Latest Stories

A wolf eyes the horizon
Articles

Horror writer Stephen Graham Jones loves werewolves. He redefined the genre with his 2016 novel "Mongrels," about a family of werewolves on the run in a hostile American landscape — a story drawn from his own background.

Length: 
11:45
pie
Bookmarks

Lulu Miller, author of “Why Fish Don’t Exist,” first read the young adult book “The Search for Delicious” when she was in that transformative and uncertain stage in between childhood and adulthood.

Length: 
5:16
The Löwenmensch figurine after restoration in 2013
Audio

Shapeshifting images run deep in human history, going back to ancient cave paintings. Archeologist Chris Gosden says they're linked to the shaman's ability to cross into the spirit world where humans and animals merge.

Length: 
8:15
the raven
Audio

Bad things happen when people lose their connection to the more-than-human world. "Animals know something that we that don't," says psychologist Sharon Blackie. That's one lesson you can take from the old shapeshifting myths and fairy tales.

Length: 
13:41
space guy
Articles

A conversation with "rational mystic," physicist Marcelo Gleiser.

An old barn near Sandy Neck on Cape Cod, Massachusetts in December 2012
Audio

Simon Winchester is a British journalist and best-selling author who spent decades on the road before finally buying a small farm in the Berkshires. The experience led to his book “Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World."

Demonstrators near the Standing Rock Reservation.
Articles

Land Back is a movement that demands the return of native lands to indigenous people. One of its leaders, Hayden King — executive director of the Yellowhead Institute — explains why the movement is gaining traction in Canada.

Makenna Goodman on her homestead in Vermont
Photo Gallery

Makenna Goodman is a modern-day homesteader and novelist in rural Vermont. She was inspired by Scott and Helen Nearing, who were back-to-the-land pioneers. But she says their philosophy of "the good life" reeks of class privilege.

Length: 
18:45
an unspeakable terror humming in the distance
Audio

Dean Lockwood talks about the important role that sound plays in creating the cosmic horror of Lovecraft's work.

Length: 
6:51
what lives in a black hole
Audio

H.P. Lovecraft's influence on pop culture has exploded in recent years. But why? Erik Davis is a cultural critic and the author of the essay, "Calling Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft's Magickal Realism." He fell under Lovecraft's spell as a teenager.

Length: 
9:55
Audio

Although Jeff VanderMeer's work may seem to have a Lovecraftian influence, VanderMeer says that's not the case. He actually thinks weird fiction needs to move out from the shadow of Lovecraft's incredible influence. He introduces us to one writer who is doing that -- Thomas Ligotti, "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."

lovecraftian
Audio

Think that it's too soon to get your kids hooked on H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror? Think again. They might be enchanted by "The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers" by Richard Ivankovic, alias Doctor Faustus AS.

The Labyrinth
Video

In “Somnium DreamViewer,” a mysterious company has developed the technology to capture still images from our dreams — with unsettling effects on our waking hours. Creator Holly Fernwright explains the inspiration behind the series.

Length: 
17:49
Conversation with Samantha, the artificial intelligence
Audio

To a certain extent, loneliness is part of the human condition. You can be lonely anywhere, even surrounded by friends. But modern life has exacerbated it, and that requires modern solutions. Indie game designer Jason Rohrer has one — an artificial friend named Samantha.

Length: 
15:10
a silent walking figure
Audio

John Francis, the "planetwalker," walked all over the country in silence for nearly 20 years. Steve and Anne met John a few years ago at the Geography of Hope Conference in Point Reyes, California – back where his journey began.
 

Length: 
12:47
An African imagination of the future.
Articles

Given the chance, how do Africans tell stories about their own imagined future? And how might the story be different? To get a sense of where African science fiction is heading, we talked with Nnedi Okorafor and Ainehi Edoro.

Length: 
19:20
"You're not ok, that's ok" yard sign
Articles

During the height of the pandemic, producer Charles Monroe-Kane made a yard sign — 300 of them, in fact. They read "You're not ok. That's ok." He put a few in his yard and the rest on his porch. Soon they were gone.

Length: 
19:49
water
Articles

David Foster Wallace gave the commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. It was popular enough to eventually be published in a thin little book called “This Is Water.”

Length: 
3:23
David Foster Wallace
Audio

Over the years, we did several interviews with Wallace himself. The last was in 2004, about his collection of short stories — "Oblivion." It’s an interview that’s been collected in two Wallace anthologies.

Length: 
11:34
Cruises suck
Audio

David Foster Wallace's essays have their own unique cult following. There’s one, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which is a hilarious diatribe about cruise ships, which convinced many of us we should never, ever go on a cruise.

Tennis in the Sierpinski triangle
Audio

The most famous thing David Foster Wallace wrote is "Infinite Jest," his huge, sprawling novel set in a dystopian near future. It’s a little eerie how well he predicted our world today.

Length: 
3:40
a woman waiting for a job interview
Audio

Andrea Dobynes Wagner is legally, but not obviously, blind. Every time she sits down for a job interview, Andrea weighs the pros and cons of disclosure. Will telling people she has a disability help or hurt her chances?

Length: 
14:50
Gul Dolen
Articles

Gül Dölen is a pioneering neuroscientist who's investigating the “critical periods” of psychedelics, including studies where she's given MDMA — also known as “Molly” — to octopuses.

Length: 
50:54
A house in orange
Audio

There are small, novel, concrete and grassroots ways to provide aid to the unhoused. Actress Annabelle Gurwitch was part of an experiment, a home-stay program, where individuals share their houses with people who need a place to live.

Length: 
08:15
Still of Wendell Barry from "Wait and See"
Photo Gallery

Aside from acting and woodworking, Nick Offerman has another obsession — the Kentucky writer Wendell Berry. Offerman told Steve Paulson that his admiration of Berry is rooted in their shared belief in the enduring value of craftsmanship and hard work.

Sara working in her shop.
Articles

Sara Dahmen is a professional coppersmith – one of the only women in the country practicing the trade. She makes pots and pans – simple basic timeless cookware – out of copper, iron and tin.

Length: 
19:11
Monroe with Dick’s bunkbed ladder and sawbuck. Photo by Elan Robinson.
Photo Gallery

Naturalist Dick Proenneke led a legendary life alone in the Alaskan wilderness. After Proenneke's death in 2003, master craftsman Monroe Robinson painstakingly reproduced everything Dick made to preserve a piece of that life for future generations.

Length: 
17:33
a woman with tears
Audio

Behavioral neurologist Michael Trimble takes us on an evolutionary journey to unpack one of the few things that make Homo sapiens unique — we cry emotional tears. 

Length: 
12:32
Britney Spears and the #FreeBritney movement
Audio

When the "Free Britney" movement started, it was initially treated as a joke. But the fan movement has drawn attention to exploitative conservatorship arrangements that celebrities like Britney Spears have been subjected to. Filmmaker Samantha Stark tells us the story of how the fans saved Britney's life.

Length: 
11:31
A five year vertical of Bourbon County Brand Stout.
Photo Gallery

Back in 1995, Goose Island created one of the most iconic craft beers of all time — Bourbon County Stout. Which — as Chicago Tribune beer writer Josh Noel explains — was why it was such a shock when they sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch.

Length: 
12:29

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