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Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer sit down with architect Jonathan Hess, executive principal of Browning Day. As Indiana’s 2025 AIA Gold Medal winner, Hess reflects on his 40-year career and what it means to live up to his oath to “make no ugly.”

Hold onto your fedoras: On the next episode of Radio Free Book Club, Ken Honeywell, Alex Mattingly, Steve Woods, and Carol Divish head back to 1932 to tag along with P.I. Hicks McTaggart on his search for a missing cheese heiress in Thomas Pynchon’s 2025 novel Shadow Ticket. Spoilers abound.

Real Life, Revised - A reading series of "stories, poems & other truths" featuring Indiana writers and produced by Sam Ferrante and John Strauss, with the support of Indiana Humanities, the Butler University MFA Program in Creative Writing; Booth, a journal; and WQRT Radio, part of the Garfield Park Creative Community from Big Car Collaborative. This show was recorded March 8, 2026. Our next live event, featuring invited readers and open-mic opportunities, is April 12 at 4 p.m. at Indiana Humanities, 1500 N. Delaware St. in Indianapolis. 00:00 - Open - Sam Ferrante 01:50 - Sam reads "To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall" by Kim Addonizio. 02:55 - David Strange 08:35 - JD Amick 12:50 - Cayden Crouch and Mazzy Booth 17:20 - Natale Solmer 22:30 - Tylyn Johnson 26:45 - Joy Hernandez 32:20 - Ellie 37:20 - Sam Ferrante - Close 38:05 - John Strauss - End Credits 38:30 - Music Out

THE LIBRARIANS | guest: Mary Ann Laker | air date 3/7/26 | FLICK FIX | WQRT Who better to confront an unsettling documentary about book banning than Mary Ann Laker, an IPS high school librarian for 40 years (and Anne’s mom). THE LIBRARIANS (2025, dir. Kim A. Snyder) probes the political and personal stakes as intellectual freedom is threatened across the country, and prompts Mary Ann’s real-life stories about how books can—and do—change students’ lives. Anne gets excited as the voice of “YOU'VE never SEEN??” performs the phrase in real time … and bugs Anne about never having seen MAJOR LEAGUE (1989, dir. David S. Ward), an all-American goofy-ragtag-misfit-slapsticky-underdog-triumph tale with a touch of vulnerability (and Wesley Snipes in his prime).

Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer interview Brian McCutcheon, owner of Ignition Arts in Indianapolis. They discuss innovative fabrication for the arts and industry, and pursuing partnerships with emerging artists around the world.

Binx Bolling is on a search—and Susan Neville, Dan Barden, Anne Laker, and Ken Honeywell join him as they discuss The Moviegoer, Walker Percy’s National Book Award-winning debut novel from 1961, at the February 2026 meeting of Radio Free Book Club.

00:00: Sam Ferrante, opening. 02:28 - "Object Permanence" by Nicole Sealey, read by Sam Ferrante 03:35 - Korie Griggs 09:23 - Skylar Dingledy 13:42 - Katie Hilton 18:05 - Aaron Thomas 22:47 - Bek Primrose 28:10 - WQRT Acknowledgment, Sam Ferrante 28:18 - Cayden Crouch 34:05 - Logan Taylor 39:28 - Butler MFA and Indy Reads acknowledgment, Sam Ferrante 39:55 - Shepherd 44:35 - Rob Stapleton 50:05 - Kandace w/ a K 55:13 - Close, Sam Ferrante 55:50 - Closing credits, John Strauss 56:15 - Music Out

Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer interview Pauline Moffat on the origins of IndyFringe and The District Theatre. The scene provides ongoing opportunity for emerging playwrights and actors on a repurposed block of Mass Ave in Indianapolis.

Radio Free Book Club starts the new year the same way it started last year: talking about the latest winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. This time, it’s David Szalay’s novel Flesh. Robin Beery, Sarah Layden, and Matt Gonzales join Ken Honeywell for the discussion.

Aurora PhotoCenter Director Mary Goodwin in conversation with 2025 Aurora Project Resident Cali M. Banks (Munsee Lenape/Scottish), who uses her artistic practice to reclaim identity through auto-ethnographic, experimental photography and filmmaking. Her work explores personal and collective histories, relational intimacies, and the expansion of narrow, flattened definitions of indigenous art.

Readers will find a whole lot of characters riding The Paris Express, Emma Donaghue’s latest historical novel. How much fun is it to ride with them? Barb Shoup, Laurel Judkins, Kate Shoup, and Ken Honeywell have opinions on the December 2025 edition of Radio Free Book Club.

Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer interview Big Car Collaborative’s Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh. Hear how the Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi) is emerging as a cultural campus in the Garfield Park neighborhood—the culmination of Big Car’s 10-year vision.

Real Life, Revised - A reading series of "stories, poems & other truths" featuring Indiana writers and produced by Sam Ferrante and John Strauss, with the support of Indiana Humanities, the Butler University MFA Program in Creative Writing, and WQRT Radio, part of the Garfield Park Creative Community from Big Car Collaborative. This show was recorded Dec. 14, 2025. Our next live event, featuring invited readers and open-mic opportunities, is Jan. 18 at 4 p.m. at Indiana Humanities, 1500 N. Delaware St. in Indianapolis. Real Life, Revised No. 3, Dec. 14, 2025. 00:05 - Auboni open 00:25 - Sam Ferrante open 02:02 - Auboni 05:56 - Steve Berta 10:40 - Ebony Chappel 16:50 - Tracy Mishkin 20:15 - Nasreen Khan 24:30 - Ariana Beedie 29:40 - Marissa Dooley 34:00 - Januarie York 39:13 - Kandace w/ a K 42:45 - Sam Reflection 43:45 - Sam Close 44:23 - Music Out

00:00 - Sam Ferrante Open 01:50 - Thanks WQRT/Big Car, Butler, Indiana Humanities 04:18 - Sam reads Burning Haibun by torrin a. greathouse 07:00 - Mitchell L. H. Douglas 10:50 - Jane Ristine Hixon 16:40 - Rosaleen Crowley 19:53 - Samantha Fain 23:20 - Anastacia Cohen 29:40 - Vinny Corsaro 35:40 - Aaron Thomas 39:12 - Monica Lewis 45:50 - Kenneth Foran 51:23 - Sam Close and December preview 51:50 - MFA, Indiana Humanities, and Booth Thanks 53:14 - Megan Telligman, Indiana Humanities 53:51 - John Strauss, Close 54:17 - Music Out

Hear a discussion between Kimi Katada, curator at Kansas City’s Charlotte Street, and artist Amy Kligman as they discuss Amy’s exhibition ‘Shrines of the Luminous Halo’.

FLICK FIX | BUGONIA | with Anne Laker & Tracy Ball Five-time Flick Fix guest and queen of rabbit holes Tracy Ball eats up the full-throttle sci-fi absurdity of Stone and Plemons in BUGONIA (2025, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos), while Anne reflects on the film’s politics. Discussed: Christian Louboutin shoes, self-delusion, KILL BILL, Noxema, crafting, and AIR FORCE ONE. Tracy rewinds to the golden age of sci-fi TV with THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1959-64) and THE OUTER LIMITS (1963-65) for the segment *YOU'VE NEVER SEEN*.

Radio Free Book Club - A university researcher in a dystopian 2119 searches for a famous poem that was read only once and disappeared without a trace. That’s the intriguing subject of Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know—which is the subject of the November 2025 meeting of Radio Free Book Club. Steve Woods, Christine Hudson, and Craig Von Deylen join Ken Honeywell for the discussion.

Lee Alig and Steve Mannheimer interview authors and photographers, Phillip Cox and Niall Cronin. Their new book, “What a Building Does: The Hoosier Modernisms of Evans Woollen,” expands the narrative of modern architecture and its legacy in the American Midwest.

Real Life, Revised - A reading series of stories, poems & other truths featuring Indiana writers and produced by Sam Ferrante and John Strauss, with the support of Indiana Humanities, the Butler University MFA Program in Creative Writing, and WQRT. This show was recorded Oct. 26, 2025. Other shows in the "Real Life" series, which include featured readers and open mic slots, are scheduled for Nov. 9 and Dec. 14 at Indiana Humanities, 1500 N. Delaware St. in Indianapolis. 00:11 - Sam Ferrante, Open 01:24 - Booth: A Journal shout-out and contest promo 03:39 - "Hummingbird" by Fady Joudah read by Sam 04:49 - Scoot Swain 10:56 - Logan Taylor 16:00 - Taylor Lewandowski 20:36 - D'Mon Jones 25:27 - David Strange 29:03 - Jennifer DelGadillo 34:49 - JD Amick 40:03 - Imani Lehté 45:46 - Cayden 49:54 - Sam Ferrante, Wrapup 50:55 - Megan Telligman, Indiana Humanities 52:25 - John Strauss, Close 52:54 - Music Out

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita has been described as a moral fable, a moral outrage, a censor’s temptation, a formal maze, a parody, an exposé of male desire, a resplendent romance, a catalog of sexual abuse, a redemption tale, and a black comedy. How do you deal with all that? Ken Honeywell asked writers Susan Neville, Dan Barden, Anne Laker to give it a try on this month’s meeting of Radio Free Book Club.