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 Assoc...

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 Studie...

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.   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, ...

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 Ameri...

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 a...

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...

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 Te...

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 La...

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) J...

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, 202...

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 profe...

Conversations with writers and scholars of the North American West, hosted and produced by Prof. Brenden W. Rensink for the BYU Charles Redd Center for Western Studies