Rag Radio: Taylor Brorby, Editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America

On Rag Radio this week we visit the intersection of literature and the environment. Taylor Brorby, an award-winning essayist and poet, is editor of the anthology, Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America from Ice Cube Press.

Lynn Stegner wrote about Fracture: “Symphonic in form, euphoric in heart, this volume brings together a great, sometimes-desperate chorus that ought to be heard world-over, wherever there is oil and gas-rich shale below, and living things above.”

On the show Taylor discusses the anthology and how it was put together, reads some poetry for us, and talks about the special role that creative writing can play in addressing the growing concerns about our environment. We also discuss the current state of fracking — and the destruction it is causing — in the Bakken oil boom and across the country.

Taylor Brorby’s work has appeared in High Country News, Canary, Written River, the Northern Plains Ethics Journal, and The Huffington Post. Taylor speaks regularly around the country about issues related to fracking and the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota and is a fellow at the Black Earth Institute. His chapbook of poems, Ruin: Elegies from the Bakken, is through Red Bird Chapbooks. He is currently at work on a collection of poetry as well as a collection of essays.

Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer, cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas, in association with The Rag Blog and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The host and producer of Rag Radio, Thorne Dreyer, is a prominent Austin-based activist and writer who was a pioneer of the ’60s underground press movement. The show’s engineer and co-producer is Tracey Schulz and the staff photographer is Roger Baker. The syndicated show is broadcast (and streamed) live Fridays, 2-3 p.m. (Central) on KOOP in Austin, and is later rebroadcast and streamed on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA., on Houston Pacifica’s KPFT HD-3 90.1-FM, and by KKRN, 88.5-FM in Round Mountain, CA — and is a featured podcast at VT. All Rag Radio podcasts can be found at the Internet Archive. Contact: ragradio@koop.org

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Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer

Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer, cooperatively-run, solar-powered community radio station in Austin, Texas, in association with The Rag Blog and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The host and producer of Rag Radio, Thorne Dreyer, is a prominent Austin-based activist and writer who was a pioneer of the ’60s underground press movement. Visit the Rag Radio Archives.

Contact:ragradio@koop.org

www.theragblog.com/rag-radio