Terry Gross

Dave Grohl says that after Kurt Cobain's suicide, "I didn't really know if I ever wanted to play music again, until I realized that music was the one thing that had healed me my entire life."

Ryan Busse went to work for the firearms manufacturer Kimber America, where he was so good at marketing the weapons that he became a rising star of the industry. But over the years, he became disillusioned when he saw the NRA refuse to consider gun controls after mass shootings. His new book is 'Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America'.

Parks, who died in 2006, worked for Life magazine and later became the first Black director of a Hollywood film. He's the subject of the documentary, A Choice of Weapons. Originally broadcast in 1990.

Twyla Moves, a documentary by PBS American Masters, tells the story of the legendary choreographer, who got her start performing on subway platforms in the 1960s. Originally broadcast April 8, 2021.

Historian and Atlantic journalist Anne Applebaum says authoritarian rulers have joined together, creating a network of economic and political support, while suppressing the spread of democracy.

As editor of the New York Times' 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones fought against the erasure of African American history. But there's also been a backlash by conservatives who have vowed to keep the 1619 Project out of classrooms — including threats that have been made against her personally.

Journalist Dawn Turner revisits her own past, and tells the story of her sister, who died at 24 from chronic alcoholism, and her childhood best friend, who served 20 years in prison for murder.

Journalist Art Cullen discusses the battle to keep print news alive in small-town America. Cullen runs Iowa's Storm Lake Times, along with his brother. Originally broadcast Sept. 16, 2021.

Marine veteran and intelligence officer Elliot Ackerman served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and won the Silver Star Medal for leading a platoon in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. For him, Veterans Day is a time for reconnection.

The world knows Will Smith as a musician, a comedian and blockbuster movie star — perhaps even the most bankable star in the world. But in his new memoir, called Will, Smith explores another identity, one that has fueled his unwavering work ethic: that of a coward. Smith says that when he was 9, he stood by, watching helplessly as his father beat his mother. It was a moment that shaped his identity.