Terry Gross

Author, jazz writer and musician, Stuart Nicholson. He is an expert on and biographer of late jazz great Ella Fitzgerald. Nicholson is the author of te 1994 book "Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz" This month the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History opened its exhibit: Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song. It examines Ella Fitzgerald's 60-year career and her rags-to-riches climb to international fame as a jazz and popular singer.

Rodger McFarlane is co-author "The Complete Bedside Companion: No-Nonsense Advice on Caring for the Seriously Ill". It is published by Simon and Schuster. McFarlane is former Executive Director of two of America's most successful and influential AIDS service groups, Gay Men's Health Crisis and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Rodger has personally cared for many sick and dying family members and friends over the past 25 years. McFarlane co-wrote this book with Philip Bashe.

Betty DeGeneres talks about her life before and after her daughter Ellen Degeneres publicly announced that she is a lesbian. Betty DeGeneres is now the spokesperson for the National Coming Out Project for the Human Rights Campaign. HRC is the nation's largest national lesbian and gay political organization. National Coming Out Day is celebrated every October 11.

Filmmaker Doris Wishman. She's considered to be a pioneer of sexploitation movies, of the "nudie" and softcore sex genre films. Between 1960 and 1978 Wisman wrote, directed and produced 24 low budget films. Her films include "Bad Girls Go to Hell," "Nude on the Moon," and "Too Much, Too Often." Revivals of her films have recently been shown in Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York. In August she will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Michael Bowen is author of a forthcoming book on Sexplotation pioneer filmmaker Doris Wishman. He is a writer based in Brookline, Mass.

Writer Robert Sullivan. His new book "The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures At the Edge of a City" (Scribner) is about his intrepid trek into the swamp land five miles outside of New York City, where decades of garbage, chemicals, and corpses have been dumped. Ian Frazier calls is "funny, interesting, surprising and bizarre." Part of the book was excerpted recently in The New York Times Magazine (Feb 15). Sullivan is contributing editor at Vogue. He also writes for The New Yorker, Conde Naste Travler, The New Republic and Rolling Stone.

Dr. David Eisenberg is Director of the Beth Israel Center for Alternative Medicine Research. He is also a member of the National Institute of Health's Alternative Medicine Program Advisory Council. He'll discuss the Center's research on the use of alternative therapies, such as chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, and homeopathy.

Playwright David Henry Hwang (pronounced "Wong"). He received numerous awards for his Broadway debut "M. Butterfly." His newest production "Golden Child" about the struggle between tradition and change in a family in 1918 China, opens on Broadway in April. It received a 1997 Obie Award. (Interview by Babara Bogaev)

Writer Dorothy Allison. Her bestselling novel "Bastard Out of Carolina," was about a poor South Carolina family's violence and incest, and was largely autobiographical. She says that she doesn't like most abuse literature because it tends to eroticize abuse. Allison has also written a book of short stories called "Trash" and a book of poems called "The Women Who Hate Me." Allison's new novel is "Cavedweller" (A Dutton Book) (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

Film critic Neal Gabler is the author of the book, "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood," which examined how a group of Jewish European emigrees -- who became Hollywood's movie moguls -- created the screen's idea of the American Dream, and how America adopted that dream. There's a new documentary based on the book, "Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream." On the A&E cable network, Sunday at 8pm. (REBROADCAST from 10/11/88)