Michael Silverblatt

Host, Bookworm

A man who converses on an equal plane with writers of fiction and poetry, often surprising them with his insights, Michael Silverblatt has made "Bookworm" the country's premier literary talk-show. His secret, says Norman Mailer, who has subjected himself three times to the "Bookworm's" scrutiny, is that "he's the best reader in America."

Silverblatt's formidable knowledge comes from close reading and analysis of a writer's entire oeuvre. Susan Sontag calls him "a national treasure." As host and guiding spirit of the half-hour radio show, Silverblatt has reinvented the art of literary conversation, introducing listeners to new and emerging authors along with writers of renown.

Joyce Carol Oates once called him the “reader writers dream about,” and his podcasts are so popular that New York’s independent bookstores describe a “Silverblatt ripple effect” on book sales.

A New York native, Silverblatt graduated from the State University of New York in Buffalo and later took advanced courses at Johns Hopkins. He moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s where he worked in motion picture public relations and script development. He created "Bookworm" for KCRW-FM in 1989.

As a student, he came under the influence of such cutting-edge author-teachers as Donald Barthelme and John Barth; as a radio talk-show host, he learned to appreciate a much wider range of writing-- making him, he hopes, "a person of ferocious compassion instead of ferocious intellect."