Revisiting Early Gilbert and Sullivan Recordings

Johnson was part of the 1950s Beat community and had a relationship with Jack Kerouac. Her experience in the literary counterculture - and the peripheral place of women within it -- has influenced much of her work, including her memoir Minor Characters and her new novel, In the Night Cafe.

Shields went to speech therapy the same time he attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Like the author himself, the protagonist of his new novel, Dead Languages, has a stutter. Shields' writing explores the gap between his mastery of written language and his difficulties speaking.

The holiday has been a perpetual cause of stress for children since it was established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. Guest commentator Ilene Segalove reflects on the anxiety she felt over the years deciding on the perfect gift for her own mother, only to realize that something simple, homemade, and from the heart was best.