Isabel Allende - Isabel Allende was born in Peru, and now lives in California. She worked for many years as a journalist before writing the internationally bestselling novel The House of the Spirits. Since then she has published the equally highly-acclaimed Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, The Stories of Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan and Paula.
Michael Krasny - Michael Krasny, Ph.D., is host of KQED's award-winning Forum, a news and public affairs program that concentrates on the arts, culture, health, business and technology.
Before coming to KQED Public Radio in 1993, Dr. Krasny hosted a night-time talk program for KGO Radio and co-anchored the weekly KGO television show Nightfocus. He hosted Bay TV's Take Issue, a nightly news analysis show, programs for KQED Public Televison, KRON television and National Public Radio, and did news commentary for KTVU television.
Since 1970 he has been a professor of English at San Francisco State University and is a widely published scholar and critic as well as a former regular contributor to Mother Jones magazine and a fiction writer. He has also worked widely as a facilitator and host in the corporate sector and as moderator for a host of major non-profit events.
Dr. Krasny received his B.A. (Cum Laude) and M.A. degrees from Ohio University, where he is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and his Ph.D. degree from The University of Wisconsin.
Michael Krasny in conversation with Isabel Allende
While still an undergraduate in southern Ohio, Michael Krasny hitchhiked to Chicago to interview one of his heroes, the novelist Saul Bellow. At the time, Kransy was following in the footsteps of Bellow, hoping to become a novelist himself. Instead, Krasny found his great talent for communicating, and for the last fourteen years has hosted one the most listened-to public radio programs in the country.
An estimated sixty-five thousand listeners in Northern California tune in each weekday morning to KQED-FM's award-winning Forum with Michael Krasny. The program covers a plethora of subjects, from news and public affairs to popular culture, the arts, health, politics, business and technology. As host and senior editor of Forum, Krasny has interviewed a wide range of guests, including Cesar Chavez, Robert Redford, Salman Rushdie, former President Jimmy Carter, Rosa Parks, and Susan Sontag. When not on-air, Michael Krasny is a Professor of English at San Francisco State University, where he has taught since 1970. Krasny has recently chronicled his diverse and fascinating career in Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio & Literary Life- City Arts & Lectures