James Laughlin (1914-97), the bold and fiercely independent poet and founder of New Directions Publishing in 1936, championed new poetry, experimental prose, and controversial plays. His "stable" included Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Tennessee Williams, Christopher Isherwood, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and, at one point, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Franz Kafka. Hear the man tell the origins story of New Directions, including living with Gertrude Stein, his assessment of Pound’s decline into madness, and much more in this historic 1975 conversation with Susan Howe and Charles Ruas.

Historic Audio from the Archives of Charles Ruas is produced by Clocktower Radio and broadcast in partnership with Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM. Writes Clocktower Radio, "A unparalleled collection of recovered and restored programs from the seventies produced by Charles Ruas for WBAI-FM, New York's Pacifica station. It features reading, lectures, and performances by such cultural and literary icons as Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Anaïs Nin, William Boroughs, Buckminster Fuller, Sylvia Plath, Pablo Neruda, and Jorge Luis Borges, among numerous others.

Ruas is the author of Conversations with American Writers, a Fulbright scholar, and a distinguished French translator. He is also a contributor to ARTNews and Art in America. This series is produced in partnership with Charles Ruas, The Pacifica Radio Archives, The Yale Beinecke Library, The Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Collection, and numerous restorers, archivists and collectors."