Writing Westward Podcast

A conversation with journalist Jonathan Bach their book, "High Desert, Higher Costs: Bend and the Housing Crisis in the American West" (Oregon State University Press, 2025).   Jonathan Bach is a journalist and staff reporter covering housing and commercial real estate for The Oregonian/OregonLive.com.   ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian David-James Gonzales about their book, Breaking Down the Walls of Segregation: Mexican American Grassroots Politics and Civil Rights in Orange Country, California (Oxford University Press, 2025).   David-James Gonzales is Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He holds a BA in History from the University of California - San Diego, and n M.A. and Ph.D in History from the University of Southern California.    ----more---- The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with author George Frazier about their book "Riverine Dreams: Away to the Glorious and Forgotten Grassland Rivers of America" (University of Chicago Press, 2025).   George Frazier is Assistant Professor of Computer Information Science at Washburn University in Topeka Kansas. His previous book, The Last Wild Places of Kansas: Journeys into Hidden Landscapes (University of Kansas Press, 2017) won the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award from the Kansas Authors Club, the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History from the Midwestern History Association, a Midwest Book Award from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, and was named a Kansas Notable Book by the State Library of Kansas' Center for the Book.     ----more---- The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with literary scholar Sara Gallagher about their book Black Wests: Reshaping Race and Place in Popular Culture (University of Oklahoma Press, 2025)   Sara Gallagher is Professor of Liberal Studies at Durham College in Ontario, Canada.   ----more---- The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook or Bluesky, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Martha A. Sandweiss about their book The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West (Princeton University Press, 2025).   Martha A. Sandweiss is Professor Emerita of History from Princeton University. A historian of the American West and photography in particular, Sandweiss is the recipient of innumerable awards and honors, served as President of the Society of American Historians and Western History Association, and was the founder of the Princeton and Slavery Project. In addition to an extensive record of articles, chapters, and sundry other publications, she is author or editor of 13 books, including: Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Penguin Press, 2009) Print the Legend: Photography and the American West (Yale University Press, 2002) The Oxford History of the American West (Oxford University Press, 1994) Photography in Nineteenth-Century America (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991) Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989) Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace (Amon Carter Museum, 1986) ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with Neil Mathison about their book Airstream Country: A Geologic Journey Across the American West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025)   Neil Mathison is an award-winning author based out of the Pacific Northwest. In addition to essays published in a wide variety of outlets, he is the author of two books:  Volcano: an A to Z and Other Essays About Geology, Geography, and Geo-Travel in the American West (Bauhan Publishing, 2017) Airstream Country: A Geologic Journey Across the American West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025) ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with Mark Sundeen about their book Delusions + Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025)   Mark Sundeen is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. In addition articles for The New York Times Magazine, Outside Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, McSweeney's, and other outlets, Sundeen is the author of 5 books. Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures (Quill HarperCollins, 2000) The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts, and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves (Simon & Schuster, 2003) The Man Who Quit Money (Riverhead Books, 2012) The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America (Riverhead Books, 2018) Delusions + Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West (University of New Mexico Press, 2025) ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with Ernesto Sagas about their book Latino Colorado: The Struggle for Equality in the Centennial State (University Press of Colorado, 2025)   Ernesto Sagás is Professor of Ethnic Studies at Colorado State University. He is the author of an enormous body of scholarship, including articles and book chapters in a variety of disciplines, and 5 books:   Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic. University Press of Florida, 2000. The Dominican People: A Documentary History. Co-edited with Orlando Inoa. Markus Wiener Publishers, 2003. Dominican Migration: Transnational Perspectives. Co-edited with Sintia E. Molina. University Press of Florida, 2004. Dominican Politics in the Twenty First Century: Continuity and Change. Co-edited with Jacqueline Jiménez Polanco. Routledge, 2023 Latino Colorado: The Struggle for Equality in the Centennial State. University Press of Colorado, 2025.   ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Adam M. Sowards about their weekly Taking Bearing essays series,  "Being Historically Faithful in Public" article, and broader work in public writing. Dr. Adam Sowards is an environmental historian and writer, specializing in public lands and conservation in the US West especially the Pacific Northwest. Much of his public writings can be accessed at adamsowards.net. Dr. Sowards earned his Ph.D. in History from Arizona State University and was professor of history from the University of Idaho 2003-2022. He is now retired with emeritus status and working as a freelance writer. His published books include the following (links to purchase here): Making America’s Public Lands: The Contested History of Conservation on Federal Lands. American Ways series, ed. John David Smith. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. An Open Pit Visible from the Moon: The Wilderness Act and the Fight to Protect Miners Ridge and the Public Interest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020. Editor. Idaho’s Place: A New History of the Gem State. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014. The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2009 United States West Coast: An Environmental History. Nature and Human Societies Series, ed. Mark Stoll. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007. ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Robert Sullivan about their book Double Exposure: Resurveying the West with Timothy O'Sullivan, America's Most Mysterious War Photographer   (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)   Robert Sullivan is a writer and journalist who has written for The New Yorker, New York Times, Vogue, and A Public Space, among other outlets. He is a New York Times bestselling author multiple times over, with titles including:  The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures at the Edge of a City (Knopf Doubleday, 1999) A Whale Hunt: How a Native-American Village Did What No One Thought It Could (Scribner, 2002) Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants (Bloomsbury, 2005) How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn't So Bad (Bloomsbury, 2005) Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark (Bloomsbury, 2006) The Thoreau You Don't Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant (Harper Perennial, 2009) My American Revolution: A Modern Expedition Through History's Forgotten Battlegrounds (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) ----more----   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Jason Heppler about their book Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism   (University of Oklahoma Press, Environment in Modern North America Series, 2024)     Dr. Jason A. Heppler is a historian and digital historian, currently working as Senior Developer at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media and an adjunct professor of history at George Mason University. He earned a BA in history from South Dakota State University and an MA and PhD in history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to his current positions at George Mason he held posts at Stanford University's Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, Dept. of History, and Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Sustainability program, Libraries, and history department. He co-edited a 2020 University of Cincinnati Press volume with Rebecca Wingo, Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy, which won the 2021 National Council on Public History Book Award. His first monograph, which we talk about today, Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism (University of Oklahoma Press, Volume 9 in the Environment in Modern North America Series, 2024).   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.  Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com  

A conversation with historian Coll Thrush about their book Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific (University of Washington Press, 2025) Coll Thrush is Professor of History and associate faculty in Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia. He earned a B.A. from Fairhaven College at Western Washington University and PhD in History from the University of Washington. His first book, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place (University of Washington Press, Weyerhauser Environmental Book Series, 2007) won the 2007 Washington State Book Award and came out in a 2nd edition in 2017. In 2011 Thrush and Colleen E. Boyd co-edited Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History (University of Nebraska Press, 2011). His next monograph was Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire (Yale University Press, Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity, 2016). Just last week, he published his new book Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific (University of Washington Press, Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography, 2025).   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or X/Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org.   Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with scholar William Grady about their book Redrawing the Western: A History of American Comics and the Mythic West (University of Texas Press, 2024) Dr. William Grady is an independent scholar and library based in the United Kingdom in Manchester. He earned a PhD in English from the University of Dundee and a masters of research and bachelors of arts in film and media studies from Manchester Metropolitan University. He held a post-doctoral research post at the University of the Arts in London, and has taught courses on comics, media theory, and film history at the University of Dundee and Manchester Metropolitan University, where he now works as a collections librarian.     The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with urban planner and architectural historian James Michael Buckley about their book City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry (University of Texas Press, 2024)   James Michael Buckley is an urban planner, recently retired from the University of Oregon where he was an associate professor and venerable chair in historic preservation, and the director of the historic preservation program in the School of Architecture and Environment. Previously, he held teaching positions at MIT, San Francisco State University, and the University of California Berkley, where he earned an MA in city and regional planning and a PhD in architecture. He also holds a BA in Art History and American Studies from Yale University.     The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Amanda Van Lanen about their book The Washington Apple: Orchards and the Development of Industrial Agriculture (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022).   Amanda L. Van Lanen is Professor of History and Humanities Division Chair at Lewis-Clark State College. A historian of the American West, agriculture, and the environment, you can follow her regular blog posting about "cookbooks, stories, and recipes from the back of the fridge," at https://historyreheated.com/.     The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter, or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian John William Nelson about their book, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) John William Nelson is assistant professor of history at Texas Tech University, where he teaches courses on Colonial America, the American West, the Atlantic World, and Native American history. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Notre Dame. In addition to a couple book chapters in Routeledge anthologies, Nelson published award-winning articles in the Michigan Historical Review in 2019 and William and Mary Quarterly in 2021. His 2023 book that we discuss today, Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago's Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent (University of North Carolina Press, David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History Series, 2023). It won the 2024 W. Turrentine-Jackson Prize (Western History Association), 2024 Superior Achievement Award (Illinois State Historical Society), an Honorable Mention for the 2024 Jon Gjerde Book Award (Midwestern History Association), and was a Shortlist Award Recipient for the 2024 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award (The Newberry Library).     The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms.   Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky, or Twitter/X, or get more information @ https://reddcenter.byu.edu and https://www.writingwestward.org.   Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with journalist, author, and poet Samuel Western about his book, The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the High Plains and Northern Rockies (University Press of Kansas, 2024)   Samuel Western is a prolific journalist and writer of the American West. In addition to having taught various courses on Wyoming history and culture at the University of Wyoming in past years, he was a correspondent for the Economist for over 30 years, published in the Wall Street Journal, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, High Country News, Montana: the Magazine of Western History, and other outlets. Western won two Wyoming Literary Fellowships, once for poetry and once for fiction, and is the author of the book Pushed Off The Mountain, Sold Down the River; Wyoming’s Search For Its Soul (Homestead Publishing, 2002), the prose poetry collection A Random Census of Souls (Daniel & Daniel Publishers, 2015), which was finalist for best poetry book 2010 by the High Plains Book Awards, the novel Canyons (Daniel & Daniel Publishers, 2015), which was also published in French in 2017, and most recently, the book The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the Great Plains and Northern Rockies (University Press of Kansas, 2024).   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University and hosted by. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky or Twitter/X or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian James Tejani about their book A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles—and America (W. W. Norton, 2024) James Tejani is associate professor of history at California Polytechnic State University. He holds a BAs in history and political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. His first book, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles—and America (W. W. Norton, 2024). A decade ago he published two articles from this project, both of which won awards. His Southern California Quarterly article, “Dredging the Future: The Destruction of Coastal Estuaries and the Creation of Metropolitan Los Angeles, 1858-1913,” won the Doyce B. Nunis Jr. Award from the Historical Society of Southern California and the Ray Allen Billington Prize from the Western History Association, and his Western Historical Quarterly article, “Harbor Lines: Connecting the Histories of Borderlands and Pacific Imperialism in the Making of the Port of Los Angeles, 1858-1908,” earned an honorable mention for the Alice Hamilton Prize from the American Society for Environmental History.   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University (reddcenter.byu.edu). Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky or Twitter/X or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Holly Miowak Guise about her book, Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II (University of Washington Press, Indigenous Confluences Series, 2024).   Dr. Guise is Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Mexico and holds a BA in Native American Studies from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in History from Yale University. She is the author of multiple books chapters and a 2022 article in the WHQ, “Who is Doctor Bauer?: Rematriating a Censored Story on Internment, Wardship, and Sexual Violence in Wartime Alaska, 1941-1944, " which won the Western History Association's Arrell M. Gibson Award for the best essay of the year on the history of Native Americans, Jensen-Miller Award for the best article in the field of women and gender in the North American West, Vicki L. Ruiz Award for best article on race in the North American West, and Oscar O. Winther Award for best article published in the Western Historical Quarterly (2023), and the Western Association of Women Historians Judith Lee Ridge Prize for best article in the field of history (2024). In 2022 she received both an American Council of Learned Societies and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to aid in her research that culminated in her book. Check out the book's companion website, ww2alaska.com to sample some of the oral history interviews that formed a foundation for her work.   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook, Bluesky or Twitter/X or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with historian Brent M. Rogers their book Buffalo Bill and the Mormons (Bison Books / University of Nebraska Press, 2024). Brent M. Rogers is the Managing Historian of the LDS Church History Department in Salt Lake City. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, an M.A. in Public History from the California State University - Sacramento, and BA in history from San Diego State University. One of his first publications, a 2014 Utah Historical Quarterly article on Mormons and Federal Indian Policy won the WHA's Arrington-Prucha Prize for the Best Article on the History of Religion in the West. His first book, Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory (NU 2017) won the 2018 Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association, 2018 Francis Armstrong Madsen Best Book Award from the Utah State Historical Society, and the Charles Redd Center Phi Alpha Theta Book Award for the Best Book on the American West. He has authored and edited numerous other pieces, book chapters, and volumes, and is an editor on 6 volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers, many of which have also won awards.   The Writing Westward Podcast is produced and hosted by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink (https://www.bwrensink.org) for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University (reddcenter.byu.edu). Subscribe to the Writing Westward Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and other podcast distribution apps and platforms. Follow the BYU Redd Center and the Writing Westward Podcast on Facebook or Twitter or get more information @ https://www.writingwestward.org. Theme music by Micah Dahl Anderson @ www.micahdahlanderson.com

A conversation with journalist and author Zak Podmore about their book, Life After Dead Pool: Lake Powell's Last Days and the Rebirth of the Colorado River (Torrey House Press, 2024). In addition to stories for the Salt Lake Tribune, Podmore also published Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West (Torrey House Press, 2019). Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with poet and author Julie Carr about their book, Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). Julie Carr is Professor of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Chair of the Department of Women and Gender Studies. Her training and degrees from Barnard College, NYU, and the University of California, Berkeley are in creative writing, poetry, and English. She is the author of 16 books, many of which have won awards and honors. She has also published extensively in journals, poetry collections, popular outlets like The New Republic, High Country News, The Nation, and others. She has traveled extensively to give readings, is involved in multi-media projects, and is co-host and co-creator of the brand new podcast, Return the Key: Jewish Questions for Everyone.  ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with journalist Lyndsie Bourgon about her book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods (Little, Brown Spark, 2022). Lyndsie Bourgon is a journalist, author, oral historian, fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and National Geographic Explorer. Her work intersects the environment, history, culture, identity, and more and has appeared in venues such as National Geographic Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Maisonneuve, Hazlitt, The Atlantic, The Walrus, The Guardian, and others. Many of those pieces were winners of or finalists for awards and honors. Her book, Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America's Woods (Little, Brown Spark, 2022) has received considerable positive press and the following honors: Long-listed: The PEN America/Kenneth R. Galbraith Award for Non-fiction Short-listed: The Columbia University/Nieman Foundation J. Anthony Lukas Award Finalist: The 2022 Banff Mountain Book Competition Environmental Literature Award Honourable Mention: The Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award Finalist: The BC and Yukon Book Prizes, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Award ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with geographer Andrew Curley about his book, Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation (University of Arizona Press, 2023). Andrew Curley is a member of the Navajo Nation and an Assistant Professor in the School of Geography, Development and Environment at the University of Arizona. His book, Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2023. He holds a B.A. in sociology from Suffolk University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University. Before joining the faculty at the University of Arizona, he held a postdoctoral research fellowship and was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with historian Peter Boag about their book Pioneering Death: The Violence of Boyhood in Turn-of-the-Century Oregon (University of Washington Press, 2022). Peter Boag is Professor and Columbia Chair in the History of the American West at Washington State University. He is a historian of gender, sexuality, the environment, and culture in the American West and the Pacific Northwest. Along with countless articles, essays, and chapters, he is the author of four monographs:  Environment and Experience: Settlement Culture in Nineteenth-Century Oregon (University of California Press, 1992), Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest (University of California Press, 2003), Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past (University of California Press, 2011), and Pioneering Death: The Violence of Boyhood in Turn-of-the-Century Oregon (University of Washington Press, 2022). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with cartoonist Navied Mahdavian about his graphic novel memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America (Princeton Architectural Press, 2023). Navied Mahdavian is is a cartoonist and writer whose work has appeared in the New Yorker since 2018. You may have also seen his work in Readers Digest, Wired, and elsewhere. Find him at @naviedm on Instagram, on his substack ToonStack, or his at https://www.naviedm.com/. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with historian Natalia Molina about their book A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022). Natalia Molina is Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and Dean's Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. In 2020 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. Her most recent book, A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community (University of California Press, 2022). It will be released in paperback in early 2024 and a 30% discount code will be included in a forthcoming edition of Molina's newsletter. Subscribe at https://nataliamolinaphd.com/. The book has received the following accolades: Armitage-Jameson Prize 2023, Coalition for Western Women’s History David J. Weber Prize 2023, Western History Association John G. Cawelti Best Book Award 2023, Popular Culture Association Emily Toth Award (Best Single Work) Honorable Mention, Popular Culture Association James Beard Award (Reference, History, and Scholarship) Finalist 2023, James Beard Foundation PROSE Award North American & US History Finalist 2023, Association of American University Presses Porchlight Business Book Awards (Narrative & Biography) Longlist 2022, Porchlight Book Company   Prior to this, Molina was the author of the award-winning books Fit to Be Citizens? Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879–1939 (University of California Press, 2006), How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts (University of California Press, 2014), and coeditor of Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method, and Practice (University of California Press, 2019). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.

A conversation with Sarah Keyes about their book American Burial Ground: A New history of the Overland Trail (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). Sarah Keyes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno. She earned her PhD from the University of Southern California and studies the intercultural relations between Indigenous and Euro-American peoples. After securing publications of articles in field-defining outlets like the Journal of American History and the Western Historical Quarterly, she published her first book, which we discuss today, American Burial Ground: A New history of the Overland Trail (University of Pennsylvania Press, America in the Nineteenth Century Series, 2023). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Heather Hansman about their book Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and The Future of Chasing Snow (Hanover Square Press, 2021). Heather Hansman is the author of Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and The Future of Chasing Snow (Hanover Square Press, 2021, paperback, 2023), and Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West. She's a contributing editor at Outside magazine, and an award-winning journalist whose work appears in places like the Atlantic and the New York Times. She lives in Durango, Colorado, where she's working on her next book, Fierce Country, which is about underrepresented women in the outdoors.  ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with historian Molly P. Rozum about their new book, Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (University of Nebraska Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2021). Molly P. Rozum is associate professor of history and the Ronald M. Nelson Distinguished Professor and Chair of Great Plains and South Dakota History at the University of South Dakota. She holds degrees in American Studies, Folklore, and History. She is editor, co-editor, and author of multiple books and articles on Plains history. Her most recent book is Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies (University of Nebraska Press & University of Manitoba Press, 2021).  ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with literary scholar Michael K. Johnson about their book, Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).    Michael K. Johnson is Professor of American literature at the University of Maine at Farmington. His primary research areas are African American Literature and the literature and culture of the American West. Johnson's other works include: Black Masculinity and the Frontier Myth in American Literature (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002) Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos: Conceptions of the African American West (University Press of Mississippi, 2015) Can’t Stand Still: Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance (University Press of Mississippi, 2019) Weird Westerns: Race, Gender, Genre (University of Nebraska Press, 2020) A Black Woman’s West: The Life of Rose B. Gordon (Montana Historical Society Press, 2022) ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with geoscientist Ellen Wohl about their books, Something Hidden in the Ranges: The Secret Life of Mountain Ecosystems and Dead Wood: The Afterlife of Trees (Oregon State University Press, 2021 and 2022).   Dr. Ellen Wohl is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Colorado State University.    Selected additional titles by Wohl include: Rain Forest Into Desert: Adventures in Australia's Tropical North (University of Colorado Press, 1994) Inland flood hazards: Human, Riparian, and Aquatic Communities (Cambridge University Press, 2000) Virtual Rivers: Lessons from the Mountain Rivers of the Colorado Front Range (Yale University Press, 2001) Island of Grass (University of Colorado Press, 2009) Of Rocks and Rivers: Seeking a Sense of Place in the American West (University of California Press, 2009) Mountain Rivers Revisited (American Geophysical Union, 2010) A World of Rivers: Environmental Change on Ten of the World's Great Rivers (University of Chicago Press, 2011) Disconnected Rivers: Linking Rivers to Landscapes (Yale University Press, 2012) Wide Rivers Crossed: The South Platte and the Illinois of the American Prairie (University of Colorado Press, 2013) Rivers in the Landscape: Science and Management (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) Transient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing Planet (University of Colorado Press, 2015) Rhythms of Change in Rocky Mountain National Park (University of Kansas Press, 2016) Saving the Dammed: Why We Need Beaver-Modified Ecosystems (Oxford University Press, 2019) ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Andrea Geiger about their new book, Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).   Andrea Geiger is professor emerita of history from Simon Frasier University in British Columbia. With an international childhood spent in Japan, the Netherlands, India, and elsewhere, she had a successful first career as an attorney, culminating with a position representing the Confederated Tribes of the Coleville Reservation in NE Washington State. Inspired by her upbringing, she then earned a PhD in history from UW. Her first book, Subverting Exclusion Transpacific Encounters with Race, Caste, and Borders, 1885-1928 (Yale University Press, 2011). Today we talk about her recent and second book, Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Melissa L. Sevigny about their book Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon (W. W. Norton, 2023).   Melissa L. Sevigny is a science journalist at the Arizona Public Radio station KNAU in Flagstaff. Her writing intersects science, nature, and history, with a focus on the American southwest. She earned a BS in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of Arizona and an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. In her new book, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon (W.W. Norton, 2023), Sevigny relates the story of two remarkable scientists who took part in a successful rafting expedition through the Grand Canyon to study its botany. Their pioneering botanical discoveries were historic but the media at the time focuses primarily on a different historic aspect of their trip - they were the first two women to successfully raft the oft-treacherous waters.   Along with numerous shorter pieces of writing and journalism, Sevigny has published two other books: Under Desert Skies: How Tucson Mapped the Way to the Moon and Planets (University of Arizona Press, 2016) and Mythical River: Chasing the Mirage of New Water in the American Southwest (University Iowa Press, 2016). The latter of the two was honored with multiple awards. Her shorter-form writings and journalism have also received awards and honors. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Bryce Andrews about their book, Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West (Mariner Books, Harper Collins imprint, 2023).   Bryce Andrews is an award-winning author originally from Seattle but who has spent the majority of his adult life as a rancher and farmer in western Montana. His first book, Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West (Atria Books, Simon & Schuster imprint, 2014) won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Reading the West Book Award for nonfiction, and the High Plains Book Award for both nonfiction and debut book. His second book, Down from the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear (Mariner Books, Harper Collins imprint, 2020) won the Banff Mountain Book Competition, and was a Montana Book Award honor Title and the Amazon Best Science title of 2019. Andrews' new book is Holding Fire: A Reckoning with the American West (Mariner Books, Harper Collins imprint, 2023). Learn more about Andrews at his website https://www.bryceandrews.com. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Craig Childs about their book, Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau (Torrey House Press, 2022).   Craig Childs is a multiple-award winning author with more than a dozen books (and countless shorter pieces) on outdoor adventures, wilderness, and science to his name. You can find information on his other books and writings at his website, www.houseofrain.com.   ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Anne F. Hyde about her book, Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West (W. W. Norton, 2022).   Anne Hyde is Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and Editor-in-Chief of the Western Historical Quarterly.   Some of her other publications include: The West in the History of the Nation, vols 1 & 2, co-edited with William F. Deverell (Bedfords/St. Martins, 2020) Shaped by the West: A history of North America, vols. 1 & 2, co-edited with William F. Deverell (University of California Press, 2018) Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West, 1800-1860 (University of Nebraska Press, 2012) An American Vision: Far Western Landscape and American Culture, 1820-1920 (New York University Press, 1990) ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Timothy Paul Bowman about his book You Will Never be One of Us: A Teacher, A Texas Town, and the Rural Roots of Radical Conservatism (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022).   Timothy Paul Bowman is Associate Professor History and Chair of the Department of History at West Texas A&M University where has also helped adminsiter the Center for the Study of the American West. Bowman earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University in 2002, a masters degree from the University of Texas – Arlington in 2005, and a Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University in 2011. In 2016 he published Blood Oranges: Agriculture and Racial Difference in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1900-1975 (Texas A&M University Press). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Prof. Alaina E. Roberts about her book, I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021).   Alaina E. Roberts is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, where she studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to the modern day. Dr. Roberts is the author of I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), which was awarded the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize from the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska, the John Ewers Award for the Best Book on North American Indian Ethnohistory and W. Turrentine-Jackson Award for the Best First Book from the Western History Association, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, in the Historical Era category, granted by the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage, and was a finalist the L.A. Times Book Prizes in the History Category and the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, granted by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Gettysburg College. Dr. Roberts has written multiple academic essays as well as op-eds and profiles for the Washington Post, TIME magazine, and High Country News. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Prof. Cameron Blevins about his recent book, Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West (Oxford University Press, 2021), and his associated digital history and mapping website, Gossamer Network.   Cameron Blevins is associate professor in the History Department at the University of Colorado Denver. He is a historian and a leader in the growing field of digital history. In his recent book, Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. The book is accompanied by a website, Gossamer Network, where you can view maps and data visualizations relevant to the project, like the one seen below. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with historian Kevin Waite about his award-winning book, West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire (University of North Carolina Press, 2021).   Kevin Waite is an assistant professor of history at Durham University in the United Kingdom. His 2021 book, West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire won the 2022 Wiley-Silver Prize from the Center for Civil War Research and was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize  from the Gilder Lerhman Institute of American History. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Josh Garrett-Davis about his essay collection, What is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019).   Josh Garrett-Davis is the Gamble Associate Curator at the Autry Museum of the American West, author of multiple books and many public-facing shorter articles and pieces. He collected some of these, and penned a number more, for his richly illustrated essay collection, What is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Robert Chaney about is book, The Grizzly in the Driveway: The Return of Bears to a Crowded American West (University of Washington Press, 2020).   Robert Chaney is a journalist based in Montana and the managing editor of one of the region’s major newspapers, The Missoulian. Much of his work in the past decades has focused on the environment and the thorny issues of managing our public lands and resources in the West. In his new book, The Grizzly in the Driveway: The Return of Bears to a Crowded American West (University of Washington Press, 2020)., Chaney traces the recent history of Grizzly Bear reintroductions to different regions in the Northern Rockies, the complicated intersecting issues of the ACTUAL role they play in their ecosystems, and the fears we have about them, imagined malicious personalities we project on them, and resulting politics that often overshadow science in policy-making concerning their management. As an apex predator of immense size and with immense destructive and deadly capacities, Grizzly Bear encounters are not something to be taken lightly. However, as Chaney illustrates from various angles, successful balancing of ecological needs and human activities in the Mountain West must be driven by more than our fear of them. With more and more people venturing into Grizzly habitats for recreation, work, or residence, these are issues that must be weighed carefully. Chaney helps us start a number of these crucial conversations. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with historian Christian S. Harrison about his book, All the Water the Law Allows: Las Vegas and Colorado River Politics (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021).   Christian S. Harrison is an environmental historian in Nevada. He hold a PhD in History from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, teaches government at Coronado High School in Henderson, NV, and is a board member of the nonprofit Preserve Nevada, where he works to engage public school teachers in historic preservation efforts throughout the state. His book that we discuss today, All the Water the Law Allows: Las Vegas and Colorado River Politics, was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2021 in their "The Environment in Modern North America Series." ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with historian Jon T. Coleman about his book, Nature Shock: Getting Lost in America (Yale University Press, 2020).   Jon T. Coleman is the Andrew V. Tackes College Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He his author of three books, the multiple-award winning Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (Yale University Press, 2004), Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation (Hill & Wang, 2012), and Nature Shock: Getting Lost in America (Yale University Press, 2020). ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Corinna Cook about her collection, Leavetakings: Essays (University of Alaska Press, 2020).   Corinna Cook is a former Fulbright Fellow, an Alaska Literary Award recipient, and a Rasmuson Foundation awardee. She has a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. Her collection of essays, Leavetakings: Essays, was published in 2020 by the University of Alaska Press in their Alaska Literary Series. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University.  

A conversation with Sarah Deutsch about her book, Making a Modern U.S. West: The Contested Terrain of a Region and its Borders, 1898-1940 (University of Nebraska Press, 2022).   Sarah Deutsch is a professor of history at Duke University. Her book, Making a Modern U.S. West: The Contested Terrain of a Region and its Borders, 1898-1940, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2022 in the "History of the American West Series." Deutsch is also the author of Women and the City: Gender, Space and Power in Boston, 1870-1940 (Oxford University Press, 2000), From Ballots to Breadlines: American Women, 1920-1940 (Oxford University Press, 1994), and No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (Oxford University Press, 1987).   ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Sara Humphreys about her book, Manifest Destiny 2.0: Genre Trouble in Game Worlds (University of Nebraska Press, 2021).   Dr. Sara Humphreys is an assistant teaching professor of English at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She holds a BA at Nipissing University in English, my MA at the University of Toronto in English, and my PhD at the University of Waterloo in English Language and Literature. Her most recent book, Manifest Destiny 2.0: Genre Trouble in Game Worlds was published by the University of Nebraska Press in the Postwestern Horizons Series in 2021.   ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with James McGrath Morris about his new biography, Tony Hillerman: A Life (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021).   James McGrath Morris is a biographer and writer of narrative non-fiction. His biographies have been more than well-received, boasting a New York Times best-seller, winner of the Benjamin Hooks National Book Prize, and titles that the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post listed among the best books and biographies of the year. Today we talk about his most recent biography, Tony Hillerman: A Life, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2021. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.  

A conversation with Ryanne Pilgeram about her new book, Pushed Out: Contested Development and Rural Gentrification in the US West, published by the University of Washington Press in 2021.   Ryanne Pilgeram is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Idaho. ----more----  Podcast Notes: Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.