Bookworm

Merry Men The author of The Beans of Egypt Maine examines her development, tracing her attitudes toward poverty, politics and the writing of fiction.

King of Cards Identity-formation and adolescent rites of passage are the themes of Ward---s fast-paced novel.

Going Native, Part II Author Stephen Wright talks about the influence of the Black Humorists of the 1960's on his explosive 90's breakthrough novel.

Going Native, Part I Drugs, violence and cartoons--in the novel by Stephen Wright that Bookworm nominates as the best of this season.

The Holder of the World A discussion of multiculturalism, patriarchal literature and formal experimentation.

Love Enter; How the Night is Divided Two first-novelists discuss their first publications.

Little Buddha The experimental novelist of the sixties and seventies (Nog, Flats and Quake) discusses his screenwriting, from Two Lane Blacktop to Little Buddha, and the degeneration of experimental art goals in the nineties.

The author traces his fiction-writing career from the artistic aspirations of Forgetting Elena to the sexual politics of The Beautiful Room is Empty.

Edmund White's biography reopens the questions of aesthetics and criminality in the life of French writer Jean Genet.

The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee Matthew Stadler explores the role that obsession can play in developing the structure of a post-modern novel.

Fima This sad-sack, Israeli Hamlet, is examined under the opposing lights of comedy and tragedy.

Body and Soul Conroy, who suffered a major writer---s block, discusses his novel about a vastly successful pianist-composer. Did writing about a successful artist break the block?

In A Country of Mothers The author talks about perversity and normality in her work.

The Road to Wellville (Viking) Hypocrisy, health food, ordure and the morality of fiction are the subjects of today's discussion.

Part II: The madman of contemporary fiction examines his influences: Beckett, Harold Bloom, Thomas Bernhart, J.D. Salinger, et al.

Zim Zum Part I: "Captain Fiction" talks abut the fiction he writes, the fiction he edits (at Alfred Knopf) and his career as a magazine editor (Esquire).

Bright Root, Dark Root The Los Angeles-based poet talks about Buddhism, spirituality and a poet's vocation.

Chimney Rock The author defends the dream-like projections of Los Angeles in his most recent novel.

A Year of Rhymes A first novel by a prize-winning poetic essayist: The writer discusses his turn to fiction, weather and death, and his interest in simplicity and sincerity.