Terry Gross

Novelist Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay and now lives in Canada. His new novel is Family Matters. The book is set in 1990s Bombay and is about an elderly professor with Parkinson's disease who is forced to move into the crowded apartment of his daughter and her family. Mistry is also the author of A Fine Balance and Such a Long Journey which were both short-listed for the Booker Prize.

Charles Tripp is senior lecturer in the Department of Political Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He's the author of A History of Iraq.

Novelist Jeffrey Eugenides is the author of the novel The Virgin Suicides which was made into a movie. His new novel, Middlesex, is about a contemporary hermaphrodite. Eugenides' fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Yale Review and Best American Short Stories. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

Poet Sharon Olds. Her new collection of poems is The Unswept Room. She has a number of previous collections, including Satan Says and The Dead and the Living. Olds was the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to 2000. She teaches poetry workshops in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University.

Phil Patton, author of Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile. It's a cultural history of the Volkswagen Beetle, the most produced and best-known car of all time. Patton writes for The New York Times, Esquire, Wired and ID. He also wrote Dreamland: Travels inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51.

Singer Linda Thompson is back performing after a long hiatus. She was formerly part of a British folk-rock duo with her husband, Richard Thompson. In 1985, Linda Thompson left the stage, diagnosed with hysterical dysphonia, a form of stage fright. Her new CD is called Fashionably Late and she collaborated with Richard and their son Teddy on the album's songs.

Novelist Pat Conroy is the author of several books including The Great Santini, and The Prince of Tides which were both made into feature films. Conroy's new book My Losing Season (Doubleday) is a memoir about how playing basketball for the Citadel Military College transformed his life. Conroy was point guard and captain of the Citadel Bulldogs.

John Lasseter, Executive Vice President of Creative for Pixar, Inc. Lasseter was one of the founding members of the computer-animated filmmaking company. He served as director and animator of the feature films Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life. Lasseter also directed a number of shorts for Pixar, including Tin Toy, Red's Dream and Luxo, Jr. Lasseter joined Lucas film's Computer Division in 1984, and then helped create Pixar in 1986. He previously worked as an animator for Walt Disney. This interview first aired February 27, 2002.

Singer and guitarist Jon Langford is a co-founder the British punk group The Mekons, one of the few bands of the era that is still performing. Their latest CD is Oooh. Langford plays in the country-inspired band the Waco brothers and is also a visual artist. Under the pen name Chuck Death, Langford draws the comic Great Pop Things, which is published in the L.A. Weekly, and collected in the book, Great Pop Things: The Real History of Rock and Roll from Elvis to Oasis. This interview first aired December 17, 1998.

Author Martha McPhee's new novel is called Gorgeous Lies and it's a follow-up to her critically acclaimed first novel, Bright Angel Time. Both books are about growing up in a communal blended household in the 70s run by a dictatorial patriarch. In Gorgeous Lies, the patriarch is dying. The eight children try to make peace with their father and each other. McPhee currently teaches at Hofstra University.