Neil McCormick believed he was going to be the world’s biggest rock star, but that’s what happened to his childhood friend, Bono.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Philosopher Judith Butler took a rigorous look at gender in her 1990 book, “Gender Trouble.” In this EXTENDED conversation, Steve asks her - with transexual and gender queer people more visible than ever - what can we say about the state of gender in North America?
Mikael Niemi is the author of “Popular Music from Vittula,” the single best-selling book in Swedish history.
Phillip Jenkins is the author of “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Age of Global Christianity.” Jenkins tells Steve Paulson that Christianity may be declining in the nations of the industrialized West, but Pentecostalism is experiencing explosive growth in Latin America and Africa.
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.
Sixty years after those Avant Garde composers of the 1920s, some Japanese musicians followed in their footsteps, exploring the outer reaches of sound with “noise music.”
Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith tell Anne Strainchamps how they got started soliciting six-word memoirs, recite some of their favorites, and say that crafting them can become an addiction.
Karen Russell talks about her debut novel, "Swamplandia!," which focuses on a family-operated gator wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades.
Karen Russell's "Swamplandia!" page on Random House's website
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