“Writers on Writing“ Radio Show

About the Episode
Dr. Brenda Greene interviews Ladee Hubbard, author of The Rib King: A Novel (Amistad, 2021). Greene and Hubbard discuss the symbolism in The Rib King and the backdrop for Hubbard’s first novel, The Talented Ribkins (Melville House, 2017). Hubbard’s recent novel weaves history, racism, class, privilege, and exploitation into a text that places the reader in conversation with historical figures who include among others, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, and Harriet Tubman. Greene and Hubbard discuss her process for writing, her writing influences, and her belief in the importance of writing a novel with themes that resonate today. Hubbard’s novel reminds readers of those Blacks who have worn “The Mask,” a reference to the signature poem of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and provides a complicated portrait of the presence of Blacks in America.

About the Guest
Ladee Hubbard’s recent book is The Rib King: A Novel (Amistad, 2021). She is also the author of The Talented Ribkins, which received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Times Literary Supplement, Arkansas International, Copper Nickel, and Callaloo among other venues. She is currently a Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow and a Berlin Prize Fellow. Her awards include the 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and fellowships from Art Omi, the Sacatar Foundation, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among other places.