Memoir

Norma McCorvey. She was the plaintiff in Roe vs. Wade. In the lawsuit she was called Jane Roe to shield her privacy. In her new book "I Am Roe" (Harper Collins), she tells her story. She was poor, alone and pregnant. Her case became a landmark Supreme Court decision--it gave women the right to choose abortion. But McCorvey ended up giving birth to the child because the Supreme Court decision came too late.

Writer and former film maker Gretel Ehrlich is the author of "The Solace of Open Spaces," a collection of essays about life on Wyoming's high plains. It was while walking on the Wyoming plains, that Ehlrich was struck by lightning. The force of it threw her forty feet, severely damaged part of her nervous system, and sent her into a "solitary limbo." Ehrlich returned to her parents home for medical treatment and began trying to understand what happened to her.

Retired Astronaut and former test pilot Alan Shepard. He was America's first man in space in 1961; the voyage covered 302 miles and lasted 15 minutes. Ten years later with Apollo 14, he made it to the moon, playing golf on the moon's surface. (In 1969, the Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon). Early in his space career, Shepard was diagnosed with an inner ear syndrome which could have ended his career. Shepard grounded himself in 1963 and became Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Scholar and activist Henry Louis Gates, Jr. He's Professor of English and Chairman of Afro-American Studies at Harvard and one of Afro-American studies most visible and controversial proponents. Gates believes that Black studies should be a methodology, not an ideology, and that you don't have to be black to teach African-American literature.

Mary Previte, superintendent of the Camden County (NJ) Youth Center. Previte, the great granddaughter of missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor, grew up in China with her missionary parents. During World War II, she and her fellow students and teachers spent three years in a Japanese concentration camp. Previte credits the structure her teachers' created with making the horrific experience bearable. For the past twenty years, Previte has run the youth center, a holding center for boys and girls charged with serious crimes.

Writer Mikal Gilmore, youngest brother of executed killer Gary Gilmore. Gilmore's 1977 death --at his own request-- by firing squad in Utah, was the first American execution in ten years. Brother Mikal finds seeds of his brother's two murders sown far back in Gilmore family history, and its Mormon roots.

Civil rights attorney and law professor Jack Greenberg. He was just out of law school--a white Jewish man from the Bronx when he joined the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Greenberg took over the helm of the LDF from his mentor Thurgood Marshall when Marshall was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeals. During Greenberg's tenure there, the LDF litigated some of the watershed cases of the civil rights struggle. He has just published a memoir of his 35 years at the LDF.

Author and physician Abraham Verghese. An Indian raised in Ethopia, Abraham Verghese arrived in the United States in 1980 as a rookie doctor. Upon completing an internship in infectious diseases, Dr. Verghese accepted a position in the rural, Appalachian town of Johnson City, Tennessee. The year was 1985 and AIDS had begun to ravage large metropolitan areas. Within the year, Dr. Verghese was treating his first case of AIDS in this rural outpost.

Writer and teacher Reynolds Price A native of North Carolina, Price has written works known for their sense of place and off-beat characters. He's a prolific and a varied writer: he 's written short stories, poems, plays, and essays, and since the publication of his first novel, "A Long and Happy Life," in 1962, he's published more than two dozen books. In 1984 Price was diagnosed with spinal cancer, and became paralyzed from the waist down. Cancer, though, didn't slow his writing down.

Author Michael Dorris. His work is wide-ranging in topic and emotional impact. In his earlier book "The Broken Cord" he wrote of his struggle to understand the severe health and behavior problems of an adopted son, Abel, who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Abel, a Native American, died in an accident after a difficult life. Dorris himself is part Modoc Indian. He founded the Native American Studies Program at Dartmouth College where he now teaches Anthropology.