Interviews By Topic

David Foster Wallace

Over the years, we did several interviews with Wallace himself. The last was in 2004, about his collection of short stories — "Oblivion." It’s an interview that’s been collected in two Wallace anthologies.More

Cruises suck

David Foster Wallace's essays have their own unique cult following. There’s one, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which is a hilarious diatribe about cruise ships, which convinced many of us we should never, ever go on a cruise.More

Tennis in the Sierpinski triangle

The most famous thing David Foster Wallace wrote is "Infinite Jest," his huge, sprawling novel set in a dystopian near future. It’s a little eerie how well he predicted our world today.More

water

An excerpt from the commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College in 2005.More

Roadtrip

Amy Wallace-Havens didn’t care whether David was famous, or even whether he was a writer. He was just her big brother. Anne spoke with her about a year after his death.
 More

During his lifetime, David Foster Wallace was one of the leading figures of post-modern literature. Speaking to TTBOOK in 1996, he said that he saw himself as a realist.More

AA logo

David Foster Wallace wrote memorably about Alcoholics Anonymous in his famous novel "Infinite Jest." Writer Marshall Boswell reads one of his favorite passages.More

a woman waiting for a job interview

Andrea Dobynes Wagner is legally, but not obviously, blind. Every time she sits down for a job interview, Andrea weighs the pros and cons of disclosure. Will telling people she has a disability help or hurt her chances?More

Gul Dolen

Gül Dölen is a pioneering neuroscientist who's investigating the “critical periods” of psychedelics, including studies where she's given MDMA — also known as “Molly” — to octopuses.More

Barbara Ehrenreich

For her book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America,” writer Barbara Ehrenreich worked at a series of minimally paid jobs. Speaking to Anne in 2003, she said was surprised to be both physically exhausted and mentally challenged by “menial” work.More

A house in orange

There are small, novel, concrete and grassroots ways to provide aid to the unhoused. Actress Annabelle Gurwitch was part of an experiment, a home-stay program, where individuals share their houses with people who need a place to live.More

Still of Wendell Barry from "Wait and See"

Aside from acting and woodworking, Nick Offerman has another obsession — the Kentucky writer Wendell Berry. Offerman told Steve Paulson that his admiration of Berry is rooted in their shared belief in the enduring value of craftsmanship and hard work.More

Sara working in her shop.

Sara Dahmen is a professional coppersmith – one of the only women in the country practicing the trade. She makes pots and pans – simple basic timeless cookware – out of copper, iron and tin.More

Monroe with Dick’s bunkbed ladder and sawbuck. Photo by Elan Robinson.

Naturalist Dick Proenneke led a legendary life alone in the Alaskan wilderness. After Proenneke's death in 2003, master craftsman Monroe Robinson painstakingly reproduced everything Dick made to preserve a piece of that life for future generations.More

a woman with tears

Behavioral neurologist Michael Trimble takes us on an evolutionary journey to unpack one of the few things that make Homo sapiens unique — we cry emotional tears. More

Britney Spears and the #FreeBritney movement

When the "Free Britney" movement started, it was initially treated as a joke. But the fan movement has drawn attention to exploitative conservatorship arrangements that celebrities like Britney Spears have been subjected to. Filmmaker Samantha Stark tells us the story of how the fans saved Britney's life.More

A five year vertical of Bourbon County Brand Stout.

Back in 1995, Goose Island created one of the most iconic craft beers of all time — Bourbon County Stout. Which — as Chicago Tribune beer writer Josh Noel explains — was why it was such a shock when they sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch.More

Michael Twitty

Michael Twitty can trace his family’s food history back to the slave cabins and Antebellum kitchens of the South. Honoring his diasporic heritage — he’s both black and Jewish — lead Twitty to the practice of identity cooking. He calls it Kosher/Soul.More

Pages