Guest host LeVar Burton presents two of his favorite stories. In Lucia Berlin’s “Friends,” the characters have different ideas about who benefits from their weekly lunches. The reader is Lydia Gaston. Next, Burton himself reads Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s powerful “Control Negro,” in which an academic tries a real-world experiment to prove a theory about racism.
ACTORS & ARTISTS
Lucia Berlin (1936-2004) was a short story writer best known for her collection A Manual for Cleaning Women, which was published posthumously. Berlin produced six collections, and her work was featured in numerous publications, including The Atlantic. In addition, she was honored with the American Book Award in 1991 and won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Berlin taught creative writing at the University of Colorado, as well as the San Francisco County Jail and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.
LeVar Burton is best known for his television work, most notably on the award-winning series Roots, Reading Rainbow, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Additional film and television credits include Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Ali, Community, The Big Bang Theory, Perception, and Weird City. He directed multiple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Charmed, Perception, NCIS: New Orleans, and the Disney Channel’s Smart House. Burton’s work has been honored with the Peabody Award and numerous Image and Emmy Awards, and a Grammy. He currently hosts the podcast LeVar Burton Reads.
Lydia Gaston is a New York actor and teaching artist. She has performed on Broadway in The King and I, Miss Saigon, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Shogun, and The Red Shoes. Off-Broadway, she has performed with the Shakespeare Lab at The Public, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Ma-Yi Theatre Company, the National Asian American Theatre Company, Urban Stages, and Ensemble Studio Theatre. Her television credits include The Blacklist, The Sopranos, and The Path on Hulu.
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s essays and short stories have appeared in Guernica, Prime Number Magazine, Literary Mama, Storyglossia, and The Guardian, among other publications. Her work has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her story “Control Negro” was featured in The Best American Short Stories 2018, selected by Roxane Gay. Johnson currently teaches in Charlottesville, Virginia.
