On today’s show, we discuss the life and work of the late Grace Paley, one of the true masters of the short story form, and a great poet, essayist, and activist, as well. There’s no one better to talk Grace with than our guest Judith Arcana, author of the book Grace Paley’s Life Stories from Eberhardt Press.
Judith, like Grace, writes poems, stories, and essays. Her work includes the poetry collections Announcements from the Planetarium, What if your mother, 4th Period English, The Parachute Jump Effect, and Here From Somewhere Else, which won the 2015 Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Chapbook Award. Her story “Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture” won the first Minerva Rising Prose Prize and was published as a chapbook.
A longtime teacher of literature, writing, and women’s studies, Judith also volunteered as a Jane, a member of the Chicago underground service that helped more than eleven thousand women get safe illegal abortions, before the US Supreme Court ruled on Roe vs. Wade in January 1973. KBOO listeners might know Judith from her monthly poetry show Poetry and Everything, which airs the fourth Monday of the month at 10 PM.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
- KBOO