Sonya Chung is the author of the novels The Loved Ones (Relegation Books, 2016) and Long for This World (Scribner, 2010). She is a staff writer for the The Millions and founding editor of Bloom, and is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, the Charles Johnson Fiction Award, the Bronx Council on the Arts Writers’ Residency, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Key West Literary Seminars residency, a Studios of Key West residency, and an Escape to Create residency. Sonya’s stories, reviews, & essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Tin House, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, Short: An International Anthology, and This is The Place: Women Writing About Home, among others. Sonya has taught fiction writing at Columbia University, NYU, and Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She is the Director of Film Forum.

Film Forum

Film Forum began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership, Film Forum moved downtown to the Vandam Theater in 1975. In 1980, Cooper led the construction of a twin cinema on Watts Street. In 1990, Film Forum’s current Houston Street cinema was built at a cost of $3.2 million. In 2018, Film Forum raised $5 million to renovate and expand its Houston Street cinema, upgrading the seating, legroom, and sightlines in all theaters and adding a new, 4th screen. In 2023, Cooper stepped down as Director and was succeeded by Deputy Director Sonya Chung.

We present two distinct, complementary film programs – NYC theatrical premieres of American independents and foreign art films, programmed by Cooper (Advisor to the Director as of 2023), Mike Maggiore, and Sonya Chung; and, since 1987, repertory selections including foreign and American classics, genre works, festivals and directors’ retrospectives, programmed by Bruce Goldstein. Our third and fourth screens are dedicated to extended runs of popular selections from both programs, as well as new films for longer engagements.

Film Forum is open 365 days a year, with as many as 250,000 annual admissions, nearly 500 seats, approximately 60 employees (of which half are full time), 6,500+ members and a $7 million operating budget. Approximately 80% of our budget is spent directly on programs. As a non-profit, we raise approximately 50% of our operating income. Public funders include: The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and various NYC agencies including the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Private donors include individuals, foundations, and corporate entities. Additionally, our members contribute more than $500,000 annually. This allows us to take risks on emerging filmmakers and challenging films. Film Forum has a $6 million endowment, begun in 2000 with a $1.25 million gift from the Ford Foundation.

Film Forum is the only autonomous nonprofit cinema in New York City and one of the few in the U.S. The success of our distinctive position is evidenced by our over 50-year tenure, during which our programs and fiscal resources have grown steadily. Sadly, since the 1970s, dozens of NYC art-house theaters (and a great number throughout the U.S.) have closed their doors.

As a cinema of ideas, Film Forum is committed to presenting an international array of films that treat diverse social, political, historical and cultural realities. Unlike commercial cinemas that primarily “book” high-grossing, Hollywood films, Film Forum’s programs are thoughtfully selected, with attention to unique cinematic qualities, historical importance individually or within a genre and – particularly for documentaries – relevance to today’s world.

Elizabeth Howard

Elizabeth Howard is the Host of the Short Fuse Podcast.

Arts Fuse

The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication’s over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. There is a robust readership for arts coverage that believes that culture matters.

Adam Kuper

Professor Adam Kuper is an anthropologist and public intellectual. He has held positions at a number of universities and is a recipient of the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Kuper is the author or editor of 19 books and has published over 100 journal articles focusing on anthropological theory, the history of anthropology in the US and Britain, and southern African societies and cultures. He has made numerous appearances on BBC TV and radio, and reviewed regularly for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal.

The Museum of Other People

Published by Penguin Random House, in this deeply researched, immersive history, Adam Kuper tells the story of how foreign and prehistoric peoples and cultures were represented in Western museums of anthropology. Originally created as colonial enterprises, their halls were populated by displays of plundered art, artifacts, dioramas, bones, and relics. Kuper reveals the politics and struggles of trying to build these museums in Germany, France, and England in the mid-19th century, and the dramatic encounters between the very colorful and eccentric collectors, curators, political figures, and high members of the church who founded them. He also details the creation of contemporary museums and exhibitions, including the Smithsonian, the Harvard’s Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, and the famous 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago which was inspired by the Paris World Fair of 1889.

Listen to an excerpt from The Museum of Other People

Elizabeth Howard

The Short Fuse Podcasts, hosted and produced by Elizabeth Howard, are conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others who have a lens on contemporary thought and stir us to seek change. With their art, their music, their performances, and their vision they lead us through the social and environmental transformations sweeping across the globe.

“Artists are here to disturb the peace.” James Baldwin.

The Short Fuse is distributed through the Arts Fuse, a journal of arts criticism and commentary.

Yoknapatawpha and Faulkner Conference in Oxford, Mississippi

This is the longest continually running literary conference in the United States dedicated to the work of one author. This is the 50th Anniversary of the Conference, first held in 1974.

Square Book Store, Oxford, Mississippi

Square Books is a general independent bookstore in three separate buildings (about 100 feet apart) on the historic town square of Oxford, Mississippi, home of the University of Mississippi and many great writers, including William Faulkner, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown, and, for a time, both Willie Morris and John Grisham. The main store, Square Books, is in a two-story building with a cafe and balcony on the second floor; Off Square Books is a few doors down from the main store and has lifestyle sections such as gardening and cookbooks; Square Books, Jr., the children's bookstore, is in a building on the east side of the square; above it (in the site of the original bookstore) is the more recently opened Rare Square Books, which feature collectible, vintage, first edition books across a broad price range. Square Books is known for its strong selection of literary fiction, books on the American South and by Southern writers, a large inventory of reduced-price remainders, and its emphasis on books for children. The store hosts the popular Thacker Mountain radio show and over 150 author events a year.

University Press of Mississippi

University Press of Mississippi tells stories of scholarly and social importance that impact our state, region, nation, and world. We are committed to equality, inclusivity, and diversity. Working at the forefront of publishing and cultural trends, we publish books that enhance and extend the reputation of our state and its universities.

Dr. Jay Watson

Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies Jay Watson, a native of Athens, Georgia, received his B.A. degree from the University of Georgia (1983) and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University (1985, 1989). He joined the English department at the University of Mississippi in 1989, was promoted to Professor of English in 2007, and became UM’s second Howry Professor in 2010. During the 2002-2003 academic year he served as Visiting Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland, and he has since been honored with the UM Faculty Achievement Award (2012), the UM Liberal Arts Professor of the Year award (2014), and the UM Humanities Teacher of the Year award (2014). In 2013 he was a finalist for the Southeastern Conference Professor of the Year Award, and in 2018 he was the fall convocation speaker at UM.

Elizabeth Howard, Producer and Host of the Short Fuse Podcast

Elizabeth Howard is the producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast, conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others whose art reveals our communities through their lens and stirs us to seek change. Her articles related to communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, The Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others. Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015) and Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York. @elizh24 on Instagram

Elizabeth Howard began hosting and producing the Short Fuse during the pandemic years. Those days when we were shuttered in our rooms. Displaced. Disoriented. Since then she has hosted 33 conversations, created a YouTube channel for online Short Fuse reading groups, and held live events at P&T Knitwear in New York, the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, and at the Portsmouth Athenaeum in New Hampshire.  You can find all of the Short Fuse conversations  on the Short Fuse website.

Dell'Aria Cafe is at 232 East 111th Street in East Harlem.  An authentic cafe with roasted Italian coffee ... and conversation.

Jasmine Rice LaBeija is a Drag Queen, who can often be found performing in New York City.

Rev. Michael Curry is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States.  He spoke at the memorial held for Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Ann Kjellberg is the founder of Book Post. 

Bill Marx is the founder and Editor of the Arts Fuse, the online journal of arts commentary and criticism.

Kyle Dacuyan is a poet and the director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.

Valena Beety is the author of Manifesting Justice and works with Tasha Shelby.

Frank Young is the artist who created the collage for this episode. 

The Arts Fuse is  an on-line magazine designed to preserve the craft of professional arts criticism,  while also looking for ways to explore new and innovative ways to evolve the cultural conversation and bring together critics, readers, and artists. Substantial criticism -- by sparking lively, contentious dialogue about the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of the arts -- plays an indispensable role in the cultural ecology. Smaller, newer organizations are fostered by debate and evaluation. When they are ignored, as they are by the mainstream media, they fade away.

SUBSCRIBE to the Arts Fuse weekly e-newsletter

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Justice Malala, is one of South Africa’s foremost political commentators and commentators and the author of the bestseller We Have Now Begun Our Decent:  How to stop south Africa losing its way.   He has been a columnist for the Times in SA, and written for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and the Financial Times. He now lives in New York.

Jonny Steinberg is the author of several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa’s transition to democracy. He is a two-time winner of the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award, South Africa's premier literary prize, and an inaugural winner of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes. Until 2020, he was professor of African studies at Oxford University. He currently teaches part-time at the Council on African Studies at Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and is visiting professor at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) in Johannesburg.

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

Ann Kjellberg founded Book Post, a newsletter-based book review, in 2018. Book Post publishes short book reviews by distinguished figures in literature, history, science, social sciences, and the arts. Kjellberg also reports for Book Post on the book industry, journalism, and the state of writing and ideas. Her essays have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Observer, The Browser, and LitHub. She was on the editorial staff of the New York Review of Books from 1988 to 2017, and from 1985 to 1987 she was an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. She is the literary executor of the poet Joseph Brodsky and editor of several editions of his work. She  founded the literary magazine Little Star and has taught literary journalism at Bryn Mawr College.

The Short Fuse Podcast  hosted and produced by Elizabeth Howard, are conversations with artists, writers, musicians, and others who have a lens on contemporary thought and stir us to seek change. With their art, their music, their performances, and their vision they lead us through the social and environmental transformations sweeping across the globe.

“Artists are here to disturb the peace.” James Baldwin.

The Short Fuse is distributed through the Arts Fuse, a journal of arts criticism and commentary.

Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries.