Overheard With Evan Smith On Klru-tv

Cokie Roberts is a best-selling author, a contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition and a Political Commentator for ABC News. She’s won numerous awards, including three Emmys, and was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.

Former Congressman Barney Frank represented the Fourth District of Massachusetts for more than three decades.One of the most prominent gay politicians in American history, he was the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. His memoir Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage was recently published.

Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian, writer, and podcast host. His podcast “WTF with Marc Maron” is regularly one of the most popular on iTunes. His eponymous IFC show Maron returns this month.

Kim Gordon is a founding member of Sonic Youth and author of the best-selling memoir Girl in a Band. The memoir chronicles her childhood in California, her time in New York City in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and the rise of Sonic Youth. In addition to being a musician and author, Gordon is a fashion designer, actress and artist.

Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a non-profit providing online instruction to people all over the world. He began by tutoring his cousins remotely by video. The videos attracted a large YouTube following. Today, Khan Academy is an online learning platform which includes practice exercises, instructional videos, analytics and teacher tools with 15 million registered users.

Bernie Sanders is a United States Senator from Vermont who describes himself as a Socialist, serves as an Independent, and may run for president as a Democrat in 2016. Sanders is the longest-serving Congressional Independent in US history.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a Senior Editor and Staff Writer at The New Yorker. His writing for The New Yorker’s The Talk of the Town has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary 6 times, and won the award in 2006. He’s written three books, Politics: Observations and Arguments, ¡Obamanos!: The Birth of a New Political Era, and One Million.

Alex Gibney is an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Alex’s film Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief will air on HBO on March 29th. Based on Lawrence Wright’s book by the same name, the film was one of the most talked about at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

David Axelrod is a political strategist and former Senior Advisor to President Obama. Axelrod ran both of President Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. He’s also worked for a number of other big names in Democratic politics - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Deval Patrick, and Rahm Emanuel, just to name a few. His memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, has just been published.

S. C. Gwynne is a best-selling author and journalist, whose most recent book Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson is a finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award. His 2010 book Empire of the Summer Moon was a New York Times best-seller and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

William Gibson is an acclaimed science fiction novelist, essayist, and screenwriter, known for coining the term “cyberspace.” He has been called the “noir prophet” of the “cyberpunk” community. His 1984 book Neuromancer was the first to win the three top science fiction prizes -- the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award. Throughout his writing career he has published three trilogies, including The New York Times best-selling Blue Ant series. His newest novel is The

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most distinguished and critically-acclaimed fiction writers in America. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

James Ellroy is an author known for his noir-style crime fiction, primarily set in Los Angeles. Some of his past works have been adapted into Hollywood successes including the Academy Award-winning L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia. His latest novel, Perfidia, is set in Los Angeles during World War II, as Japanese internment camps begin forming.

Martin Amis is a celebrated and prolific author whose credits include London Fields, The Rachel Papers, Time's Arrow and The Information. His fourteenth novel, The Zone of Interest, is a satire set at Auschwitz. It has attracted attention and controversy, especially in Europe.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, Nicholas Kristof is a journalist, author and op-ed columnist for The New York Times. His books have all been co-written with his wife Sheryl WuDunn and primarily focus on poverty, health, and human rights in the developing world.

Katha Pollitt is an award-winning author and columnist for The Nation. Her work of essays surrounding feminism, women’s rights, and politics have been made into books including Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism and Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time.

Ross Douthat is a conservative Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. He joined the Times in 2009, previously working as a senior editor at The Atlantic. He has written a number of books including Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics and Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class.

Bob Woodward is one of America's most prominent investigative reporters and non-fiction writers. He currently serves as Associate Editor at The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971. Woodward worked with Carl Bernstein to investigate and report the Watergate scandal, which lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. He has written 16 national best-selling non-fiction books.

Ian McEwan is a critically acclaimed, highly distinguished author, whose thirteenth book is the recently published The Children Act. McEwan has won numerous awards for his writing, including the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976, the Man Booker Prize in 1998 for his novel Amsterdam and the WH Smith Literary Award in 2002 for his novel Atonement.

Mark Bittman is an opinion columnist and lead food writer for The New York Times. He’s written two books, the best-selling How to Cook Everything and the groundbreaking Vegan Before 6P.M. (VB6), which introduced Americans to the Flexitarian diet. His newest book is How to Cook Everything Fast.