James J. Patterson Reads from MELANIE’S SONG on Latest LFTRR
The new mystery novel by ASP's Joanna Biggar is given the Patterson treatment in Episode 11 of Live from the Reading Room
“Melanie’s Song is an unputdownable, riveting feat of storytelling.”
Set in the era of Woodstock and Watergate, Melanie’s Song centers on a young woman’s mysterious disappearance, and on her friend’s determined search for her.
Melanie, who fled her marriage to a straight-laced classical musician in order to hitch-hike to Woodstock and San Francisco, was last seen at a commune in the California hills. Rumors abound: that she took up with a Black radical; that she had his child; that she and her lover, armed, ran a bank heist a la Patty Hearst; that she developed a mystical gift for spiritual healing; that she died in a possible accidental, possibly staged commune fire.
Trying to sift truth from invention pulls her friend, the young reporter, J.J., into the underbelly of the sexual and social revolutions of the 60s and early 70s, where she encounters corrupt cops, paranoid hippies, activists, mystics, drug-runners,and most astonishingly, Melanie’s own parents. Risking her job, her connections, her life, J.J. follows Melanie’s trail, determined to find out what happened to her once-compliant friend now turned, it seems, into a rebel angel.
Featured Poetry: “Winter Funeral” by Elizabeth Hazen
Fully embracing what the lyric mode does best, Hazen provides the readers with brief, intense poems that preserve a suspended moment in time, attempting to record the thought processes and emotions of the speaker much like tree rings reveal drought, heat, and age. With astonishing clarity and concision, Hazen explores the mysteries of our realities—which are ultimately beholden to entropy.
Grace Cavalieri on the Kojo Nnamdi Show Jan 23rd
Recently Governor Larry Hogan announced that Grace Cavlieri, poet, playwright, and long time host of NPR’s The Poet and The Poem, would become Maryland’s next Poet Laureate, succeeding the great Stanley Plumly. Now that she has been inaugurated, one of her first stops is The Kojo Nnamdi show. Kojo Nnamdi has been hosting his show on WAMU for 20 years, so he and Grace are kindred spirits in that regard–Grace has hosted The Poet and The Poem for over 40 years.
A Short Thought on Grace’s Interview with Jorie Graham (by Writer, Nin Andrews)
Nin Andrews is a poet. Most recently of Miss August which is out now from the awesome Cavankerry Press and most notably of the collection, Why God is a Woman. Nin Andrews is also a fan of Grace Cavalieri’s interview with Jorie Graham which she recently extolled over on ITN.