Kentucky Author Forum Presents
Great Conversations
The University of Louisville’s Kentucky Author Forum is a non-profit, nationally recognized literary event. Four times each year, renowned authors are paired with interviewers — who are interesting in their own right — and their conversation is taped before a live audience at Louisville’s Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts. (Ticket information)
The program later airs on KET and on PBS stations nationwide as Great Conversations.
Recent guests include Congressman John Lewis (graphic novel “March”) interviewed by Rachel Maddow, MSNBC news and information show host; and Chris Matthews (“Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked”) interviewed by columnist and political commentator, E.J. Dionne.
Broadcast Schedule
Watch Video: Thomas Friedman and Congressman John Yarmuth
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Friedman discusses his new book, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations. He is interviewed by Kentucky journalist and Congressman John Yarmuth.
Recent Episodes
Selected programs from Great Conversations are available for online viewing. Many are also available on DVD from KET; call 800-945-9167 or e-mail shop@ket.org for information.
2017
- Joseph Stiglitz
American economist Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe, is interviewed by Rana Foroohar, a Financial Times columnist. They discuss economic policies and inequality. - P.J. O’Rourke
P.J. O’Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance, discusses his latest book, How The Hell Did This Happen, about the 2016 presidential election. He is interviewed by Robert Siegel, senior host of NPR’s All Things Considered. - Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead discusses the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, a chronicle of a young slave’s desperate bid for freedom. He is interviewed by Buzzfeed’s Isaac Fitzgerald.
2016
- Sebastian Junger
Sebastian Junger, author of War and The Perfect Storm, talks about his book, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, an exploration of how people overcome trauma and seek something bigger than themselves. He is interviewed by Joe Klein, TIME’s political columnist. - Joe Nocera
Joe Nocera of the New York Times discusses his book, Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA. He is interviewed by journalist Buzz Bissinger. - Diane Rehm
NPR host Diane Rehm discusses her book, On My Own, about reconstructing her life after the death of her husband of 54 years. She is interviewed by author Ann Patchett. - E.J. Dionne
Journalist and political commentator E.J. Dionne, a long-time op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, talks about his book, Why The Right Went Wrong: Conservatism—from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond. He is interviewed by James Fallows, a National correspondent for The Atlantic. - John Irving
John Irving is the author of 14 novels, including The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany. His latest novel, Avenue of Mysteries, returns to the themes of fate and memory. The story of Juan Diego unfolds as he travels to the Philippines, where past events will collide with his future. Irving is interviewed by Sam Tanenhaus, a contributor to Bloomberg Politics and Bloomberg View, and a columnist and associate editor at the British monthly Prospect. Tanenhaus is also a former editor in chief of the Sunday Book Review and Week in Review at the New York Times.
2015
- David Boies
David Boies, attorney and co-author of Redeeming the Dream: The Case for Marriage Equality, and Jeffrey Toobin, senior legal analyst for CNN, discuss the historic case that overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Boies and Theordore B. Olson argued the case against Proposition 8 before the U.S. Supreme Court. (2015) - Jessye Norman
Legendary opera singer Jessye Norman discusses her memoir, Stand Up Straight and Sing!, which recalls the strong women who were her role models. She is interviewed by Gloria Steinem, feminist activist and co-founder of Ms. magazine. (2015)
2014
- Timothy Geithner
Timothy Geithner, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and author of Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, is interviewed by James Surowiecki, staff writer of “The Financial Page” at The New Yorker. (2014) - Philippe de Montebello
Philippe de Montebello, the longest-serving director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, discusses his book, Rendez-vous with Art. He is interviewed by chief art critic for the New York Times Michael Kimmelman.(2014) - Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton, author of The News: A User’s Manual, is interviewed by Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent for CNN Worldwide and host of Reliable Sources.. (2014)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Rick Pitino
Rick Pitino, head coach of the University of Louisville men’s basketball team and author of The One Day Contract, is interviewed by New York Times columnist Joe Nocera. (2014)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos
2013
- Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews is anchor of MSNBC’s Hardball and served as a top aide to Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill. His new book, Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked, offers a personal history of the years when President Reagan and Speaker O’Neill served together. He is interviewed by E.J. Dionne Jr., senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. (2014)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy explores the last years of his father’s life in The Death of Santini. He is interviewed by Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air and a critic-in-residence and lecturer at Georgetown University. (2013)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Congressman John Lewis
U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, tells the story of his role in the civil rights movement in the first volume of March, a graphic novel trilogy. The publication marks the first time a sitting member of Congress has authored a graphic novel. He is interviewed by Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. (2013)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Elaine Pagels
Renowned religion scholar and author of The Gnostic Gospels and Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation. Interviewer: Gustav Niebuhr, associate professor in religion and the media at Syracuse University. (2013)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Jared Diamond
Author of The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies? Interviewer: Sarah Hrdy, a primatologist and evolutionary theorist and the author of Mothers and Others (2013)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos
2012
- Ray Kurzweil
Author of How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. Interviewer: Jim Fleming, host of Public Radio International’s To the Best of Our Knowledge. (2012)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Steven Pinker
Author of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Interviewer: Neal Conan, host of Talk of the Nation on NPR. (2012)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Ahmed Rashid
Author of Pakistan on the Brink. Interviewer: Clarissa Ward, CBS News foreign correspondent. (2012)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Erik Larson
Author of In the Garden of Beasts. Interviewer: Robert Siegel of National Public Radio. (2012)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos - Michio Kaku
Author of Physics of the Future. Interviewer: James Canton, CEO and chairman of the Institute for Global Futures. (2012)
Watch program and “After the Show” web exclusive videos
2011
- Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee
Author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Interviewer: Dr. David Scadden, professor of medicine at Harvard University. (2011) - Rosanne Cash
Author of Composed: A Memoir. Interviewer: Nick Spitzer, producer and host of public radio’s American Routes. (2011) - Billy Collins
Author of Horoscopes of the Dead: Poems. Interviewer: Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion. (2011) - Dr. Eric Kandel
Author of In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. Interviewer: Jonah Lehrer, contributing editor, Wired. (2011)
In alphabetical order:
- Madeleine Albright
U.S. secretary of state during the Clinton administration and author of Madame Secretary. Interviewer: CNN correspondent Richard Roth (2003) - R.W. Apple Jr.
Associate editor of the New York Times and author of Apple’s America. Interviewer: journalist Tom Brokaw (2005) - Karen Armstrong
Author of a number of books on religion, including A History of God and Buddha. Interviewer: National Public Radio host Robert Siegel (2004) - Margaret Atwood
Acclaimed novelist, poet, and critic. Interviewer: National Public Radio host Ira Flatow (2004) - James Baker III
Former U.S. Secretary of State, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group appointed in March 2006, and author of Work Hard, Study … and Keep Out of Politics! Interviewer: CNN national correspondent John King (2007) - A. Scott Berg
Author of Lindbergh, a critically acclaimed biography of aviator Charles Lindbergh. Interviewer: Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1998) - David Boren
President of the University of Oklahoma, former governor and U.S. senator, and author of A Letter to America. Interviewer: National Public Radio correspondent Neal Conan (2008) - Stephen Breyer
U.S. Supreme Court justice and author of Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution. Interviewer: NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams (2008) - Tom Brokaw
Former NBC News anchor and author of Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the ’60s and Today. Interviewer: Washington Post senior editor Rick Atkinson (2007) - Rosanne Cash
Author of Composed: A Memoir. Interviewer: Nick Spitzer, producer and host of public radio’s American Routes. (2011) - Gen. Wesley Clark
Five-star general, former commander of NATO European Forces and NATO Air Campaign Kosovo, and author of Waging Modern War. Interviewer: Joe Klein, New Yorker correspondent and author (2001) - Billy Collins
Author of Horoscopes of the Dead: Poems. Interviewer: Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion. (2011) - E.L. Doctorow
Novelist who has mixed fictional characters with real-life events in such books as Ragtime, World’s Fair, and The March. Interviewer: Christopher Lydon (2001) - Richard Ellis
Author of On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear and marine conservationist. Interviewer: Jeff Corwin of Animal Planet (2010) - Ari Fleischer
Primary spokesman for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 and author of Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House. Interviewer: CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante (2005) - Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University and author of America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans. Interviewer: National Public Radio correspondent Karen Grigsby Bates (2004) - Elizabeth Gilbert
ZZ Packer, author of “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”, interviews author Elizabeth Gilbert about her #1 New York Times bestselling memoir “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia” and her reissued novel, “Stern Men.” (2009) - Malcolm Gladwell
Author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers: The Story of Success. Interviewer: Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko (2009) - Jane Goodall
Anthropologist and author of Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. Interviewer: Richard Wrangham, chair of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University (1999) - David Halberstam
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of The Children, which recounts the remarkable stories of young people involved in the early days of the civil rights movement. Interviewer: Roger Wilkins, professor, George Mason University. (1998) - Arianna Huffington
Author of Third World America. Interviewer: Howard Fineman, Huffingtonpost.com (2010) - Vernon Jordan
Managing director, Lazard Freres & Co., past president of the National Urban League, and author of the memoir Vernon Can Read. Interviewer: Ronald Brownstein, senior Washington correspondent, The Los Angeles Times (2002) - Robert Kagan
Senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributing editor of The New Republic, and author of Paradise and Power. Interviewer: National Public Radio host Neal Conan (2004) - Dr. Eric Kandel
Author of In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. Interviewer: Jonah Lehrer, contributing editor, Wired. (2011) - Sue Monk Kidd
Best-selling novelist and author of The Mermaid Chair. Interviewer: Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, professor of clinical psychiatry (2006) - Arthur Levitt
Former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and author of Take on the Street: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don’t Want You to Know; What You Can Do to Fight Back. Interviewer: Jane Bryant Quinn (2002) - John McCain
Four-term U.S. Senator (R-AZ), decorated Vietnam veteran, and author of Character Is Destiny. Interviewer: National Public Radio host Robert Siegel (2006) - Bill McKibben
Environmental journalist and author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. Interviewer: Wendell Berry, Kentucky farmer, essayist, novelist, and poet (2007) - Greg Mortenson
Literacy advocate, Central Asia Institute and Pennies for Peace founder, and author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission To Promote Peace … One School at a Time. Interviewer: Jacki Lyden, National Public Radio (2008) - Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee
Author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Interviewer: Dr. David Scadden, professor of medicine at Harvard University. (2011) - Azar Nafisi
A former teacher of English literature at the University of Tehran, witness to the Iranian revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power, and author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Interviewer: civil rights reporter Karl Fleming (2005) - Sandra Day O’Connor
First woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and author of The Majesty of the Law. Interviewer: Pete Williams (2003) - Daniel Okrent
Author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Interviewer: John Huey, editor-in-chief of Time (2010) - David Plouffe
Author of The Audacity to Win. Interviewer: Richard Wolffe, MSNBC (2010) - Michael Pollan
New York Times Magazine contributor, journalism teacher, and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Interviewer: Michael Shnayerson, author of Coal River (2008) - Sister Helen Prejean
Counselor to death row inmates and author of Dead Man Walking. Interviewer: Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, native of Danville, Ky., University of Kentucky graduate, and Yale professor (1996) - Ruth Reichl
New York Times restaurant critic, editor of Gourmet magazine, and author of the memoir Tender at the Bone. Interviewer: Susan Stamberg, National Public Radio (1999) - Dennis Ross
Ambassador, chief Middle East peace negotiator under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and author of The Missing Peace. Interviewer: National Public Radio foreign correspondent Jacki Lyden (2004) - Michael Sandel
Author of Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? and Harvard professor. Interviewer: journalist John S. Carroll (2009) - Andrew Ross Sorkin
Author of Too Big to Fail. Interviewer: journalist Bethany McLean, Vanity Fair (2010) - George Soros
Holocaust survivor, international financier and philanthropist, and author of The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror. Interviewer: John D. Podesta, Center for American Progress (2006) - Gene Sperling
President Clinton’s national economic adviser, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a frequent columnist and commentator on economic issues, and author of The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity. Interviewer: John Ydstie, National Public Radio (2006) - Strobe Talbott
Former deputy secretary of state and ambassador-at-large and author of The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy. Interviewer: journalist David Halberstam (2002) - John Updike
The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of Golf Dreams. Interviewer: Robert Siegel of National Public Radio (1996) - Lawrence Wright
Screenwriter, New Yorker staff writer, and author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Interviewer: Peter Bergen, journalist and terrorism analyst (2006)
The Kentucky Author Forum is sponsored by the University of Louisville as part of its Challenge for Excellence, with support from Brown-Forman and the Humana Foundation. The series founder and producer is Mary Moss Greenebaum. The programs are produced for television by KET.