1888: The How, The Why

Teresa K. Miller won the 2020 National Poetry Series with Borderline Fortune (Penguin, 2021), having previously placed as a finalist with two other manuscripts. A graduate of Barnard College and the Mills College MFA program, she is the author of sped (Sidebrow, 2013) and Forever No Lo (Tarpaulin Sky, 2008) as well as co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (Food First Books, 2015). Her poems and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, AlterNet, Entropy, DIAGRAM, Common Dreams, Empty Mirror, and elsewhere. Originally from Seattle, she spent three years as a writer-in-residence at San Francisco’s Sanchez Grotto Annex and now tends a mini orchard near Portland, Oregon.Borderline FortunePenguin Books, 2021A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.W

Dr. Robert D. Bullard is often described as the father of environmental justice. He is the former Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University 2011-2016. Professor Bullard currently is Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. Prior to coming to TSU he was founding Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. He received his Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University. He is an award-winning author of eighteen books that address sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, climate justice, disasters, emergency response, and community resilience, smart growth, and regional equity. He is co-founder of the HBCU Climate Change Consortium. Dr. Bullard is a proud U.S. Marine Corps veteran.Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Enviro

Shawn Adair Johnston was born in Ontario, Canada, educated in southern California, practiced forensic psychology in northern California and Oregon and is now semi-retired near a small lake in Washington. He has taught at numerous colleges including U.C.L.A., U.C. Davis, Oregon State University and Portland State University. Since 1980, he has performed over fifteen thousand judicially referred psychological evaluations, mostly on juvenile and adult criminal offenders. He has published research regarding sex offenders and how to detect deception in court ordered evaluations of criminal defendants. While he enjoyed his work as a forensic psychologist, he has never been happier than writing sci fi/fantasy books starring Peter Straw, the blind detective, and his cohort of human and nonhuman friends.How The Blind Detective and His Seeing Eye Dog Saved the NarwhalsAtmosphere Press, 2021A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a p

Patricia Jovel Flores is Orange County Environmental Justice's new Project Director, and is excited to lead the organization in confronting the many environmental issues disproportionately affecting Orange County's marginalized communities. PJ was raised and currently lives in Santa Ana, California. She began organizing as a student at UC Berkeley, where she worked to bring student power to bear in support of campus labor organizing and the local prison abolition movement. After graduating, PJ returned to Santa Ana, where she organized with Colectivo Tonantzin, a local grassroots organizing collective, to fight wage theft and defend the rights of day laborers and domestic workers in Orange County. Currently, she helps coordinate the Tierras Comunitarias Coalition to ensure public lands in Santa Ana and Garden Grove are put towards community needs such as public parks and open space, in addition to organizing alongside Acjachemen and Tongva activists to Protect Puvungna and other sacred sites in Orange County.

A.M. Grotticelli is a veteran technology trade journalist who resides in suburban New Jersey. After a life of overcoming similar challenges, he is an avid supporter of foster kids aging out of the foster care system at 18 and provides encouragement to all who need it.The BondAtmosphere Press, 2020A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Alex Chornyj has been writing for approximately forty years and has been published in books, journals, magazines, and in online publications. He actively reads on monthly blog talk radio poetry shows. His writing has an esoteric, ethereal thread to its origins as he is a reiki master teacher. The source of his material is often intuited through his spirit guides.VincellesCyberwit.Net, 2020A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support writers and we provide access to millions of books for readers around the world.

Natasha Lester worked as a marketing executive for L'Oreal before penning the New York Times and internationally bestselling novel The Paris Orphan. She is also the author of the USA Today bestseller The Paris Seamstress and The Paris Secret. When she's not writing, she loves collecting vintage fashion, traveling, reading, practicing yoga and playing with her three children. Natasha lives in Perth, Western Australia.In Lester’s hotly anticipated next book, The Riviera House, on-sale August 31, 2021, readers are whisked away to two drastically different worlds that span generations and collide in an unexpected and satisfying way; Lester masterfully alternates between German-occupied Paris during WWII and modern-day French Riviera.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.Without Books®,

Nawaaz Ahmed was born in Tamil Nadu, India. Before turning to writing, he was a computer scientist, researching search algorithms for Yahoo. He holds an MFA from University of Michigan–Ann Arbor and is the winner of several Hopwood Awards. He is the recipient of residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, and VCCA. He’s also a Kundiman and Lambda Literary Fellow. He currently lives in Brooklyn.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.Nawaaz Ahmed selected Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino for his episode of Without These Books.

Bradley Sides’ writing appears at Chapter 16, Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, The Rumpus, Southern Review of Books, and elsewhere. He holds an MA in English from the University of North Alabama and is an MFA candidate at Queens University of Charlotte. He lives in Florence, Alabama, with his wife.Those Fantastic LivesCity of Light Publishing, 2021A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Marilyn Peterson Haus learned to read and write in a one-room school set in the midst of a sea of corn, and then rode a rickety yellow school bus seven miles to the nearest town (population 700) for middle and high school. Everything was oriented around the railroad that sliced through the tallgrass prairie, heading west. Marilyn’s own journey took her in the opposite direction, and after attending Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, she and her husband moved east and settled in western Massachusetts, where she raised three children, earned an MBA and launched a successful business career. After retiring from her day job, Marilyn followed her dream to become a writer, began attending a weekly writer’s workshop, and over the course of ten years, wrote and completed Half a Whole – her first book. When she isn’t writing, Marilyn can be found shoveling compost around the coneflowers, hostas, and day lilies that overflow her many flower gardens.Half of a Whole: My Fight for a Separate LifePo

Jenn Shapland is a writer and archivist living in New Mexico. Her first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Lambda Literary award. She has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on a collection of essays about the entanglement of toxicity, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy called Thin Skin.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.Jenn Shapland selected Silent Spring by Rachel Carson for her episode of Without These Books.

Marilyn Peterson Haus learned to read and write in a one-room school set in the midst of a sea of corn, and then rode a rickety yellow school bus seven miles to the nearest town (population 700) for middle and high school. Everything was oriented around the railroad that sliced through the tallgrass prairie, heading west. Marilyn’s own journey took her in the opposite direction, and after attending Augsburg College (now Augsburg University) in Minneapolis, she and her husband moved east and settled in western Massachusetts, where she raised three children, earned an MBA and launched a successful business career. After retiring from her day job, Marilyn followed her dream to become a writer, began attending a weekly writer’s workshop, and over the course of ten years, wrote and completed Half a Whole – her first book. When she isn’t writing, Marilyn can be found shoveling compost around the coneflowers, hostas, and day lilies that overflow her many flower gardens.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Vid

Philip J. Kowalski has taught courses in critical thinking and American literature at Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts.Canine in the Promised LandAtmosphere Press, 2021A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Mary Dixie Carter’s debut novel The Photographer will be published in May 2021 by Minotaur Books - St. Martin’s Publishing Group in the US and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.Mary Dixie’s writing has appeared in TIME,  The Economist, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer,  The New York Sun, The New York Observer and other print and online publications.  She worked at The Observer for five years, where she served as the publishing director.  In addition to writing, she also has a background as a professional actor. Mary Dixie graduated from Harvard College with an honors degree in English Literature and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School.  She is the daughter of Dixie Carter and step-daughter of Hal Holbrook. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children. The Photographer is her first novel.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, reade

Elizabeth Gauffreau writes fiction and poetry with a strong connection to family and place. She holds a B.A. in English from Old Dominion University and an M.A. in English/Fiction Writing from the University of New Hampshire. She is currently the Assistant Dean of Curriculum & Assessment for Champlain College Online, where she is an Associate Professor. Her fiction and poetry have been published in literary magazines and several themed anthologies. Her debut novel, Telling Sonny, was published by Adelaide Books in 2018. Liz lives in Nottingham, New Hampshire with her husband.Telling SonnyAdelaide Books, 2018A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also p

Keith Madsen is a retired minister who is using his retirement to pursue a lifelong interest in writing fiction. Keith has published short stories in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Talking River, Short Story America and Adelaide. He is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association. Keith lives in East Wenatchee, Washington with his wife Cathy, where he enjoys teaching chess to grade school children.The Sons and Daughters of ToussaintAdelaide Books, 2018A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Courtney Zoffness’s debut, Spilt Milk (McSweeney’s, 2021), received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and BookPage, and was named “most anticipated” or “must-read” book by Good Morning America, LitHub, Refinery29, The Millions, Publishers Weekly, and others. Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the largest international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. Other honors include fellowships from the Center for Fiction and MacDowell, and the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize. Her writing has appeared in several outlets, including the New York Times, the Paris Review Daily, and Guernica, and she had essays listed as “notable” in Best American Essays 2018 and 2019. She directs the Creative Writing Program at Drew University, where she’s an Assistant Professor of English, and lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as wr

Donna Koros Stramella is a writer from Maryland whose fiction and nonfiction pieces have been published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, Columbia Magazine, and the Baltimore Sun. She is a previous award-winning journalist and video writer-producer. A graduate of the University of Tampa MFA in Creative Writing, she authored Coffee Killed My Mother and is currently working on a second novel.Coffee Killed My MotherAdelaide Books, 2020A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.

Khalisa Rae is a poet and journalist in Durham, NC that speaks with furious rebellion. She is the author of Ghost in a Black Girl's Throat (Red Hen Press 2021). Her essays are featured in Autostraddle, Catapult, LitHub, as well as articles in B*tch Media, NBC-BLK, and others. Her poetry appears in Frontier Poetry, Florida Review, Rust & Moth, PANK, Hellebore, Sundog Lit, HOBART,among countless others. She is the winner of the Bright Wings Poetry contest, the Furious Flower Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, and the White Stag Publishing Contest, among other prizes. Currently, she serves as Assistant Editor for Glass Poetry and founder of Think in Ink and Women Speak. Her second collection Unlearning Eden is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing January 2022.Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at wit

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Steven Armstrong is an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, and author. He spent several years in the nonprofit world of maternal health, becoming inspired by countless stories of resilience, while working as an editor and staff writer reviewing films. Steven holds a BA in Creative Arts from San Jose State University and an MFA in Writing and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies. His work has appeared in the Samizdat Literary Journal.Dragon DaughterAtmosphere Press, 2021A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.