Here in the United States, National Public Radio broadcasts several great series that feature stories and storytelling, and as such are an excellent resource for writers. Each day this week, I’ll look at a different series that is aired on NPR. Today: “Fresh Air”.

From the series’ website, here is how they describe “Fresh Air”:

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio’s most popular programs. Each week, nearly 4.5 million people listen to the show’s intimate conversations broadcast on more than 450 National Public Radio (NPR) stations across the country, as well as in Europe on the World Radio Network.

Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a “talk show,” it hardly fits the mold. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights.” And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country’s leading interviewers. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators.

Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR.

Here is what the website say about Terry Gross:

Combine an intelligent interviewer with a roster of guests that, according to the Chicago Tribune, would be prized by any talk-show host, and you’re bound to get an interesting conversation. Fresh Air’s interviews, though, are in a category by themselves, distinguished by host and executive producer Terry Gross’ unique approach. “A remarkable blend of empathy and warmth, genuine curiosity and sharp intelligence,” says The San Francisco Chronicle.

Gross isn’t afraid to ask tough questions, but she sets an atmosphere in which her guests volunteer the answers rather than surrender them. What often puts those guests at ease is Gross’ understanding of their work. “Anyone who agrees to be interviewed must decide where to draw the line between what is public and what is private. But the line can shift, depending on who is asking the questions,” observes Gross. “What puts someone on guard isn’t necessarily the fear of being ‘found out.’ It sometimes is just the fear of being misunderstood.”

Gross began her radio career in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo, New York. There she hosted and produced several arts, women’s and public affairs programs, including This Is Radio, a live, three-hour magazine program that aired daily. Two years later, she joined the staff of WHYY-FM in Philadelphia as producer and host of Fresh Air, then a local, daily interview and music program. In 1985, WHYY-FM launched a weekly half-hour edition of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, which was distributed nationally by NPR. Since 1987, a daily, one-hour national edition of Fresh Air has been produced by WHYY-FM; it now airs on more than 450 stations.

Here is the roster of the show’s critics and commentators

In other words, if you like any aspect of culture, you’re likely to find someone talking about it on “Fresh Air.”

There are three big reasons why writers should listen to “Fresh Air”.  First, Gross is one of the few radio or TV hosts who actually seems to understand that movies and TV shows have writers, not just directors and actors.  She routinely interviews screenwriters, albeit mostly writer-directors, and displays an innate curiosity about the story-crafting process.  Here are links to three good examples of such interviews on “Fresh Air”:

Rafael Yglesias (Fearless, From Hell, Dark Water)

Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)

David Simon (The Wire)

Second, the stories themselves can be quite entertaining as well as revealing about the creative / story-crafting process.  But the biggest thing I get out of “Fresh Air” as a writer is that Gross has a way of zeroing into the core of her interview subject.  In a way, the line of her reasoning and tack she takes is like an object lesson in a writer getting to know their own story’s characters.  In fact, I had a student once who was having a hard time understanding a key character in their story.  When I found out the student was a fan of “Fresh Air,” I gave her an exercise: Imagine you’re Terry Gross and you’re interviewing your that character.  Go away and spend an hour with the character, then write up your Q&A.  I got an email one day later from the student who was head over heels excited about what she’d discovered in her character.  Paraphrasing a line from the email, she said, “It was like he [the character] just completely opened up to Terry.”

Any “Fresh Air” fans out there, if you remember any notable interviews from the show featuring screenwriters, TV writers, playwrights, or writer-directors, please post in comments and I’ll try to source links.

Tomorrow the last in our series: “A Prairie Home Companion.”