Tom Williams

3 weeks ago | upr.org | Kerry Bringhurst |Tom Williams

Dear listeners and readers,We promised to monitor developments that could impact funding that local stations like Utah Public Radio use to access and share national and international news programs you depend on daily. On Tuesday, Congress was asked by the White House to revoke already-approved funds for public media programming, including grant funding that UPR is scheduled to receive.

3 weeks ago | upr.org | Tom Williams

Salt Lake Tribune reporters Robert Gehrke and Paighten Harkins, along with UPR/Tribune reporter Clarissa Casper join this week to talk about the latest news, including improvements at Utah Lake, Gov. Spencer Cox's new pick for records office, and more. Every Friday at 9:00 a.m., stream "Behind the Headlines" at upr.org or tune in to Utah Public Radio for the broadcast. Join the live conversation this week by email to [email protected] or Twitter @upraccess.

3 weeks ago | upr.org | Tom Williams

On this episode we talk with Freeman Ng, author of "Bridge Across The Sky," a young adult novel in verse based on the Chinese immigration experience through Angel Island in the early 1900s. He says that in his bookstore appearances and school visits with the book, he’s been surprised at how unfamiliar people are with the basic story of Angel Island, and he feels more duty-bound than ever to tell it, especially in these days of heightened xenophobia.

3 weeks ago | upr.org | Tom Williams

The “Wild West” gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it all as a corny myth, more a product of dime novels and B movies than a genuinely important American history. In fact, as Bryan Burrough shows us in his new book "The Gunfighters," there’s much more below the surface. For three decades at the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history.

3 weeks ago | upr.org | Tom Williams

Laura Tohe is a poet, writer, librettist, scholar of Indigenous American Literature, and former Navajo Nation Poet Laureate. She holds a doctorate degree in creative writing, Indigenous American literature, and American literature and is professor emerita at Arizona State University. Her books include "No Parole Today," about her experiences in a boarding school, and "Code Talker Stories," an oral history book with the remaining Navajo Code Talkers.