Interviews By Topic

Screen shot from the "American Male": http://michaelrohrbaugh.com/portfolio/main/american-male-2/

Michael Rohrbaugh's short film “American Male” portrays the pitfalls of hyper-masculinity with a punch.More

Boys at school

When Ashanti Branch first started teaching, he noticed that a lot of boys at his school were kind of checked out, absent and not on track to graduate. He decided to push them to take off the "male mask."More

Daniel Schorr

Daniel Schorr, a legend and former senior news analyst for NPR who passed away in 2010, reminds us of the role journalists play in holding their feet to the fire of facts.More

Hotel

It means “a couldn’t-care-less attitude,” and it’s a personal mantra for comedian Norm MacDonald.More

Rewind

Blogger Mark Manson on embracing our negativity as a means of consciously choosing what we really care about.More

"Eat what makes you happy"

Are we ever good enough, or are we doomed to self-optimization for our entire lives?More

Woman at dusk

Journalist Ariel Levy recounts how quickly everything—your career, marriage, family plans—can come unraveled.More

House on the Rock Carousel

Author Neil Gaiman on the magic beyond the House on the Rock's walls.More

Elisabeth Moss in Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale"

The legendary speculative fiction writer on why young people identify with dark, murky futures.More

La Jolla Tide Pools

Editor and publisher Ann VanderMeer is the co-editor of the sprawling anthologies “The Big Book of Science Fiction” and “The New Weird...More

George Saunders

2017 Man Booker Prize Winner George Saunders talks about his creative process, his fledgling Buddhist practice, and the enduring fascination with Lincoln and the Civil War.More

bedroom

How Ethan Smith overcame OCD and a crippling fear of self harm.More

person checking their phone

Science writer Sharon Begley on how anxiety drives modern day compulsions.More

Fargo season 3

Showrunner Noah Hawley's approach for adapting the series captures the classic film's essence.More

Bible

Robert Leonard, a radio news director in Pella, Iowa, argues that behind all the issues we argue about today there's an even more fundamental divide. Could a 1500-year-old Christian doctrine really have that much effect on lives and politics today?More

Reflection on beach

In a new book called "Born Bad," historian James Boyce argues that the concept of original sin is the foundation of Western thought. More

Original blessing

For theologist Danielle Shroyer, what happened in the Garden of Eden is a story of original blessing. More

Lone tree

Laird Hunt has written what is really three stories wrapped around each other: A famous lynching in Marion, the story of a song about it, “Strange Fruit,” and a new novel, which begins on that terrible day. More

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