by 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 Miller.
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Publishing Since
10/8/2024
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April 18, 2025
<p>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 the 2025 Cheuse Lecture. </p><p>His articles and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta and Rolling Stone. As a journalist, Dinaw has reported on life in Darfur, Northern Uganda and eastern Congo. Dinaw is himself a native of Ethiopia who immigrated to the US with his parents when he was two years old.</p><p>In this episode of Upstart Crow, Dinaw talks with host William Miller in a wide-ranging conversation about the ways his own life story inform his fiction, how his work has developed over the years he has written, and the significance of many of the elements within each of the four novels.</p><p>"Lives are rarely good or bad. You know, we don't live in binaries. But what he is able to do is accept that he is here... and to kind of let go of this impossible return. That ability to accept—'this is my life'—still feels pretty profound to me."</p><p>— Dinaw Mengestu</p><p><strong>The Power of Absence</strong>: Mengestu explores how silence and absence—especially of country, culture, and family—shape identity and narrative, allowing readers to feel the haunting spaces between what’s said and unsaid.</p><p><strong>Immigrant Narratives Reimagined</strong>: His characters wrestle with displacement, the myth of return, and the trauma of migration, often facing the complex reality of accepting a new life while holding onto a lost one.</p><p><strong>Violence and Perspective</strong>: Dinaw examines political and personal violence, not through spectacle but through subtlety—what is implied, withheld, and felt across generations.</p><p>#DinawMengestu #ImmigrantStories #UpstartCrowPodcast</p><p>Connect with Dinaw on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dinaw_mengestu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/dinaw_mengestu/</a></p><p>Find out more about his books and where you can purchase them here: <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/170308/dinaw-mengestu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/170308/dinaw-mengestu/</a></p><p>-- </p><p>Be sure to visit the Upstart Crow website for more information about our guests, hosts, and ways you can support the podcast: <a href="https://upstartcrow.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://upstartcrow.org/</a></p><p>Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio</p><p>--</p><p>Copyright 2025 - Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved </p><p>Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom</p><p>[email protected]</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
April 15, 2025
<p>Dr. Rina Bliss, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, discusses her most recent book, What’s Real About Race?, with Upstart Crow host William Miller.</p><p>In her scholarship, Dr. Bliss researches, writes about, and speaks about—as she puts it on her website—“the personal and social significance of new genetic sciences.” Her work “is centered at the intersection of sociology, psychology, and technology, offering a full-spectrum understanding of how our social worlds shape our personal worlds, affecting the health and quality of our lives.”</p><p>She brings her years of scholarship and observations to What’s Real About Race?</p><p>Published recently by W.W. Norton, the book looks at historic perspectives on race, views of race currently, and factors shaping the future view of race.</p><p>In the year 2000, President Bill Clinton and a half-dozen other world leaders joined to celebrate the finding of a science research project—an effort to map the genome of humans from around the world determined, as Dr. Bliss says, that “humans were 99.9 percent (genetically) the same.” Because people had conflated race and DNA, this finding challenged a lot of thinking.</p><p>But did it change minds? Following that declaration by scientists, there came another—“if race is not biological, what is? A social construct.” What does that even mean? Dr. Bliss answers that question, as well as what race being a social construct means given that people observe differences between themselves and other people. Where do those differences come from? What is the reality of race?</p><p>For the future, Dr. Bliss says we need “a new paradigm of race as well as a new language for talking about race”—but where would that come from, and how would those elements solve the race-related problems we see around us? She has ideas, which she discusses here.</p><p>One thing, she says, stop calling race a “social construct” and think of it as a “social reality.”</p><p>"We are all one family. So this idea of continental difference or division... it really cancels out any ability for us to recognize that we are all brothers and sisters." — Dr. Rina Bliss, author of What’s Real About Race</p><p>Check out Dr. Bliss’s website: <a href="https://www.drrinabliss.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.drrinabliss.com/</a></p><p>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dr.rinabliss/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/dr.rinabliss/</a></p><p>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rina-bliss-28263714/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/rina-bliss-28263714/</a></p><p>Visit Upstart Crow on the web for more information about our hosts, guests, and how you can support the show: <a href="https://upstartcrow.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://upstartcrow.org/</a></p><p>Copyright 2025 - Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved </p><p>---</p><p>Edited & Produced by Jon D PodCom</p><p>[email protected]</p>
April 8, 2025
<p>In this episode, first-time novelist Carol Mitchell discusses the ideas and experiences out of which grew this novel, What Start Bad A Mornin’. </p><p>The story she tells is of Amaya Lin, a Jamaican living and working in the United States, who is leaving the office where she works with her lawyer husband and his partner, rushing off to gather in her elderly aunt for the evening, when a younger woman approaches Amaya’s car, saying she is Amaya’s sister. </p><p>But Amaya thinks that is not possible. Since she was 17, she has had no family other than after she married - her husband and their son. </p><p>Why would this woman say that? Who was she really? She did have a familiar look, but, still— </p><p>Thus is Amaya - launched onto a journey into her past, a past she had forgotten, or suppressed. This is the novel Carol spins for readers, weaving three narrative lines through the U.S., Jamaica and Trinidad—the immigration experience; the challenge of constructing a successful life in a complex, sometimes tragic world; experiences of loss and rediscovery.</p><p>Hosted by William Miller</p><p>“I wanted to write a woman who wasn’t perfect. Who didn’t know everything. Who had to go back and recover parts of herself she didn’t even know she’d lost.” – Carol Mitchell</p><p><strong>Key Takeaways & Discussion Highlights</strong></p><ul><li><strong>Memory & Family Secrets:</strong> The novel explores how trauma and memory—especially forgotten or suppressed ones—shape identity. Family secrets emerge as both emotional weight and narrative fuel, prompting Amaya to uncover truths long buried.</li><li><strong>The Immigrant Journey:</strong> Set across Jamaica, Trinidad, and the U.S., the story captures the complexity of migration—not as escape, but as a magnifier of personal and generational pain.</li><li><strong>Centering Caribbean Women:</strong> Carol intentionally highlights the resilience, vulnerability, and layered experiences of Caribbean women, challenging stereotypes with authentic, deeply human characters.</li><li><strong>The Power of Voice & Storytelling:</strong> Carol shares her journey as a debut novelist, encouraging writers to embrace discomfort, cultural specificity, and their unique voice—reminding us that storytelling is both healing and revolutionary.</li></ul><br/><p>#CaribbeanFiction</p><p>#WhatStartBadAMornin</p><p>#WomenWhoWrite</p><p>Find out more about Carol on her website: <a href="https://carolmitchellbooks.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://carolmitchellbooks.com/</a></p><p>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/writewithcarol/?hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/writewithcarol/?hl=en</a></p><p>---</p><p>Visit Upstart Crow on the web for more information about our hosts, guests, and how you can support the show: <a href="https://upstartcrow.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://upstartcrow.org/</a></p><p>Copyright 2025 - Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved </p><p>---</p><p>Edited & Produced by Jon D PodCom</p><p>[email protected]</p>
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