Writing as confession. This week on 51%, it's the Woodstock Writers Festival and the memoir boom.
We're living in what's been called the Age of Memoir. The public has a hunger for real stories – whether they're on television, on the radio (consider the huge popularity of The Moth Radio Hour) or in literature.
Thanks to computers, more of us are writing than ever before. We blog, we write stories, poetry and even song lyric. And events like the Woodstock Writers Festival, coming up from April 3rd to 6th in the legendary arts town of Woodstock, New York, cater not only to writers, but to people who love to read. Martha Frankel, one of the founders of the event, is the author of Hats and Eyeglasses and Brazilian Sexy.
Coming up, examining policy from a women's perspective, a remembering the woman who woke up a world.
Congressman Bill Owens of New York will leave the House at the end of the year. However, before he leaves he'll be looking for women's input on a range of legislative issues. Owens told 51% Executive Producer Alan Chartock about the Women's Advisory Committee he established at the end of 2013. About 80 women from communities across New York’s 16,000 square-mile 21st Congressional District have been asked to be part of the panel.
Congressman Bill Owens represent's NY's 21st Congressional District. He has announced his intention to retire at the end of the year.
March is Women's History Month, and while our Women in History commentator Gilles Malkine is hard at work on the next edition of his profiles, I wanted to revisit one of my favorites. Rachel Carson's “The Sea Around Us” is in the drawer of my bedside table – a book I am going through slowly, savoring, and learning from with every chapter. She's the woman credited with waking us up to our impact on the environment. Here's Gilles Malkine.
Gilles Malkine is a writer, actor and musician. He lives in New York's Catskill Mountains.
That’s our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britton for production assistance. Our theme music is Glow in the Dark by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock.
