Search results for

Writer EDMUND WHITE. He has been called "unquestionably the foremost American gay novelist." WHITE's novels draw significantly from his own experiences in a style he calls "auto-fiction." In his newest book, "Genet: A Biography" (Knopf), WHITE documents the life of controversial French writer, Jean Genet. Genet had a reputation as a dandy, a thief, a vagabond --- a "thug of genius." WHITE calls him "one of France's most original and forceful novelists of the twentieth century." WHITE has also written "Forgetting Elena," "A Boy's Own Story," and six other books of fiction and non-fiction

Poet, writer, and teacher NANCY MAIRS. She's a Catholic feminist, who started out Protestant, and who late in life became a feminist. She calls herself, "the connoisseur of catastrophe." She's known for writing honestly about her struggles with multiple sclerosis, depression, and the life-threatening illness of her husband, also about being a woman, a mother, and a wife. Her newest book of personal essays is "Ordinary Time," (Beacon). One revewier calls it, "a small miracle of honesty mediated by dignity and humor."

2: The world of New York drag queens was captured on film long before "Paris Is Burning." In 1968, a movie called "The Queen" documented the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant. The film was a sensation in New York City; it was even shown at the Cannes Film Festival. This month "The Queen" has been revived for a short run at New York's Film Forum. Terry talks with JACK DOROSHOW, also known as Sabrina, the organizer and mistress of ceremonies of the 1968 Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant.

2: Comedian and actor, JERRY STILLER. He's currently playing George Costanza's father on this season's "Seinfeld" show. STILLER got his start in standup comedy with his wife Anne Meara as The Stillers, the befuddled jewish guy and the heart-of-gold Irish girl. They performed for nine years on the Ed Sullivan Show, and did popular radio spots for Blue Nun wine and other TV shows and specials.

Film critic Stephen Schiff on the new comedy: "Ace Ventura Pet Detective."

2: What does 'artistic temperament' really mean? In her new book, "Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" (Free Press), Kay Jamison has studied the psychological makeup of many of our most revered artists--Byron, Tennyson, Van Gogh, Hemingway--and linked their genius to manic-depression. Jamison looks at current treatments for manic-depression, and considers their affect on a patient's ability to create. Kay Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Rock historian Ed Ward pays tribute to Otis Redding.

Stephen Schiff reviews the new film by director Jane Champion, "The Piano," starring Holly Hunter, and Harvey Keitel.

GARY ORFIELD. He is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Director of its Project on School Desegration. His report, "The Growth of Segregation in American Schools: Changing Patterns of Separation and Poverty since 1968" was recently issued to the National School Board Association. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court found that the races in America's schools were segregated and the education was unequal. For awhile, integration was on the increase. But ORFIELD has found that today our schools have slipped backward. African American and Latino students are increasingly isolated by both race and poverty. ORFIELD argues that well designed school desegration programs can help.

Journalist STAN SESSER. A "Reporter at Large" in Southeast Asia for the New Yorker, Sesser has collected some of those pieces in a new book "The Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia" (Knopf). Sesser discusses the recent elections in Cambodia; elections which featured violence, twenty political parties and massive voter turnout

Psychologist and writer CAROL TAVRIS. Terry will talk with her about two things: Her latest book, "The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex." (Simon & Schuster). In the book, TAVRIS looks at the widespread but unacknowledged custom in the social sciences, medicine, law and history, of treating men as the normal standard and women as abnormal. TAVRIS shows that the real differences in gender are in power, resources, and life experiences. Also TAVRIS recently wrote a review of two books dealing with incest, "Beware the Incest-Survivor Machine," (The New York Times Book Review, Jan 3, 1993) in which she calls for a more reasoned, cautious approach to a very complicated issue. The review received a fire-storm of letters from readers (Feb. 14, 1993).

Law Professor CATHERINE MACKINNON. She's well known for her feminist take on legal issues, and she's just written a new book called "Only Words." (Harvard University Press) She argues that as long as sexual harassment, pornography and hate speech are protected by the First Amendment, equality will only be a word, not a reality. MacKinnon pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination. She now teaches at the University of Michigan Law School.