Society & Culture

Doty won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle award for his poetry, My Alexandria. He is currently a Fannie Hearst Visiting Professor at Brandeis University. He tells Terry about caring for his lover, who died of AIDS.

Michael Denneny is currently an editor at Crown Publishers. He worked with many gay authors in his 17 years at St. Martins Press, where he had his own imprint, Stonewall Editions.

Kushner is the author of "Angels in America," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for Best Play. It's a two-part "seven hour epic about gays, AIDS and Reaganism" (New York "Newsday"). Kushner reads a new poem, a plea to God about the AIDS epidemic.

Hemphill is the author of two books of poetry, "Earth Life" and "Conditions," and a collection of prose and poetry called "Ceremonies." He's also the editor of "Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men." He reads an excerpt from his poem "Vital Signs," published in the collection "Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS," edited by Thomas Avena.

Trinidad's latest book is "Answer Song." He and Dennis Cooper are co-editing a volume of selected poems by Tim Dlugos called "Powerless."

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."

Writer and professor Michael Eric Dyson wrote "Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X." The book explores the different sides of Malcolm X and how his influence is felt today. Dyson is also the author of "Reflecting Black," and a professor of Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina.

Language commentator Geoffrey Nunberg comments on his young daughter's use of the exclamation "YESSSS!"

Cardinal appeared in the film "Black Robe" and played Black Shawl, wife of the spirtual leader, in "Dances With Wolves." She has earned very positive reviews for her performance in the new independent film "Where the Rivers Flow North." Cardinal will soon be seen in "Legends of the Fall," with Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt. This interview was recorded in front of an audience at the Flynn Theater on October 27, in a benefit for Vermont Public Radio.

Tannen is the author of the bestselling, "You Just Don't Understand." She has a new book about communication between the sexes, "Talking From 9 to 5: How Women's and Men's Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work."

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.

The former congresswoman became Louisiana's first woman member of Congress in 1972. She was elected after her husband, then House majority leader Hale Boggs, died in a plane crash. Boggs was an advocate for civil rights and women's issues before her retirement in 1990. She is the mother of NPR and ABC-TV's Cokie Roberts, Washington lobbyist Thomas Hale Boggs, and the late Barbara Sigmund, who was mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. Boggs has new autobiography is called "Washington Through a Purple Veil: Memoirs of a Southern Woman."

Palminteri wrote the play, "A Bronx Tale," which was made into a movie directed by Robert DeNiro. He is now in Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway," playing a gangster turned playwright.

Television critic David Bianculli reviews "Scarlett," CBS's eight-hour mini-series that starts this Sunday. He says it's better than what most other critics are saying.

Dagoberto Gilb with a commentary on fatherhood in light of his newfound literary fame.

Wolff has been nominated for the National Book Award for his memoir "In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War." The book is an account of Wolff's tour in Vietnam. Woff is also the author of two short story collections, a novella, and "This Boy's Life," a memoir about his childhood.

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."

Colonel Margarethe Cammeryer was named Nurse of the Year by the Veterans Administration and was Chief Nurse of the Washington State National Guard. She was discharged from the service in 1992 because she revealed that she is a lesbian, becoming the highest-ranking officer to be discharged solely for homosexuality. She challenged the ruling, and was reinstated in July. "Serving in Silence" is her new book about her experiences.

From the new movie documentary "Hoop Dreams," young basketball player Arthur Agee and film director Steve James. The movie traces the lives of Agee and his friend William Gates for five years as they try to follow their dreams of rising from inner city Chicago to play in the NBA. James is the director, producer and co-editor of the film.