Radio South

The Spoken Word was a public radio series featuring talks and performances about literature, the arts, and our culture that are recorded throughout the Southeast. The series was produced by Public Radio South, a division of The Camberley Collection, and has been aired on Atlanta’s WABE, one of the fifteen largest NPR affiliates in the country, since October of 2001. The Spoken Word syndicated in October of 2003 and aired on public radio stations around the Southeast. Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) was the presenting series sponsor for The Spoken Word.

Camberley launched The Spoken Word in 1996 at New York’s Algonquin Hotel as a way to revive the storied past of that literary landmark and its fabled Algonquin Round Table. For five years cultural icons gathered regularly in the historic Oak Room at The Algonquin to discuss their work and our world. In the fall of 2001 Camberley moved the series to Atlanta, opening with Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Margaret Edson and her monologue “The Insubstantial Pageant”.

Edson captured the spirit of The Spoken Word when she asked, “What sense is it we use for writing? It’s hearing. Writing is listening, and reading is listening, too. When I’m writing, I’m writing for a live event. I sit alone. The little characters are coming and going in my mind, but they’re talking, and I’m always thinking about people listening, people being there, a community, together.”

Since then, Philip Glass, Billy Collins, Patricia Cornwell, and Donna Tartt are just a few of the guests who have helped to build that community of listeners. The Spoken Word has become a place for the literary community to meet in person, or on the radio, and hear about matters that are important to them, whether it is from playwrights or poets, journalists, novelists, or filmmakers.

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