Terry Gross

Cruikshank's newest work, Face Like a Frog, is now playing at film festivals. It features a soundtrack by composer Danny Elfman. She joins Fresh Air to talk about some of her earlier works, and what it takes to make a career in cartoons.

Researcher David Mech tracks and studies wolves. He was able to earn the trust of a pack in the Arctic, which granted Mech and his team unprecedented access to the animals. He witnessed the care of their pups and joined them on their hunt.

Actor Robert Prosky is best known for his performance as a role call sergeant in Hill Street Blues. He appears in David Mamet's new movie Things Change. For 23 years he worked at Washington, DC's Arena Stage.

Arnold Rampersad's biography of the African American poet has been called "a literary event." Despite dedicating his writing to the black experience, Hughes grew up in a largely white community. His more radical work didn't find much of an audience, which led to him adopting a more social-realist style later in his career.

Performer-in-residence Harry Connick, Jr. plays the music of Harold Arlen. While his name may be known to few, Arlen wrote several popular and recognizable songs.

Kevin Boyle's group Article 19, name after the United Nations provision protecting free speech, fights against censorship around the world, both in democracies and dictatorships.

Jonathan Katz stars as standup comedian Jackie Shore in the new movie Things Change, which was written by his friend David Mamet. Katz played a con man in the earlier Mamet movie House of Games, which Katz says was loosely based on their experience as small-time ping pong hustlers.

Stephen Schiff says that director Leonard Nimoy's adaptation of Sue Miller's novel is lifeless, but Diane Keaton's performance might justify the cost of a ticket.

Author William Gibson is credited with creating the cyberpunk genre, which dispenses with nationalistic ideas of the future, and instead posits a world where multinational corporations rule and nation-states have eroded. His newest novel is called Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvard recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, where he learned about a curious away homeowners try to keep dogs off their lawns/