Arts Interview: Karen Joy Fowler | It’s A Question Of Balance 20 June 2015

Broadcast on 20 June 2015 on KSCO AM 1080, KOMY AM 1340 and KSCO.com Live Stream.

'It's A Question Of Balance' is a two hour show which balances the intellectual with the creative. The show combines a debate topic with an arts interview because discussion and creativity are two of the most vital ways we engage in the world. 

Check out podcasts of the different topics and arts guests at www.itsaquestionofbalance.com

In-Depth Arts Interview with Joy Fowler

This week as her special guest from the arts Ruth Copland is pleased to be interviewing Santa Cruz resident Karen Joy Fowler, internationally best-selling and award-winning author of six novels and three short story collections. Consistently loved by critics and readers alike, most of Karen’s titles have been New York Times Notable Books and named to many best-of-year lists. Her work traverses science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction but often defies genre categorisation. The San Francisco Chronicle comments Karen has “An astonishing narrative voice, at once lyric and ironic, satiric and nostalgic…Fowler can tell stories that engage and enchant.” Her novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves won the PEN/Faulkner Award as well as the California Book Award for fiction 2013, and was shortlisted for the British Man Booker Prize the first year it was open to Americans. The Jane Austen Book Club spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was made into a major motion picture. Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and her debut novel, Sarah Canary, was a New York Times Notable Book, as was her second novel, The Sweetheart Season. In addition, Sarah Canary won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, and was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize. Karen’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, Karen and her husband, who have two grown children and five grandchildren, now live in Santa Cruz. Karen holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in South Asian studies and she is the co-founder of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the current president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego). In recognition of her prominent literary status, Marian Wood Books/Putnam is re-issuing Karen’s short story collection Black Glass: Short Fiction available from June 22nd.

For more info and to hear previous shows visit www.itsaquestionofbalance.com