Canty's stories have been published in "Esquire" and "Story" magazine. His first book is a collection of short stories, "A Stranger in This World." The stories are about people feeling alien in their own world; Canty says, "the moment I'm interested in, the moment I'm working toward in these stories, is when the familiar world seems strange. . . where they are forced to confront how little they know about themselves and about the world around them."
Journalist Steven Levy, author of "Hackers," is one of the premiere writers on technology. He writes The Iconoclast column for "Mac World" magazine, and is a contributor to "Wired," "The New Yorker," and the "New York Times Magazine." He talks with Terry today about e-money — the electronic currency of the future. Levy has an article in the December issue of "Wired" about the computerization of money.
Writer and former "New York Times" advertising columnist Randall Rothenberg's new book is "Where the Suckers Moon." He follows Subaru's ad campaign from start to finish, from choosing a new ad agency to the finished commercial's debut during the Superbowl.
Writer Darcy Frey, a contributing editor to "Harper's" and "The New York Times Magazine," spent a year at the Abraham Lincoln High School on Coney Island. He followed four young, African American basketball players trying to make it out of the ghetto and into a Division I school. "The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams" is his record of what happened to the dreams of these young men.
Kushner is the author of "Angels in America," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for Best Play. It's a two-part "seven hour epic about gays, AIDS and Reaganism" (New York "Newsday"). Kushner reads a new poem, a plea to God about the AIDS epidemic.
Doty won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle award for his poetry, My Alexandria. He is currently a Fannie Hearst Visiting Professor at Brandeis University. He tells Terry about caring for his lover, who died of AIDS.
Hemphill is the author of two books of poetry, "Earth Life" and "Conditions," and a collection of prose and poetry called "Ceremonies." He's also the editor of "Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men." He reads an excerpt from his poem "Vital Signs," published in the collection "Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS," edited by Thomas Avena.
Michael Denneny is currently an editor at Crown Publishers. He worked with many gay authors in his 17 years at St. Martins Press, where he had his own imprint, Stonewall Editions.
The former New Yorker writer reviewed movies for the magazine for 25 years, and is the author of 13 books about the cinema, including a National Book Award winner. Her newest book is a collection of more than 275 of her reviews, called "For Keeps: Thirty Years at the Movies."
Jeff Moss was one of the original creators and writers of "Sesame Street." He created Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch, and wrote such songs as "Rubber Ducky" and "People in Your Neighborhood." He has won 13 Emmy's, four Grammy's, and an Oscar nomination for his work on "Sesame Street" and with the Muppets. Moss is also the author of four books for children, the newest of which is "Hieronymus White: A Bird Who Believed That He Always Was Right."
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Who's Bridge," by the Misha Mengelberg Trio. He says, amid the strong Thelonious Monk influences, it's got real heart.
Cartoonist Art Spiegelman, author of "Maus," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and "Maus II." The two book-length comics are accounts of Spiegelman's s parents' experiences in the Holocaust. He is also co-founder and editor of "Raw," a magazine of avant-garde comics. He has now illustrated "The Wild Party: The Lost Classic by Joseph Moncure March."
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Madonna's new release, "Bedtime Stories." He says she's discovered that there's something to be said for unadorned beauty.
Panter is well known in the punk-rock scene, and was a founding member and writer of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse." She is a member of the punk band Honk if Yer Horny. In 1992, Panter co-founded The Bohemian Women's Political Alliance, a feminist organization of "the teenagers who dressed in black, the bad girls who climbed out of [their] bedroom windows at dark and caught taxis home at dawn."
Journalist James Traub has written "City on a Hill: Testing the American Dream at City College." This is an exploration of the "open admissions policy" that was implemented at the College in 1970, and the effects this policy has had on the school. Traub examined remedial classes and struggling students, and talked to administrators and professors including Leonard Jeffries, the controversial Chair of the Black Studies Department.
