Marc Silver
Marc Silver, who edits NPR's global health blog, has been a reporter and editor for the Baltimore Jewish Times, U.S. News & World Report and National Geographic. He is the author of Breast Cancer Husband: How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) During Diagnosis, Treatment and Beyond and co-author, with his daughter, Maya Silver, of My Parent Has Cancer and It Really Sucks: Real-Life Advice From Real-Life Teens. The NPR story he co-wrote with Rebecca Davis and Viola Kosome -- 'No Sex For Fish' — won a Sigma Delta Chi award for online reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.
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An ordained preacher at 15, Keite Young now aims to conquer the sinful world of secular music. At 27, he showcases all the tools on "E.N.S.," including a keening tenor, a sharp falsetto and a thorough knowledge of both the gospel idiom and the school of funk. -
Everyone on earth seems to have recorded "Tea for Two," but the multilingual lounge act Pink Martini makes it clear that the cloying classic is a fantasy. Paired with angel-voiced Jimmy Scott, singer China Forbes invests the song with a delicate intimacy. -
Ruthie Foster opens "Up Above My Head" with a minor-key electric-piano riff, conjuring up Marvin Gaye and the '70s pop-gospel hits of The Staple Singers. Then comes the 43-year-old Texan's warm, down-to-earth voice, with its undercurrent of wistfulness shining through.
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Blue Balliett is the author of two novels for children. Her latest, The Wright 3, is a detective story that takes place in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Balliett graduated from Brown University with a degree in art history. She lives with her family and cats in Chicago.
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We've asked fiction writers from all genres for the essence of noveling: how they write, how they overcome writer's block and their best written sentence. Today, we feature finalists from the 2005 and 2006 National Book Awards.
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Jess Walter is the author of four novels. His latest, The Zero, is a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. Walter is also an investigative reporter. He lives in Spokane, Washington.
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Nancy Werlin is the author of six young adult novels. Her latest, The Rules of Survival, is a finalist for the 2006 National Book Awards for Young People's Literature. She lives near Boston, Massachusetts.
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Mary Gaitskill is the author of four novels; her most recent, Veronica, was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award. Her short story "Secretary" was the basis for the film of the same name.
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Myla Goldberg is the author of the novels Bee Season (that's spelling bees, not stinging bees) and Wickett's Remedy (about the 1918 flu epidemic). She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
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Jeanne Birdsall didn't write professionally until the age of 41. She received the 2005 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for her debut novel, The Penderwicks.
