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A priceless interview for all animal lovers with Santa Fe’s Hersch Wilson, recently retired volunteer firefighter after 33 years, soccer coach, organizational consultant, master storyteller, former dancer, author of the acclaimed Firefighter Zen and today’s newly released Dog Lessons: Learning the Important Stuff from Our Best Friends.

Award-winning environmental journalist, Ben Goldfarb, joins me today from Colorado with his fascinating and compassionate new book, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping The Future of Our Planet. Described as sweeping and spirited Crossings is also filled with humor and hope. Ben is an avid adventurer who brings his research and the science to life and shares his perception with listeners in a way we can all understand. From mountain lions in the Santa Monica mountains near Los Angeles to the tiniest, vulnerable bugs caught in our tire treads on I-25 and highways around the globe, Ben weaves their tales together and illumines our consciousness in the telling. bengoldfarb.com

All You Have to Do is Call sounds like easy advice. But for women in late 1960’s Chicago it is a suggestion filled with deeply conflicted emotions in the days before Roe vs. Wade became law. And again now. Best selling novelist Kerri Maher began researching and writing All You Have To Do Is Call several years before the Supreme Court overthrew Roe vs. Wade last year. She brings to life the voices of women friends grappling with their differing convictions, when one of them founds the Jane Collective to help women find safe and secret care. Brilliantly written historical fiction, profoundly relevant for now, this interview and book brings essential insights. Click here to visit her website.

A fascinating insight into the Western United States with historian Betsy Gaines Quammen in her new book True West: Myth and Mending on The Far Side of America. Her extensive travels and conversations with people on all sides of the political spectrum and of all the different cultures that make up the West bring much needed clarity and integrity to our sometimes distorted images of this magnificent land and it’s peoples. Meet Betsy at Collected Works Bookstore on Tuesday, November 7 at 6:00 and learn more about her observations at betsygainesquammen.com

Mary L. Grow’s beautifully rendered story Night Train to Odessa is set 100 years ago in Ukraine as it is torn apart by civil war and the Bolshevik revolution. Yet events could be mirror images of Ukraine now, of loss of all that is loved and familiar and the desperate need to flee certain death and horror overnight. I ask the author how she creates a novel so immersive, suspenseful and intimate and yet to bring lightness to even the most dire experiences the characters suffer. Mary L. Grow will be reading from Night Train to Odessa at Santa Fe’s Collected Works bookstore at 6:00 on Thursday, September 14th. Learn more about her now at marylgrow.com

Standing at the gravesite of their grandmother, three young children and their mother were asked to make a solemn promise that they would never, ever, put their Dad in a nursing home. Decades later, their father is deep in the trenches of vascular dementia, and they try to care for him and for their exhausted, burned out, elderly but determined mother. Then, on Christmas Day as the family gathers, Mom asks her daughter Bernadette, who is an ICU nurse, to seriously consider euthanasia to put Dad out of his daily misery. What follows is a brilliantly-written tale filled with wisdom and life, an unexpected page-turner. Essential reading for everyone with a family member suffering from dementia of any kind. Available from the independent bookseller bookshop.org and directly from Debra on her website at http://dliebhart.com/

Fourteen months out from the next general election is it possible to break big money’s stranglehold on our electoral system ? Former Santa Fe attorney and social justice activist for more than 40 years, Bruce Berlin joins me with his critically acclaimed book, Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America. With lobbyists and super PACs soliciting seemingly unlimited funds from corporations and individuals how can we break the cycle ? A fascinating and important conversation that we all need to hear, understand and learn effective ways to take action. More in Bruce Berlin’s topical weekly blogs at breakingbigmoneysgrip.com

An insight into one of this country’s appalling injustices, the life imprisonment in adult penitentiaries of teenagers as young as 13 who have been convicted of murder. Author, activist and retired pediatrician Bettye Kearse joins me to speak about an upcoming local event to help to bring awareness that may change young people’s lives, to be tried in juvenile courts and given a real chance to understand their crime. Bettye Kearse is the author of The Other Madisons: The Lost History of A President’s Black Family. Join her to hear wonderful soul music and dance at Gathering Up: The Gospel of Community. Saturday, October 7, 2:00 pm at United Church of Santa Fe on Arroyo Chamiso and Sunday 8th, 2:00 pm at the Railyard Performance Center. Come prepared to dance! Full details at inspiritstudio.com/gathering-up

We welcome the new year with whimsical and insightful children’s author, Melissa Marie McEwan. Melissa introduces us to Marty the Moose who became a local celebrity last year for his rare travels from native Colorado to Northern New Mexico. We follow his adventures in Marty Moose Makes His Way and learn not only where he’s been, but some of the real history of Moose in our region and other wild animals who venture into human domains. It is a delightful book for all ages, beautifully written and designed by a young, local author to watch for. Contact Melissa at missmelissamcewan@gmail.com

A welcome return to KSFR by multi-award-winning poet Mary Gilliland from Ithaca, New York. Described by Mary Oliver as … “not afraid of delight…and the hard tasks of anger, pain, and deep caring,” Mary Gilliland shares her depth of perception from her collections, The Devil’s Fools and Ember Days which will be published next year. Mary generously shares how a poem evolves, sometimes captured in a moment, sometimes begun and cast out of sight until suddenly the day to complete it arises seemingly out of the creative blue. Be inspired at marygilliland.com