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"Hissing Cousins: The Untold Story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth"

Aired on Thursday, May 28th.

Our guest on this edition of StudioTulsa is Timothy Dwyer, a writer whose work has appeared in Time, Washingtonian, and TheAtlantic.com. Dwyer is also the chief executive officer of The School Choice Group, an education advisory company, and he's the co-author of an engaging new double biography called "Hissing Cousins: The Untold Story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt Longworth." It's a lively and memorable profile of two women -- first cousins who were born (both in 1884) into rival factions of a rich and famous New York family -- whose lives were at the very center of American culture and history throughout the 20th century. As a critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch has written: "With aplomb, stylish prose, and smart analysis, [co-authors Peyser and Dwyer] synthesize their sources smoothly into an entertaining and educational book. And by vividly blending the personal and the political, [they] tell the cousins' story with insight, humor, empathy, and wisdom. In so doing, they call on the best qualities of their subjects to produce a welcome and absorbing addition to the ever-growing canon of Rooseveltiana." And further, per The Washington Post: "Clever, absorbing.... Peyser and Dwyer wisely avoid paying too much attention to the old theory that Alice was jealous of Eleanor for capturing Franklin, whom she wanted for herself. What Alice mostly felt was wild exasperation over the way political fate and circumstance set Franklin up as her father's wrongful heir.... Entertaining and often shrewd."

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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