Terry Gross

John Vercher trained in mixed martial arts as a young man. His novel, After the Lights Go Out, centers on a veteran MMA fighter who struggles to remember things. Originally broadcast June 28, 2022.

"I'm not a grown man — I'm a growing man," Alexander says. His new memoir started as a book of love poems, but ended up being a collection of essays and poems about love, divorce and raising children.

As controversy swirls around the benefits Thomas and his wife Ginni received from a conservative billionaire, filmmaker Michael Kirk examines the couple's path to power in a new PBS documentary.