This week on Write On Radio features interviews with authors Susan Straight and Charles Locks. Host Jen Nemo speaks with author Susan Straight about her new novel, A Million Nightengales, and Host Lynette Reini-Grandell speaks with author Charles Locks about his new book, Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles.

Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales

About the book:

A haunting, beautifully written novel set in early-nineteenth-century Louisiana: the tale of a slave girl's journey- emotional and physical- from captivity to freedom.

Susan Straight has been called "a writer of exceptional gifts and grace" (Joyce Carol Oates). In A Million Nightingales she brings those gifts to bear on the story of Moinette, daughter of an African mother and a white father she never knew. While her mother cares for the plantation linens, Moinette tends to the master's daughter, which allows her to eavesdrop on lessons. She also learns that she is property, and at fourteen she is sold, separated from her mother without a chance to say goodbye. Heartbroken and terrified, and with a full understanding of what she will risk, Moinette begins almost immediately to prepare herself for the moment when she will escape.

It is Moinette's own voice that we hear- bright, rhythmic, observant, and altogether captivating-as she describes her journey through a world of brutality, sexual violence, and loss. Quick to see the patterns of French, American, and African life play out around her, Moinette makes her way from sugarcane fields through mysterious bayous to the streets of Opelousas, where the true meaning of freedom emerges from the bonds of love.

An uncommonly rich novel, brimming with event and character, A Million Nightingales is a powerful confirmation of the remarkable novelist we have in Susan Straight.

About Susan Straight:

Susan Straight is the author of five previous novels, including the bestselling I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots, and Highwire Moon, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the California Book Award. She is a regular commentator on NPR, and her fiction and essays have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Salon, Zoetrope, McSweeney’s, and The Best American Short Stories. She has received a Lannan Foundation Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Riverside, California, with her three daughters.

Charles Locks, author of Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles

About the book:

Paradise is supposed to be all sunshine, colorful drinks, light conversation, and beach idylls — a place people go to escape their problems. Unfortunately for Captain Brian, the part-time sailor/philosopher and full-time hedonistic hero of Greater Trouble in the Lesser Antilles, trouble has a way of finding him.

When his friend Leif the Thief is found dead at the bottom of a cistern, the much younger Billie insists that they team up to solve the crime. But Billie seems to have her own stake in the case, not to mention a much broader definition of partnership than Captain Brian is prepared to explore.

Meanwhile, a federal agent and a local constable make it their business to complicate the Captain’s investigations. It's enough to cause him to consider leaving beautiful Flamingo Bay forever. Shady characters, an ingenious plot, and a vivid tropical backdrop make this an irresistible read for mystery fans.

About Charles Locks:

Charlie Locks has spent much of his life in Minnesota. He attended Macalester College in Saint Paul; he's also a Vietnam vet. But it's his experiences in the Virgin Islands that gave him the background to write this literary mystery complete with sex, drugs. rock 'n roll and murder.

He co-authored a walking tour of the historic New Richmond neighborhood for the State of Wisconsin and two walking tours of Ramsey Hill in St. Paul that focused on the architecture and clients of Minnesota architect Cass Gilbert, about whom he has written and lectured.

He was a co-contributor to Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain, published by W.W. Norton in 2001. Today, Locks enjoys the quiet life of the hermit writer. He worries whether he's giving readers what they want. He also fears his twin muses--cigarettes and Coca-Cola--will kill him before he's finished telling the stories that crowd his mind.