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Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

Kerri Miller Podcast Tile
Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller
MPR News

Where readers meet writers, Fridays at 11 a.m. Listen live or stream later on your favorite podcast app.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or RSS

Books Coverage: The Thread | About: Kerri Miller

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Minnesota author Shannon Gibney on her new speculative fiction memoir

Minnesota author Shannon Gibney on her new speculative fiction memoir

How do you tell the story of your life when straightforward memoir isn’t enough? Shannon Gibney chose to get creative. The result is her new book, “The Girl I Am, Was and Never Will Be,” which uses both traditional memoir and speculative fiction to examine her life as a transracial adoptee.
by Kelly Gordon

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From the archives: Shannon Gibney on 'Dream Country'

From the archives: Shannon Gibney on 'Dream Country'

Minneapolis author Shannon Gibney just published her memoir. But it’s probably unlike any memoir you’ve read before. She’ll tell MPR News host Kerri Miller about it on Friday’s episode of Big Books and Bold Ideas. Until then, enjoy this 2018 conversation between Miller and Gibney when her second book, “Dream Country,” had just come out.
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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Best-selling authors on Big Books and Bold Ideas

Best-selling authors on Big Books and Bold Ideas

This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, we revisit three conversations MPR News host Kerri Miller had with young authors who hit the big time with their novels.
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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Anatoly Liberman on the origins of English idioms

Anatoly Liberman on the origins of English idioms

Some idioms need no explanation. Sayings like “put it on the back burner” or “don’t rain on my parade” follow common sense. But what about phrases like “drink like a fish” or “by hook or by crook”?
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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From the archives: Anatoly Liberman on familial language

From the archives: Anatoly Liberman on familial language

Every family has words that are unique to their closed circle. We discuss their roots in a new book, “Take My Word for It: A Dictionary of English Idioms.”
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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Clint Smith on how to reckon with slavery as America's original sin

Clint Smith on how to reckon with slavery as America's original sin

Clint Smith’s acclaimed book, “How the Word Is Passed,” is now out in paperback. In it, he examines how slavery has been central in shaping our country’s collective history, and ourselves.
by Kelly Gordon

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From the archives: Naima Coster on her novel 'What's Mine and Yours'

From the archives: Naima Coster on her novel 'What's Mine and Yours'

This Friday, Big Books and Bold Ideas will feature Clint Smith, celebrated author of “How the Word is Passed,” which powerfully examines the legacy of slavery in America. Kerri Miller’s conversation with Naima Coster in 2021 trod a similar path, only Coster used a fiction lens to look at effects of segregation in her novel, “What’s Mine and Yours.”
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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Author Katie Hickman on the women of the American West

Author Katie Hickman on the women of the American West

Old West mythology is full of dust-covered cowboys, lonesome gun slingers and gold-seeking prospectors. But if you only know the men’s side of the story, you only know part of it.
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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From the archives: Mary Doria Russell on what really happened at the O.K. Corral

From the archives: Mary Doria Russell on what really happened at the O.K. Corral

This week, Big Books and Bold Ideas heads West. Friday, host Kerri Miller talks with Katie Hickman about her new book, which tells the tales of the women of the American West. To get you in the mood, this week’s archive is a conversation between Miller and Mary Doria Russell about her book, “Epitaph,” which investigates what really happened at the O.K. Corral.
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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Joanna Quinn on her best-selling novel 'The Whalebone Theatre'

Joanna Quinn on her best-selling novel 'The Whalebone Theatre'

This week on Big Books and Bold Ideas, host Kerri Miller talks with the British author whose debut novel took England by storm. “The Whalebone Theatre” tells the story of three children who grow up on a posh seaside estate in the 1920s, and how their imaginations and familial bonds both anchor and inspire their lives.
by Kerri Miller and Kelly Gordon

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