The framing narrative of Eric Poole’s memoir Where’s My Wand? One's Boy's Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting, is that of a young boy who hasn’t yet figured out that he’s gay. To survive, he becomes obsessed with TV pop culture (particularly with 'Bewitched's Endora' suffers from his parents’ neuroses, and believes he has magical powers that enable him to survive the traumas of growing up. KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks with him here about his journey. 

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Here KGNU’s Claudia Cragg meets poet and legendary feminist author of the 1970s ‘Fear of Flying’ for a lunchtime interview in New York to discuss Jong’s opus as a whole and an anthology she has just edited ‘Sugar in My Bowl’. The lively ambience provided excellent cover for a frank discussion of, among other topics, Jong’s invention of the ‘Zipless “Banana' (well, they had to say that since the FCC does not of course allow ****.) The interview itself, though, is not explicit.

In "Sugar in My Bowl", Erica Jong and a host of prominent female voices answer the question, What do women want? in essays that explore our fascination with sex and the realm of female desire - what it is, what sparks it, and what satisfies it.

The revelations are as varied as the writers. Daphne Merkin celebrates beautiful male bodies. Jennifer Weiner explores sex and death. Min Jin Lee pairs sex and racism. And Gail Collins offers an amusing take on the anti-sexuality of a Catholic education. Here, too, are the voices of a younger generation who reveal attitudes far more reserved than their liberated mothers. From wild nights to the innocence of inexperienced youth, "Sugar in My Bowl" explores women's sexuality with daring and candor, challenging us to examine ourselves and our own desires.

As Jong writes, 'The truth is-sex is life-no more, no less. As many of these stories demonstrate. It is the life force. If we attempt to wall it off in a special category of its own, we make it dirty. By itself, it is far from obscene. It is just a part of life-the part that continues it and makes it bloom.

Contributors include: Karen Abbott; Anne Roiphe; Jessica Winter; Jann Turner; Julie Klam; Susan Kinsolving; Susie Bright; Fay Weldon; Linda Gray Sexton; Elisa Albert; Barbara Victor; Daphne Merkin; Marisa Marchetto; Min Jin Lee; Honor Moore; Jennifer Weiner; Gail Collins; Liz Smith; Naomi Wolf; Rebecca Walker; Jean Hanff Korelitz; Eve Ensler; Meghan O'Rourke, and Rosemary Daniell.

Erica Jong’s Personal Website.

In this interview, Claudia Cragg speaks with Jim Geary who, in October 1981, formed the first support group in the world for people with AIDS and served as The Shanti Project’s executive director in San Francisco for seven years. He developed the agency into an internationally acclaimed model of AIDS services.

Now he has recently released his memoir Delicate Courage which tells the story of his revolutionizing AIDS care and his "poignant crossing from joy to grief" as his lover faces his own AIDS diagnosis. Geary’s memoir concludes with journal entries he kept following his lover’s passing which are interwoven with "after-death" communications he believes he has shared with his now deceased partner of 20 years. 

The conversation begins with Geary’s recollection of his early activism to protest The Briggs Initiative and the emotional onslaught of the assassinations in San Francisco of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone which coincided with the Jonestown "massacre" in which many San Francisco residents took their own lives. [See also, Sean Penn's 'Milk'].

You can read more about Geary at www.delicatecourage.com

Ann Patchett has dazzled readers with her award-winning books, including The Magician's Assistant and the New York Times bestselling Bel Canto. She speaks here with Claudia Cragg about her latest novel, State of Wonder, a provocative and ambitious narrative set deep in the Amazon jungle.

Patchett writes of Marina Singh who gave up a career as a doctor after botching an emergency delivery as an intern, opting instead for the more orderly world of research for a pharmaceutical company. When office colleague Anders Eckman, sent to the Amazon to check on the work of a field team, is reported dead, Marina is asked by her company's CEO to complete Anders' task and to locate his body. What Marina finds in the sweltering, insect-infested jungles of the Amazon shakes her to her core. The team is headed by esteemed scientist Annick Swenson, the woman who oversaw Marina's residency and who is now intent on keeping the team's progress on a miracle drug completely under wraps. 

Marina's jungle odyssey includes exotic encounters with cannibals and snakes, a knotty ethical dilemma about the basic tenets of scientific research, and joyous interactions with the exuberant people of the Lakashi tribe, who live on the compound. In fluid and remarkably atmospheric prose, Patchett captures not only the sights and sounds of the chaotic jungle environment but also the struggle and sacrifice of dedicated scientists. 

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Claudia Cragg speaks in this interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times’s chief mergers and acquisitions reporter and columnist whose book ‘Too Big To Fail” just aired in a televised version on Home Box Office.  Particularly topical here, is the discussion of Christine Lagarde (the French Minister of Economic Affairs, Finance and Indusry) who, following the scandalous demise of Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be in line to replace him as the IMF chief. 

Mr. Sorkin is also the editor of Deal Book, an online daily financial report he started in 2001. In addition, Sorkin is an assistant editor of business and finance news, helping guide and shape the paper’s coverage.

Sorkin, who has appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and on “Charlie Rose” on PBS, is a frequent guest host of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” He won a Gerald Loeb Award, one of the highest honors in business journalism, in 2004 for breaking news. He also won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. In 2008 and 2009, Vanity Fair named him to its “Next Establishment” list. He was also named to the Directorship 100, a list of the most influential people on the nation’s board of directors. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.