News & Media

"CBS Sunday Morning's" media critic Ron Powers. He's written a book about his hometown, Hannibal, Missouri, titled White Town Drowsing.

Brendan Gill. He has written for The New Yorker magazine for more than 50 years, writing poems, prose, profiles and film and theater reviews. Gill also writes about architecture and has just written a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Adventure essayist Tim Cahill. Cahill's writing appeared in the premiere issue of Outside magazine and has been a regular feature ever since. In his latest odyssey, Cahill drove from the tip of South America to Purdhoe Bay in Alaska. His newest collection of adventure tales is titled Jaguars Ripped My Flesh.

Journalist John Conroy. Conroy lived in a poor Catholic neighborhood in violence-torn Belfast, Northern Ireland. He recorded stories of the life there in his book Belfast Diary.

Edna Buchanan, Pulitzer Prize-winning police reporter for the Miami Herald. Buchanan has written a book that details her daily routine. It's titled The Corpse Had a Familiar Face.

Dan Wasserman, political cartoonist for The Boston Globe. A collection of his drawings has just been published; it's titled We've Been Framed. Wasserman will explain who he and fellow political cartoonist are secretly hoping will win the Presidency.

Writer Tom Wolfe, known for his "New Journalism" in the 60s and 70s. His books from that period included The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, Radical Chic and Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Right Stuff. His new book, his first novel, is titled The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Writer Joan Didion. Known for her self-reflective essays and reporting, Didion is one of America's most important writers. Her books include A Book of Common Prayer, Slouching Toward Bethlehem and Salvador. With her husband John Gregory Dunne, she co-wrote the screenplay for "True Confessions." Her new book is titled Miami.

Randy Shilts, author of And the Band Played On - Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, a controversial book that reveals the identity of the first person to the bring AIDS to the United States. The book also raises questions about the government's response to the crisis.

Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, creators of Raw, an adult comic magazine filled with original and sophisticated graphics.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews Belfast Diary, the non-fiction account of the civil war that has flared through Northern Ireland. The author is Chicago journalist John Conroy.

Film Critic Leonard Maltin. Some TV viewers know him for his segments on "Entertainment Tonight," but he is perhaps as well known for his reference book Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide.

James Conaway, author of The Kingdom in the Country, which looks at the wide expanse of public lands in the West and how the myths of the west - cowboys, gunslingers, gold miners - are enduring.

Don Novello, a.k.a Father Guido Sarducci, the Vatican gossip columnist of "Saturday Night Live" fame.

Cousin Brucie, one of the leading top-40 DJs in New York City in the early 60s when AM radio was king and New York radio set the national tastes in pop music.

Ken Tucker will review the home video release of the 1955 classic "The Night of the Hunter," starring Robert Mitchum as a creepy Appalachian preacher, and Shelly Winters as a gullible widow.

Financial reporter Douglas Frantz, whose new book Levine & Co. follows Wall Street's insider trading scandal.

Gordon Lish, editor of The Quarterly, a journal of new American writing. He's a leading exponent of the minimalist style of writing.

Ken Tucker will review the movies of director Sam Peckinpah, now available on home video. Peckinpah's two best-known films are "Straw Dogs," and "The Wild Bunch."

Investigative reporter Jonathan Kwitny, author of Vicious Circles, which probed Mafia involvement with legitimate businesses. His new book, The Crimes of Patriots, chronicles the demise of the Nugan Hand Bank in Australia, a story that features many of the characters who figured prominently in the investigation into the sales of arms to Iran, and the diversion of those funds to the Contras.