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This collection includes compelling conversations between acclaimed writer Walker and other significant literary and cultural figures, including Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, and Pema Chodron. Noted scholar Byrd sets Walker's work into context with an introductory essay.
List of contents
Alice Walker: Interview with John O'Brien from Interviews With Black Writers (1973) [on her early writing career and inspirations]
Alice Walker: Interview with Claudia Tate from Black Women Writers At Work (1983) [on being part of the emerging coterie of black women writers in the 1970s - with Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, etc.]
Alice Walker: "Moving Towards Coexistence," Interview with Ellen Bring from The Animal's Agenda (1988) [on her animal rights activism and its importance to her world view and writing]
Alice Walker: "Writing to Save My Life," Interview with Claudia Dreifus from The Progressive (1989) [on politics and fiction writing]
Alice Walker's Appeal: An Interview with Paula Giddings from Essence (1992)
Alice Walker, Jean Shinoda Bolen and Isabel Allende, "Giving Birth, Finding Form: Where Our Books Come From," from Creative Conversations Series (1993) [on the feminist inspirations for her writing]
Alice Walker with Jody Hoy, "The Richness of Ordinary Stuff," (1994) [on her personal philosophy]
Alice Walker: "My Life As Myself," A Conversation with Tammy Simon from Sounds True Recordings (1995)
Alice Walker: "The World Is Made of Stories," A Conversation with Justine Toms and Michael Toms from New Dimensions Tapes (1996)
Alice Walker: "On Finding Your Bliss," Interview by Evelyn White from Ms. (1998)
Alice Walker and Pema Chodron In Conversation: "On the Meaning of Suffering and the Mystery of Joy" from Sounds True (1998) [on the importance of Buddhisim to her work and writing]
Alice Walker: "I know what the earth says," Interview with William R. Ferris from Southern Cultures (2004) [on being a black female writer from the South]
Alice Walker and Margo Jefferson: A Conversation from LIVE FROM THE NYPL (2005) [on her success with the Color Purple, being a celebrity]
Alice Walker: Outlaw, Renegade, Rebel, Pagan by Amy Goodman from Democracy Now (March 2006)[on her politics and activism]
Alice Walker on Fidel Castro with George Galloway from The Fidel Castro Handbook (November 2006) [on why she supports Castro]
Conversation with Alice Walker by Marrianne Schnall from feminist.com (December 2006)
Conversation with Howard Zinn at City Lights Bookstore [date?] [on her Mississippi years, experiences with Zinn as a student, role of the civil rights movement in her work]
About the author
Alice Walker is one of the most prolific writers of our time, known for her literary fiction, including the Pultizer Prize-winning The Color Purple, her many volumes of poetry, and her powerful nonfiction collections. Her advocacy for the dispossessed has spanned the globe. She lives in Northern California.
Rudolph P. Byrd is a professor of American studies and the founding director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University. His books include The Essential Writings of James Weldon Johnson and Charles Johnson's Novels: Writing the American Palimpsest. He played an instrumental role in Emory's acquisition of the papers of Georgia native Alice Walker in 2008-2009 and is the founding co-chair of the Alice Walker Literary Society.
