Terry Gross

Comedienne Julia Sweeney. The former Saturday Night Live performer, was best known for, Pat, the gender-ambiguous character. Her one woman performance piece, "God Said, Ha!" has been made into a new film. Sweeney began working on the piece when she learned that her brother had cancer. She took him into her home to care for him while he was receiving treatment. Her parents moved in too for the time being. Sweeney's brother eventually died, and she was diagnosed with cancer shortly before that. (REBROADCAST FROM 11/20/96)

A Fresh Air favorite, opera soprano Dawn Upshaw. She has a new CD, "Dawn Upshaw sings Vernon Duke" (Nonesuch). It features Fred Hersch on piano and John Pizzarelli on guitar. We'll also hear from the producer of her new CD, Tommy Krasker. Upshaw has more than two dozen albums to her credit and has become widely known for her ability to perform both in the opera as well as sing Broadway tunes. Upshaw joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1984 and has performed at the Met.

John Pizzarelli segment about songwriter Bobby Troup who died this week at the age of 80. (Interview segment from 1997)

Editor in Chief of Variety magazine Peter Bart. He's written a new book about what the summer blockbuster means to the film industry, and the resources that go into making them. His new book "The Gross: The Hits, The Flops-The Summer That Ate Hollywood" (St. Martin's Press) takes a look at the 1998 summer season. Bart is a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He's also a former Paramount studio executive.

Novelist Arthur Golden wrote the bestseller, "Memoirs of a Geisha" which was on the New York Times Bestseller List for one year. It's now out in paperback, and a movie version will be made by Stephen Spielberg. "Memoirs of a Geisha" was GOLDEN's debut as a novelist.(

Galen Cranz is a Professor of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. She's the author of the new book, "The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design" (W.W. Norton)

Journalists Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew. They are the authors of the new book, "Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage" (PublicAffairs). The two spent six years researching secret submarine missions like how the Navy sent submarines wired with self destruct charges into Soviet waters to tap crucial underwater telephone cables. Sontag covered government and international affairs for the National Law Journal and has worked at the New York Times, and Drew is a special projects editor at the New York Times.

Tom Blanton is the Director of the National Security Archive, A research library at George Washington University in Washington D.C. His department, using the Freedom of Information Act, obtained the transcripts of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The now declassified papers detail Kissinger's secret negotiations with key world leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev, Andrei Gromyko, Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping. The transcripts have been edited and published in the new book "The Kissinger Transcripts" (The New Press)

Satirist Harry Shearer. His new book is "It's the Stupidity, Stupid: Why (Some) People hate Clinton and Why the Rest of Us Have to Watch." (The Library of Contemporary Thought, The Ballintine Publishing Group). He'll discuss the Impeachment proceedings.

Poet Billy Collins. His 1991 collection, "Questions about Angels" will be re-issued next month by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Collins' poetry has appeared in anthologies, textbooks, and a variety of periodicals, including Poetry, American Poetry Review, American Scholar, Harper's, Paris Review, and The New Yorker. He is professor of English at Lehman College, CUNY, and a visiting writer at Sarah Lawrence College. Originally aired 4/7/98.