Interviews By Topic

Garry Wills on 'What Paul Meant'

Garry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a practicing Catholic. He tells Jim Fleming that the apostle Paul didn't say most of the things people blame him for.More

Garry Wills on Faith in Jesus

Garry Wills tells Jim Fleming that we know very little about the historical Jesus and that it doesn't matter because faith does not depend on historical facts.More

Garry Wills on St. Augustine

Historian Garry Wills tells Jim Fleming that despite his “Confessions,” Augustine was no libertine, and dealt with all the major theological problems of early Christianity.More

Helen Macdonald and "Birdle" the Parrot

Helen Macdonald's book "H is for Hawk" turned her goshawk Mabel into one of the most memorable literary characters of recent years. Mabel is no longer with her, but Helen tells Anne Strainchamps about her new avian companion - an ornery and very smart parrot.More

Helen Macdonald Battles Grief with a Goshawk

Shattered by her father's sudden death, writer Helen Macdonald began dreaming of wild hawks. In an effort to move beyond her grief, she bought and trained a wild goshawk -- one of the world's fiercest birds of prey. But between the bird and her grief, she became, in her words "more hawk than human."More

David Haskell on the Forest Unseen

Biologist David George Haskell spent a year making weekly visits to the same one-square-meter patch of old-growth forest near his home in Tennessee. His writes about his experiment in "contemplative science" in a series of gorgeous essays, called "The Forest Unseen".More

Brian Boyd on Evolutionary Dr Seuss

Brian Boyd talks with Anne Strainchamps about how our love of storytelling helped us evolve.More

David Abram on Becoming Animal

David Abrams tells Steve Paulson about his animistic beliefs and recounts a remarkable story about a shaman who could turn himself into a raven.More

DT Max on the Letters and Unfinished Work of David Foster Wallace

Journalist DT Max tells Steve Paulson about David Foster Wallace's creative struggles with the novel he left unfinished when he committed suicide in September of 2008. It's called "The Pale King" and explores Wallace's longtime preoccupation with boredom.More

Art of the Hoax - Joey Skaggs

Joey Skaggs is a master of the hoax. His elaborate pranks have been fooling media outlets since the 1960s.More

E.O. Wilson on Science and Religion

Renowned biologist E.O. Wilson talks with Steve Paulson about the difficulty of reconciling science and religion.More

Dangerous Idea: Love Your Enemy

Writer Karen Armstrong's dangerous idea is to love your enemies.More

David Byrne is Thinking About How Music Works

David Byrne is one of those artists who just keeps reinventing himself -- first as frontman of Talking Heads. Then by making films and writing books. Lately, he's been making historical musicals -- one about Joan of Arc and one about Imelda Marcos. He's just released an updated version of his book, "How Music Works," which includes a new chapter called "Infinite Choice: The Power of Curation."More

A moonlit arch over Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah.

Desert Mind

Where do you go if you want to see dinosaur footprints, ancient rock art and remote desert wilderness? There's no better place than the Grand Staircase-Escalanate National Monument in southern Utah. Steve and Anne spent an afternoon exploring this area with nature guide Nate Waggoner.More

Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.