Terry Gross

He is the editorial page editor of The Rutland Herald in Vermont, where he won that paper's first Pulitzer for his series of editorials in support of same-sex unions. He's the author of the new book, Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage. Vermont became the first state in the country to make civil unions legal for gay and lesbian couples. In 1999, the state Supreme Court ruled that gay couples were due the legal rights of marriage, and told the state legislature to decide how best to do that.

Lewis is The Boston Globe's state House reporter. He'll discuss the ruling by the Massachusetts high court yesterday that gay couples in that state will be accorded full equal marriage rights rather than civil unions. The ruling is a clarification of the court's November decision that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The state Senate asked for clarification on the decision, because they felt it was worded vaguely.

Kassem is an Egyptian human-rights activist and the publisher of Cairo Times, Egypt's only independent English-language news magazine.

As an actress, she's best-known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies. She's also the author of the bestsellers Postcards From the Edge (which she adapted into a screenplay for the film of the same name), and Surrender the Pink. Like Postcards from the Edge, Fisher's new book The Best Awful is based on her own life. In it, Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale's husband leaves her for another man, and then she is diagnosed with bipolar illness.

Saudi Arabian-Born Ambah is participating in the five-day Muslim pilgrimage (known as the "hajj") to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It began on Jan. 30. She is traveling with her two sisters. Over the weekend, 244 people were crushed to death in a stampede. Ambah is writing about her journey for The Christian Science Monitor. She now makes her home in Arlington, Va.

Groopman is author of The Anatomy of Hope. Groopman teaches at the Harvard Medical School and is chief of experimental medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He also writes about medicine and biology for The New Yorker.

Photographer Rosamond Purcell's new book, Owls Head, is about her 20-year friendship with William Buckminster, an eccentric collector whose dilapidated antiques shop and 11-acre junkyard in Maine became something of a tourist attraction. Buckminster sold many of his items to Purcell, who took them home and photographed them in large-format Polaroids. Purcell, who's been called the "doyenne of decay," has also collaborated three times on books with the late paleontologist and science historian Stephen Jay Gould.

David Denby is a staff writer and film critic for The New Yorker. His new book, American Sucker, is a memoir about his brief obsession with the stock market — during the height of irrational exuberance in 2000-2001. It started with his wife's announcement that she was leaving him. Denby began an attempt to make $1 million so that he could buy out his wife's share of their New York apartment. (This interview continues into the second half of the show).

He just won a Golden Globe for the film Osama, which he wrote and directed. It was shot in post-Taliban Afghanistan. It's based on a true story about a mother who disguises her 12-year old daughter as a boy so that she can work and earn an income under the Taliban regime. Barmak also runs the Afghan film organization and is director of the Afghan Children Education Movement, an association that promotes literacy, culture and the arts.

Phillips is a former Republican strategist and a regular contributor to The Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. And he's the author of nine books including The Politics of Rich and Poor. In his new book he takes a look at the Bush family legacy, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush.