Literary Figures: Novelists

Roberts is author of eleven detective books featuring Cleveland private eye Milan Jacovich or L.A. actor/detective Saxon. The most recent novel, "The Lake Effect," is a Milan Jacovich mystery. Roberts also produced episodes of "The Lucy Show," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," and "The Andy Griffith Show," and was the first producer of "The Hollywood Squares."

It's been almost six years since the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against the author. Since then, Rushdie has lived in hiding, continuing to write and making a few semi-public appearances. His book, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," published in 1990, was a fairy tale written for his son. His new book is collection of stories about the line that divides East and West, called "East, West."

Grimsley is a writer-in-residence at the 7 Stages Theater in Atlanta, and the winner of Newsday's George Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Playwright in 1988. His first novel is "Winter Birds," about an eight-year-old hemophiliac in a poor family who witnesses violent fight between his parents on Thanksgiving. Grimsley says the book is "autobiographical, but not an autobiography." He also has been HIV positive for 14 years, making him one of the longest survivors of the virus.

There's a new four-CD boxed set of Ginsberg's work, called "Holy Soul Jelly Roll - Songs and Poems." Terry talks to him about the readings featured on these recordings.

Writer Howard Norman has been nominated for the National Book Award for his new novel "The Bird Artist." The book takes place in Newfoundland in 1911, and is about an artist who murders the town's lighthouse keeper. Norman is also the author of a short story collection and "The Northern Lights," a National Book Award Nominee in 1987

Frazier is the author of "Family," a book which traces his ancestors back to the 1600s. His inspiration for the book came from old letters he found after the death of his parents in 1987 and 1988. Their death gave him the desire to find "a meaning that would defeat death" in the letters. Frazier is also the author of "Dating Your Mom," "Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody," and "Great Plains." He is a regular contributor to the "New Yorker."

Novelist Tim O'Brien has been called "one of our most eloquent writers about Vietnam" (Playboy). "In the Lake of the Woods" is his new novel about a man whose involvement in the war is much like O'Brien's. Both were at the My Lai massacre, and they shared a need to be accepted -- which drove them to serve in the war.

Sexton has just written "Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton," her seventh book. She spent a long time coming to terms with her relationship with her mother, who committed suicide in 1974.

Grossman has just written his third novel, "The Book of Intimate Grammar." It tells the story of a young Israeli boy struggling with his family and the world he lives in. Grossman's hero has been compared to Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield, as a boy fighting against growing up.

British mystery writer Anne Perry is the author of 19 crime novels based in Victorian England. It was recently discovered that, forty years ago, Perry took part in a murder. She was 15 and on medication for an illness she had at the time. She went to jail for five and a half years. Her newly released 20th book, "The Sins of the Wolf" is about a nurse imprisoned for a crime she didn't commit.