Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Investigative reporter Christopher Leonard reveals how a handful of companies have seized the nation's meat supply and created a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, hikes up Americans' grocery bills, and places the greatest capitalist country in the world under an oligarchy controlling much of the food we eat.Christopher Leonard is the former national agribusiness reporter for the Associated Press and a fellow with The New American Foundation in Washington, D.C.Marc Steiner (The Marc Steiner Show, WEAA-FM) moderates the conversation with Christopher Leonard.Presented in partnership with Food & Water Watch, Assateague Coastal Trust/Coastkeeper, and Baltimore GreenWorks. Recorded On: Thursday, May 15, 2014

On the night of March 8, 1971, eight amateur burglars broke into an FBI office in Media, PA, and stole every file in the office. Betty Medsger, then a reporter at the Washington Post, received copies of the stolen files from anonymous sources and wrote the first stories about these files that chronicled the massive political spying and dirty tricks operations of FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. Now, 43 years after her reporting on the Media files, Medsger introduces the burglars to the public for the first time in The Burglary.Betty Medsger is the author of Framed: The New Right Attack on Chief Justice Rose Bird and the Courts. As head of the journalism education program at San Francisco State University, she founded the university's Center for the Integration and Improvement of Journalism. She is a founding member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). Recorded On: Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, The Mob and the City is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through the 1950s.Baltimore attorney and author C. Alexander Hortis draws on newly discovered primary sources to consider the Sicilian gangs' role in the criminal underworld, the Mafia's real role in the drug trade, and the Cosa Nostra's involvement in gay bars in New York.Cosponsored by the Free State Legal Project.Recorded On: Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The bold lines and decorative details of Art Deco have stood the test of time and are evident in the architecture of cities like Washington and Baltimore. Richard Striner and co-author Melissa Blair explore the most significant Art Deco buildings still standing (and mourn those that have been lost) and examine the contrasts and similarities in the two cities.Richard Striner is professor of history at Washington College; Melissa Blair is an architectural historian in Maryland.Presented in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Press, AIA Baltimore, and the Baltimore Architecture Foundation.Recorded On: Thursday, April 17, 2014

Presented by the DC-area Literary Translators Network and Loch Raven Review. Features Nancy Naomi Carlson (French), Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak (Persian), Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka (Polish), and Katherine E. Young (Russian) reading poems in the original and translation.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Alan Cheuse reads from his just-published An Authentic Captain Marvel Ring, which collects the best short stories and novellas from this National Public Radio reviewer. Introduced by Andrew Gifford, publisher, Santa Fe Writer's Project.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Three poets with local connections read from their new collections: Lalita Noronha (Her Skin, Phyllo-thin), Erica Dawson (The Small Blades Hurt), and Natasha Saje (Vivarium). Hosted by Kristen Harbeson, board chair, Poe Baltimore.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Join Jeff Parker (The Taste of Penny), Jason Ockert (Neighbors of Nothing) and Nathan Deuel (Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East) of the University of Tampa's MFA in Creative Writing program.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Readings by UMBC faculty writers Lia Purpura (Rough Likeness), Michael Fallon (The Great Before and After) and Holly Sneeringer ("Under Water"), along with student winners of the English Department's literary contest.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

National Poetry Month Celebration with Poet Lore. Join Genevieve DeLeon, managing editor of Poet Lore, for readings by Megan Foley, Amy Eisner, and the winner of the Pratt Library's poetry contest.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

James McBride, winner of  the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction for The Good Lord Bird, talks about his book with WYPR's Tom Hall. McBride's 1996 memoir, The Color of Water, was a New York Times' bestseller. He is the author of two other novels, Song Yet Sung and Miracle of St. Anna.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Singer/songwriter Wesley Stace (better known by his former stage name John Wesley Harding) discusses his just-published novel, Wonderkid, with WTMD's Erik Deatherage.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Honoring the Maryland winners in this national essay program for students grades 4 - 12, sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council/Maryland Center for the Book. Featured author: Elisabeth Dahl, Genie Wishes.Recorded On: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Elizabeth Nunez and Bernardine Evaristo talk about the writing life and read from their new books.Not for Everyday Use is a riveting memoir in which Elizabeth Nunez wrestles with her mother's determination to have her leave her Trinidadian homeland for America. Nunez is the award-winning author of eight novels; she serves as Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, CUNY, where she teaches fiction writing.Bernardine Evaristo's new novel, Mr. Loverman, is about two elderly gay Caribbean men coming to terms with being closeted in a changing world. Evaristo, one of Britain's most exciting and original authors, was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2004) and of the Royal Society of Arts (2006).Recorded On: Thursday, April 10, 2014

Leigh Goodmark talks about her book, A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System.The current legal response to domestic violence is excessively focused on physical violence and fails to provide protection from behaviors that are profoundly damaging, including psychological, economic, and reproductive abuse. In A Troubled Marriage, Leigh Goodmark looks at how the legal system's response to domestic violence developed, why that response is flawed, and what we should do to change it.Leigh Goodmark is visiting professor of law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.Recorded On: Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Meg Wolitzer's new book, The Interestings, was named a "best book of 2013" by Entertainment Weekly, Time, and the Chicago Tribune. In 1974 six teenagers at a summer arts camp become inseparable, and they remain friends over the decades in a changing New York City. Through these six complex characters, Wolitzer explores the meaning of talent and the roles that art, class, money, and even envy play in the course of friendships.Meg Wolitzer is the author of eight previous novels, including The Uncoupling and The Ten-Year Nap. She teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.Recorded On: Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Marianne Szegedy-Maszak talks about her book, I Kiss Your Hands Many Times: Hearts, Souls, and Wars in Hungary.Marianne Szegedy-Maszak's parents, Hanna and Aladar, met and fell in love in Budapest in 1940. He was a rising star in the foreign ministry, a vocal anti-Fascist who was in talks with the allies when he was arrested and sent to Dachau. Hanna was the granddaughter of Manfred Weiss, the patriarch of an aristocratic Jewish family that owned factories, were patrons of intellectuals and artists, and entertained dignitaries at their baronial estates. Szegedy-Maszak's family memoir tells the story of her parents' marriage and journey to the United States. It is also the story of the complicated relationship that Hungary had with its Jewish population.Marianne Szegedy-Maszak is an award-winning journalist who has worked as a reporter at the New York Post, an editor at Congressional Quarterly, a professor of journalism at American University, and as a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report.Recorded On:

"Inspira" features playwright/performer Amanda Kemp and violinist Michael Jamanis in a production which blends African American history and poetry to introduce intergenerational audiences to the beauty and significance of spirituals. The production celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.Recorded On: Sunday, March 30, 2014

In Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, Terry Teachout reveals the many layers of a man as unique and complex as the music he created. Drawing on candid unpublished interviews with Ellington, revealing oral-history transcripts, and other little-known primary sources, Teachout tells Ellington's story as no one else ever has. Spanning the first three quarters of the 20th century, Ellington's life both reflected and shaped the dynamic cultural shifts of his time.Terry Teachout is a jazz musician, drama critic for the Wall Street Journal, and the author of numerous books including Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong and The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken.Recorded On: Wednesday, March 26, 2014

A former National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Brian Teare is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the American Antiquarian Society. He is the author of four books—The Room Where I Was Born, Sight Map, the Lambda Award-winning Pleasure, and Companion Grasses, one of Slate's 10 best poetry books of 2013. An Assistant Professor at Temple University, he lives in Philadelphia, where he makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books.Joshua Weiner is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (Chicago, 2013).  He is also the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn, and the poetry editor at Tikkun magazine.  He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2014 fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, among others.  He teaches on the faculty of the MFA Program at the University of Maryland and lives with his