Advertise on podcast: Writing Westward Podcast

A conversation with historian Michael W. Childers about their book, The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park (University of Nebraska Press, Environment and Region in the American West Series, 2026).   Michael W. Childers is Associate Professor of History at Colorado State University. He is also author of Colorado Powder Keg: Ski Resorts and the Environmental Movement (University Press of Kansas, 2012; 2nd edition, 2024). ----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 Emilie Connolly about their book, Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Disposession in the United States (Princeton University Press, 2025).    Emilie Connolly is Assistant Professor of History at Yale University. Vested Interests has been recognized with the following awards and honors: Bancroft Prize in American History James A. Rawley Award from the Organization of American Historians Stuart L. Bernath Best First Book Award from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Finalist, Hagley Prize in Business History   ----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 María E. Montoya about their book, A Workplace of Their Own: Rockefeller, Roche, and Labor's Battle Over Industrial Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2026).   María E. Montoya is Professor of History at New York University and Global Network Professor at NYU Shanghai where she recently served as Dean of Arts and Sciences.   ----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 Elsa Devienne about their book, Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles (Oxford University Press, 2024)   Elsa Devienne is Assistant Professor of History at Northumbria University.    Sand Rush was originally published in French by Éditions de la Sorbonne in 2020 as La ruée vers le sable: Une histoire environnementale des plages de Los Angeles au XXe siècle.  Along with numerous articles, Devienne is also co-editor or co-author of: Le chemin, la rive et l’usine : Faire de l’histoire environnementale avec Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud (Paris: Presses des Mines, 2023). D’Après nature: Frederick Law Olmsted et le park movement américain (Pari : Éditions Fahrenheit, 2014). Below are links to an article and two podcast episodes that Devienne mentions towards the end of this episode:  “Making Plastics Count: Citizen Science Beach Cleanups and the Ocean Plastic Pollution Crisis (1980s-2020s),” Environmental History, 30, no 4(October 2025): 646-673. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/737351 "Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Judie)," Plastisphere Podcast, 2025. https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/coastal-cleanup-judie?in=plastisphere-podcast/sets/changemakers "Early Heroines of Plastic Pollution, Part I: Meet the Women who Started the Beach Cleanups (Linda)," Plastisphere Podcast, 2025. https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/coastal-cleanup-linda?in=plastisphere-podcast/sets/changemakers  ----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 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