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Host Sarah Fenske talks with dean of the University of Missouri St. Louis Andrew Kersten and Associate Professor of History Priscilla Dowden-White about how James Baldwin’s 1974 novel is resonating across campus and the broader St. Louis community, decades after it was written. The conversation will also include the perspectives of several UMSL students and faculty members.

State Rep. Shamed Dogan returns to Politically Speaking to talk with St. Louis Public Radio’s Julie O’Donoghue and Jason Rosenbaum about his efforts to change how Missouri handles criminal justice. The Ballwin Republican represents the 98th House District, which includes parts of Ellisville, Fenton, and Wildwood.

Florissant native Kevin Cox Jr. is a post-doctoral associate at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and one of 15 Hanna H. Gray Fellows named by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The more than one-million-dollar fellowship specifically seeks out scientists from underrepresented groups early in their careers. Cox is African American.

Growing up in Singapore, Washington University undergraduate Luka Cai was closeted, finding little support there for members of the LGBTQ community. But even in their new home of St. Louis, where Cai openly identifies as a pansexual transmasculine queer person, they’ve observed a need for more peer-to-peer support. “When I came to St. Louis I felt very much more affirmed and accepted by the St. Louis queer community, and I saw the same needs around me,” Cai said, “of people feeling isolated, rejected, discriminated against — and that comes out in terms of housing insecurity and employment security as well.” This led Cai to the idea for SQSH, the St. Louis Queer+ Support Helpline that they and a co-founder launched earlier this month. The all-volunteer effort aims to be “for the St. Louis LGBTQIA+ community, by the community,” inviting calls to 314-380-7774, with highly trained volunteers ready to provide support.

Month after month, Sauce Magazine joins our program for a monthly Sound Bites segment to showcase the latest food trends and highlight local chefs, farmers, restaurateurs and more. Host Sarah Fenske delves into the history of the food publication itself, which launched in St. Louis in 1999 when the Internet was still in its infancy. Twenty years later, Sauce Magazine is still going strong.

Jane Smiley recently came back to St. Louis for her 50th high school reunion. But unlike many of us, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist wasn’t content simply to explore what had changed around town. Smiley also wrote an essay about the city for the New York Times. In this interview with Sarah Fenske, Smiley discusses her essay, detailing her abiding love for St. Louis, particularly its foliage and its wonderful old houses.

On the latest episode of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Public Radio’s Julie O’Donoghue, Jason Rosenbaum and Jaclyn Driscoll break down some of the week’s biggest stories in federal, state and local politics. Of particular interest for many St. Louis area residents is the financial peril surrounding the Loop Trolley.

St. Louis–based LGBTQ advocacy organizations are taking steps to anticipate the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court case that could overturn municipal laws protecting transgender and gender-nonconforming employees in Missouri and Illinois. Legal experts say the case outcome could leave LGBTQ workers with just a "patchwork" of protections, opening them up to legal discrimination.

Being born intersex isn’t limited to ambiguous genitalia. There’s a plethora of intersex conditions, about 150. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Dr. Christopher Lewis about the condition and Jordan Braxton, who is intersex herself.

St. Louis Alderwoman Sarah Martin returns to Politically Speaking to talk about some of the big issues percolating in city government. That includes bringing crime under control and an impending debate on having a private operator run St. Louis Lambert Airport.

Forai, an organization based in Maplewood, has helped refugees attain the skills they need to start businesses. Host Sarah Fenske talks to its founder and some of the women who got a leg up through its unique mission.

Missouri has more than 10,000 untested rape kits sitting on shelves in police departments and hospitals, but the state is finally set to have a full inventory of those kits by the end of October. In this segment, host Sarah Fenske talks with St. Louis Public Radio reporter Jaclyn Driscoll about her reporting on the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance grant set aside for this project.

Unlike some Mississippi River-adjacent states that have set limits on nutrient pollution, Missouri has addressed nutrient pollution by providing funds for farmers to use conservation practices that reduce nutrients from the waterways. But environmentalists say that the state needs to vastly improve how it monitors nutrients that enter waterways and set limits in order to make a substantial progress on water quality in Missouri and reducing the dead zone in the Gulf

Host Sarah Fenske discusses the importance of early intervention and how people with dyslexia can thrive in school and in life with Webster’s Paula Witkowski, a professor of literacy and speech-language pathologist in the School of Education, as well as several local parents of dyslexic children.

Host Sarah Fenske talks to Senegalese artist Modou Dieng, who curated a new contemporary art exhibition at the Barrett Barrera Projects center. “Saint Louis to St. Louis: The City on the River meets River City" notes the parallels between the two cities named for St. Louis the King — one in the Midwest and one in the West African country of Senegal.

Missouri has thousands of untested rape kits sitting on shelves in police stations and hospitals — some containing DNA evidence that could put rapists behind bars. The state is getting closer to finishing an inventory of those untested kits, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

Host Sarah Fenske sits down with NPR’s Silicon Valley correspondent Aarti Shahani who discusses her memoir about her family’s journey from pre-partition India to Casablanca to New York. It’s called “Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares.”

A conversation with Arriel Biggs, the Founder and CEO of Young Biz Kidz. Her organization teaches kids and their parents financial literacy and entrepreneurism.

Host Sarah Fenske talks with longtime Girl Scout and St. Louis-area resident Lauren Vanlandingham about being named a 2019 National Gold Award Girl Scout. Also joining the conversation is Aurrice Duke-Rollings, chief marketing and communications officer for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri.

Host Sarah Fenske talks with Suzanne Michelle White of the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma, a descendant of Cherokee, Delaware, and Lumbee nation/tribes, about Indigenous People's Day and how people may observe it.