Open Books on the Web

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"Hello, this is Donna Seaman welcoming you to Open Books, a show about outstanding books, remarkable writers, and the fine art of reading."

So begins each edition of Open Books, an hour-long, Chicago-based radio program. Seaman’s insightful interviews with authors can now be heard on the @ your library web site. 

Seaman says, “I speak with writers whose work I find enlightening and affecting, perhaps beautiful, funny, urgent, profound, or all of the above. Open Books is rooted in my work as a reviewer and editor for Booklist (the American Library Association’s venerable book-review journal), and my lifelong love for books. A passion shared by many. Literature is a grand, vital, and necessary conversation, and I’ve found that talking with writers deepens my appreciation for writing, reading, and books. I hope listeners have the same experience.”

Seaman’s interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books, published by Paul Dry Books (www.pauldrybooks.com). More than 30 interviews are accompanied by commentary and related reading lists.

“In The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ‘there is then creative reading as well as creative writing.’ Emerson also wrote, ‘I do not feel as if my day had substance in it, if I have read nothing.’  Reading has been my lifelong passion, and I have tried to read creatively as a reviewer, critic, and literary journalist. And I, too, feel that a day lacks "substance" if some part of it hasn't been spent reading. Reading with high curiosity and receptivity.  Books illuminate minds and worlds. Literature breaks the isolating fever of the self,” she says.

“So I read, and I write about books. Primarily for Booklist, where I'm an associate editor. I also review books for the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star, and Bookforum. I'm a book critic for Chicago Public Radio.

“I'm proud to be a recipient of the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism; the Writer Magazine Writers Who Make a Difference Award, the Literacy Chicago Literacy Hero Award, the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago’s Story Week Achievement Award, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award,” she says.

Be sure to check @yourlibrary.org in upcoming months for the debut of Donna Seaman's interview series, or sign up for our email newsletter to stay informed about all our new content.

Mark Gould, contributor to @ your library, interviews Donna Seaman about the art of interviewing authors:

MG: Why is it important for people to read books? What does such an undertaking do for the reader?

DS: As have so many others, I’ve depended on books since I was a child to reveal deep truths about the human experience. I’ve relied on writers––who tend to be keen observers and ardent researchers as well as gifted storytellers––to illuminate the great web of life, to reclaim the past, to carry me to other lands, and to place events and people and concerns in context. I believe that reading nurtures empathy, compassion, and justice. I believe that books are the foundation of civilization. Reading requires concentration, which is good for us intellectually and physiologically. Reading is communing with another. Reading stimulates our imagination and reveals the workings of the mind. Reading allows us to escape the confines of the self.

MG: Is reading now a hobby of the elite or is it a populist activity?

DS: The thought of reading becoming a hobby of the elite makes me shudder. That would be the death of democracy. Reading is and must remain a populist activity, a nurturing part of life.  And thanks to our precious public libraries, reading can be a free, lifelong pursuit.

MG: Tell us how you started interviewing authors.

DS: Once I joined the staff at Booklist, I was reading so many incredibly provocative new books, I felt the need to find more outlets for all that I was discovering. I longed to share my passion for books and curiosity about writers with the reading public, as well as with librarians. Happily, Booklist affords opportunities for interviews. I was also fortunate in being able to act on my love for radio when I volunteered to create a book show for a Chicago college station. Isn’t radio a great medium? So intimate. Good radio conversations foreground language. I’ve long been fascinated by the timbre of voices and how people express themselves out loud. The way thoughts are ordered and articulated in question-and-answer exchanges. I really had no idea what I was doing when I first came to the microphone, so I approached author interviews like conversations between people who share a common passion, even though I was, and still am, in awe over remarkable writers. 

MG: How do you select the authors?

DS: I try to speak with authors whose work I deeply respect, and who write about subjects I have some grounding in.

MG: What themes do you explore with the authors you interview?

DS: Each conversation is different, depending on the books under discussion, but I almost always spend some time asking writers if reading became a habit early on, what they read, and what books have done for them. We also talk about why they write, what aspects of life inspire the stories they tell, artistic and aesthetic matters, including struggles they may have had while working on their books, and their hopes for connecting with readers.  

MG: I noted you have edited an interview collection, Writers on the Air.  Who is included and how do you order a copy?

DS: Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books contains 32 interviews, all based on my radio show, Open Books. The collection is arranged thematically, covering such topics as “novels about real people,” “worlds in transition,” immigrant stories, creative nonfiction, and conversations with writers who write both fiction and nonfiction. The writers include Diane Ackerman, Margaret Atwood, T. C. Boyle, Chitra Divakaruni, Stuart Dybek, Edward Hirsch, Jamaica Kincaid, Barry Lopez, Anchee Min, and Sy Montgomery.   

MG: What is your full time job?

DS: I’m an associate editor for Booklist, a venerable review magazine published by the American Library Association. I help select books for review, assign books to reviewers and edit their reviews, read and review lots of books, and write features based on interviews with authors.

MG: Who are the interviewers you admire. Please don’t include Larry King!

DS: I’m a huge admirer of the late great Studs Terkel. Studs practiced listening as an art form and as a conduit for compassion. He spoke to all kinds of people, and always tapped into the most significant aspects of their lives, thoughts, and feelings. Writers adored speaking with Studs; he read their books with such high inquisitiveness and pleasure. And he always had a good time. Studs was mischievous, even when he faced the most dire, maddening, and sorrowful aspects of human existence.

On a less exalted level, I get a kick out of Susan Stamberg on National Public Radio, and I’m always very impressed with the gutsy journalists on BBC radio, who question authors with great verve and precision.

MG: How do people make suggestions to you?

DS: I receive lots and lots of emails!