In her writing, it is Kate DiCamillo's gift to make bearable the fact that joy and sorrow live so close, side by side, in life as it is (if not as we wish it to be). In this conversation, along with good measures of raucous laughter and a few tears, Kate summons us to hearts "capacious enough to contain the complexities and mysteries of ourselves and each other" — qualities these years in the life of the world call forth from all of us, young and old, with ever greater poignancy and vigor.

Kate DiCamillo has written many bestselling books, beloved by children and adults in touch with their inner eight-year-old, for two decades, including Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, The Magician’s Elephant, Flora & Ulysses, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Some of these have been turned into operas and movies. Her new books in 2024 include the middle grade novel Ferris and Orris and Timble: The Beginning. She is a rare two-time winner of the Newbery Medal.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

This show originally aired in March 2022.

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A special two-month season of On Being starts May 9.

Freshly curated conversations from across the On Being archive. Big new conversations and extra offerings.

To be present to the suffering and sorrow of this world from a place of love.

To accompany each other in this — and accompany the young.

To honor the fragility of being human.

To keep our capacity for joy alive as a human birthright — and as fuel for resilience.

To grasp the relationship between violence and power.

To listen to our bodies, and metabolize the distress of our collective nervous system.

To practice the power of imagination and create new worlds and new ways of living.

To take the natural world as teacher and guide as we stand before the species-level shifts we're called to.

To nurture hearts "capacious enough" for the complexities and mysteries of ourselves and each other.

Join us.

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Sign up for The Pause — a Saturday morning companion newsletter to the On Being podcast season, and news and invitations all year round. Be the first to know as tickets go on sale for the On Being 2025 live national conversation tour.

Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the "universal condition" of yearning, and of loss; a "spirituality of rigor"; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and actor first made a name in the wild world of ’80s post-punk and later with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He also underwent public struggles with addiction and rehab.

Since the accidental death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2015, and a few years later, the death of his eldest child Jethro, he has entered yet another transfigured era, co-created an exquisite book called Faith, Hope and Carnage, and become a frank and eloquent interlocutor on grief. As a human and a songwriter, Nick Cave is an embodiment of a life examined and evolved. He sat with Krista in the On Being studio in Minneapolis, and the gorgeous conversation that followed is woven in this episode with his gorgeous music.

Nick Cave is the songwriter and lead singer of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Their albums include Ghosteen, Skeleton Tree, and Push the Sky Away. Nick's recent albums with frequent collaborator Warren Ellis include Seven Psalms and Carnage. His book, which takes the form of an electric conversation with journalist Seán O’Hagan, is Faith, Hope and Carnage. He frequently writes, and answers questions from his fans, on the website The Red Hand Files.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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