Writing

Elkin was called "one of the most entertaining stylists in contemporary American fiction." His use of metaphor, "transforms grotesque situations and the drab vulgarity of popular consumer culture into comic affirmations of human existence." (from Contemporary Literary Criticism). His novels included, The MacGuffin, The Magic Kingdom, and others. Elkin was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis twenty years ago and died of heart failure on Wednesday, May 31, 1995. We replay our 1993 interview with him. (Rebroadcast)

Keneally is best known for his novel, Schindler's List which was put to film, by director Stephen Spielberg. His new novel, A River Town, is based on the story of his grandfather who left Ireland for Australia at the turn of the century. But in Australia he became the outsider. Keneally has written over 20 novels. He is a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

Banks' new novel is Rule of the Bone. It's been compared to Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of it's young first-person narrator, and use of comedy to convey grim realities. Bank's narrator is 14 year-old Chappie from upstate New York who wears a nose ring and Mohawk. He steals from his parents to pay for dope, is kicked out of the house, and sets off on a low-life adventure.

Spencer's new book, Men In Black, was called "charmingly funny-sad" by the New York Times. His previous books include Last Night at the Brain Thieves' Ball, Endless Love, and Waking the Dead.

Amis is the author of The Information. The book is about rivalry in the literary world, which some have said parallels Amis' own life. Britain's literary world was shocked when Amis demanded a half-million pound advance on The Information, supposedly to pay for his divorce and costly dental work, and then dumped his long-time agent, who was also the wife of his best friend. The New York Times has called The Information "an uncompromising and highly ambitious novel that should also be a big popular hit."

Maxwell has a new collection of short stories All the Days and Nights. He was fiction editor of the New Yorker from 1936-1976. He worked with such authors as J.D. Salinger, Jon Cheever, Jon Updike, Eudora Welty and scores of others. Jon Updike has said Maxwell's voice is "one of the wisest in American fiction. It is, as well, one of the kindest.

Ann Charters, the biographer of Jack Kerouac, has just edited two new collections of his writings: The Portable Jack Kerouac, and Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters. In this interview,she reads from some of Kerouac's letters, and discusses how he translated his life into his work. Charters teaches at the University of Connecticut.

Mamet's new novel is a conversation between a grandmother and granddaughter preparing a traditional Passover meal. The grandmother reveals the horrific family history of living through the Polish Pogroms. Mamet also wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, Writing in Restaurants, and the screenplays for The Untouchables and Hoffa.

The Canadian writer has a new novel called "The Cunning Man." It follows the life of a Toronto-based doctor during World War 2 who witnesses the death of a father at the High Altar. The Washington Post has called it "one of [the] author's most entertaining and satisfying novels." Davies, now 81, has had three successive careers -- he began as an actor, then was a journalist and newspaper publisher, and in 1981 retired as professor of the Massy college at the University of Toronto.

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."

In her new book "Bird by Bird," Lamott talks about the nuts and bolds of how to write, but also how to live a writer's life. Her last book was the memoir "Operating Instructions."

The Washington Post has called Lebowitz "the funniest woman in America." She's come out with her first children's book, "Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas." In 1978 she wrote the critically acclaimed essay collection "Metropolitan Life." Lebowitz joins Fresh Air to talk about how her relationship with writing has changed now that she's middle-aged.

Brown's new book is a collection of connected short stories about caring for people with AIDS. Though the work is fiction, many of the characters are based on people she herself worked with. Brown is the author of other books including "The Terrible Girls," "Annie Oakley's Girls," and "The Children's Crusade."

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.

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."

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."

White is the author of seven books, including "Forgetting Elena," "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America," and "Genet: A Biography," for which he was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lamda Literary Award. He has a new collection of essays from the past 25 years, "The Burning Library," many of which focus on gay life in America.

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

Gilb was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for his collection of short stories, "The Magic of Blood." In his new novel, "The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna," he tells us more about life in the poor Chicano community of the Southwest.

Mamet's plays include "American Buffalo," "Speed-the-Plow," "Glengarry Glen Ross (for which he won a Pulitzer), and "Oleanna." His movies include, "Homicide," "House of Games," and "Things Change." Mamet is best known for his style of writing, which New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich described as "burying layers of meaning into simple precisely distilled idiomatic language." Mamet has written several books of essays; he's just published his first novel, "The Village."