Novelist Mary Gordon used to bristle at the label "Catholic writer," but she's made peace with it now.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Mark Frauenfelder is co-creator of the weblog BoingBoing.net and the author of "Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World."
Julia Alvarez talks about her novel for young adults, and how it mirrors her own experience reconciling a native Dominican background with the culture of her adopted home: a small town in rural Vermont.
Ed Boyden, a researcher at MIT, is at the forefront of a new science that aims to map and even heal the brain with light. It’s called optogenetics, and the journal Science has called it one of the great insights of the 21st century. It’s in its early days, but the goal is to one day be able to take a disease like depression, PTSD, or epilepsy and, using bursts of light, just turn it off -- the same way you’d fix a software glitch in a computer.
Nicholson Baker's latest novel is called "The Anthologist." Baker tells Anne Strainchamps the book's about a writer who longs to be a poet.
Peter French tells Anne Strainchamps the ancient Greeks thought revenge was a good thing, and analyzes the vengeance scenario of Clint Eastwood’s film “Unforgiven.”
Michael Benson is a film-maker who’s compiled an extraordinary book of still photographs. Lawrence Weschler wrote the book’s Afterward.
Michael Pollan tells Judith Strasser where the American front lawn came from, and what it has come to symbolize.
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