Society & Culture

After a traumatic brain injury left her in terrible pain and unable to work, the legendary goalkeeper had to pawn her Olympic gold medals. Scurry charts her pioneering soccer career and her road to recovery in My Greatest Save.

For many parents, the idea of having a "sex talk" with their kids is nothing short of cringe-inducing. But sex educator Cory Silverberg says it doesn't have to be that way. He has a new book.

The Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is about a Black gay man working as an usher on Broadway. Michael R. Jackson talks about writing the book, music and lyrics and how his time working as an usher at The Lion King on Broadway inspired it.

Chrysta Bilton's mother is a lesbian and her father was a sperm donor. She writes about her unusual upbringing in Normal Family.

Rafael Agustin arrived at the age of 7 in the U.S. with his parents from Ecuador. It wasn't until years later that he realized that his family immigrated to the country illegally.

Novelist Mat Johnson believes that America has its own unique "flavor" of apocalypse. "It's hard not seeing the possible end of things in a variety of different ways," he says. Johnson's new satirical novel, Invisible Things, serves up one of those apocalyptic flavors.

"Really, the heart of the story is about misplaced loyalty and what we can do with memory and how fluid and malleable memory can be when we ... use it to fit the narrative that we've created in our mind," says novelist John Vercher.

Booster's film Fire Island, which he wrote and stars in, was inspired by the Jane Austen novel. The movie is a rom-com about a group of gay friends and explores racism and classism in their community.

T.J. Newman began writing the hijack thriller Falling while she was a flight attendant. She'd jot down ideas on paper napkins in the quiet moments on red-eye flights. Originally broadcast July 2021.

Law professor Mary Ziegler explains how the anti-abortion movement upended the GOP establishment and helped push the courts to the right. Her new book is Dollars for Life.

During the pandemic, when schools and day care facilities shut down abruptly, millions of parents — especially mothers — dropped out of the workforce to pick up the slack. Author Angela Garbes was one of them.

Giddens' Freedom Highway is an exploration of African American experiences, accompanied by an instrument with its own uniquely African American story: the banjo. Originally broadcast May 11, 2017.

Juneteenth celebrates the day slavery ended in Texas, June 19, 1865. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed studies the early American republic and the legacy of slavery. Originally broadcast May 25, 2021.

Author Linda Villarosa has been writing about the racial disparities in health outcomes for decades and recently covered the topic for the New York Times' 1619 Project. She says that while she used to think poverty was to blame for Black Americans' health problems, she's now convinced that bias in the health care system and the "weathering" affect of living in a racist society are taking a serious toll on African Americans.

In her new memoir, Rough Draft, Tur looks back on her childhood, and reflects on her difficult relationship with her father — Zoey Tur, who came out as a trans woman in 2013 — a person she describes in her memoir as talented and charismatic, but also volatile and, at times, abusive.

The SNL alum talks with friends and other comics about queer culture, relationships and racism on her HBO show. Jay's comedy special, 3 in the Morning, is about her relationship with her fiancée.

Liotta, who died May 26, started out playing a nice guy on a soap opera. Then came his tough-guy roles in Something Wild and Goodfellas. He was also in Field of Dreams. Originally broadcast in 2016.

David Sedaris writes in his new collection of essays, Happy-Go-Lucky, about his father Lou and their complicated relationship.

The Paramount+ series is the first time McGraw and Hill have appeared together on screen. Before they filmed, they attended "cowboy camp," to learn some basics. Originally broadcast April 19, 2022.

In her new memoir, This Body I Wore, she writes about coming of age and into adulthood in an earlier era, when she didn't have the language or knowledge to understand what it meant to be trans.