Arthur Sze Named U.S. Poet Laureate
Acting Librarian of Congress Robert Randolph Newlen today named Arthur Sze as the new U.S. poet laureate. He succeeds Ada Limón, who has held the position since 2022. The winner of…
Smaller Than a Fingernail: Unboxing the World’s Tiniest Books
Have you ever seen a book smaller than a fingernail? In this unboxing, we explore some of the tiniest books ever created — from fairy-sized poetry, religious texts and miniature…
The Written Image: Ediciones Vigía
Named after Plaza de la Vigía (Watchtower Square) in Matanzas, Cuba, Ediciones Vigía was cofounded in Matanzas in April 1985 by visual artist Rolando Estévez Jordán and poet Alfredo Zaldívar.…
Literary MagNet: Patricia Q. Bidar
In 2018, Patricia Q. Bidar, at the age of fifty-eight, published her first pieces of flash fiction. More than seven years later she has published over a hundred stories in…
Bestselling Women Writers in Japan Defy Cliché
Mieko Kawakami, Asako Yuzuki, and other novelists offer fewer cats and cafés, more cultural critique
In our Time: The Theory of the Leisure Class
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder…
HistoryExtra podcast: Untold LGBTQ stories of the National Trust
In 1895, when the National Trust was founded, homosexual acts of ‘gross indecency’ were still illegal in Britain. And yet, as Michael Hall reveals in his new book, A Queer…
HistoryExtra podcast: Going on strike in ancient Rome
Strikes and unions may seem like modern inventions, but they’ve existed for much longer than many of us realise. Historian Sarah E Bond talks to Jon Bauckham about how people…
The Secrets That Inspired Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
Actress and writer Sheila Hancock has long been fascinated by the life and works of the Brontë sisters. In this programme, she searches for an answer to a puzzling question:…
99% Invisible: The Em Dash
The strange history of a punctuation mark that makes writing feel human, and why people now think it proves the opposite.