Overheard With Evan Smith On Klru-tv

Ross Douthat is a conservative Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. He joined the Times in 2009, previously working as a senior editor at The Atlantic. He has written a number of books including Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics and Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class.

Bob Woodward is one of America's most prominent investigative reporters and non-fiction writers. He currently serves as Associate Editor at The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971. Woodward worked with Carl Bernstein to investigate and report the Watergate scandal, which lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. He has written 16 national best-selling non-fiction books.

Ian McEwan is a critically acclaimed, highly distinguished author, whose thirteenth book is the recently published The Children Act. McEwan has won numerous awards for his writing, including the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976, the Man Booker Prize in 1998 for his novel Amsterdam and the WH Smith Literary Award in 2002 for his novel Atonement.

Mark Bittman is an opinion columnist and lead food writer for The New York Times. He’s written two books, the best-selling How to Cook Everything and the groundbreaking Vegan Before 6P.M. (VB6), which introduced Americans to the Flexitarian diet. His newest book is How to Cook Everything Fast.

Lizz Winstead is co-creator, former writer and former correspondent for The Daily Show.

Lawrence Wright is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and staff writer for The New Yorker.

Richard Linklater is an Academy Award-nominated independent filmmaker. His newest film, Boyhood, was filmed over 12 years with the same cast and is already generating Oscar buzz.

Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley are husband-and-wife indie rock pioneers who formed the influential and much-admired band Yo La Tengo three decades ago. Their thirteenth album, Fade, was released last year.

Noel Wells is a featured player on Saturday Night Live, her first season on the program. In 2010 she moved to Los Angeles and appeared in numerous online comedy videos. Her self-produced sketch videos have over 12 million views on YouTube.

Russell Gold is the Senior Energy Reporter at The Wall Street Journal and author of the new book The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World. Gold was part of the Journal's reporting team on the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill and explosion of the Deepwater Horizon.

Martin Baron is Executive Editor of The Washington Post, overseeing the Post's print and digital news operations. The Post was recently awarded two Pulitzer Prizes. Before joining the Post, Baron was editor of The Boston Globe for 11 years.

Jeffrey Tambor is a six-time Emmy-nominated actor best known for playing two of the greatest characters ever to grace a television screen: Hank Kingsley in The Larry Sanders Show and George Bluth Sr. in Arrested Development. He recently starred in Amazon’s web-only pilot Transparent.

Brian Stelter is CNN's Senior Media Correspondent and host of Reliable Sources. Stelter joined CNN in November after six years at The New York Times, where he covered the television and digital media industries. Stelter also wrote the New York Times best-seller Top of the Morning, which uncovers the darker side of morning television.

Jason Schwartzman is an actor and musician whose credits include the HBO series Bored to Death and the films Rushmore, I Heart Huckabees, Funny People, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and, now in theaters, The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Joel Klein has been called one of the most influential people in public education. He was chancellor of New York City schools for eight years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He is the current CEO for Amplify, the educational division of News Corp.

Kevin Nealon is a comedian and actor who spent 9 years on Saturday Night Live, including three as the anchor of Weekend Update, and 7 seasons in the cast of the Showtime series Weeds.

Mary Matalin and James Carville are the odd couple of American politics — a diehard Republican and a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat happily married despite their famous ideological differences. Their latest book is "Love and War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home."

Lucinda Williams is a Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter, whose highly acclaimed self-titled album, Lucinda Williams, was released 25 years ago this month. That album featured the song Passionate Kisses, later performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter and which earned Williams a Grammy for Best Country Song in 1994.

Amy Tan is the author of three best-selling novels including her 1989 novel The Joy Luck Club. Her newest novel, The Valley of Amazement, was published in November and is already on The New York Times best-seller list. The editors of The New York Times Book Review also named it a 2013 Notable Book. Tan co-produced and co-wrote the screenplay of The Joy Luck Club movie, released in 1993. Millions of copies of her books are in print and they have been translated into thirty languages.

John Sayles is an Academy Award-nominated writer and director whose credits include Lone Star, Passion Fish, The Brother From Another Planet and The Return of the Secaucus Seven. His 18th film, Go For Sisters, was recently released.