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.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Peggy Orenstein tells Anne Strainchamps about “parasite singles” - young Japanese, mostly female, who reject the traditional life of marriage and children.
Frances Perkins was the woman behind the New Deal as she was sworn in as Secretary of Labor under Franklin Roosevelt.
Poet Lisa Russ Spaar tells Jim about her book “Acquainted with the Night” - an anthology of verse about insomnia, or written by insomniacs.
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.
Jerry Aronson spent a dozen years filming the great Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and produced a documentary called "The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg."
Marc Rothemund directed a documentary about Sophie Scholl, who was arrested with her brother for distributing anti-war pamphlets in Germany after the defeat at Stalingrad during WWII.
Best-selling author Jane Hamilton has the kind of success most novelists dream of. In her novel “Disobedience,” a teenage son discovers that his mom is cheating on his dad.
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