The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

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The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Russell Rowland

16 episodes

3 weeks ago

Dzanc Books conducts a literary contest every year, and they publish the winner in several categories--fiction, poetry and short stories. In 2019, the winner of the Dzanc Award for fiction was a debut novel by John Englehardt called Bloomland, which is the story of a school shooting that takes place in Arkansas. The book is told from three separate points of view, including the shooter, and it's a masterwork of fine writing. I had the pleasure of talking to John about his debut novel, and the...

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Dzanc Books conducts a literary contest every year, and they publish the winner in several categories--fiction, poetry and short stories. In 2019, the winner of the Dzanc Award for fiction was a debut novel by John Englehardt called Bloomland, which is the story of a school shooting that takes place in Arkansas. The book is told from three separate points of view, including the shooter, and it's a masterwork of fine writing. I had the pleasure of talking to John about his debut novel, and the...

Show more...

Episodes (16/16)

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Seventeen - John Englehardt

Dzanc Books conducts a literary contest every year, and they publish the winner in several categories--fiction, poetry and short stories. In 2019, the winner of the Dzanc Award for fiction was a debut novel by John Englehardt called Bloomland, which is the story of a school shooting that takes place in Arkansas. The book is told from three separate points of view, including the shooter, and it's a masterwork of fine writing. I had the pleasure of talking to John about his debut novel, and the...

3 weeks ago

38 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Fifteen - What Does it Mean to Be a Man?

The big production by Pete Hegseth and our president got me thinking about a question that someone asked me at one of my recent readings for my new book, BE A MAN: Raised in the Shadow of Cowboys. And I'm pretty sure my answer to that question is much different than Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump's answer would be. Support the show

1 month ago

5 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Fourteen - Anne Millbrooke

Anne Millbrooke is a retired history professor at Montana State University in Bozeman. Earlier this year, after becoming fed up with the government budget cuts, especially to the forest service, Anne walked into a Forest Service office and volunteered to be a fire watch. At first, she was given a couple of more mundane tasks, but the Forest Service eventually gave her a chance to man one of their fire watch towers, in the Little Belt Mountains. The best part of Anne's story is that she had tr...

1 month ago

43 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Thirteen - Afabwaje Kurian

Novelist Afabwaje Kurian was born in Nigeria, raised in Maryland, and worked in the health care community for many years before she was accepted into the Iowa Writers Workshop, widely considered the best writing program in the country. While there, Afabwaje began work on the novel that would eventually become Before the Mango Ripens, which was published last year through Dzanc Books. Before the Mango Ripens was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, along with novels by Tommy Orange a...

1 month ago

39 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Twelve- Film and Television Reviews

For about two years, I've been writing film and television reviews for my substack page, and I decided to start doing an audio version of these reviews, although I'm going to try and figure out how to turn this into video eventually. For this week, I review the new Spinal Tap film, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. I also review Sirens, a series starring Julianne Moore, which I ended up liking way more than I expected. I also review Righteous Gemstones, a brilliant satire about the world of e...

1 month ago

25 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Eleven - Alex Lawson, Executive Director, Social Security Works

I met Alex Lawson at a conference in my home town of Billings in early 2024, and he’s a dynamic speaker, but more importantly a strong advocate for one of the American institutions and Trump and the Republican party have nailed a target on, which is Social Security. Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, a non-profit that has been fighting to protect not only social security, but Medicaid and Medicare as well as other government programs, for about ten years now. And he is...

1 month ago

58 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Ten - Bruce Robinson

Bruce Robinson has led an extraordinary life. As the younger brother of the lead singer for one of the most successful bands in the history of Montana, the Mission Mountain Wood Band, Bruce stepped in to perform in his brother’s place when the band reunited several years after some of the band members, including Bruce’s brother Terry, died in a plane crash in 1987. Bruce also served as the coordinator for the extras on the film Heaven’s Gate, which was shot near Bruce’s home town of Kalispell...

2 months ago

49 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Nine - Tabby Ivy and Damon Falke

In 2018, Damon Falke, a poet, novelist, and playwright who grew up in America but has lived in Norway for about 13 years, came across a painting on Facebook that drew his attention. He started to notice more pieces by the same painter, a woman named Tabby Ivy, who lived in Montana, and realized there was something about her work that resonated with him, so they started a virtual conversation that would eventually grow into a mutual admiration and finally an decision to collaborate on a book c...

3 months ago

1 hour

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Eight - Wally Kurth

Wally Kurth, who I have known since middle school, is the only actor who is currently appearing as a regular on two different soap operas, Days of our Lives, where he plays Justin Kiriakis, and General Hospital, where he has played two different characters. He’s been nominated for a daytime Emmy five times, so he’s trying to chase down Susan Lucci’s record. Wally also produced and narrated one of the most beloved documentaries ever made in Montana, Class C, which was about girl’s high school ...

4 months ago

51 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Seven - Walter Lamar

Walter Lamar was teaching shop at Browning High School when two FBI agents showed up to ask why he hadn’t completed the application he picked up from them a few months earlier. This visit changed the trajectory of Walter’s life in a big way as, over the next twenty years, he worked on such cases at the Green River Killer, The Zodiac Killer, and most importantly, the events in Waco and the Oklahoma City Bombing. But surprisingly, that was not the moment he treasures most during hi...

5 months ago

59 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Six - James Grady - Author and Screenwriter

James Grady has led a bit of a charmed life, selling his first novel, Six Days of the Condor, when he was only twenty-three, and having that book made into a film, directed by Sidney Pollack and starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. One of the things that is most appealing about Mr. Grady is that, fifty years later, he is still amazed at how a kid from a small town in Montana found himself in that situation. And it has led to a remarkable career. But five years ago, on a trip to his home ...

6 months ago

1 hour 10 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Five - Peter Riegert - Actor

Peter Riegert is known for his roles in some of the most iconic American films, such as Animal House, Crossing Delancey, The Mask, and Traffic. But my personal favorite is Local Hero, where Peter plays a young Texas oil executive who gets sent to Scotland to try and convince a small town to sell everything in order for the company to build a big industrial complex. Riegert gives a remarkable performance as he slowly falls in love with the region and the people in this tiny Scottish village. L...

7 months ago

55 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Four - Laurie Sargent - Rock Musician and founder of the Billy Conway Artist's Fund

Laurie Sargent and Billy Conway were independent rock artists who met in Boston and moved to Montana in 2009. Billy was the drummer for two successful bands, Treat Her Right and Morphine, and he had a presence that helped make everyone around him feel as if they mattered, and had something to offer. So when Billy passed away in 2021, Laurie wanted to create something that honored his memory but also provided other artists to benefit from Billy's generous spirit. So she created the Billy Conwa...

7 months ago

40 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Three - George Singleton - Southern Writer

George Singleton is a Southern author who has written eight collections of short stories two novels, a collection of essays, and an instructional book on writing fiction. Singleton graduated from Furman University with a degree in philosophy. He also holds an MFA degree from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. In 2009, Singleton was a Guggenheim fellow, and in 2013, Singleton accepted the John C. Cobb Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Wofford College, w...

8 months ago

55 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode Two - Steven Bognar, Academy Award winner for Best Feature Documentary

On February 9, 2020, Steven Bognar stood on the stage with his longtime filmmaking and life partner Julia Reichert, accepting the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary for their film, American Factory. Julia had already been going through cancer treatment for two years when that magical night arrived, and less than two years later, she was gone. Since then, Steve has been trying to gather himself, in part by working on a film about Julia, Julia’s Stepping Stones, which has just been rele...

8 months ago

1 hour 8 minutes

The Song of Rowland: American Culture at Full Volume

Episode One - Ellen Jovin and Brandt Johnson

One fall day in 2018, Ellen Jovin set up a folding table on a Manhattan sidewalk with a homemade sign that said “Grammar Table.” Right away, passersby began excitedly asking questions, telling stories, and filing complaints. What happened next is the stuff of grammar legend. Ellen and her filmmaker husband, Brandt Johnson, took the table on the road, visiting all 50 states as Brandt shot the grammar action. Out of this journey was born both a book and a docu-comedy. But this story transcends ...

9 months ago

49 minutes