For author Laura Wright, being a vegan is a choice in diet and identity. It shapes what she eats and wears, as well as how she is perceived in a culinary culture that revolves around meat.

Her new book "The Vegan Studies: Food, Animals and Gender in the Age of Terror" (University of Georgia Press/2015) unpacks the vegan identity through the lens of health, politics and pop culture.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Wright about the book and how veganism has been molded by American culture.

Wright reads at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville on Friday, November 6 at 7 p.m.