Blake chats with author Gretchen Dykstra about her new memoir Echoes from Wuhan. Music from LÉON, Five Iron Frenzy, Norah Jones, The Proclaimers, Robert Downey, Jr., and more.
ABOUT GRETCHEN
Gretchen Dykstra (she/her) ran the Times Square BID throughout the ‘90s, working with city and state agencies to resuscitate Times Square as well as producing NYE with the famous “ball drop.” She was Mayor Bloomberg’s Commissioner of Consumer Affairs and was founding president of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum Foundation. In 2017, the University of Wisconsin Press released Pinery Boys, and in 2019, Gretchen published Civic Pioneers: Local Stories from a Changing America, 1895-1915. She recently published Echoes from Wuhan: The Past as Prologue, her memoir about the Chinese government hiring her as one of the first 100 Americans to teach English after the Cultural Revolution. Now as a writer-in-residence at the NYPL, Gretchen is working on a book about Berea College in Kentucky. She n is a resident of Cold Spring, NY, and I’m pleased to welcome her to Kingston, NY today. Hey, Gretchen!
