The Journal of the Southwest Radio Hour brings the voices of researchers, educators, activists and community members working to better understand the region’s past and envision possible new futures.
Dorothy Denetclaw and Matt Fitzimons: Sons of Gunshooter
In 1919, two sons of the Diné medicine man Gunshooter stopped at a trading post for a snack and ended up in a shooting that killed Charles Hubbell, brother of one of the West's most famous Indian traders. What Dorothy Denetclaw's family had always known was self-defense cost the brothers years of their lives and was followed by a century of flattering stories about the Hubbells. On this episode of JSW Radio, Jennifer Jenkins talks with Denetclaw, Gunshooter's granddaughter, and former investigative reporter Matt Fitzsimons, co-authors of The Sons of Gunshooter: A Navajo Resistance Story (University of Arizona Press, 2026). Speaking from Santa Fe's Indian Market, they explain how the oral history Denetclaw's father passed to her in Navajo held up against the National Archives, right down to a horse missing one shoe. They also discuss what the Hubbell Trading Post at Ganado still leaves out, why resistance and Diné teachings of love and ethics can't be separated.
9 Sept 2026
Ben Wilder and Bill Broyles: The Botanical Odyssey of Richard S. Felger
Richard Felger was a botanist, ethnobiologist, and conservationist, one of the great interpreters of the Sonoran Desert. Over decades, his work crossed borders, ranging from the Gran Desierto de Altar and the Gulf of California to points across Northwest Mexico, the US Southwest, and beyond. In this episode, Jeff Banister talks with Ben Wilder and Bill Broyles about The Botanical Odyssey of Richard S. Felger, a new book they compiled and edited with Thomas Bowen, the latest volume in the Southwest Center series with the University of Arizona Press. The conversation traces Richard's remarkable life and work, and the odyssey of bringing this book into the world: not quite Homeric, perhaps, but full of people, places, and more than a few epic stories.
4 Aug 2026
Jonathan Danielson: Arizona Literary Regionalism
A burned-out cop named Tweed, a neighbor with a dead horse, nods to John Wayne, Waylon Jennings, Charles Portis, and the Phoenix Suns. These are just a few of the elements of Jonathan Danielson’s The Lowest Basin: Arizona Stories, a purposeful recasting Arizona’s place—and Arizona as place—in contemporary Western fiction. Hailed by Arizona's Poet Laureate Alberto Ríos as quieter than old Westerns but "louder in the depths of the heart," the stories fill a real gap in literature of the region. Author of The Cactus League Emily Nemens compared the stories to desert rocks that "hold their warmth long after sundown."
Dr. Jennifer Jenkins talks in this episode with author Jonathan Danielson, a second-generation Scottsdale denizen and guide to the vagaries of 21st century Arizona in fiction. He holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and a PhD from Arizona State University, and is an active proponent of Arizona Regionalism as a distinct literary genre. His linked short story collection, The Lowest Basin: Arizona Stories, was long-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and was chosen by the Pima County Public Library as a 2026 Southwest Book of the Year.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
21,896
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 40 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
36
Social presence
0
YouTube
76
Engagement
32
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