Terry Gross

Political Analyst Alan Schroeder. His new book “Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High Risk TV,” (Columbia University Press, 2000) examines the history of the televised presidential debate. Drawing from his experience as a print journalist and TV producer, he details the decisions that influence every aspect of the event: the color of the backdrop curtain to the camera angles chosen. He also looks at the results of past debates, discussing strategies for political effectiveness. He is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Northeastern University.

Poet and memoirist Mary Karr. Author of the best selling Liar’s Club, she has just published a new book chronicling her teen age years entitled “Cherry” (Penguin Putnam, 2000). In a follow up to what critics call “a hard scrabble childhood,” she returns to East Texas to detail her adolescence. Karr relates anecdotes of rebellion, self doubt and sexual coming of age. The recipient of several literary awards such as the Pushcart Prize and the Bunting Award, she has published two volumes of poetry. She is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.

Director of the United Hospital Fund's Project on Family Caregiving in an Age of Change, Carole Levine She brings her professional and personal life to bear on her work with the project. Since 1990, when her husband was critically injured in an automobile accident, she has been his caregiver. Levine new book which came out this week is called, Always on Call: When Illness Turns Families into Caregivers. Levine is also the founder and executive director of The Orphan Project: Families and Children in the HIV Epidemic.

Record producer and folklorist Chris Strachwitz. In 1960, Strachwitz started Arhoolie records as a leading outlet for many types of music that were disappearing or outside the mainstream. Today, the label has hundreds of titles, featuring blues, cajun, country and bluegrass, Tex-Mex, and many other styles. Strachwitz has just received a NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Strachwitz also has a new CD anthology of his Arhoolie recordings. (ORIGINAL BROADCAST: 2/22/90)

Washington Post reporter Peter Baker. He’s the journalist who co-wrote the story breaking the news about Monica Lewinsky, and he’s just written a book about that episode of the Clinton presidency, called “The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton.” (Scribner) He writes, “For all the titillation about thongs and cigars, the story… was not so much about sex as it was about power.”

Publisher Andre Schiffrin director of The New Press, and former head of Pantheon books, talks about the New York publishing world from the business side. He’s just written “The Business of Books,” (Verso) described as part memoir, part history of contemporary publishing.

Former presidential speechwriter Michael Waldman. His new book is called “POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency.” (Simon and Schuster) From 1993 to 1999, Waldman was a special assistant and then chief speechwriter to Bill Clinton. During that time, he worked closely with the president to write or edit nearly two thousand speeches, including four State of the Union addresses and two inaugural addresses. Previously a public-interest lawyer and writer, Waldman is the author of “Who Robbed America?

Professor Michael A. Bellesiles on the history of gun culture in America. His new book, “Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture” (Knopf) looks at our country’s obsession with guns. Historically, he says it began around the civil war. Before that, there was virtually no access to firearms. His research refutes the conventional lore that Colonial families were armed, and that the gun was the symbol of the frontier. Bellesiles is a Colonial historian at Emory University, and the Director of Emory’s Center for the Study of Violence.

Writer F.X. Toole. At age 70, he’s just published his first book. It’s a collection of short stories about boxing called “Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner.” (ECCO/HarperCollins) For twenty years, he’s been a cut man, stopping the bleeding so fighters can go on to the next round. Toole has been writing for 40 years, but it was the publication of his first story last year in a small literary magazine that caught the attention of a book agent.