Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 18, 2000.

W.S. Merwin poet, translator, and environmental activist, has become one of the most widely read poets in America, with a career spanning five decades. The son of a Presbyterian minister, for whom he began writing hymns at the age of five, Merwin went to Europe as a young man and developed a love of languages that led to work as a literary translator.

Over the years, his poetic voice has moved from the more formal and medieval to a more distinctly American voice. W.S. Merwin's recent poetry is perhaps his most personal, arising from his deeply held anti-imperialist, pacifist, and environmentalist beliefs. In 2005 he will have three new books: Migration: Selected Poems 1951-2001; a book of poems called Present Company; and the memoir Summer Doorways which chronicles his days as a student in seminary school and at Princeton, through the next years spent as a tutor for children of privilege living abroad.

William Merwin was the recipient of the 2004 Lannan Literary Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Length: 0:32:19; Size: 8.6 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 28, 2001.

Thomas Lynch is a poet and essayist whose books include The Undertaking, which was nominated for a National Book Award; Still Life in Milford; Skating with Heather Grace; and Bodies in Motion and at Rest.

Mr. Lynch lives in Milford, Michigan, where he works as a funeral director.

Dennis O'Driscoll, one of Ireland's most widely published and respected critics of poetry, was born in County Tipperary, Ireland. A civil servant since the age of 16, he works for Irish Customs in Dublin.

He has published six collections of poetry, the most recent being Exemplary Damages. O'Driscoll, who received a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry in 1999, was a featured author for Readings & Conversations in 2001 and 2003.

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Length: 0:33:54; Size: 9.0 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on April 25, 2001.

John Barth's novels include Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera; The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor; Tidewater Tales; Sabbatical: A Romance; Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus; and The Sot-Weed Factor. His two short story collections are On with the Story and Lost in the Funhouse.

Mr. Barth has written, "We tell stories and listen to them because we live stories and live in them. Narrative equals language equals life: To cease to narrate…is to die." Mr. Barth, who is professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.

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Length: 1:14:34; Size: 17.9 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 11, 2001.

Denise Chavez is a novelist, playwright, actress, director, and teacher. A native of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Ms. Chavez still lives in the house where she was raised. A recipient of the 1995 Governor's Award in Literature, her books include Face of an Angel and The Last of the Menu Girls. During her residency, Ms. Chavez worked on a novel entitled The King and Queen of Comezon that addresses the complex issues of the Mexican-American border.

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Length: 1:05:04; Size: 16.8 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 27, 2002.

Jim Harrison has published thirteen collections of poetry, including The Shape of the Journey: New and Collected Poems; After Ikkyu; The Theory and Practice of Rivers; Natural World: A Bestiary; Returning to Earth; and Locations. He has worked as a screenwriter, book reviewer, literary critic, food columnist, sportswriter, and conservationist.

Other works include a collection of novellas, The Summer He Didn't Die, and Legends of the Fall, which was made into a celebrated film. Mr. Harrison has been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He was born in northern Michigan in 1937 and continued to reside there until recently. He and his wife now divide their time between Montana and Arizona.

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Length: 1:17:53; Size: 21.9 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on April 10, 2002.

Sharon Olds was born in San Francisco and educated at Stanford and Columbia universities. Her books include Blood, Tin, Straw; The Dead and the Living; The Father; The Gold Cell; and The Wellspring. Ms. Olds teaches at New York University and helps run its writing workshop program at Goldwater Hospital, a public facility for the severely physically challenged. Ms. Olds served as the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to 2000.

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Length: 1:25:11; Size: 20.0 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on December 11, 2002.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, considered Germany's most important living poet, is also a highly regarded essayist, journalist, dramatist, editor, publisher, and translator. Born in 1929 in Bavaria, he was educated in German universities and also the Sorbonne in Paris.

His many awards include the Nuremberg Cultural Prize and the Pasolini Prize. The most recent volume of his poems to be translated (by Michael Hamburger) into English is Kiosk, published in 1997.

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Length: 1:10:37; Size: 18.2 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 29, 2004.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. He taught from 1962-1992 at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California.

Johnson has written numerous articles and reviews and some sixteen books, including Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power on the Chinese revolution and Revolutionary Change on the theory of violent protest movements.

He played a prominent role in the development of the PBS television series The Pacific Century, as well as the PBS Frontline documentary Losing the War with Japan. His most recent books are Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic.

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Length: 1:17:50; Size: 21.4 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 29th, 2002.

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Pacifica Radio's daily newsmagazine Democracy Now! which airs daily on over 400 stations in North America. Goodman has interviewed several Lannan guests including Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, and Robert Fisk.

Goodman has also won numerous awards for the radio documentary she co-produced with journalist Allan Nairn, "MASSACRE: The Story of East Timor," including the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton, the Armstrong Award, the Radio/Television News Directors Award, as well as awards from AP, UPI, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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Length: 1:10:59; Size: 16.3 MB

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 30, 2007.

Terry Tempest Williams has been called "a citizen writer," a writer who speaks and speaks out eloquently on behalf of an ethical stance toward life. A naturalist and fierce advocate for freedom of speech, she has consistently shown us how environmental issues are social issues that ultimately become matters of justice. Known for her impassioned and lyrical prose, Terry Tempest Williams is the author of the environmental literature classics, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field; Desert Quartet; Leap; Red - Patience and Passion in the Desert; and The Open Space of Democracy. Her new book, Mosaic: Finding Beauty in a Broken World, will be published in 2008.

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Length: 1:20:25; Size: 55.3 MB