Host Marvin Simmons of Northwest Veterans for Peace spoke with Stacy Bannerman, creator and producer of "Homefront 911: Military Family Monologues," a project of the Sanctuary for Veterans and Families. Also on the program are Tamara Rosenleaf, who wrote two of the monologues, and Belle Landau of the Returning Veterans Project. This program features moving readings of the military family monologues.

Homefront 911: Military Family Monologues is an original performance art piece based on actual accounts of how the war is coming home. Developed and presented by military family members, Homefront 911 is a non-partisan event intended to raise awareness of the impact of nearly a decade of war on the families left behind, and strengthen the community safety net.

Host Michelle Schroeder Fletcher interviews Sarah Sobieraj, author of Soundbitten: The Perils of Media-Centered Political Activism.

Sobieraj explores the dynamics and costs of media obsession by activist groups.  She says the pervasive mediatization of politics has jeopardized the ability of dissenting groups to engage in public discourse and so has altered the very fabric of both social movements and the civil society that the news media claim to inform.

Her book is an ethnographic portrait of fifty diverse organizations over the course of two presidential campaign cycles. She argues that while most activist groups equate political success with media success and channel their energies accordingly, their efforts fail to generate news coverage and come with deleterious consequences.

Host Gene Bradley speaks with award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick about his latest book, "The Last Stand." Philbrick explores the volatile political, economic, and social forces that led to the  Battle of the Little Bighorn, the infamous confrontation, and demolishes some commonly held myths

Nathaniel Philbrick's previous books include In the Heart of the Sea, Sea of Glory, and Mayflower.The Last Stand was published in hardback in 2010 and is just out in paperback. He is presently at work on a book about Boston during the early years of the Revolution.

Mayflower was a finalist for both the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History and the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. In the Heart of the Sea won the National Book Award for nonfiction; Revenge of the Whale won a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; Sea of Glory won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the Albion-Monroe Award from the National Maritime Historical Society.

http://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/

 Host Marianne Barisonek interviews Tali Sharot about her book "The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain," an exploration of the neural basis of optimism, and how the brain simulates the future. How does the brain generate hope? How does it trick us into moving forward? What happens when it fails? How do the brains of optimists differ from those of pessimists?

Tali Sharot’s research on optimism, memory, and emotion has been the subject of features inNewsweek, The Boston Globe, Time, The Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, and The Washington Post, as well as on the BBC. She has a Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience from New York University and is currently a research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. She lives in London.