In 2021, Andy Corren published an obituary for his late mother in The Fayetteville Observer. "A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday," he wrote. His colorful, candid remembrance went viral on Twitter, and now Corren has expanded the tribute into a memoir. Dirtbag Queen recounts the author's experience of growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with a single, Southern, unconventional mother of six children. In today's episode, Corren speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about the bowling alley that anchored the author's childhood, nights spent in the city's red-light district, and being raised in his mother's image.
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Amanda Holmes reads Stevie Smith’s “The Frog Prince.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
The most significant event in American history was undoubtedly the Civil War.
The Civil War was, of course, the result of the institution of slavery, which had existed for generations by that time. By the same token, the opposition to slavery had existed for just as long.
The opposition to slavery began amongst devoutly religious people but eventually spread into a mass social and political movement.
Learn more about the abolitionist movement, its origin, and its growth on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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With so much water in the eastern U.S., why can't the region pipe some of it to its drought-prone neighbors in the West? This perennial question nags climate journalists and western water managers alike. We break down why building a pipeline is unrealistic right now for the Colorado River.
Betty Shamieh was the first Palestinian American playwright to have a play produced off-Broadway. She describes her debut novel, Too Soon, as a "Palestinian American Sex and the City." The novel follows three Palestinian American women across generations as they navigate love and identity. In today's episode, Shamieh speaks with NPR's Pien Huang about using comedy as a way to humanize characters who may be dehumanized in the real world, the 10 year writing process for the book, and how she didn't necessarily want to write it, but she knew she had to.
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The United States consists of 50 states, each of which is represented by a star on the American flag.
Most of those states consist of some section of North America divided by lines on a map that separate them from other states, Canada, or Mexico.
But there is one state that is not like the others. It isn’t located in North America. It doesn’t have a land border with anything, and its route to statehood was unlike that of any other state in the union.
Learn more about the long and controversial way Hawaii became a state on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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New users that sign up for ButcherBox will receive 2 lbs of grass-fed ground beef in every box for the lifetime of their subscription + $20 off your first box when you use code daily at checkout!