Nancy Wiegman

Frescoes by the Bay is a two-volume visual tour of fresco murals in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Karen Sinell provides detailed research and commentary about the frescoes’ history, composition, iconography, and identity of their many figures. 

Author Kimball Medders grew up on military bases in Europe and Ethiopia with parents who were overseas teachers. His memoir, The Italian Lesson, recounts his adventures as a military brat and sailor.  After serving in the Navy, he returned to college in Sacramento, then later taught inmates in Susanville for 23 years, retiring from that job in 2009.

Award-winning poet Heather Altfield calls her collection of poetry The Disappearing Theatre. Philosophy professor Troy Jollimore received a National Book Critics Circle Award for a previous collection of his poetry. His newest book is Syllabus of Errors — Poems. This week join Nancy for a conversation with two local poets.

Local researcher Maris Thompson collected stories of immigration in the German American Midwest during World War I. Award-winning NPR journalist Tom Gjelten talked to immigrant families in Virginia for his book A Nation of Nations. This week join Nancy for immigration stories past and present.

Award-winning cameraman and producer Tim Ortman has written a memoir about his years working overseas for NBC when TV news reporting was at its zenith. This week join Nancy for a conversation with the author of Newsreal: A View Through The Lens When...

Standup comedian Paula Poundstone is a popular panelist on NPR's weekly news quiz show, "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me," and will be bringing her improvisational humor to Laxson Auditorium in Chico on September 21st.

Growing up in Northern California, each of today's two guests developed a passion for the outdoors. Wildlife biologist and photographer Jeffrey Rich has compiled a visual essay of America's national bird. His new book is Bald Eagles in the Wild. Former columnist for the Chico News & Review John Soares has hiked the trails of Northern California since he was five years old. His guidebook 100 Classic Hikes in Northern California is in its 4th edition, and he also has a new book, Day Hiking: Mount Shasta, Lassen and Trinity Alps Regions.

Attorney Bryan Stevenson was featured in a recent issue of Time magazine as an agent of change in the south. After Harvard law school, he went to the south to advocate for prisoners facing execution - almost all of whom were black. He is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and titled his best-selling memoir Just Mercy. Local author Lani Muelrath gives us a 30-day plan for finding health, balance, peace and happiness in her book The Mindful Vegan. She encourages us to shed old thinking patterns and live more joyfully with food.

Many people in the North State have walked, or dream of walking, the medieval pilgrimage route across northern Spain to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. Now over a million pilgrims from across the world travel to Spain to walk the Camino, and about a fifth of them receive their certificate of completion when they arrive in Santiago. Two such pilgrims are Nancy's guests today. Kurt Koontz wrote of his pilgrimage in his book A Million Steps. Terrence Callery also wrote about his 500-mile pilgrimage will tell us about his adventure on the Camino de Santiago.

Throughout his life, Paradise author Garth Nielsen has participated in Native American ceremonies and talked to traditional elders. As an adult he was adopted by an Iroquois woman. His first book was a collection of essays about what he learned, and it described his personal discovery. After this first book, Odyssey of a Spiritual Nomad, he published a second collection of stories called Petroglyphs.