Story in the Public Square

The impact of climate change on the world around us is there for everyone to see—from stronger and more frequent storms to the loss of Arctic Sea ice. But Sherri Goodman says the threat isn’t just to crops or the polar bears, but to American national security. Sherri Goodman, Senior Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and Polar Institute, and Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security, is credited with educating a generation of US military and government officials about the nexus between climate change and national security, using her famous coinage, “threat multiplier,” to fundamentally reshape the national discourse on the topic. Sherri serves as Vice Chair of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board and on the EXIM Bank’s Council on Climate. A former first Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Environmental Security) and staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Goodman has founded, led, or advised nearly a dozen research organizations on environmental and energy matters, national security, and public policy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The stories journalists tell can stretch from the personal to the public. Francesca Mari is no different, giving us narratives and an understanding of personal health crises, the challenge of housing, and the kinds of shelter offered by both families and physical structures. Francesca Mari is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine focused on housing and equity. She is also an assistant professor at Brown University. Her cover stories for The New York Times Magazine explore the pandemic real estate boom, the rise of private equity landlords, and how the U.S. housing market became so dysfunctional and why it didn’t—and doesn’t—have to be this way. In addition, she has written features on homeless house sitters, con men, and other abuses of power for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, The New York Review of Books, The Cut, and others. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Disinformation has a long history in the United States—often taking the form of storytelling. Best-selling author Annalee Newitz explains how stories have been weaponized—historically and today—and charts a path to a more peaceful future for all Americans. Newitz writes fiction and nonfiction about the intersection of science, technology and culture. Their first novel, “Autonomous,” won the Lambda Literary Award and was nominated for the Nebula and Locus Awards. Newitz’ book, “Scatter, Adapt, and Remember” was nominated for the LA Times Book Award. They are currently a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. Previously, they were the founding editor of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo and as the tech culture editor at Ars Technica. They have also written for publications including Wired, Popular Science, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Slate, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, and more. Newitz is the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast, “Our Opinions Are Correct. They were the recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, worked as a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We know healthcare means hospitals and stethoscopes, and x-rays, and bloodwork, and prescriptions. But Dr. Dean-David Schillinger says stories are the key to healthcare—both our willingness to tell them; and our caregiver’s ability to listen and understand them. Schillinger is a primary care physician, scientist, author, and public health advocate. He has served as chief of the UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, and chief of the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program for the California Department of Public Health. He is an internationally recognized expert in health communication and has been widely recognized for his work related to improving the health of marginalized populations. Schillinger is credited with a number of discoveries in primary care and health communication and is considered a pioneer of the field of health literacy. He is the inaugural recipient of the Andrew B. Bindman Professorship in Primary Care and Health Policy at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s easy to think that people and animals are incapable of coexistence. But Ruth Ganesh warns that mindset is dangerous to biodiversity, to the existence of some of planet earth’s most remarkable creatures, and even to humanity. Ganesh is a creative conservationist and philanthropist with a particular interest in environmental issues. She has spent the last 15 years conceiving and producing large scale public art exhibitions in London, Edinburgh, NYC and Mumbai. Ganesh serves as the co-founder of the CoExistence Collective and principal trustee of Elephant Family, a non-government organization based in the United Kingdom dedicated to protecting Asian elephants from extinction in the wild. The Great Elephant Migration is a global fundraising project of the CoExistence Collective that aims to to amplify indigenous knowledge and promote shared spaces between wildlife and humans. The Migration features one hundred life-size elephant sculptures created a community of 200 indigenous artisans in the Nilgiri Hills of South India. The sculptures are made from lantana camara, an invasive weed that encroaches on wildlife habitat and each one is modeled after a real elephant the artisans live alongside in India. The elephant herd is currently in Newport, Rhode Island and will continue to visit sites across North America, including Miami Beach, Fla., The Blackfeet Nation in Montana, and Los Angeles, Calif. as they raise money and awareness to better protect migratory animals like the elephants. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tyranny comes in many forms. But Leah Umansky uses her art—poetry—to remind us that whether the tyrant is personal, societal, or political—resistance is possible. Leah Umansky is a poet, writer, artist and writing coach. She has been an educator for over 15 years and teaches 8th and 10th grade English at a private school in New York. She is also the author of three collections of poetry: “OF TYRANT,” “The Barbarous Century,” “Domestic Uncertainties,” and two chapbooks, “Straight Away the Emptied World” and the Mad-Men inspired “Don Dreams and I Dream.” She is also the creator of “STAY BRAVE,” a monthly newsletter for women-identifying creatives on bravery in the creative life. Her writing has been widely published in such places as The New York Times, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day, USA Today, POETRY, Guernica and American Poetry Review. She has also been the host and curator of the NYC-based poetry series. “COUPLET,” since 2011 and is a graduate of the MFA Program in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the last 25 years, while the United States fought costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the People’s Republic of China has been expanding its influence, its economic relationships, and even the reach of it’s military. Michael Sobolik offers a sober look at the challenge China poses to the West and offers a strategy to guide America’s response. Sobolik is an expert in the American and Chinese grand strategy, regional economic and security trends, America’s alliance architecture in Asia and human rights. He served as a Legislative Assistant in the United States Senate, drafting legislation on China, Russia, India, Taiwan, North Korea, Cambodia, and strategic systems and missile defense from 2014 to 2019. He has been serving as a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) since 2019. Sobolik hosts “Great Power Podcast,” AFPC’s show about great power competition and U.S.-China relations. He is also the author of “Countering China's Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance,” which explains China’s growing threat to the global stage. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Immigration has long-been a contentious issue in American politics. But legendary journalist Ray Suarez says immigrants keep coming to the United States, overcoming obstacles, working for better opportunities for themselves and their families, and all the while buying into the idea of America that binds us all together. Suarez is a journalist and author who co-hosts “World Affairs,” produced by the World Affairs Council and distributed to public radio. He also covers Washington for the English-language all-news network Euronews. Since launching Brooklyn Boy Productions in 2019, he has created content for public radio and television, The Washington Post, The Independent London, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pew Research, Knowable, “America in One Room,” Hispanics in Philanthropy, Slate, The Nation, Hearst TV, AlterNet, CityPaper, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the American Communities Project, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, among others. Suarez spent 14 years as a correspondent and anchor at public television’s nightly newscast, The PBS NewsHour, where be became chief national correspondent. During his years at The NewsHour, Suarez covered the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, four presidential elections, reported from the floor of seven party political conventions, moderated two presidential primary candidates’ debates, among hundreds of others. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The last 25 years have produced plenty of conflict and a seasoned community of journalists who have moved towards the sound of fighting. Sean Carberry documents the personal costs of those reporters, producers, photographers, and videographers who, in documenting the worst of humanity, have paid a price with their physical and emotional health. Carberry spent years as a journalist reporting from some of the world’s most dangerous and mysterious locations, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. He then worked for the government producing oversight reports on military operations in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. He aims to keep his work non-partisan and non-political as he breaks down complicated foreign policy challenges. He recently reported for National Public Radio where he served as correspondent in Kabul, Afghanistan and currently serves as managing editor at National Defense. Carberry is also the author of a powerful new memoir, “Passport Stamps, Searching the World for a War to Call Home.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The myth is that anyone who works hard, saves their money, and makes good decisions, can develop wealth in the United States. But Louise Story and Ebony Reed document the long and painful history of the structures, policies and practices that have resulted in a profound wealth gap between Black and White Americans. Louise Story is a professor at Yale University and media expert who spent more than a decade working at The New York Times. As an investigative reporter, she worked on multiple billion-dollar plus financial settlements, government reforms and legal convictions. She was a finalist for the 2010 Emmy Awards and the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Most recently, Story was the Chief News Strategist and Chief Product & Technology Officer at The Wall Street Journal. She co-authored a book with Ebony Reed titled “Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap.” Reed also teaches at Yale and is a seasoned journalist, editorial leader and news strategist. She has reported on public school systems, police agencies and city governments. At the Wall Street Journal, Reed was the New Audiences and Community Chief, overseeing four teams of journalists, engineers, designers and audience experts. She joined The Marshall Project in January 2022 as its Chief Strategy Officer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2011, the Food and Drug Administration held a hearing to review a drug previously approved for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. The hearing was fraught with concerns over the drug’s safety competing with cancer patients who felt they were alive because of the drug. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres was on the panel receiving testimony, and weighing what he heard against the long history of the FDA to make sure drugs are safe AND effective. Mikkael Sekeres is a professor of medicine and chief of the division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He earned a master’s and medical degree in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine before completing his postgraduate training at Harvard University. He has served as Director of the Leukemia Program and Vice-chair for Clinical Research at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center. Sekeres’ new book, “Drugs and the FDA,” is set in the context of the FDA's 2011 trial for the drug Avastin. There, he examines the ways the FDA became the sole authority on medicine in the United States and the process of approving drugs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For thousands of years, a mix of truth, lies, and down-right myths have shaped medicine’s understanding of the female body. While the modern era has seen progress, Dr. Elizabeth Comen tells us those narratives about women and their bodies continue to shape the care provided women today. Comen is a Medical Oncologist specializing in breast cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a professor at New York University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in the History of Science from Harvard College and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and her fellowship in oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Comen’s research has been published in several prestigious scientific journals. She is a tireless advocate for women’s healthcare and has mentored many students throughout their academic and medical careers, helping them to empower their patients with the tools they need to survive and thrive. Her book, “All In Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today,” dives into the inherent gender divide between males and females in the healthcare system. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a best-selling author, Sebastian Junger has taken us to sea with an ill-fated fishing boat and, as a documentarian, shown us the reality of war in Afghanistan. But his new book is his most intensely personal, a look at his own health crisis, the near-death experience it triggered, and how it shaped his views on an afterlife. Sebastian Junger is the #1 New York Times bestselling-author of “The Prefect Storm,” “Fire,” “A Death in Belmont,” “War,” “Tribe,” “Freedom” and his latest work, “In My Time of Dying.” An award-winning journalist, Junger is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award. Junger is also a documentary filmmaker whose debut film, "Restrepo", a feature-length documentary co-directed with Tim Hetherington, was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Immigration remains a hot-button in American politics, but Javier Zamora tells the story of his own entry into the United States—a journey and a story that put a human face on the issue. Zamora is the author of “SOLITO,” his New York Times bestselling memoir and is the 2024 Reading Across Rhode Island Selection. Born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990, his parents fled the country due to the U.S.-funded Salvadoran Civil War from 1980-1992. Zamora was raised by his grandparents until the age of nine when he began his nine-week odyssey to Arizona. His memoir recounts the perilous journey. He is the author of a poetry collection entitled, “Unaccompanied.” He holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University, MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, Stanford University and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize and the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Racism is often described as an individual failing, but Dr. Tricia Rose explains that racism is better understood as the result of a system built over generations and even centuries—and perpetuated by the stories we tell about it today. Rose is the Chancellor’s Professor of Africana Studies and Associate Dean of the Faculty for Special Initiatives, Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. She studies African American life, culture, and the impact of inequality, in the post-civil rights era. She specializes in the ways contemporary forms of systemic racism are blurred and hidden in our everyday storytelling about racism and the important role African-American expressive culture plays in creating spaces of recognition, resilience, and resistance. She is the author of four books and one edited collection on subjects ranging from her most recent work on systemic racism to her earlier award-winning work on hip hop, black women’s sexuality, and black popular culture. They include, “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America,” “Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy” and “The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop and Why It Matters.” Her latest, published this year, is “Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives―and How We Break Free.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the height of World War II, American military commanders created a unit dedicated to deception to give Allied forces an advantage on the battlefield. The artists, sound technicians, and radio operators of the so-called Ghost Army remained hidden for decades, but filmmaker Rick Beyer made sure their stories were told. Beyer is a New York Times best-selling author, an award-winning documentary producer, and a long-time history enthusiast. His independent documentary, “The Ghost Army,” premiered on PBS in 2013. It tells the story of an extraordinary WWII unit that used creativity and illusion to fool the Germans. He also co-authored a bestselling book on the unit, and is president of the Ghost Army Legacy Project, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and honoring the legacy of the unit. He spearheaded the lobbying effort that convinced Congress to award the unit a Congressional Gold Medal. Beyer has produced numerous other documentaries and is the author of the popular “Greatest Stories Never Told” series of history books. He has written for Politico, The Hill, the History Channel Magazine, America in WWII and other publications. Beyer also co-hosts the “History Happy Hour” livestream with Chris Anderson, which can be seen live every Sunday at 4:00 p.m. ET on the “History Happy Hour” Facebook and YouTube pages and is now available as a podcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Public education has a long and varied history in the United States. But Laura Pappano says the challenges it faces now from parent-activists and partisan politics is unlike anything America’s schools have seen. Pappano is an award-winning journalist and author who has written about K–12 and higher education for over 30 years. A former education columnist for the Boston Globe, Pappano has written about education for the New York Times, Hechinger Report, Harvard Education Letter, Washington Post, USA Today and Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. She is the author or co-author of four books, including, “The Connection Gap: Why Americans Feel So Alone,” “Playing with the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports,” “Inside School Turnarounds” and her most recent book, “School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education.” “School Moms” is an investigative study of the far-right’s attack on education and an on-the-ground look at the parent activist battle, on either side of the debate, to control the future of public schools. Combining on-the-ground reporting with research and expert interviews, “School Moms” will take a hard look at where these battles are happening, what is at stake, and why it matters for the future of our schools. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The novelist has a way of exploring issues—putting flesh on bones—to tell stories about people that can educate, inform, sometimes inspire, and often anger. Vanessa Lillie uses that art form to shine a light on challenges facing native communities and native women, in particular. Lillie is the author of the 2023 USA Today bestselling suspense novel, “Blood Sisters,” which launches a new series with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit at the heart of the stories. “Blood Sisters” was a Target Book Club pick and GMA Book Club Buzz Pick as well as named one of the best mystery novels in 2023 by the Washington Post and Amazon. Her previous bestselling thrillers are “Little Voices” and “For the Best.” She also co-authored the number one bestselling and ITW award-nominated Audible Original, “Young Rich Widows,” and its sequel, “Desperate Deadly Widows." Lillie was also a columnist for the Providence Journal and hosts an Instagram Live show with crime fiction authors. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma living on Narragansett land in Rhode Island. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The poet’s ability to capture meaning with words has long been one of humanity’s great gifts. Brian Turner has that muse and uses poetry to explore enduring questions of love and loss. Turner is the author of five collections of poetry “Here, Bullet;” “Phantom Noice;” “The Wild Delight of Wild Things;” “The Dead Peasant’s Handbook” and “The Goodbye World Poem.” He has also authored a memoir, “My Life as a Foreign Country,” and is the editor of “The Kiss” and co-editor of “The Strangest of Theatres” anthologies. Also a musician and songwriter, Turner has written and recorded several albums with The Interplanetary Acoustic Team, including “11 11 (Me Smiling)” and “The Retro Legion's American Undertow.” His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, Harper’s, among other fine journals. He was also featured in the documentary film “Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he has received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The history of 20th century autocracy seemed to race into the distance with the end of the Cold War. But Dr. Timothy Snyder cautions that in the decades since 1989, the West has seen the rise of new autocratic movements—some in traditional adversaries and some much closer to home. Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He has written eight books discussing issues in Central and Eastern Europe and co-edited three further texts surrounding similar topics. Snyder’s work has appeared in forty languages and has received a number of prizes, including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, the Literature Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Václav Havel Foundation prize, the Foundation for Polish Science prize in the social sciences, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, the Dutch Auschwitz Committee award and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought. Snyder was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, has received the Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships and holds state orders from Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. He is currently researching a family history of nationalism and finishing a philosophical book about freedom. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.