The Halli Casser-Jayne Show

Is it possible for the human race to evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology? If it is, would you embrace the possibility? Tune in to The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds Wednesday, April 23, 3 pm ET when Halli welcomes philosopher and transhumanist, author, entrepreneur, and former National Geographic and New York Times correspondent Zoltan Istvan to the show. Zoltan Istvan, an American-Hungarian, first caught the world’s attention when he began a solo, multi-year sailing journey around the world at the tender age of 21. His main cargo was 500 handpicked books, mostly classics. He's explored over 100 countries—many as a journalist for the National Geographic Channel—writing, filming, and appearing in dozens of television stories, articles, and webcasts. His work has also been featured by the New York Times Syndicate, Outside, San Francisco Chronicle, The Huffington Post, BBC Radio, Travel Channel, and in much other media.  Zoltan recently published The Transhumanist Wager, a fictional thriller describing apatheist Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology. In addition to his award-winning coverage of the war in Kashmir, he gained worldwide attention for pioneering and popularizing the extreme sport of volcano boarding. Zoltan later became a director for the international conservation group WildAid, leading armed patrol units to stop the billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia. Back in America, he started various successful businesses, from real estate development to filmmaking to viticulture, joining them under ZI Ventures. He is a philosophy and religious studies graduate of Columbia University. He resides in San Francisco with his daughters and physician wife.   

It’s the season of miracles on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds Wednesday, April 16, 3 pm ET when Halli welcomes two guests who will explore Signs and Wonders: The History and Language of the Spiritual World, authors Mark Booth and Albert Clayton Gaulden. Mark Booth has worked in publishing for more than twenty years. He was educated at Ipswich School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he read philosophy and theology. His publications include The Living Testament: The Essential Writings of Christianity Since the Bible. He is the author of the international bestseller The Secret History of the World and The Secret History of Dante. His latest work The Sacred History, How Angels, Mystics and Higher Intelligence Made Our World tackles the great spiritual myths of history. Albert Clayton Gaulden, founder and director of Sedona, Arizona’s popular alternative therapy program, the Sedona Intensive is the author of numerous books, including Clearing for the Millennium and You’re Not Who You Think You Are. His Signs and Wonders, Understanding the Language of God has become a cult classic. The Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC World News and publications such as the Chicago Tribune have feature Albert Clayton Gaulden and his transforming work. A look at Signs and Wonders: The History and Language of the Spiritual World with two celebrated authors, Mark Booth and Albert Clayton Gaulden on The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Wednesday, April 16, 3 pm ET at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds invites you to join Halli for a chat with two beloved authors: Wally Lamb and Kate Mosse. Wally Lamb is the author of four novels, including the New York Times and national bestseller The Hour I First Believed and Wishin’ and Hopin’, a bestselling novella. His first two works of fiction She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, were both number one New York Times bestsellers and selections of Oprah’s Book Club. His latest work, We Are Water, is vintage Wally Lamb – a compulsively readable, generous, and uplifting masterpiece that digs deep into the complexities of the human heart to explore the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives. Kate Mosse has written nonfiction, plays, short stories and six novels, including the international bestseller Labyrinth. Her latest novel is Citadel. The cofounder of the prestigious Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, she is a campaigner to save independent bookshops and libraries in the U.K. A regular presenter for BBC radio and television, she won the Spirit of Everywoman Award and was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to literature. She lives with her family in England and France. A conversation with celebrated authors Wally Lamb and Kate Mosse. For more information visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Wednesday, April 2, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds will travel from Hollywood, USA to Nuremberg, Germany to bring you two stories of World War II only recently uncovered. Joining the show is author Tim Townsend whose new book Mission at Nuremberg, An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis tells the controversial and thought-provoking story of Army Chaplain Henry F. Gerecke. At the end of World War II, Gerecke was recruited for the most difficult job of his life: ministering to twenty-one prominent Nazi leaders awaiting trial at Nuremberg, including Hermann Goering, a chief architect of Hitler’s “Final Solution” and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Townsend, a former religion reporter at the St. Louis Dispatch, holds master’s degrees from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Divinity School.  In Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War, Mark Harris brings us the untold story of the extraordinary wartime experiences of five of Hollywood’s greatest and most legendary directors, all of whom put their stamp on World War II, and were changed forever by their experience. Harris explores the “lost chapters” of  celebrated directors: John Ford, William Wyler, John Houston, George Stevens, and Frank Capra who left Hollywood at the peak of their success to join the Armed Forces and shape the way America saw the war. Harris is the author of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, a New York Times notable book of the year, and a columnist for. Entertainment Weekly. He is a graduate of Yale University. Visit Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Wednesday, March 26, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds enters The Twilight Zone when Anne Serling, daughter of The Twilight Zone’s creator, Rod Serling, visits The Halli Casser-Jayne Show. “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.” Thus began one of the most iconic television shows of all time written by one of the giants of early television and beyond, Rod Serling. In the incomparable biography of her father, As I Knew Him, Anne Serling, Rod’s youngest daughter, has written a brilliant send-up to her father that Robert Redford calls “a haunting and beautifully written memoir.” Tender, thoughtful, the book is as magical as the father she writes about, a lyrical, intimate tribute to Rod Serling’s legacy as visionary, storyteller, and humanist, and a moving testament to the love between fathers and daughters. It is filled with surprises, proving that Serling was right: Everything is not as it seems. Join us for Beyond The Twilight Zone. Tune in to The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds with biographer Anne Serling, Wednesday, March 26, 3 pm ET at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Overwhelmed? Bored? Frustrated?  STUCK? Wednesday, March 19, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds explores the lives of four women who approaching mid-life found themselves in a state of stuck! Their journeys to get unstuck are at once humor-filled, honest, insightful and gut-wrenching – their stories lessons for us all. Joining The Halli Casser-Jayne Show are the authors of The 52 Weeks, Two Women and Their Quest to Get Unstuck Karen Amster-Young, and Pam Godwin, and contributors to the book Jennifer Gardner Trulson and Nadia Stieglitz. We’ll get inspired with Karen Amster-Young, a marketing and public relations veteran who has amassed many awards for her work, including a spot on PR Week’s “Forty PR stars under forty.” We’ll discover possibilities with Pam Godwin who began her career as a caseworker for a nonprofit refugee resettlement agency. After getting her master’s degree in elementary education, Pam was a classroom teacher and literacy specialist in the New York City public school system. We’ll get going again with Jennifer Gardner Trulson, the author of the memoir Where You Left Me, which was named Best Non-Fiction by the readers of Elle. She has been featured on the Today Show and 20/20 and been published in Harper’s Bazaar. We’ll learn to jumpstart our lives with a year of discovery with Nadia Stieglitz. Born in France, raised in the Alps, now a resident of New York City with her husband and three daughters, Steiglitz worked as a creative director in publishing. Then she decided to shake things up; you won’t believe what she discovered! It’s almost Spring and time to shake, rattle, roll and get Unstuck! Tune in to The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds, Wednesday, March 19, 3 pm ET at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.

Wednesday, March 12, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds welcomes arguably one of the great guitar players of our time, Roger McGuinn. Guitar player, singer, songwriter, Roger McGuinn is best known as the lead singer and lead guitarist of The Byrds, today considered by critics to be one of the most influential bands of the 1960s, pioneering the musical genre of folk rock, melding the influence of The Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music. McGuinn was voted in the top five on Rolling Stone’s list of greatest guitar players of all time, praised for his chordal 12-string Rickenbacker riffs, the sonic bridge between folk and rock that changed music forever. Jim McGuinn was a kid from the Windy City when he became interested in music after hearing Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel, which inspired him to pick up the guitar. The rest, as they say, is history. McGuinn would play with The Limeliters, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley, Judy Collins and Bobby Darin. He and fellow Byrd members that included Gene Clark, David Crosby, Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman would make songs such as Mr. Tambourine Man, Turn Turn Turn, Eight Miles High and The Ballad of Easy Rider number one hits. In 1991 The Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Wednesday, March 5, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds takes an in-depth look at Money! Money! Money! Is money the root of all evil? We’ll pose that question to our guests: author of Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty, Jerry Oppenheimer; author of The Einstein of Money, The Life and Timeless Financial Wisdom of Benjamin Graham, Joe Carlen, and  author of Nothing Personal, a Novel of Wall Street, Mike Offit. Jerry Oppenheimer is the bestselling author of unauthorized biographies of public figures including Hillary and Bill Clinton, Anna Wintour, Rock Hudson, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters, Ethel Kennedy, Jerry Seinfeld and the Hilton Family. In addition to being a biographer, he has also worked in several different capacities as a journalist. Crazy Rich places under a journalistic microscope the private lives of the Johnson family and tells the story of their immense power, extraordinary wealth, and provocative dramas. Joe Carlen is the cofounder and lead market analyst at Know Thy Market, LLC. He is the coauthor of the business biography From Lifeguard to Sun King, which was included on the Wall Street Journal business book bestseller list. Mike Offit began a Wall Street real estate trading career after graduating from Brown University, and obtained significant success on the Street. After his departure, he turned back to his original passion: writing. Richard Johnson of Page Six hails Offit’s novel, saying “Nothing Personal makes Wolf of Wall Street look like a flea.”

Wednesday, February 26, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds takes an in-depth look at The Academy Awards with three time Oscar nominee, actress Diane Ladd, longtime film critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Carrie Rickey, and film director/screenwriter/producer Charles Matthau. There is only one Diane Ladd and The Halli Casser-Jayne Show has her! While most notable for her film reviews for The Philadelphia Inquirer, film critic Carrie Rickey’s work has also appeared in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Village Voice. Her essays are collected in many books. Rickey was an early champion of women filmmakers including Kathryn Bigelow. A native of Los Angeles, Rickey was a film critic at the Village Voice and The Boston Herald before becoming the film critic at The Philadelphia Inquirer.  Director/screenwriter/producer Charles Matthau was weaned on film. His father, actor Walter Matthau exposed young Charlie to every aspect of filmmaking early on. He appeared as a child actor alongside his father in such films as The Bad News Bears and House Calls before he turned to directing with The Grass Harp and The Marriage Fool. A graduate of the film school at the UCLA, Matthau also directed Doin' Time on Planet Earth, Her Minor Thing, Baby-O and Freaky Deaky starring Christian Slater, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. This spring Matthau will direct The Suicide Squad, a film starring Andrew Dice Clay (Blue Jasmine).  The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds airs Wednesdays, 3 pm. For more information visit at the show’s website.

Wednesday, February 19, 3 pm ET The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds airs the true story of atomic bomb victim, Hiroshima survivor, Shinji Mikamo. August 6, 1945 begins like any other day in Hiroshima during World War II. As nineteen-year-old Shinji Mikamo helps his father prepare their house for demolition, there is a blinding flash and ear-piercing explosion. Right as Shinji turns toward the noise, a fireball sends him into a chaotic world of darkness and confusion. An atomic bomb has just exploded only three-quarters of a mile away from Shinji, devastating all of Hiroshima in only a few seconds. The story of what happened thereafter to Shinji is told by his daughter, Dr. Akiko Mikamo in her book Rising from the Ashes, A True Story of Survival and Forgiveness from Hiroshima. Dr. Akiko Mikamo who was born and raised in Hiroshima by two atomic bomb survivors, promised herself as a child to contribute to world peace and humanity. She is president of San Diego – WISH: Worldwide Initiative to Safeguard Humanity and president and medical psychologist at US-Japan Psychological Services in San Diego, California.  The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds airs live Wednesdays, 3 pm ET.as is available ON DEMAND. 

Wednesday, February 12, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show will talk to Lawrence Silver, the man who for 35 years has served as Samantha Geimer’s attorney, friend and confident and is the co-author of the true story of 13-year old Geimer’s rape by the famous Hollywood director as revealed in the memoir The Girl, A life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski.  Attorney Lawrence Silver has had a front-row seat to one of the most controversial and complex legal cases of our day: “Jane Doe vs. Roman Polanski,” the rape charges brought against the Academy Award-winning Hollywood director of  such noted films as Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby. Silver found himself embroiled in the most sensational rape cases of a generation, taking on a powerful Hollywood celebrity, as well as one of the most sympathetic. Polanski, a Holocaust survivor, had recently lost his eight-and-a-half month pregnant wife, the beautiful actress Sharon Tate, brutally murdered by The Manson Family. Like the current drama sitting front and center in the tabloids, the accusations of rape by Dylan Farrow against her notorious father Woody Allen, the case argued became celebrity vs. alleged victim.  Tune in 2/12, 3 pm ET.

With all eyes on the Sochi Olympics and the very real threat of terrorism by so-called “Black Widows,” Wednesday, February 5, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds talks to Anne Speckhard, Ph.D world renowned expert on the psychology of terrorism and author of Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & “Martyrs”. While many might call themselves “terrorism experts,” Dr. Speckhard has done what most have not: She has talked to terrorists, interviewing over four hundred terrorists, suicide bombers, terrorist supporters, family members, close associates and hostages investigating what puts individuals on the terrorist trajectory and what might also take them back off it.  Dr. Speckhard has been working in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since the 1980’s. She has provided expert consultation to European and Middle Eastern governments as well as to NATO, OSCE and the U.S. Department of Defense regarding programs for prevention and rehabilitation of individuals committed to political violence and militant jihad. In 2006-2007 she worked with the U.S. Department of Defense to design and pilot test the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq.

Wednesday, January 29 2013, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds welcomes Celebrity Chef and author of  a delicious, joyride of a memoir No Experience Necessary: The Culinary Odyssey of Chef Norman Van Aken. Norman Van Aken is known as the founding father of New World Cuisine, a celebration of Latin, Caribbean, Asian, African, and American flavors. He is also known internationally for introducing the concept of “Fusion” to the culinary world. The only Floridian inducted into the prestigious James Beard list of “Who’s Who in American Food and Beverage,” his restaurant, Norman’s, was nominated as a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Restaurant in America.” He has also been a James Beard Foundation semi-finalist for “Best Chef in America.” Van Aken has published five cookbooks: Feast of Sunlight, The Exotic Fruit Book, Norman’s New World Cuisine, New World Kitchen, and My Key West Kitchen.  No Experience Necessary spans twenty-plus years of the culinary renegade and pioneering restaurateur’s career, offering a uniquely personal, highly-entertaining under-the-tablecloth view of the high stakes world of American cuisine, told with wit, insight, and great affection by a natural storyteller. With an abundance of marquee names, incuding Emerill Lagasse, Tennessee Williams, Jimmy Buffet and Julia Child, Van Aken's memoir is as byzantine as a Russian novel but lots more fun.

Wednesday, January 22, 2013, 3 pm ET, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds offers an intimate conversation with award-winning Haitian-American author and activist Edwidge Danticat. Edwidge Danticat has written numerous books, including Brother, I’m Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National book Award finalist; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club Selection; Krik? Krak! a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones an American Book Award winner; and The Dew Breakers, a Pen/Faukner Award finalist and winner of the inaugural Story Prize. The recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, Danticat has been published in The New Yorker, the New York Times and elsewhere. Her recent novel, Claire of the Sea Light is mellifluous and in every way a hypnotic lyric for the land Edwidge Danticat once called home. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, when she was two years old, her father immigrated to New York, to be followed two years later by her mother. Edwidge and her younger brother remained in Haiti. Her early education was in French although she spoke Kreyòl at home. At the age of 12, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, to join her parents in a heavily Haitian American neighborhood. But the transition to American life did not come easily and she turned to literature for solace. Today Edwidge Dantiat is a strong advocate for issues affecting Haitians abroad and at home. She has worked with filmmakers Patricia Benoit and Jonathan Demme, on projects on Haitian art and documentaries about Haïti.

The passionate love affair between Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald has been one of the tragic and storied romances of our time. Broken by mental illness, alcoholism, adulterous relationships, and financial ruin, the devoted pair – soul mates and Jazz Age sweethearts – were fiercely loyal to their floundering marriage even to their last rendezvous on Cuban holiday in 1939. The Halli Casser-Jayne Show, Talk Radio for Fine Minds takes a look at the iconic Fitzgeralds, Wednesday, January 15, 2014, 3 pm ET with author R. Clifton Spargo, Professor Emeritus of English and Fitzgerald scholar Jackson R. Bryer, and Thomas W. Thompson, Director of the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, Montgomery, Alabama. In poignant, stunning detail, R. Clifton Spargo richly imagines the golden couple’s final goodbye in Beautiful Fools, a novel thrumming with the hope and heartbreak that accompanies second chances and fractured love. R. Clifton Spargo is a Chicago-based novelist and cultural critic who writes “The HI/LO,” a blog for The Huffington Post. An Arts Fellow at the Iowa writer’s Workshop, he has published stories and essays in The Kenyon Review, The Antioch Review, The Yale Review and more. Jackson R. Bryer is the co-editor of Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and of Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald-Perkins Correspondence. Thomas W. Thompson is the Director of the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The Fitzgerald Museum is working on its upcoming 25th anniversary, which will be celebrated the first week of May 2014.