KPFK On The Air
Sometimes we forget just how compelling radio interviews can be until you work with radio hosts in the field and have to hustle to get them, and their guests, on air. On April 22, our small tent at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on the USC campus became a radio station for the morning.
"Bibliocracy" host Andrew Tonkovich started the broadcast with an interview of regular Sunday host Blase Bonpane, who was in the role of author with his new book Imagine No Religion. Blase has made it his mission, as a radio host and author, to challenge the power structure in order to imagine and create a peaceful world. Andrew then held a roundtable discussion focused on LA-centric books with Christopher Heiser, on his nifty new work Literary LA: A Road Guide; also Bill Mohr, author of a comprehensive new book on the LA poetry renaissance, Hold-Outs; and Laura Pulido, co-author of the curious work A People's Guide to Los Angeles. With crowds ambling by the KPFK booth and watching the broadcast unfold in real time, award-winning, BBC-trained journalist and filmmaker, Ian Masters, host of "Background Briefing", interviewed Annie Jacobsen, author of Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base; and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Michael A. Hiltzik, among others. The live broadcast event was complete with "Scholars' Circle" host Maria Armoudian talking to Edward Humes (Garbology); Sally Denton, (The Plots Against the President: FDR, A Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right); and David Willman (Mirage Man). |
