of his excellent short story collection The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, it’s safe to say that statement still holds true.
When I saw him in Berkeley in August, we had a chance to record him reading “Guests,” a story that captures the brutal shame of a childhood fistfight.

Session 16

As the Lively Words project marches forward, we’re determined to bring literary goodness to every single park and open space in North Berkeley. It wasn’t one of our original goals but we’re glad to run with it.
For Session 16, poet Dorine Jennette and I headed into the Berkeley Hills and set up the camera near Indian Rock Park, a popular place for tourists and locals alike to take in the view of the bay and San Francisco across the way. It was the perfect spot to capture Dorine reading wonderful work from her forthcoming collection Urchin to Follow.