Behind the Lines
A bi-monthly podcast that features readings by prominent figures of the greatest war letters ever written.
Behind the Lines
A bi-monthly podcast that features readings by prominent figures of the greatest war letters ever written.
The Greatest War Letters Ever Written and the Stories Behind Them
Hosted by Barbara Harrison with co-host Andrew Carroll
Produced by Barbara Harrison and Celia Straus
Directed by Richard Craig
The Podcast
The BTL podcast is hosted by Emmy-winning journalist Barbara Harrison, who explores centuries of extraordinary letters with New York Times bestselling author Andy Carroll, who has made saving our nation’s war letters his life’s work. More than twenty years ago, Andy launched a national, nonprofit initiative with a mission “to seek out and preserve America’s war letters.” Since that time, Americans have shared with Andy and the organization he founded — the Center for American War Letters at Chapman University — an estimated 150,000 correspondences from every conflict in U.S. history, including handwritten missives penned during the Revolution up to emails from Iraq and Afghanistan. The project is ongoing and correspondences continue to come in.
Throughout the podcasts, Andy shares with Barbara and their listeners fascinating information about the letters featured and heard in each episode, putting them into context – e.g., which wars they’re from, who the letter writers are, and what happened after the letters were posted. Thanks to the generosity of Simon & Schuster’s donation of recordings from the audio versions of two of Andy’s books, listeners will hear the letters (sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes truly hilarious) voiced by A-list actors and other famous individuals including Tom Brokaw, Rob Lowe, Joan Allen, Julianna Margulies, Oliver Platt, Martha Plimpton, Stanley Tucci, Hank Williams Jr., B.D. Wong, Noah Wyle, David Straitharn, Adam West, Giovanni Ribisi, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
