Memoir

Journalist Nguyen Qui Duc. He works for KALW-FM in San Francisco, supplies commentaries to NPR and received the Overseas Press Club's 1989 Award of Excellence for his public radio series about returning to Viet Nam. Nguyen has written a new memoir about his family's struggle during and after the war. NGUYEN's father was an official in the South Vietnamese government who was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned for 12 years. In 1975, Nguyen gained passage to the U.S. on a cargo ship, and moved about from relative to relative until he settled in California.

Comedienne and superstar Roseanne Arnold. Her show "Roseanne" debuted in 1988 and has consistently been a top TV series. She has often made news--she forced out the show's executive producer in a dramatic confrontation, she went public with accusations of incest, she performed a controversial rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at a baseball game. In 1989, she published her first book, "Roseanne: My Life as a Woman" which became a best seller. Now she has written "My Lives" (Ballantine Books).

Donna Williams. Her first book "Nobody Nowhere" offered a journey through the mysterious condition of autism; it was an international bestseller. Once her case was properly diagnosed, Williams began therapy which took her out of the "world under glass" and into the real world of speech and emotion. This treatment is the subject of her new book "Somebody, Somewhere: Breaking Free from the World of Autism" (Times Books).

Doctor of Psychology and editorial writer for the New York Times, Brent Staples. His new memoir is "Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White" (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania. On missing his brother's memorial, Staples writes "Choose carefully the funerals you miss."

Reporter for The Washington Post Nathan McCall. He's written a new autobiography, "Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America." (Random House). When McCall was twenty years old he was sent to prison for armed robbery.

Poet and Professor of English at Yale, Wayne Koestenbaum explores the affinity of gay men for opera in his new book: "The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality and the Mystery of Desire" (Vintage). Koestenbaum traces the art-form back to its origins in The Camerata, a 16th century group of Florentine gentlemen, who studied ancient Greek musical theory. A self proclaimed "Opera Queen", Koestenbaum explores this rarely examined territory with what one critic has called "a brilliantly obsessive and funny memoir".

Singer, actress, dancer, Ann-Margret (no last name necessary) has written her autobiography, "Ann-Margret: My Story," (with Todd Gold, Putnam). In the book she writes about her relationship with Elvis Presley, her battle with alcohol abuse, and the stage accident that almost ended her career. Ann-Margret has appeared in the movies, "Bye Bye Birdie," "Carnal Knowledge," "Tommy," and others.

Shanghai-born author, Anchee Min. She grew up in China during the last years of Mao's Cultural Revolution. In her memoir, "Red Azalea" (Pantheon), Min recounts her experiences as an 11-year old leader in her school's Little Red Guard, then as a laborer at a work camp where she became the secret lover of her female commander. When Madam Mao began her reform of China's film industry, Min was chosen from 20,000 candidates to become a screen actress because she had a face that was thought to represent the working class.

Gregory Alan-WIilliams, Emmy Award winning actor, author and playwright. He has written "A Gathering of Heroes, Reflections on Rage and Responsibility," a memoir of the Los Angeles Riots (Academy Chicago Publishers). On April 29, 1992, Alan-WIilliams, an African American, heard that violence had erupted in South Central L.A. and chose to walk into the heart of the riot. He ended up risking his own life to rescue a Japanese American man who was being brutally beaten by some in the angry crowd.

Writer Shirlee Taylor Haizlip. Her book "The Sweeter the Juice: a Family Memoir in Black and White, (Simon & Schuster), chronicles her exploration of six generations of her multiracial family tree. Haizlip is a light-skinned African-American. Her father was a prominent black Baptist minister in Connecticut. Her mother was the descendant of an Irish immigrant and a mulatto slave.