Terry Gross

Larissa FastHorse is a playwright best known for her satirical play, "The Thanksgiving Play" which ran earlier this year on Broadway making FastHorse the first known Native American woman playwright to produce a Broadway production. Larissa FastHorse is of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. Her latest play, "For The People," ran earlier this month at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and centers around a Native community fighting for grant money to create a wellness center.

Stephanie Land's new memoir, Class, picks up where her 2019 memoir, Maid, left off. Maid, which inspired a 10-part Netflix series, chronicled Land's life as a young single mother living below the poverty line, struggling with housing insecurity and an abusive relationship, and cleaning houses to support herself and her daughter.

In Class, Land is in her mid-30s at the University of Montana, desperately trying to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer, while juggling classes, working to pay for childcare and rent, and experiencing the loneliness of being a single mother.

The comic/filmmaker is the subject of a new HBO documentary, Defending My Life, directed by his longtime friend Rob Reiner. In 1996, Brooks spoke about his early career in stand-up.