What turned David Foster Wallace into a cult icon? He’s more famous today than when he committed suicide 7 years ago. Stephen Burn is editing Wallace's letters. He says there are two kinds of DFW fans.More
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Interviews By Topic
Is the American criminal justice system perpetuating racial castes? Civil rights attorney and activist Michelle Alexander breaks down the systemic racism inherent to our justice system.More
How relevant are 1001 Nights today? Well, they’re still a powerful influence for some very famous writers. Here' Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk.More
Nobel Prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk offers his take on why he writes.More
Losing yourself in wilderness can also be a way of finding yourself, and one place you can do that is in our national parks. Renowned nature writer Terry Tempest Williams reflects on her love for these parks — especially those with desert landscapes.More
Feeling hopeless? How about cake recipes for the Apocalypse? Shannon O'Malley offers a few of her favorite recipes.More
Everyone's afraid of something. Here's a small sampling of fears from Question Bridge: Black Males, a transmedia project that fosters dialogue between African American men of diverse backgrounds.More
It turns out that even the most basic things we believe about ourselves are often wrong. Neuroscientist Julian Keenan says it has to do with how the brain works. He’s the author of the “Face in the Mirror: How We Know Who We Are.” More
Some of the world's most celebrated scientists and artists have been dyslexic. Cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf says dyslexia can be a gift, but schools must learn how to teach dyslexics to read.More
The Reduced Shakespeare Company perform an even further abridged version of their theatrical show "The Bible: The Complete Word of God" - abridged.More
Mark Mothersbaugh is co-founder of the new-wave band Devo. They think humanity is de-evolving.More
Reverend Alex Gee tells Steve Paulson how rappers like Tupac Shakur function as prophets for the hip hop generation, and how he incorporates rap music into his liturgy.More
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Rachel Carson, a pioneer of the environmental movement. Rob Nixon holds the Rachel Carson chair in English at the UW-Wisconsin. He says she was something of a reluctant activist. More
Richard Holmes talks with Steve Paulson about how art and science influenced each other during the Romantic period.More
Laura Waterman is the author of a memoir called "Losing the Garden: The Story of A Marriage." The book explores how Laura could have permitted her beloved husband of thirty years to kill himself while suffering a profound depression.More
Joan Didion, who died last week at the age of 87, helped shape a highly personal brand of nonfiction that came to be known as the New Journalism. Her early essay collections "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1968) and "The White Album" (1979) influenced generations of writers. Her later memoirs, "The Year of Magical Thinking" and "Blue Nights," chronicled the deaths of her husband and daughter. In 2011 Didion talked with Steve Paulson about illness and growing old in the wake of the death of her daughter, Quintana.More
Listener Bill Lowman's Dangerous Idea? Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) need to be one of the lead agencies to define and defend African humanity.More
How do you plan for retirement? Parker Palmer talks with Jim Fleming about the challenges of forging a new identity once you've given up your career.More