Spokane Public Radio to broadcast Summer Stories on ‘The Bookshelf’

Spokane Public Radio will begin broadcasting The Spokesman Review’s Summer Stories series on Monday. This year, the series has been curated to honor the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens.

With more stories than ever (17 that ran on Sundays in the newspaper), the radio lineup includes 16 of the pieces by local authors, including veteran Summer Stories writers Shawn Vestal, Sharma Shields and Jess Walter, among others.

Some stories will be read by the authors and others by Spokane Public Radio staff due to social-distancing concerns, production director Chris Maccini said.

The series will air on Spokane Public Radio’s evening reading program “The Bookshelf,” which runs from 6:30-7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays on KPBX 91.1.

Each episode will include two stories as follows:

Monday: Shawn Vestal’s “The Thick Darkness” and Beth Piatote’s “Rumblings”

Tuesday: Bruce Holbert’s “Mayday” and Johanna Stoberock’s “Miriam and Clara, 1980”

Wednesday: Ben Goldfarb’s “Red Zone” and Kris Dinnison’s “Fissures”

Thursday: Matthew Sullivan’s “Peebags for Manboy” and Jamie Ford’s “My Father’s Ashes”

Sept. 14: Deb Caletti’s “Volcanic” and Eli Francovich’s “The Department of Long-term Catastrophes”

Sept. 15: Tiffany Midge’s “Feast, Smudge, Snag: A Lakota Woman’s Search for Everything Across Kohl’s, Target and Barnes & Noble” and Neal Thompson’s “Waffle Hut”

Sept. 16: Sharma Shields’ “Bandits” and Samuel Ligon’s “Saint Helen and the Spokanites”

Sept. 17: Dan Gemeinhart’s “Hope” and Jess Walter’s “What Rises Beneath”