Host Marcia Franklin interviews one of the most esteemed writers of the Vietnam War era, Tim
O'Brien. O'Brien, who served as an infantryman from 1969 to 1970, wrote a memoir in 1972 called "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home." It received excellent reviews, and in 1978, O'Brien won the National Book Award for "Going After Cacciato," a novel about a soldier who goes AWOL and the squad that tries to find him.

O'Brien's most well-known book is "The Things They Carried," a work of linked stories about soldiers in the Vietnam War, published in 1990. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, and is required reading in many high school and college classes.

Franklin talks with O'Brien about his style of writing, which often blurs fact with fiction, and about his new life as a first-time father later in life. The two also talk extensively about war in our culture, and O'Brien shares his thoughts on how he thinks Veterans Day and Memorial Day would be best observed.

O'Brien was in Boise as the keynote speaker for the Idaho Humanities Council's 2015
Distinguished Humanities Lecture.

Originally aired: 11/13/2015

Marcia Franklin talks with poet Richard Blanco, the first LatinX and gay inaugural poet. Blanco wrote a poem for President Obama's second inaugural and read it at the ceremony. He discusses the process of writing the inaugural poem, "One Today," how the piece reflected his life and his philosophy of writing, the themes of his work, and the power of poetry to change lives. Mr. Blanco was the keynote speaker at the Idaho Humanities Council's annual event in 2019.

Originally aired: 12/20/19

Journalist Louisa Thomas talks about her book Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, which examines the life and times of First Lady Louisa Catherine Adams, the wife of President John Quincy Adams and the first foreign-born First Lady of the United States. Thomas illuminates not only the life of this fascinating woman, but also the political life of America in the 1800s.

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Originally Aired: 9/1/2017

The interview is part of Dialogue's series "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference" and was taped at the 2017 conference. Since 1995, the conference has been bringing together some of the world's most well-known and illuminating authors to discuss literature and life.