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Timothy Egan on ‘The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them’

Timothy Egan, author of
This week on ‘The Write Question,’ host Lauren Korn speaks with writer Timothy Egan, author of ‘A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them’ (Viking Press).

This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with writer Timothy Egan, author of A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (Viking Press): the riveting story of the Klan’s rise to power in the 1920s; D. C. Stephenson, the cunning con man and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows; and the woman, Madge Oberholtzer, who stopped them.

About Tim:

Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of ten books, including the just-released, A Fever in the Heartland. His book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, won a National Book Award for non-fiction. His book on photographer Edward Curtis, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, was awarded the Carnegie Medal for non-fiction. He’s also written several New York Times’ bestsellers, including The Immortal Irishman and The Big Burn. He’s a third-generation Westerner.

Timothy Egan recommends:

Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s by Kathleen M. Blee (University of California Press)

Books written by John Grisham

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Viking Press)

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins)

Lauren Korn recommends:

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (Viking Press) and The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl(Mariner Books) by Timothy Egan

The Journalist and the Murderer (Vintage Books) and Iphigenia in Forest Hills (Yale University Press) by Janet Malcolm

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (Vintage Books)

Ridgeline by Michael Punke (Henry Holt and Co.)

This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild by Nate Schweber (Mariner Books)

The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer.

The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss. Our music was written and recorded by John Floridis.

Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.

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Lauren R. Korn holds an M.A. in poetry from the University of New Brunswick, where she was the recipient of the Tom Riesterer Memorial Prize and the Angela Ludan Levine Memorial Book Prize. A former bookseller and the former Director of the Montana Book Festival, she is now an Arts and Culture Producer at Montana Public Radio and the host of it’s literature-based radio program and podcast, ‘The Write Question.’
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