Melissa Lozada-Oliva's 'Dreaming of You,' Entertainment Industry Working Conditions, Angela Merkel's Early Life, Glenn Copeland Documentary

On Día de los Muertos, poet, writer, and musician Melissa Lozada-Oliva joins us to talk her new book, Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse. The novel follows a Latinx poet, working through loneliness and heartache, as she decides one day to bring Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla-Pérez back to life. Lozada-Oliva's writing interrogates themes of Latinidad and womanhood, as well as fandom and obsession as her young poet tries to resurrect the iconic star.

WNYC planning editor Kate Hinds joins us for her ongoing series, “Kate Has a Plan,” to discuss the stories the newsroom is following this week.

Since this summer, the entertainment industry has been embroiled in a labor dispute over working conditions. The workers' union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employee, and the studios reached a détente in mid-October, averting a strike that would have brought most production across the country to a halt. Almost a week after that strike was averted, the conversation about conditions on-set was compounded by a fatal accident involving a functioning firearm used as a prop on the set of the film "Rust." Variety reporter Gene Maddaus shares his reporting on working conditions in the entertainment industry.

Angela Merkel, one of the most powerful women in the world, has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005. At the end of the year, she will leave office, placing German leadership in new hands. For the November edition of our ongoing series, "Full Bio," author Kati Marton dives into her biography of Merkel, The Chancellor, which discusses Merkel’s leadership, and how the country has changed while she has been in power. In the first installment, we'll cover Merkel's family and early years growing up in East Germany.

Glenn Copeland’s masterful 1986 album, Keyboard Fantasies, became a critical sensation 30 years after it was released because a Japanese fan reached out and offered to sell the cassette’s remaining copies. But during those earlier decades, Copeland made music largely in obscurity. In the documentary, also titled, “Keyboard Fantasies,” which opened in theaters on October 29, Copeland shares his story. Director Posy Dixon calls in to talk about the film.