Colin E. Woodward's Official Site

It’s that time of year again. Time when such famous rock acts as Lionel Ritchie, Carly Simon and Dolly Parton are up for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. While I have nothing against any of the acts up for nomination this year, some are decidedly not…

James Horn is a native of England who now resides in Virginia and works in Williamsburg, which makes sense if you know his scholarship. He has a new book out, A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America. His book examines the crucial early…

The Alabama rock band Drive-By Truckers have long been one of the hardest working and most thoughtful outfits working today. Now, they have a worthy biographer. Music writer Stephen Deusner is a native of McNairy County, Tennessee, a place immortalized on the Truckers’ 2004 album The Dirty South. Stephen first…

Keith Ryan Cartwright returns to the podcast to talk about his new (and first) book, Black Cowboys of Rodeo: Unsung Heroes from Harlem to Hollywood and the American West. Keith admits he didn’t know much about the subject when he started, but he approached his work as another mission to…

Robert Mann has dedicated his life to politics. A professor at LSU in the Manship School of Mass Communication, he is the author of numerous books about American history and politics. He now has a memoir out, Backrooms and Bayous: My Life in Louisiana Politics.  Born in west Texas, Bob…

In the second half of Colin’s two-part conversation with actor and director Lou Antonio, Lou talks about playing Koko in the film Cool Hand Luke and what it was like being on the set with such a storied cast. Lou also talks about how he was almost chosen to play…

Lou Antonio is an actor and director perhaps best known for playing Koko in the 1967 classic Cool Hand Luke. But his part in that film was just one role in a long career dedicated to the stage, screen, and working behind the camera. Over the years, he met and…

Colin continues his conversation with Emory Thomas, Civil War historian and former professor at the University of Georgia, Athens. They discuss his biographies of Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart. Emory also talks about the Civil War sesquicentennial and the tragedy of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in…

Civil War historian Emory Thomas is a native of Richmond, Virginia. It’s no coincidence, then, that he is known for his work on the Confederacy, including his biographies of Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart. However, he has made Athens, Georgia, his home since the late 1960s. As a football…