November 8, 2002: Volume 56, Number 9

NPR's Terry Gross speaks at Union Nov. 13

Terry Gross, the award-winning host of NPR's Fresh Air, will give a talk on "All I Did Was Ask: An Evening with Terry Gross" on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Union College's Nott Memorial.

The talk, the last in the term's Perspectives at the Nott series, is free and open to the public.

Since 1973, she has been interviewing some of the most prominent figures of our time – John Updike, Arthur Miller, Spalding Gray, Diane Keaton, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Carter, Elie Weisel, Marilyn Mason and Jerry Falwell. Her unmistakable voice reaches some 2 million listeners across 300 public radio stations nationwide.

"The good thing," said Gross in a recent interview with Metro Santa Cruz, "is that anything you could possibly be interested in has a potential connection to the show. The bad thing," she continues, "is that anything you could possibly be interested in has a connection to the show."

"She has the best interview show on any medium in the U.S.," says William Drummond, a Berkeley-based NPR correspondent, in the Metro interview with Michael Mechanic. "She actually reads [her subject's] books. With many talk shows, you're lucky if they read the liner notes. She's also not afraid to ask a completely naive question, but often it's the question everyone wants to know the answer to."

"It's a wonderful medium for conversation and for all things related to language, whether it's a reading or even a song, because there is nothing visual to distract you," says Gross, asked what she finds special about radio. "You're not thinking about somebody's hairdo or whether you like their clothes. You are just engaged in what they have to say."

For more information, call (518) 388-6131.

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