Terry Gross

Ayub Nuri was working with foreign journalists in Iraq as a fixer — a war-zone interpreter, guide, source-finder and occasional life-saver. Nuri worked with increasing autonomy until he became a reporter with his own byline. He wrote about his experiences in The New York Times Magazine on July 29, 2007. Nuri is now based in New York City.

Zack Hample, an obsessive baseball fan, has by his own count snagged 3,123 baseballs at 42 different major league stadiums. And he's turned his obsession with the game into a career, giving tours of stadiums, appearing on TV and radio and writing books — including Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-Experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks.

Malcolm MacPherson's new novel is Hocus POTUS, a political farce about the shenanigans of White House loyalists in Baghdad's Green Zone, written from the point of view of an American journalist stationed there. The book draws on MacPherson's own experiences as a foreign correspondent for Time and Newsweek magazines, during which time he reported from Baghdad on Ambassador Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority.