Blog Archive

Episode 14: Laurence Norman
For Episode 14 of Radio Free Mike I talked to Laurence Norman about what was hit, and what wasn’t, in Iran in June. Laurence has covered the Iranian nuclear program for thirteen years at the Wall Street Journal & knows his stuff.
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Episode 14: Laurence Norman
For Episode 14 of Radio Free Mike I talked to Laurence Norman about what was hit, and what wasn’t, in Iran in June. Laurence has covered the Iranian nuclear program for thirteen years at the Wall Street Journal & knows his stuff.
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Episode 013: Khue Pham
Wonderful to chat with Khuê Pham about her novel BROTHERS AND GHOSTS, a compact family saga translated from German into English — but not, so far, into Vietnamese. Find out why on Episode 13 of Radio Free Mike.
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Episode 12: Jessa Crispin
Terrific discussion with Jessa Crispin about the migrating uteruses of ancient Greece as well as the Michael-Douglas barometer of American manhood. Her new book is called WHAT IS WRONG WITH MEN?
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Episode 11 with Thad Ziolkowski
I talked to Thad Ziolkowski, poet and author of THE DROP, about his excellent book as well as my newish feature in Surfers Journal about surfing, suicide, addiction, recovery, and Somalia. Episode 011 of Radio Free Mike.
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Episode 10 with Meghan Daum
For Episode 10 of Radio Free Mike, I talked to essayist and author Meghan Daum about the loss of her home in the Eaton Fire, “problematization,” and her new book, THE CATASTROPHE HOUR.
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Episode 8 with Antoine Wilson
I had a great time talking to Antoine Wilson about his novel MOUTH TO MOUTH, on Episode 8, but for the first ten minutes we also talk about the LA fires, which forced him & his family to evacuate. History and culture on Radio Free Mike.
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Episode 7 with Jeanne Carstensen
Jeanne Carstensen witnessed the worst recorded refugee shipwreck in eastern Aegean history in 2015, from the island of Lesbos. Her new book A GREEK TRAGEDY is well-written and meticulously reported account. Mediterranean migration is one of my topics, and we talk all about it on Episode 7 of Radio Free Mike.
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Episode 6 with Peter Theroux
Peter Theroux has started to publish a two-volume memoir about his career in US intelligence. He’s an excellent writer, from a family of them — his brothers are Paul and Alexander — and In Obscura describes his government work in the Middle East and suburban Washington with a sharp sense of detail and a lively sense of humor. Peter also describes Syria with so much obvious affection that I thought it might be interesting to hear from him about the old Ba’athist regime that fell in December, as well as the unreadable Islamist who’s now in charge. On Episode 6 of Radio Free Mike.
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Episode 5 with Soraya Simi
Soraya Simi was hand-picked by Angela Madsen to direct a film about her last major ocean-rowing voyage, a solo attempt to row from L.A. to Honolulu in 2020. Angela was a professional ocean rower and paraplegic, an Olympic gold medalist, a Guinness world-record holder in several categories, and a former U.S. Marine. Soraya’s new film about the ill-fated voyage is named after Angela’s fiberglass boat, THE ROW OF LIFE, and the story behind the film is almost as tense and tough as its subject. On Episode 5 of Radio Free Mike.
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Episode 4 with Jacob Kushner
On Episode 004 of Radio Free Mike, Nazis On Bikes, I talk to Jacob Kushner about his book LOOK AWAY, which deals with a German far-right gang and how the police finally (didn’t) end its reign of terror. We also discuss the German elections coming up this weekend, and, yes, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute.
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Episode 3 with Meg Smaker
I had a terrific time talking with Meg Smaker, director of JIHAD REHAB, on Episode 003 of Radio Free Mike. (Her Sundance-cancelled film will come out this year, even if she has to do something drastic.) We also talked about Somalia, chewing khat, and the California wildfires.
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Two Pieces of Fiction
A literary magazine in California, Kelp Journal, asked me for a piece of short fiction in 2019, and I handed them 2 linked stories. Both are about racism in my fictional town of Calaveras Beach, and both are based on real events. Bronzeville Beach and Supper Club deals with the first known black surfer in America, Nick Gabaldón, and gives us the town’s reaction to an African-American community expanding near a segregated strip of sand. Lighthouse Scene for Miles gives us the reaction of the town to a young Miles Davis, who really did play the beachside Lighthouse Café in 1953.
posted 9 December 2019 by Michael Scott Moore

Media Carousel
A collection of interviews about The Desert and the Sea is hard to miss if you scroll down the page, or click here, but what may not be completely obvious is that links in German can be found by clicking to the left, while a great deal of English-language media can be browsed to the right. It’s a rich record of things I’ve said in public about Somali pirates and the long hostage nightmare.
posted 21 November 2019 by Michael Scott Moore

The Man Who Toppled the Wall
Günter Schabowski was an unloved apparatchik of the East German government who brought down the Berlin Wall, inadvertently, during a rushed news conference on a new policy of tolerance for East Germans who were leaving the country in droves. Thirty years ago today he flubbed the announcement, and threw the government into confusion — which opened border crossings in the Wall, which started a chain reaction that collapsed the entire Communist bloc. Here’s a definitive English video about the whole thing by Deutsche Welle. Schabowski died in 2015, on November 1, and since then the Mauerfall anniversary also serves as a tribute to the Cold War’s last accidental hero.
posted 8 November 2019 by Michael Scott Moore

Vanishing Act
Very pleased to announce that I’ll be disappearing this March to the sleety wilds of southern New Hampshire, for a MacDowell Colony fellowship, to work on a new novel.
posted 28 January 2019 by Michael Scott Moore
