Writing

Dorough, who died Monday, spoke with Terry Gross in 1982 and 1996. He told her his career was launched when an advertising executive asked him to put the multiplication tables to music.

Sharon Horgan co-created and co-stars in the Amazon comedy series Catastrophe, playing one half of a couple making their way through parenthood, marriage and their careers.

Roxane Gay has finally written the book that she "wanted to write the least."

Noah Hawley says his FX series, now in its third season, explores the central premise of the Coen Brothers' iconic 1996 film. Hawley is also the creator of the FX series Legion.

Maria Semple's new comic novel is about a stressed-out wife and mother who starts every day with a mantra. She tells Fresh Air's Sam Briger that the book was inspired by her own experiences as a mom.

A conversation with novelist Jay McInerney about finding fame as a young man, writing, New York City, and his new novel Bright, Precious Days about marriage, fidelity and middle age.

The co-star of the X-Files discusses his novel, Bucky F*cking Dent, about a son reuniting with his absentee father. Duchovny earned a master's degree in literature before starting his TV career.

Conroy, who died last week, was the author of several books, two of which — The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides — were made into feature films. He spoke to Terry Gross in 1987, 1995 and 2002.

Joe R. Lansdale grew up poor in east Texas and worked as a janitor and in a potato field before finding success as a writer. Honky Tonk Samurai is the latest book in his mystery series.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's new book centers on Frank Bascombe, a 68-year-old man dealing with his aging body, a dying friend and his ex-wife, who has Parkinson's.

Nadine Gordimer has written about the agonies of apartheid in her novels and short stories. She died Sunday at the age of 90. In 1989, she spoke with Terry Gross during a visit to the U.S.

Fresh Air listens back to our 1989 interview with Snow Leopard author and Paris Review co-founder Peter Matthiessen, who died Saturday at age 86. His new novel In Paradise comes out Tuesday.

The best-selling author and humorist has kept journals for 36 years. Those diaries have been the jumping-diff point for the personal essays that appear in his collections, including Me Talk Pretty One Day and now Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls.

In his new novel, The Testament of Mary, Irish author Colm Toibin imagines Mary's life 20 years after the crucifixion, as she wonders what she might have done differently to ease her son's suffering. "I felt that I was Mary," he says. "I was her consciousness, watching the thing happening."

The author's What Happened to Sophie Wilder features a convert to Catholicism and another character who struggles to understand her faith. Beta talks about his Catholic upbringing, iron's place in fiction and literature's therapeutic aspects.

Writer Harry Crews had a hard life and didn't make it any easier for the characters in his novels. He died Wednesday at age 76. Fresh Air remembers the Southern novelist with excerpts from a 1988 interview.

Ayad Akhtar's debut novel, American Dervish, tells the story of a Pakistani-American boy in Milwaukee coming to terms with his religion and identity. Akbar drew on his own experiences exploring the Muslim faith as a teenager growing up in Wisconsin.

What if the rapture actually occurred? That's the plot of Tom Perrotta's new novel Te Leftovers, which examines the aftermath of an unexplained rapture like even in which millions of people around the globe inexplicably disappear into thin air.