“Whenever life becomes too turbulent,” writes Utah writer Dennis Hinkamp, he likes to visit Robert Smithson’s most famous work of art—Spiral Jetty.Perhaps the world’s most widely known earthwork, it cost the artist less than $10,000 and took only six weeks to construct, thanks to rented heavy equipment and a hired crew.Smithson meant Spiral Jetty to erode, to evolve with time, and Hinkamp has watched this happen from its very beginning in 1970.

Your local almanac for gardening, landscaping, and much more for your home and valley living.

We are all told to prioritize self care but sometimes the pressure to do so leaves us stressed.

KVNF’s Top Spin is a spotlight on the most-played album in the past 6 weeks by our DJs.

“I didn’t know I enjoyed thinking so much,” says science writer Roxanne Khamsi when asked what surprised her most about writing her first book Beyond Inheritance. “I thought I enjoyed interviewing people and reading research papers and the process of finding the right verb in a sentence. What’s hard for me is once I get into that thinking space, I can’t let go of it.” In this episode we talk about how she made the leap from writing articles to writing a book—and why they are so different. We talk about creating an arc for a book of essays, what to do when the structure for your book isn’t working, letting go of a project once its over, meeting our self critic, the role of obsession in writing a book, the art of going for “the big idea” and how to carry that in a nonfiction book, how writing reflects the author’s personality.

Montana writer Todd Wilkinson spent seven years writing the definitive biography of Ted Turner, who died recently at age 87. Turner was a complicated and accomplished man, he says, not just for starting CNN and 24-hour news, building a major league baseball team, his hometown Atlanta Braves, and starting a foundation run by former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth to strengthen the United Nations.Above all else, Wilkinson says Turner loved the West’s open lands and wanted to protect them for bison and all wildlife. As his former wife Jane Fonda put it, he wanted to be known as “a good guy."

KVNF's newest additions to the music library updated June 22, 2026

KVNF's weekly call-in gardening show. As the Worm Turns is now on Wednesday's @ 5 PM.

Your local almanac for gardening, landscaping, and much more for your home and valley living.