Sublime

The interviews presented here were conducted on the run and are by no means “definitive.” But I hope you’ll accept them in the spirit in which they’re offered, as entertaining and thought-provoking conversations with people I believe are worthy of your time.

The interviews on Fresh Air sound conversational, or at least I hope they do.

You never know how the program fits into someone’s day.

But they bear little resemblance to the conversations we have in daily life. Unlike an actual conversation, which requires only two people, a Fresh Air interview is a team effort. One of my producers finds and books the guest, a researcher locates the material I need to look at for background, an associate editor cuts the tape, and the executive pr

The best part of producing a daily show is knowing that many listeners come to consider you a regular companion. The worst part is hardly having a minute between one deadline and the next and doing everything in a hurry.

I also encourage them to take advantage of the fact that the interview is being recorded and will be edited for broadcast. If someone is in the middle of an answer before he realizes what it was he wanted to say, he’s welcome to go back and start again—we’ll edit out the false start.

It’s my job to help these people, the experts as well as the artists, focus and present their thoughts.

I try in my interviews to find the connections between my guests’ lives and their work (the reason we care about them in the first place). I’d love to know how Chris Rock got to be so funny, how Dennis Hopper developed his screen presence, how John Updike became a great writer.

When it comes to politicians and others in positions of authority, my rules are far less lenient. I don’t elicit their help in drawing the line between public and private, nor do I allow them to start an answer over. Politicians are so skilled at manipulating the press—in staying on-message and evading any question that isn’t to their liking—that i