John Sayles, author of A Moment in the Sun, speaks with hosts Randall Albers and Bruce Sheridan.

The work of John Sayles has been integral to the development of independent film in the United States. Beginning with his first feature, Return of the Secaucus 7, his movies have helped define the “other” that exists beyond Hollywood. Despite an unwillingness to tailor his subject matter and style to the dictates of the mainstream, he has managed to direct sixteen feature films, including his most recent movie, Honeydripper (2007), which starred Danny Glover. His seventeenth feature, Amigo, was filmed in the Philippines in early 2010.

Sayles began his career as a storyteller as a writer of fiction, authoring the novels Pride of the Bimbos (1975), Union Dues (1978, nominated for National Book Award and National Critics’ Circle Award), and Los Gusanos (1990), and short story collections The Anarchists’ Convention (1979) and Dillinger in Hollywood (2004). His novel A Moment In The Sun, set during the same period as Amigo, in the Philippines, Cuba, and the U.S., will be released in 2011 by Dave Egger’s publishing house, McSweeney’s. Sayles was recently honored with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Writer’s Guild of America.