James McBride won the National Book Award for "The Good Lord Bird," his novel about the abolitionist John Brown. He explains why he doesn't like most fictional portraits of slavery and how he tried to tell a different story.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
The French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, was presented with a Freedom on Expression award from the PEN American Center this week. Six high-profile writers boycotted the awards ceremony at PEN's big annual gala. Hundreds more protested, while others gave the magazine's editors a standing ovation. The chariman of the PEN World Voices Festival is Colm Toibin, the celebrated Irish novelist. Toibin shares his thoughs on the controversy.
Josh Rushing spent 14 years as a Marine and was the spokesman for the U.S. Central Command to the entire Arab world. He now works for Al Jazeera's English language service.
Environmentalist Bill McKibben believes it's time for a new environmental paradigm: small and local.
Mitchell Joaquim and the Terreform 1 team are looking for new, organic ways of building homes… and cities. He says part of the answer might be tree houses and… meat houses. Yes, you heard that right, MEAT houses.
MP3 formatting compresses audio so that the file becomes 75 to 95 percent smaller. But what are we missing?
Richard Nelson hikes through the Alaskan wilderness recording sounds you can't hear anywhere else, and he plays excerpts during this conversation with Anne Strainchamps.
Robert Ferris Thompson muses about the movements of the tango and all the passions they express.
Pages
