I’ve had the pleasure of leading a Beacon Hill Seminars Writing Workshop this autumn. Sadly it’s almost over, but I wanted to let you all know about this marvelous resource in the Beacon Hill area.
Beacon Hill Seminars is described as “a membership organization of people who have a vigorous interest in continuing their intellectual growth.” I like the use of the word vigorous.
Arianna Huffington, the author, journalist and founder of The Huffington Post, spoke with Jenny Attiyeh at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. This interview was broadcast on WNYE, a public television station in New York City.
Today she is a media mogul, one of Forbes’ 100 most influential people. But back in 1999, when I had the chance to interview her, Huffington was merely a media star. Her book Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom had recently been released, and not to universal acclaim. It’s a frolic of a book, a fanciful tale of the Clinton (Bill) White House. But I was more interested at the time in her powerful and still shocking biography of Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. Huffington, of course, could answer all my questions with ease.
This is the final interview that took place at the Fourth Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in 1999. The second interview was with KCRW’s Michael Silverblatt, and the first was with the comedian and writer Sandra Tsing Loh.
For an audio version of this interview with Arianna Huffington, click here: 
to listen.
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The comedian, writer and performer Sandra Tsing Loh speaks with Jenny Attiyeh at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books about If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now, her first novel. It tells the story of a frustrated couple, Bronwyn and Paul, who live in a shabby Los Angeles suburb, far from the Hollywood glamor they secretly long for. Dissatisfied with the fraying Bohemian chic that they used to admire, they seek status and — I’ll let Sandra take up the tale.
This interview is the first of three that took place at the Fourth Annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in 1999. The other interviews, to follow, are with KCRW’s Michael Silverblatt, the host of Bookworm, and with Arianna Huffington.
For an audio version of this interview with Sandra Tsing Loh, click here: to listen.
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Note: this story was published in High Country News, the book Beyond Words: Reading and Writing in a Visual Age, and in Archaeology Magazine.
I interviewed George W. Bush during his first New Hampshire Presidential Primary, when he was still a newcomer to the country at large, just the free and easy – and sober – Governor of Texas, the oldest son of the former President, George Herbert Walker Bush.
Here he is, “W”, buoyant, almost boyish, back in January 2000, before he was defeated in the United States’ earliest primary by John McCain on February 1st.
That was back when we too were innocent of what was to come… before this nation changed irrevocably. I asked Bush about our national interests, and when – if ever – the U.S. should intervene in foreign conflicts.
Let us know what you think of his perspective, and whether it evolved…
For an audio version of this interview, click here: to listen.
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This two hour interview with the singular artist Agnes Martin was conducted in her home in Taos, New Mexico by Jenny Attiyeh, and transcribed verbatim.
It was published in its entirety in the spring of 2001 in the Horsefly, an alternative monthly newspaper then owned by the oftentimes radical, always irrepressible journalist and editor Bill Whaley.
An ideaspace for authors, academics and intellectuals, hosted by Jenny Attiyeh.
(read on ...)
