Best Jonathan Eig Podcasts (2025)

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Doris Kearns Goodwin: “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” 29:27

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14d ago29:27

29:27

BEYOND THE PAGE Doris Kearns Goodwin: “An Unfinished LoveStory: A Personal History of the 1960s” In this episode – recorded live at the 2025Writers Conference – Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most acclaimed and beloved historians, chronicles her and her late husband Richard's experiences working with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson during th…

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Ocean Vuong "The Emperor of Gladness" 27:49

2M ago27:49

27:49

In this episode – recorded live at the 2025 Writers Conference – I have an intimate conversation, in front of 1500 people, with the novelist and poet Ocean Vuong. When he was two years old, in 1990, Ocean immigrated with his family from Vietnam. They settled in East Hartford, CT, seven relatives sharing a one-bedroom apartment. His mother worked at…

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Dr. Vivek Murphy, From the Heart 43:43

3M ago43:43

43:43

By Sun Valley Writers’ Conference

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Margaret Atwood 34:10

6M ago34:10

34:10

Margaret Atwood—author of more than 60 books in almost every conceivable genre, recipient of more than 100 literary prizes—is a global icon. Like Kafka and Orwell before her, she and her writing have become part of the public discourse, wherever we live and whatever our age. Her intelligence is that vital and exacting, her wit that mischievous, her…

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Niall Ferguson and Evan Osnos on Kissinger 35:55

6M ago35:55

35:55

No U.S. secretary of state ever achieved such celebrity while in office as Henry Kissinger; immersed in the philosophy of Kant and the diplomacy of Metternich, he was hailed as one of the most important strategic thinkers America has ever produced. Yet no former secretary of state has been more vehemently criticized, most notably for sins of omissi…

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Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso and Percival Everett 50:29

7M ago50:29

50:29

Today, we’re sharing a special conversation from the podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. The episode you’re about to hear aired just this month. It’s an entertaining and insightful talk with Percival Everett, who was named the winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Together, they cover a range of topics, from his immersive process writing Ja…

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Jonathan Eig on Martin Luther King, Jr. 30:47

8M ago30:47

30:47

In this episode, recorded live at the 2024 conference, biographer Jonathan Eig talks about his book on Martin Luther King, Jr., the first major biography of the civil rights leader in decades. Eig resurrects King from myth and history and brings him to vivid life, with all of his emotional complexity and unwavering courage, drawing a fresh and inde…

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Jayne Anne Phillips and Viet Thanh Nguyen on Writing and War 41:01

8M ago41:01

41:01

Jayne Anne Phillips won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel, Night Watch, a vividly rendered account set in Phillips’ native West Virginia in the aftermath of the Civil War, that follows a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her traumatized mother as they struggle to heal. In this final episode of season two, she is…

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Jonathan Eig and Yohance Lacour: New Perspectives on Stories from the Past 45:38

8M ago45:38

45:38

Jonathan Eig won the 2024 Pulitzer in Biography for King: A Life, a revelatory book on Martin Luther King Jr. that draws on new sources to enrich our understanding of the civil rights leader’s life. When Eig heard the 2024 Pulitzer-win for Audio Reporting, You Didn’t See Nothin, he knew he had to talk with the podcast host, Yohance Lacour of the In…

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Hannah Dreier, Iván Valencia, and Gregory Bull: To the Border and Beyond 48:50

9M ago48:50

48:50

In 2023, a record breaking number of migrants braved the harrowing journey to the U.S./Mexico border in hopes of being granted asylum in America. In this episode, we hear from three Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who covered different stages of this experience. First, we hear from two photojournalist staff contributors to Associated Press’ 2024…

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The Radical Honesty of Judy Blume 30:47

9M ago30:47

30:47

In this episode of Beyond the Page, lucky listener, you get to hear the great Judy Blume, the author of twenty-five books for young readers and four novels for adults that all-told have sold more than 90 million copies in forty languages. Blume’s cherished, ground-breaking 1970 young adult novel, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, has captivated…

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Trina Reynolds-Tyler and Sarah Conway on Going Beyond the Data 42:15

9M ago42:15

42:15

Journalists Sarah Conway, formerly of City Bureau, and Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for Missing in Chicago, an investigation into how the Chicago Police Department has been handling missing person cases for Black girls and women. They’re joined by Salamishah Tillet, a Pulitzer-prize …

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Sanaz Toossi and Lynn Nottage: The Politics of Playwriting 46:30

9M ago46:30

46:30

Sanaz Toossi won the 2023 Pulitzer in Drama for her play, English, a powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam and grappling with how learning a new language may alter their identities and represent a new life. Sanaz takes us behind the scenes as she and her cast and crew prepare to open English on Broadway. The…

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Justin Chang and Joe Morgenstern on Cinevangalism 47:13

9M ago47:13

47:13

Now a film critic for The New Yorker, Justin Chang won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for film reviews he wrote for the Los Angeles Times. Joe Morgenstern has been reviewing films since 1959 and won 2005 Pulitzer in Criticism for weekly reviews he published at The Wall Street Journal. On this episode, Justin and Joe meet in LA’s historic Egyp…

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The Staff of Lookout Santa Cruz: The People vs. the Storms 30:41

10M ago30:41

30:41

In 2023, California’s Santa Cruz County was hit with nine atmospheric rivers that caused widespread displacement and devastation. During this period, the six reporters on staff at Lookout Santa Cruz – a roughly two-year old digital news outlet – stretched themselves thin providing in-depth coverage of the region’s most vulnerable communities. Their…

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Vladimir Kara-Murza: Russian Imprisonment and Fighting for Democracy 53:59

10M ago53:59

53:59

Vladimir Kara-Murza won the 2024 Pulitzer in Commentary for opinion columns he wrote from solitary confinement in a Siberian prison. He and 2004 winner and Pulitzer Board member Anne Applebaum discuss how he published columns while imprisoned, what it was like being released in the largest US-Russia prisoner exchange since the Cold War, and why he …

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Dennis Lehane: Confessions of a Novelist Turned TV Showrunner 30:53

10M ago30:53

30:53

In this episode, recorded live at the 2024 Writers Conference, I sit down with bestselling crime novelist and TV writer/producer DENNIS LEHANE for a lively, wide-ranging conversation about how he approaches writing books vs. television scripts, his advice for writing true crime stories, as well as his journey developing his two latest AppleTV limit…

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Pulitzer on the Road Season 2 Trailer 2:12

10M ago2:12

2:12

The Pulitzer on the Road podcast is back for season two! What does it take to win a Pulitzer Prize? In each episode, we’ll hear winners in conversation with one another, sharing stories behind their prize-winning work. This packed season features conversations between journalists and historians Vladimir Kara-Murza and Anne Applebaum, novelists Jayn…

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John Vaillant: Fire Weather 33:36

11M ago33:36

33:36

We were already editing this episode when the L.A. fires broke out on January 7, 2025. In fact, our editor Dean Grinsfelder had to evacuate as the flames moved in. So did my 91-year-old dad, and so did my co-producer James Tooley’s parents and brothers and their families; one of those brothers saw his house burn to the ground. All of which is to sa…

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Kristin Hannah in conversation with Jenny Emery Davidson 29:10

1y ago29:10

29:10

In this episode, recorded live at the 2024 Sun Valley Writers' Conference, novelist Kristin Hannah talks to Jenny Emery Davidson, the executive director of The Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho, about her #1 New York Times bestselling novel The Women. In The Women, Hannah (known for previous bestselling historical novels such as The Nightingale, …

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Ancient Wisdom and the Enduring Power of Community 42:03

1y ago42:03

42:03

In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society? In this episode, one of Ameriica’s leading rabbis, and the author of the book The Amen Effect, Sharon Brous makes the case that it is through honoring our most basic human instinct – the yearning for real connec…

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Putin, Ukraine, and the Future of Russia 33:30

1y ago33:30

33:30

The author of a seminal book on Putin, All The Kremlin’s Men, and the founding editor-in-chief of what was Russia’s most truth-telling opposition news channel TV Rain, Mikhail Zygar is a journalistic hero to many in Russia. Now living and writing in the U.S. after fleeing persecution by Putin, Zygar continues to cover the most troubling stories of …

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Patrick Radden Keefe 24:09

1+ y ago24:09

24:09

In this episode, recorded live at the 2023 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, New Yorker Staff Writer Patrick Radden Keefe, who has garnered prizes ranging from the National Magazine Award to the Orwell Prize to the National Book Critics Circle Award for his meticulously reported, hypnotically engaging work on the many ways people behave badly, tells …

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Curtis Sittenfeld 20:21

1+ y ago20:21

20:21

In bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld’s much-loved new novel, she explores—with her typically keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page—the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love,while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age. Sittenfeld sits down…

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Meeting Barbara Kingsolver in Appalachia 51:33

1+ y ago51:33

51:33

An interview between Barbara Kingsolver, 2023 Prize winner for Fiction, and Emily Ramshaw of The 19th, on Kingsolver’s farm in Appalachia, about growing up in Appalachia, her life as a writer, and the unforgettable narrator she created in her novel, Demon Copperhead. To access the transcript and learn more about this episode, visit: https://pulitze…

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Caitlin Dickerson on Children at the Border 39:53

1+ y ago39:53

39:53

Hundreds of migrant parents and children were separated at the US-Mexico border under a Trump administration policy. Caitlin Dickerson, staff writer for The Atlantic, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. She visits El Paso and talks with Ginger Thompson of ProPublica. To access the transcript and learn more about this episode, vis…

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Authors Hernan Diaz and Viet Thanh Nguyen in Conversation 37:01

1+ y ago37:01

37:01

Hernan Diaz, 2023 Fiction winner, meets with Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Pulitzer board member and himself a previous Fiction winner, in a New York Gilded Age mansion to discuss Trust, Diaz’s novel that explores family, wealth and ambition. To read the transcript and more about this episode, visit: https://pulitzerontheroad.pulitzer.org/podcasts/podcast-h…

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Jefferson Cowie on Freedom's Dominion in Alabama 41:23

1+ y ago41:23

41:23

Jefferson Cowie’s book Freedom’s Dominion gives the history of white Americans fighting for the freedom to dominate others and won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for History. In Eufaula, Alabama, he meets with Kelly Lytle Hernandez, history professor at the University of California Los Angeles. To access the transcript and learn more about this episode, v…

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Mstyslav Chernov on Being Trapped in Mariupol 39:59

1+ y ago39:59

39:59

Mstyslav Chernov and a team of Associated Press journalists captured the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Mariupol. He talks about their award-winning work for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with Nancy Barnes of the Boston Globe. To read the transcript and find out more about this episode, visit: https://pulitzerontheroad.puli…

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AL.com in Alabama: Small Town Shakedown 38:06

2y ago38:06

38:06

Hear about how police targeted residents of small town Brookside, Alabama, in an interview with 2023 Pulitzer winners for Local Reporting, John Archibald and Ashley Remkus at AL.com, and Neil Brown, Pulitzer Board member and president of the Poynter Institute. To access the transcript and read more about this episode, visit: https://pulitzeronthero…

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Pulitzer on the Road S1 Trailer 2:42

2y ago2:42

2:42

The Pulitzer Prizes is launching a Pulitzer on the Road podcast, part of a public programming initiative celebrating the work of Pulitzer Prize-winners with audiences across the country. The podcast features interviews with 2023 winners in journalism and books, and delves into the stories behind their work. To learn more about the podcast and guest…

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Javier Zamora in conversation with Mitchell Kaplan 22:10

2y ago22:10

22:10

In this episode of Beyond the Page, recorded live at the 2023 conference, poet and memoirist Javier Zamora talks to legendary bookseller Mitchell Kaplan about his memoir Solito, which chronicles his experiences traveling from El Salvador to the United States, by himself, when he was 9 years old. Javier Zamora writes, and speaks, like someone who be…

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Swamp Story: Dave Barry's Florida 34:59

2y ago34:59

34:59

Recorded at the closing of the 2023 Sun Valley Writers' Conference, Pulitzer Prize-winning humor writer (and one of the funniest people alive) Dave Barry talks about his latest novel Swamp Story, using it mainly as a springboard to talk about his crazy home state of Florida, and from there, about some of the problems facing our nation in general, a…

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Andrea Elliott in conversation with Ayad Akhtar 42:20

2y ago42:20

42:20

Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Andrea Elliot sits down with another Pulitzer winner, novelist and playwright Ayad Akhtar, at the 2023 Writers’ Conference to talk about Elliot’s book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City. The subject of the book is a Black girl in New York City named Dasani, whose story …

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Abraham Verghese: Writer in the World 28:06

2y ago28:06

28:06

On this episode, author and physician Abraham Verghese – who received the 2023 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference WRITER IN THE WORLD prize – brings us intimately and poetically into the heart of his remarkable, inspiring journey from his childhood in Ethiopia to his experiences as a young doctor in America during the AIDS epidemic, to his beginnings a…

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Will Democracy Survive? 41:10

2+ y ago41:10

41:10

In this episode, three of our most cogent and influential writers on global affairs and history – Anne Applebaum, Robert Kagan, and Evan Osnos – discuss the geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing battle between democracy and authoritarianism, Vladimir Putin’s endgame, China’s power plays, and the future of the …

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Endangered Species: Tad Friend and the Art of Long-Form Journalism 30:17

2+ y ago30:17

30:17

Beyond the Page host John Burnham Schwartz talks with New Yorker staff writer Tad Friend, a longtime contributor to the magazine’s Letter from California and the author of two funny, poignant family memoirs, Cheerful Money and In the Early Times. In a notable testament to Friend’s curiosity, range, and talent, over the years his work has been chose…

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From Streaming Wars to Star Wars with Erich Schwartzel 34:17

2+ y ago34:17

34:17

In this episode of Beyond the Page, SVWC Literary Director John Burnham Schwartz and writer Eric Schwartzel go Hollywood. Schwartzel covers the film industry in The Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau and his first book “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy,” detailed the growing influence of China on the …

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Louise Dennys: Stories from a Publishing Legend 39:22

3y ago39:22

39:22

In this episode of Beyond the Page, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with editor and Canadian publishing titan Louise Dennys about her extraordinary career working side by side with writers including Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan… to name just a few. Dennys talks about how she got started, what it’s l…

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Aleksandra Crapanzano on Her Dual Passions For Cooking and Writing 34:15

3y ago34:15

34:15

In this episode of Beyond the Page, Anne Taylor Fleming talks with award-winning food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano about her delightful and accessible new cookbook GATEAU: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes. The author shares her memories of being a child in Paris and talks about her dual passions for cooking and writing. Aleksandra Crapanza…

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Jennifer Egan: There's No Way Out From the Collective Consciousness 35:05

3y ago35:05

35:05

Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. Over the past 25 years, SVWC has become the gold standard of American literary festivals, bringing together contemporary writing’s brightest stars for their view of the world through a literary lens. Every month, Beyond the Page curates and distills the best talks from the …

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Being American in the World We've Made: Ben Rhodes in Conversation with Ayad Akhtar 29:59

3y ago29:59

29:59

In this episode of Beyond the Page, BEN RHODES, Barack Obama’s former Deputy National Security Advisor, sits down at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright AYAD AKHTAR for a deeply informed conversation about the state of the world we are living in today, with the rise of authoritarian leaders and eth…

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Rebecca Donner on “All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” 36:23

3+ y ago36:23

36:23

In this episode of Beyond the Page, host John Burnham Schwartz talks with Rebecca Donner, winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography for “All the Frequent Troubles of our Days.” The story of Donner's great-great aunt, Mildred Harnack, who as a young midwestern grad student moved to Berlin and became one of the leaders of th…

1
The Last Days of Roger Federer – And Other Endings 37:27

3+ y ago37:27

37:27

When artists and athletes age, what happens to their work? Does it ripen or rot? As our bodies decay, how – and why – do we keep going? In this episode, John Burnham Schwartz sits down with the ever-original and wittily ironic GEOFF DYER to discuss the author's own encounter with late middle age against the backdrop of the last days and last works …

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Behind the Scenes: Programming the 2022 Sun Valley Writers' Conference 42:16

3+ y ago42:16

42:16

In this episode of Beyond the Page, we offer something fun and different, a lively conversation between SVWC Literary Director John Burnham Schwartz and Associate Director Anne Taylor Fleming about the upcoming 2022 conference. As the chief programmers, the longtime colleagues and friends will talk about some of the magical writers who are coming, …

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Susan Orlean Is a Really Serious Chicken Lady 43:22

4y ago43:22

43:22

On this episode, John Burnham Schwartz talks with SUSAN ORLEAN, whose New Yorker articles across the last 30 years, along with books such as The Orchard Thief, The Library Book, her biography of the movie star dog Rin Tin Tin, and her latest collection of pieces, On Animals, have made her one of our most beloved and distinctive writers. Learn more …

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Annette Gordon-Reed: Getting History Right 36:45

4y ago36:45

36:45

Is Thomas Jefferson to be deplored as a slave-owner who had a family with a young woman he owned or is he to be celebrated as one of the country's most essential and gifted founders? Or, should he be both--condemned and revered? That is the question Annette Gordon-Reed, the brilliant Harvard law professor, historian, and author of the Pulitzer priz…

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Tobias Wolff: The Art of the Story 33:09

4y ago33:09

33:09

In this episode of Beyond the Page, John Burnham Schwartz speaks with author TOBIAS WOLFF, renowned for his classic memoirs and short stories, for an intimate, wide-ranging conversation about life, literature, craft, and the never- ending mysteries and revelations that come from spending one’s time inhabiting the minds of others. Tobias Wolff was b…

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How Lincoln Broke the Constitution 47:57

4y ago47:57

47:57

In this episode, John Burnham Schwartz speaks with Noah Feldman, Harvard Law professor and renowned Constitutional scholar, whose groundbreaking new book, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America, takes us inside one of the more surprising realities of American History: in abolishing slavery and preserving our union,…

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Elliot Ackerman on the End of the Forever War 37:45

4y ago37:45

37:45

In this episode of Beyond the Page, acclaimed novelist, journalist, and Marine Corps veteran ELLIOT ACKERMAN talks to former CBS News Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief Christopher Isham about the United States military’s calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and what comes after. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi…