Andrei Codrescu

American writer and reader Connie Martinson interviews authors on their latest publications.

When twenty-six-year-olds Shainee Gabel and Kristin Hahn quit their Hollywood jobs, packed up a borrowed car and hit the road, it was with the deeply felt conviction that somewhere, shrouded in the din of talk shows and tabloid headlines, they'd discover the real America, alive and well in all of its regions and demographics.

Andrei Cordescu, NPR journalist, Romanian immigrant, naturalized American citizen, and newly-licensed driver, sets out on a cross- country road trip. He travels from-sea-to-shining-sea in a red 1968 Cadillac ragtop, exploring the meaning of freedom to a variety of Americans in this gently comic, yet poignant, documentary. Highlights include stops in New York, Camden, Detroit, Chicago, Taos, Arizona, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

FISH HAVE NO PSYCHIATRISTS: A DAY WITH ANDREI CODRESCU is a creative documentary collage hosted by Julian Semilian centering around the life and times of poet, novelist, NPR commentator and current Pushcart Prize award winner, Andrei Codrescu. From Dada to quadrupedalism, Andrei and others offer us odes to personal experiences and free-wheeling perspectives outwitting easy category, a playful paean countering totalitarianisms and other forms of functional fixedness.

Trixie and the Treetrunks is an episodic puppet series begun in 2006. As this story unfolds, a terrible snowstorm has destroyed the magical forest, leaving an ugly patch of dirt. Trixie plants a mysterious box of seeds and grows a Happy Tree, which starts giving out secret messages from the Center of the Earth to she and her best friend Marsha. One of the first messages from the tree is to, “start a band”! Soon the ice is melting as they try to find a drummer and get ready for their first gig at Harvest Fest. Quintron and Miss Pussycat are featured in a performance in the Center of the Earth where they play Witch in the Club.