Table of Contents: “…. -- Georgia O'Keefe / Joan Didion -- The cowboy and his cow / Edward Abbey -- Huck at 100 / Leo Marx -- In praise of the humble comma / Pico Iyer -- When free speech was first condemned : the trial of Socrates reconsidered / I.F. …”

Table of Contents: “…From I know why the caged bird sings / Maya Angelou -- From The prime of life / Simone de Beauvoir -- From The italics are mine / Nina Berberova -- From Testament of youth / Vera Brittain -- From A life of her own / Émilie Carles -- From Life and death in Shanghai / Nien Cheng -- From Silent dancing / Judith Ortiz Cofer -- From My apprenticeships / Colette -- From The road from Coorain / Jill Ker Conway -- From Notes / Eleanor Coppola -- From The price of my soul / Bernadette Devlin -- From The white album / Joan Didion -- From An American childhood / Annie Dillard -- From Out of Africa / Isak Dinesen -- From The war / Marguerite Duras -- From As they were / M.F.K. …”

Table of Contents: “…Probability in fiction and nonfiction: pride and prejudice and the year of magical thinking -- Engaging the stubborn: narrative speed and readerly judgments in Franz Kafka's "Das Urteil" -- Estranging unreliability, bonding unreliability, and the ethics of Lolita -- The how and why of backward narration in Martin Amis's Time's arrow -- "I affirm nothing": Lord Jim and the uses of textual recalcitrance -- Toni Morrison's determinate ambiguity in "Recitatif" -- Conversational and authorial disclosure in dialogue narrative: George Higgins's The friends of Eddie Coyle and John O'Hara's "Appearances" -- The implied author, deficient narration, and nonfiction narrative: Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and Jean-Dominique Bauby's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -- Reliability, dialogue, and crossover effects in Jhumpa Lahiri's "The third and final continent" -- Reliable, unreliable, and deficient narration: toward a rhetorical poetics -- Occasions of narration and the functions of narrative segments in enduring love -- Conclusion: Reflections on the how and why of rhetorical poetics.…”
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Table of Contents: “…The New Journalism as the New Fiction, The New Subjectivity as The New Objectivity: Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Mark Leyner, and Bret Easton Ellis -- 4. …”
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Table of Contents: “…Paul Jennings / by Judith Lewis -- A comprehensive approach to earthquake engineering : lessons from Northridge and beyond : an interview with Susan Tubbesing / by Aileen Farnan Antonier -- The Field Act : building stronger schools / by Judith Lewis -- Visual essay / by Paul Rogers -- Preparing for the unthinkable / by Judith Lewis -- Excerpt from 'Los Angeles days' / by Joan Didion -- The cultural geographies of natural disasters / by Michael Dear -- Assessing preparedness : an interview with Linda Bourque / by Aileen Farnan Antonier -- How to succeed in disaster readiness : a profile of Richard McCarthy / by Aileen Farnan Antonier -- Earthquake disasters by design / by Dennis S. …”

Table of Contents: “…Venus Williams, Serena Williams -- Vera Wang -- Norah Jones -- Toni Morrison -- Christiane Amanpour -- Raquel Welch -- Donna Karan -- Joan Didion -- Halle Berry -- Terry Gross -- Queen Latifah -- Nigella Lawson -- Barbara Walters -- Nicole Kidman -- Zaha Hadid -- Candice Bergen -- Cathy Freeman -- Alice Waters -- Twyla Tharp -- Eleanor Holmes Norton -- Chrissie Hynde -- Eva Hesse -- Hillary Clinton -- Jamie Lee Curtis -- Nitsuko Uchida -- Alice Walker -- Diane Keaton -- Carly Fiorina -- K. …”

Table of Contents: “…(Samuel Beckett) -- Distorting truth (Caradoc Evans) -- The shortest way home (Joan Didion) -- Mental gymnastics (Tom Stoppard) -- A place without qualitites (Franz Kafka) -- Meaning what we say (Alice Monro) -- Of fishers and men (Ernest Hemingway) -- Kill or be killed (Isaac Babel) -- One priest, two sermons (Albert Camus) -- Who's who (Barbara Pym) -- Displaced persons (Edith Wharton) -- Beyond the call of duty (Elie Wiesel) -- Revealing the hidden (R. …”

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Table of Contents: “…-- "A hard story to tell" : the Vietnam War in Joan Didion's Democray / Stuart Ching -- Darkness in the East : the Vietnam novels of Takeshi Kaiko / Mark A. …”

Table of Contents: “…Liebling -- Stalking the billion-footed beast / Tom Wolfe -- The return of the native / Harold Brodkey -- Canary / Rita Dove -- Autumn in New York / Vernon Duke -- Excerpt from The same river twice / Chris Offutt -- Talking New York / Bob Dylan -- Hard times in New York town / Bob Dylan -- Goodbye to all that / Joan Didion -- Do you miss New York / David Frishberg -- Elsewhere in the empire / Bill McKibben -- Courage of turtles / Edward Hoagland -- Water songs / Terry Tempest Williams -- Times square water music / Amy Clampitt -- Greetings in New York City / James Wright.…”

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Table of Contents: “…Kennedy's Nomination -- A Meeting of Giants: Ali and Foreman -- Craftsman of Violence: Muhammad Ali -- She Is Her Own Most Memorable Character: Joan Didion -- Motion Slowed into Choreography: Didion Drives South -- Crafted Confession: Re-reading Mary McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Childhood -- James Baldwin: Preacher vs. …”
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Table of Contents: “…. -- Robert Penn Warren -- Ross MacDonald -- Joan Didion -- William Maxwell -- Robert Coles -- Walker Percy -- Cathleen Schine -- Eugene Ionesco -- Roy Blount, Jr. -- Archibald MacLeish -- Terry Southern -- Eudora Welty -- James A. …”
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Program air date: June 1, 1997

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Table of Contents: “…The writer herself : an introduction / Janet Sternburg ; Still just writing / Anne Tyler ; Why I write / Joan Didion ; The parable of the cave or : in praise of watercolors / Mary Gordon ; De memoria / Nancy Milford ; My grandmother who painted / Honor Moore ; Creating oneself from scratch / Michele Murray ; On being female, Black, and free / Margaret Walker ; Thoughts on writing : a diary / Susan Griffin ; One child of one's own : a meaningful digression within the work(s) / Alice Walker ; The middle period / Ingrid Bengis ; What it is I think I'm doing anyhow / Toni Cade Bambara ; Blood and guts : the tricky problem of being a woman writer in the late twentieth century / Erica Jong ; The coming book / Maxine Hong Kingston ; Opening night : the opening days / Janet Burroway ; The education of a poet / Muriel Rukeyser ; Becoming a writer / Gail Godwin -- v. 2. …”