Recorded live at the 2007 New Yorker Festival in New York City.Jonathan Franzen has contributed fiction, essays, and reporting to The New Yorker since 1994. His novel The Corrections, parts of which first appeared in the magazine, won the 2001 National Book Award. He is also the author of the novels The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion; the essay collection How to Be Alone; and The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History, which came out in 2006.
Ann Beattie has been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1974. Her many books include the novels The Doctor's House, Another You, Picturing Will, and Chilly Scenes of Winter, and the story collections Park City, Where You'll Find Me, and Follies. She is the recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story and the pen / Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and holds the Edgar Allan Poe Chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.
