Bookworm

Kaye Gibbons Sights Unseen (Putnam) A child searches for its mother in three of Kaye Gibbon's novels. What is the significance of these quests?

Jay Gummerman Chez Chance (Pantheon) Gummerman speaks about the lives of the disenfranchised dreamers in this, his first novel.

The Liar's Club The award-winning poet discusses the structure of her autobiography. Does her poet---s ear affect the telling of a life?

Another You is Ann Beattie's richest, most-complex novel to date...

Phosphor in Dreamland An exploration of the underside of fantasy: its politics, psycho-sexual elements and its internal geography.

Under the Feet of Jesus Viramontes talks about the Latina writer's obligation to choose art and truth over political correctness.

Reservation Blues The hip young novelist on his desire for fame, accessibility and rock stardom.

Interstate An interview about emotion in fiction. Dixon discusses his Dostoyevskyan ambition to render his complex extremity of feeling about the death of a fictional child.

Secret Life The poet discusses the difficulties of writing accurately and artistically about his ongoing recovery from sexually obsessive behavior.

Memoir from Antproof Case   Mark Helprin on the legacy of fathers...

The Trial of Elizabeth Cree Penny-dreadfuls, transvestitism, the English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincey and Grand Guignol are touched on in this conversation about the underside of the Victorian Age.

Independence Day In this conversation about one novelist's development, Richard Ford describes the emotional confidence he needed to complete his break-through novel.

My Father Was a Toltec The barriers of language, ethnicity, class and gender: the challenges faced by a Latina writer.

Off Stage Betty Comden who, with Adolph Green, his written for some of the theater's great clowns--Phil Silvers, Bert Lahr, Judy Holliday, Rosalind Russell, Nancy Walker--discusses the art of the musical comedy lyric.

This novel of punk-adolescence recalls the great American coming-of-age novels. In the examination of the voice of Bank's hero, homage is paid to his literary ancestor--Huck Finn...

Oswald's Tale   Norman Mailer on the skills a novelist brings to the assembly of a historical record...

(Getty Series) Galeano discusses journalism, testimony, folklore and history-writing. He shows how each reveals a facet of the life of the writer-revolutionary.

(Getty Series) The author talks about the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution and her quest to discover a way to write truthfully about Mao's China.

(Getty Series) A conversation about "Them;" and "Us.;" Allison and Sarris talk about illegitimacy and the status of the "outsider;" in both American culture and autobiographical writing.

History, imagination and memory: Allende states that she does not make a distinction between reality and imagination and then discusses their fusion in her work. (Getty Series)