Skip to main content
Terry Gross at her microphone in 2018

Terry Gross

Terry Gross is the host and an executive producer of Fresh Air, the daily program of interviews and reviews. It is produced at WHYY in Philadelphia, where Gross began hosting the show in 1975, when it was broadcast only locally. She was awarded a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Fresh Air with Terry Gross received a Peabody Award in 1994 for its “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insight.” America Women in Radio and Television presented her with a Gracie Award in 1999 in the category of National Network Radio Personality. In 2003, she received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award for her “outstanding contributions to public radio” and for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.” Gross is the author of All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, published by Hyperion in 2004. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and received a bachelor’s degree in English and M.Ed. in communications from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She began her radio career in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo, NY.

Sort:

Newest

21:26

Novelist Richard Price

Price is the author of best-selling novels including Clockers, about life in the inner-city world of drug dealing (which was made into a film). He also penned Freedomland, which was inspired by a real-life incident in which a woman alleged a black man carjacked her and took her two children. Price's book Samaritan (in paperback) is about a man who returns to teach in the New Jersey town where he was raised, and the unfortunate results of his good intentions. Price also is a screenwriter with such notable films as Sea of Love, Ransom and The Color of Money. (Rebroadcast from Jan.

Interview
21:50

Actor Christopher Walken

Walken got his start in the business as a tap-dancing kid and went on to play some of the most menacingly evil characters in film. His films include The Deer Hunter, At Close Range, The Comfort of Strangers, King of New York, The Dead Zone and Annie Hall (in which he played Annie's creepy brother who had an impulse to drive his car into oncoming traffic.) His new film is the comedy The Stepford Wives. He also has a part in the film Man on Fire. (Rebroadcast from Aug. 3, 2000.)

Interview
45:03

Thomas Friedman, 'The Other Side of Outsourcing'

New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist Thomas Friedman is the reporter/narrator of the Discovery Channel documentary, The Other Side of Outsourcing — about jobs going to India. (Thursday, June 3 at 10 p.m. EST). Friedman has written about outsourcing and globalization in his columns. He is the author of the best-selling book Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of the Middle East.

Interview
34:46

Political Strategist Donna Brazile

Donna Brazile managed the Gore-Lieberman campaign in 2000. She's written a new memoir about her years in politics, Cooking With Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics. Brazile is currently chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She is also a political commentator on CNN's Inside Politics.

Interview
15:36

Playwright and Actor Sarah Jones

She's starring in her one-woman show, Bridge and Tunnel. The play about the immigrant experience in America has been critically acclaimed. Margo Jefferson of The New York Times writes, "Humor, compassion and daring have more often found a place in solo performance. This free form frees gifted artists to change sex, race, age, body type and personality in an instant. It takes great craft and generosity. Sarah Jones has both."

Interview
45:28

South African Comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys

Pieter-Dirk Uys (pronounced "Peter Dirk Ace") is known for politically charged performances, touching on AIDS and apartheid. He's described himself as a "middle-aged, fat, bald Afrikaner Jewish drag queen from Cape Town." Writing in The New Yorker, Calvin Trillin called Uys South Africa's leading satirist. He's just won an Obie Award for his one-man show Foreign AIDS, performed at the La MaMa Theater in Manhattan last year. Uys' present show is Elections and Erections, now in London at the Soho Theater.

Interview
44:28

Writer James Tobin

James Tobin is the author of a biography of World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle who was beloved by the public, the G.I.s and the generals alike. He witnessed the great American campaigns of the war — North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day, Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and Okinawa. Eleanor Roosevelt was a fan of his work, saying "I would not miss that column any day if I could possibly help it." Pyle was killed in Okinawa just three weeks short of the war's end. Tobin's book is Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II (published in 1988).

Interview
30:39

Guitarist Arthel 'Doc' Watson

Watson was one of America's premier acoustic folk guitarists. We'll hear two of Watson's appearances on the show: an interview from 1988 and a live convert from 1989. Watson's flat-pick style of playing traditional folk and bluegrass has made his sound one of the most distinctive of any folk artist. In the folk music community, Watson is best known for his part in preserving the traditional ballads and melodies of southern Appalachia. His latest CD, Sittin Here Pickin the Blues, features him and slide guitarist Merle Watson.

Interview
14:19

Remembering Peace Activist David Dellinger

Dellinger, a long-time peace activist, editor and author, died on Tuesday at the age of 88. Dellinger was jailed for civil disobedience a generation before Daniel and Philip Berrigan. He was part of the "Chicago Seven," the group of seven anti-war demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The convention erupted into violence between demonstrators and police. Dellinger was the author of several books, including an account of his spiritual journey From Yale to Jail. (Rebroadcast from April 9, 1993.)

Did you know you can create a shareable playlist?

Advertisement

There are more than 22,000 Fresh Air segments.

Let us help you find exactly what you want to hear.
Just play me something
Your Queue

Would you like to make a playlist based on your queue?

Generate & Share View/Edit Your Queue