Fresh Air

When Karen Piper was 6, her family moved to the Mojave Desert. In A Girl's Guide To Missiles she describes how her parents designed weapons, but she didn't understand how it all connected to war.

Early in his career, clarinetist Andy Biskin worked as an assistant to the folklorist Alan Lomax. Biskin's new album features new settings of songs drawn from Lomax's The Folk Songs of North America.

The creator of the AMC comedy talks about strip mall culture, why he likes to write characters who are fools, and explains why he defines success as "just sticking around."

In his autobiography, Siren Song, Stein writes about how he started out in the music business as a teen before going on to sign groundbreaking artists like Talking Heads, Madonna, Ice-T and k.d. lang.

Critic Maureen Corrigan says Kevin Wilson's funny, raw, beautiful writing reminds her of J. D. Salinger. He starts with a goofy premise and then draws deep emotional truths.

Jennifer Fox's HBO film, The Tale, is based on the sexual abuse she experienced as a child. Justin Chang reviews BlacKkKlansmen. Julian Adler and Judge Victoria Pratt discuss alternatives to jail.

In 1979, a black police officer named Ron Stallworth successfully infiltrated a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Director Spike Lee presents his story with humor and honesty in BlacKkKlansman.

Sedaris' Theft by Finding is a collection of excerpts from those diaries. In it, he revisits major turning points, including how he met his longtime boyfriend. Originally broadcast May 31, 2017.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg says it's common for citizens of democracies to express concerns about the government. But the term "deep state" refers to something more nefarious — and conspiratorial.

Atlantic writer Franklin Foer says President Trump has "radicalized" Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), opening the door for the agency to deport any undocumented immigrant.

"We never talk about how a child can love his or her abuser," Jennifer Fox says. "If we don't understand that, we don't understand how abuse happens." Her new HBO film is The Tale.

New York Times correspondent David Kirkpatrick says the Obama White House watched Arab democracy fall, and now the Trump administration is embracing Egypt's autocratic president.