Terry Gross

Writer Saul Bellow. His short stories and novels have won him three National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize. His newest novel is "The Bellarosa Connection," a story about the meaning of memory.

NFL referee Jerry Markbreit (MARK-brite). His book, Born To Referee, is an inside look at the world of football through the eyes of a referee. Markbreit began calling the shots at high school games and made his way up to the pros.

Novelist Russell Banks often depicts ordinary people coping with difficulties in contemporary society. His new book "Affliction," takes on the subject of male violence, following the story of Wade Whitehouse, "a good man beset by the dark side of the macho mentality." Banks has also written for "Esquire," "Vanity Fair," "The Nation," and other publications.

Writer Valerie Miner. Her work has been praised for it's uncommon honesty and intensity. Miner focuses on a group of people she finds overlooked in American literature: the working class. Her books include "All Good Women," "Blood Sisters," and "Winter's Edge." Her new book, "Trespassing," is a collection of stories which span the globe and examine the quiet shifts in relationships or in an individual's sense of self.

Film director Arthur Penn. Penn's latest film is "Penn and Teller Get Killed." His previous movies include "Bonnie and Clyde," "Little Big Man," "The Miracle Worker," "Alice's Restaurant," and "The Missouri Breaks."

John Gerassi (jer-assy), former journalist, currently a professor of political science at Queens College of the City University of New York. He's written an unusual biography of Jean-Paul Sartre. Gerassi is Sartre's official biographer and was a personal friend, yet he is neither totally objective or uncritical. The book includes Gerassi's own observations as well as material culled from over 100 hours of interviews with Sartre and complete access to Sartre's papers.

Biographer Michael Holroyd. His 1988 book "The Search for Love," on the early life of George Bernard Shaw, was called one of the "three great literary biographies of the century." Holroyd continues Shaw's biography in the second volume titled "The Pursuit of Power." In it, Holroyd writes about Shaw's hard-won battle for success in the London theatre. And he details Shaw's political battles for Fabian socialism and Irish Home Rule. Holroyd established his reputation as a biographer with a two volume book on the life of Lytton Strachey.

Photojournalist Eugene Richards. His new book, "The Knife & Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room," has been called the "modern day version of Dante's 'Inferno.'" It chronicles the trauma center of the Denver General Hospital where Richards spent twelve to twenty hours a day photographing and talking to the staff.

Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman. Goodman's new collection of essays, called "Making Sense," examines the issues surrounding sexuality, feminism, abortion, parenting and childcare. Goodman's column appears in more than 400 papers nationwide, and in 1980 her writing earned Goodman the Pulitzer Prize. (NOTE: Ellen Goodman's been on Fresh Air before, but this is a new interview.)

Novelist, essayist, and reporter Barbara Grizutti Harrison. Her new book is called "Italian Days." It's a chronicle of her travels through Italy, but it's also more introspective, influenced by her parents Italian heritage and her conversion to Catholicism after a childhood spent in the Jehovah's Witnesses.