Writing Westward Podcast

A conversation with historian James Tejani about their book

A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth:

The Making of the Port of Los Angeles—and America

(W. W. Norton, 2024)

James Tejani is associate professor of history at California Polytechnic Stat...

A conversation with historian Holly Miowak Guise about her book, Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II (University of Washington Press, Indigenous Confluences Series, 2024).

Dr. Guise is Assistant Professo...

A conversation with historian Brent M. Rogers their book Buffalo Bill and the Mormons (Bison Books / University of Nebraska Press, 2024).

Brent M. Rogers is the Managing Historian of the LDS Church History Department in Salt Lake City. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, an M.A. in Public History from th...

A conversation with journalist and author Zak Podmore about their book, Life After Dead Pool: Lake Powell's Last Days and the Rebirth of the Colorado River (Torrey House Press, 2024). In addition to stories for the Salt Lake Tribune, Podmore also published Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West (Torrey House Press, 2019).

Podcast Notes:

• Host and Producer Bre...

A conversation with poet and author Julie Carr about their book, Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).

Julie Carr is Professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Chair of the Department of Women and Gender Studies. Her training and degrees from Barnard College, NYU, and t...

A conversation with journalist Lyndsie Bourgon about her book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods (Little, Brown Spark, 2022).

Lyndsie Bourgon is a journalist, author, oral historian, fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and National Geographic Explorer. Her work intersects the environment, history, culture, identity, and more and has appeared in venues such as Nat...

A conversation with geographer Andrew Curley about his book, Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation (University of Arizona Press, 2023).

Andrew Curley is a member of the Navajo Nation and an Assistant Professor in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. His book, Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Tran...

A conversation with historian Peter Boag about their book Pioneering Death: The Violence of Boyhood in Turn-of-the-Century Oregon (University of Washington Press, 2022).

Peter Boag is Professor and Columbia Chair in the History of the American West at Washington State University. He is a historian of gender, sexuality, the environment, and culture in the American West and the Pacific Northwest. Along ...

A conversation with cartoonist Navied Mahdavian about his graphic novel memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America (Princeton Architectural Press, 2023).

Navied Mahdavian is is a cartoonist and writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker since 2018. You may have also seen his work in Readers Digest, Wired, and elsewhere.

A conversation with historian Natalia Molina about their book A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022).

Natalia Molina is Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Dean's Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. In 2020 she was named a MacAr...

A conversation with Sarah Keyes about their book American Burial Ground: A New history of the Overland Trail (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023).

Sarah Keyes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno. She earned her PhD from the University of Southern California and studies the intercultural relations between Indigenous and Euro-American peoples. After securing publi...

A conversation with Heather Hansman about their book Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and The Future of Chasing Snow (Hanover Square Press, 2021).

Heather Hansman is the author of Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and The Future of Chasing Snow (Hanover Square Press, 2021, paperback, 2023), and Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West. She's a contributing editor at Outside magazine, and an a...

A conversation with historian Molly P. Rozum about their new book, Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (University of Nebraska Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2021).

Molly P. Rozum is associate professor of history and the Ronald M. Nelson Distinguished Professor and Chair of Great Plains and South Dakota History at the University of South Dako...

A conversation with literary scholar Michael K. Johnson about their book, Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).

 Michael K. Johnson is Professor of American literature at the University of M...

A conversation with geoscientist Ellen Wohl about their books, Something Hidden in the Ranges: The Secret Life of Mountain Ecosystems and Dead Wood: The Afterlife of Trees (Oregon State University Press, 2021 and 2022).

Dr. Ellen Wohl is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Colorado State University. 

A conversation with Andrea Geiger about their new book, Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).

Andrea Geiger is professor emerita of history from Simon Frasier University in British Columbia. With an international childhood spent in Japan, the Netherlands, India, and elsewhere, she had a successful first care...