Writing Westward Podcast

A conversation with scholar William Grady about their book Redrawing the Western: A History of American Comics and the Mythic West (University of Texas Press, 2024) Dr. William Grady is an independent scholar and library based in the United Kingdom in Manchester. He earned a PhD in English from the University of Dundee and a masters of research and bachelors of arts in film and media studies from Manchester Metropolitan University. He held a post-doctoral research post at the University of the Arts in London, and has taught courses on comics, media theory, and film history at the University of Dundee and Manchester Metropolitan University, where he now works as a collections librarian. The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with urban planner and architectural historian James Michael Buckley about their book City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry (University of Texas Press, 2024) James Michael Buckley is an urban planner, recently retired from the University of Oregon where he was an associate professor and venerable chair in historic preservation, and the director of the historic preservation program in the School of Architecture and Environment. Previously, he held teaching positions at MIT, San Francisco State University, and the University of California Berkley, where he earned an MA in city and regional planning and a PhD in architecture. He also holds a BA in Art History and American Studies from Yale University. The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Amanda Van Lanen about their book The Washington Apple: Orchards and the Development of Industrial Agriculture (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022). Amanda L. Van Lanen is Professor of History and Humanities Division Chair at Lewis-Clark State College. A historian of the American West, agriculture, and the environment, you can follow her regular blog posting about "cookbooks, stories, and recipes from the back of the fridge," at https://historyreheated.com/. The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian John William Nelson about their book, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) John William Nelson is assistant professor of history at Texas Tech University, where he teaches courses on Colonial America, the American West, the Atlantic World, and Native American history. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Notre Dame. In addition to a couple book chapters in Routeledge anthologies, Nelson published award-winning articles in the Michigan Historical Review in 2019 and William and Mary Quarterly in 2021. His 2023 book that we discuss today, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent (University of North Carolina Press, David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History Series, 2023). It won the 2024 W. Turrentine-Jackson Prize (Western History Association), 2024 Superior Achievement Award (Illinois State Historical Society), an Honorable Mention for the 2024 Jon Gjerde Book Award (Midwestern History Association), and was a Shortlist Award Recipient for the 2024 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award (The Newberry Library). The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter/X, or get more information @ https://reddcenter.byu.edu and https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with journalist, author, and poet Samuel Western about his book, The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the High Plains and Northern Rockies (University Press of Kansas, 2024) Samuel Western is a prolific journalist and writer of the American West. In addition to having taught various courses on Wyoming history and culture at the University of Wyoming in past years, he was a correspondent for the Economist for over 30 years, published in the Wall Street Journal, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, High Country News, Montana: the Magazine of Western History, and other outlets. Western won two Wyoming Literary Fellowships, once for poetry and once for fiction, and is the author of the book Pushed Off The Mountain, Sold Down the River; Wyoming’s Search For Its Soul (Homestead Publishing, 2002), the prose poetry collection A Random Census of Souls (Daniel & Daniel Publishers, 2015), which was finalist for best poetry book 2010 by the High Plains Book Awards, the novel Canyons (Daniel & Daniel Publishers, 2015), which was also published in French in 2017, and most recently, the book The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the Great Plains and Northern Rockies (University Press of Kansas, 2024). The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University and hosted by. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook or Twitter or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

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 State University. He holds a BAs in history and political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. His first book, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles—and America (W. W. Norton, 2024). A decade ago he published two articles from this project, both of which won awards. His Southern California Quarterly article, “Dredging the Future: The Destruction of Coastal Estuaries and the Creation of Metropolitan Los Angeles, 1858-1913,” won the Doyce B. Nunis Jr. Award from the Historical Society of Southern California and the Ray Allen Billington Prize from the Western History Association, and his Western Historical Quarterly article, “Harbor Lines: Connecting the Histories of Borderlands and Pacific Imperialism in the Making of the Port of Los Angeles, 1858-1908,” earned an honorable mention for the Alice Hamilton Prize from the American Society for Environmental History. The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University (reddcenter.byu.edu). Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook or Twitter or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

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 Professor of History at the University of New Mexico and holds a BA in Native American Studies from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in History from Yale University. She is the author of multiple books chapters and a 2022 article in the WHQ, “Who is Doctor Bauer?: Rematriating a Censored Story on Internment, Wardship, and Sexual Violence in Wartime Alaska, 1941-1944, " which won the Western History Association's Arrell M. Gibson Award for the best essay of the year on the history of Native Americans, Jensen-Miller Award for the best article in the field of women and gender in the North American West, Vicki L. Ruiz Award for best article on race in the North American West, and Oscar O. Winther Award for best article published in the Western Historical Quarterly (2023), and the Western Association of Women Historians Judith Lee Ridge Prize for best article in the field of history (2024). In 2022 she received both an American Council of Learned Societies and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to aid in her research that culminated in her book. Check out the book's companion website, ww2alaska.com to sample some of the oral history interviews that formed a foundation for her work. The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University and hosted by. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook or Twitter or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

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 the California State University - Sacramento, and BA in history from San Diego State University. One of his first publications, a 2014 Utah Historical Quarterly article on Mormons and Federal Indian Policy won the WHA's Arrington-Prucha Prize for the Best Article on the History of Religion in the West. His first book, Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory (NU 2017) won the 2018 Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association, 2018 Francis Armstrong Madsen Best Book Award from the Utah State Historical Society, and the Charles Redd Center Phi Alpha Theta Book Award for the Best Book on the American West. He has authored and edited numerous other pieces, book chapters, and volumes, and is an editor on 6 volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers, many of which have also won awards. The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (https://www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University (reddcenter.byu.edu). Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook or Twitter or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

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: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American BorderlandsCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 the University of California, Berkeley are in creative writing, poetry, and English. She is the author of 16 books, many of which have won awards and honors. She has also published extensively in journals, poetry collections, popular outlets like The New Republic, High Country News, The Nation, and others. She has traveled extensively to give readings, is involved in multi-media projects, and is co-host and co-creator of the brand new podcast, Return the Key: Jewish Questions for Everyone. ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 National Geographic Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Maisonneuve, Hazlitt, The Atlantic, The Walrus, The Guardian, and others. Many of those pieces were winners of or finalists for awards and honors. Her book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods (Little, Brown Spark, 2022) has received considerable positive press and the following honors: ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 Transition in the Navajo Nation was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2023. He holds a B.A. in sociology from Suffolk University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University. Before joining the faculty at the University of Arizona, he held a postdoctoral research fellowship and was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 with countless articles, essays, and chapters, he is the author of four monographs: Environment and Experience: Settlement Culture in Nineteenth-Century Oregon (University of California Press, 1992), Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest (University of California Press, 2003), Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past (University of California Press, 2011), and Pioneering Death: The Violence of Boyhood in Turn-of-the-Century Oregon (University of Washington Press, 2022). ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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. Find him at @naviedm on Instagram, on his substack ToonStack, or his at https://www.naviedm.com/. ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 MacArthur Fellow. Her most recent book, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022). It will be released in paperback in early 2024 and a 30% discount code will be included in a forthcoming edition of Molina's newsletter. Subscribe at https://nataliamolinaphd.com/. The book has received the following accolades: Prior to this, Molina was the author of the award-winning books Fit to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879–1939 (University of California Press, 2006), How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts (University of California Press, 2014), and coeditor of Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice (University of California Press, 2019). ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 publications of articles in field-defining outlets like the Journal of American History and the Western Historical Quarterly, she published her first book, which we discuss today, American Burial Ground: A New history of the Overland Trail (University of Pennsylvania Press, America in the Nineteenth Century Series, 2023). ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 award-winning journalist whose work appears in places like the Atlantic and the New York Times. She lives in Durango, Colorado, where she's working on her next book, Fierce Country, which is about underrepresented women in the outdoors. ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 Dakota. She holds degrees in American Studies, Folklore, and History. She is editor, co-editor, and author of multiple books and articles on Plains history. Her most recent book is Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (University of Nebraska Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2021). ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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 Maine at Farmington. His primary research areas are African American Literature and the literature and culture of the American West. Johnson's other works include: Black Masculinity and the Frontier Myth in American Literature (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002) Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos: Conceptions of the African American West (University Press of Mississippi, 2015) Can’t Stand Still: Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance (University Press of Mississippi, 2019) Weird Westerns: Race, Gender, Genre (University of Nebraska Press, 2020) A Black Woman’s West: The Life of Rose B. Gordon (Montana Historical Society Press, 2022) ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.

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. Selected additional titles by Wohl include: Rain Forest Into Desert: Adventures in Australia's Tropical North Inland flood hazards: Human, Riparian, and Aquatic CommunitiesVirtual Rivers: Lessons from the Mountain Rivers of the Colorado Front RangeIsland of GrassOf Rocks and Rivers: Seeking a Sense of Place in the American WestMountain Rivers RevisitedA World of Rivers: Environmental Change on Ten of the World's Great RiversDisconnected Rivers: Linking Rivers to LandscapesWide Rivers Crossed: The South Platte and the Illinois of the American PrairieRivers in the Landscape: Science and ManagementTransient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing PlanetRhythms of Change in Rocky Mountain National ParkSaving the Dammed: Why We Need Beaver-Modified Ecosystems ----more---- Podcast Notes: Brenden W. RensinkIntermountain HistoriesNative but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlandshttps://linktr.ee/bwrensinkCharles Redd Center for Western StudiesMicah Dahl Andersonwritingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.