Now What? With Carole Zimmer

Rachel Eliza Griffiths always wanted to be a writer. She's written 5 collections of poems, a novel called Promise and The Flower Bearers ," a memoir. This book tells the story of a young woman who has faced many bumps in the road including living with a mental health challenge that used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Griffiths has spent her life dealing with what she calls her alters...

We're a gun crazy country. There are more than 400 million guns in the U.S. That adds up to more guns than people. There are plenty of reasons for this. The Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Firearms also served as practical tools for survival, hunting, and protection during the 1800s when American settlers pushed westward. Films like Dirty Harry, Rambo and...

His nickname is the Mooch and he gained a place in history when he became the shortest-serving Communications Director in White House history after being on the job for 10 days.  Scaramucci had known Trump for decades before joining the administration. Both were New Yorkers who traveled in prominent circles. Scaramucci had also made a fortune on Wall Street. The former White House Communications D...

I'm so sad I now live in a world without Gloria Steinem. Unlike many public personalities, Gloria was the real deal: modest, warm, smart, funny. She took her passion for equality, women's rights and human rights to a place that lit up the world. Gloria played a special role in my life: friend and mentor. She was the first guest on "Now What?" That was 11 years ago. We spoke in the brownstone she l...

There's a new film out called  Reading Lolita in Tehran . It's based on the best-selling book by Azar Nafisi who held a reading group in her home in Iran where female students met each week to read banned books like  Madame Bovary  and  Lolita. Nafisi had gone back to the country where she was born in 1979, right after the revolution that deposed the Shah and installed the Islamic regime. She foun...

It's the lazy days of August. So, if you missed it, here's a second chance to listen to one of the best "Now What?" conversations of the year. Graydon Carter was the editor of Vanity Fair for 25 years. He's also a world class yenta (and I mean that in the best sense of the word). Graydon knows everyone and he's got dishy stories to tell about the most glamorous people. He was also sitting in the k...

Ada Ferrer was born in Cuba. Her father fled the country after Fidel Castro marched into Havana. When Ferrer was a baby, her mother also left the country to join Ada's father in NY. Ferrer grew up between two worlds in a family torn apart by the Cuban revolution. But she was lucky. She got a good education and became a Professor of History at Princeton University. In 2022, Ferrer was awarded a Pul...

Novelist Siri Hustvedt knows a lot about grief. Two years ago, her husband, the writer Paul Auster, died. They had an extraordinary life together as parents, romantic partners, and authors who shared their work. Hustvedt was devastated by Paul's death. In her book  Ghost Stories , she explores what happens when someone who has been your partner for more than 40 years disappears and how she remains...

I've always loved being a journalist and I'm excited to catch up with two of the best people in the business. Mary Alice Williams was there when CNN made history, becoming the first 24-hour news network. She was appointed CNN Vice president, making Williams one of the highest-ranking female executives in American television. Mary Murphy spent four decades at PIX 11 News reporting on mob hits, drug...

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born in a safe house during the decade his parents were in hiding. In 1969, Zayd's mother and father, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, founded the revolutionary group called the Weather Underground. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared Bernadine the most dangerous woman in America. In their lives underground, Ayers and Dohrn committed acts of violence like bombing government b...

For Matthew Zachary, the subject of cancer is up close and personal. He was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor at the age of 21. Having survived the odds, Zachary became a patient advocate, founding a non-profit called Stupid Cancer which supports young adults with the disease. Zachary celebrated the publication of his memoir We the Patients, by sitting down at the piano on the stage of Manhattan's...

Kathryn Grody is an actress who has appeared in films like  Reds  and   The Lemon Sisters.  She's also been married to actor and singer Mandy Patinkin for more than 45 years. They have two children: Isaac and Gideon. During the pandemic, the family retreated to their house in upstate New York. That's when Gideon began filming the daily lives of his parents and posting the videos on Tik Tok, Instag...

Ibram X. Kendi became a star when his book How to Be an Antiracist  landed on the bestseller list. Kendi, who's now a Professor of History at Howard University, gained a reputation as a racial-reconciliation guru. He's also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship which is known as the genius award. Now, Kendi has written a book called  Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age . It focu...

Actress Gina Gershon hadn't had what you'd call a traditional Hollywood career. So, it's no surprise that she's written a memoir with an in-your-face title.  Alpha Pussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs.  Gershon says the alpha pussy part has something to do with the fact that she raises male cats. As a result of her roles in films like  Bound  and  Showgirls,  Gershon has b...

In 2019, At the age of 45, Andrew Yang decided to enter the race for President of the United States. He'd never run for any elective office before. Yang hoped his signature proposal of giving every American adult a universal basic income of $1,000 a month would help get him into the White House. Though he wound up with a dedicated group of tech-savvy followers known as the Yang gang, the candidate...

He was editor of Vanity Fair for 25 years during a time that big glossy magazines ruled. Its pages were filled with stories about Hollywood royalty, Brangelina, fashion icons like Calvin, Giorgio and Donatella. Even Graydon's hair became famous for the way it took off on the sides like a winged creature. Graydon knows everyone and has juicy stories to tell. All this at a time when people turned re...

Singer Ani DiFranco's career took off in the 90s when she became a big hit with people from the millennial generation, like my son Jon who spent his teenage years listening to DiFranco's song  Untouchable Face  over and over again. Her lyrics speak to the raw emotions of adulthood, especially when it comes to relationships and identity. And all these years later DiFranco's career is alive and well...

Jeanette Winterson is a writer who grew up in a Pentecostal evangelical family in a little town in the north of England. She was adopted. Her parents were poor. There was no indoor bathroom. Winterson dreamed of escaping that life. When she was 16, she fell in love with a woman. Her parents were scandalized. Winterson left home, slept in her car and managed to get into Oxford. She's fascinated by...

Caroline Paul is an adventure seeker. She's been a white-water rafting guide and pioneered first descents on unexplored rivers in Borneo. To experience wing walking, she strapped herself to the top of a biplane while it performed maneuvers like loops and rolls. She's also racked up credits as a luge athlete, that crazy sport where you race down steep, icy tracks on small sleds, lying on your back....

When Jimmy Wales was 3, growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, a door-to-door salesman sold his mother a copy of the World Book Encyclopedia. Jimmy fell in love with it. As an adult he had the idea of creating an online encyclopedia that would give everyone free access to the sum of all human knowledge. The result is Wikipedia, which Wales co-founded 25 years ago. Though not without controversy, Wikip...

Until she was 10, Emi Nietfeld led a pretty normal life. It was when her parents divorced that her world fell apart. The parent she knew to be her father transitioned to a woman named Michelle. Her mother was a police photographer with serious psychological problems. In her book, Acceptance , Emi who is now 32, talks about the price she paid for working so hard to overcome circumstances that no ch...

It hasn't been a great year when it comes to treating our fellow human beings with dignity and respect. But it's been a great year for talking to extraordinary people on "Now What?" Larry Charles is a true character who wore his pajamas to work and directed Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie  Borat . Along with Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman was a hilarious member of the original cast of...

Gabrielle Hamilton's father always told his five kids they had to do something practical with their lives and whatever they did, they had to be excellent at it. Mediocrity was a family sin. In 1999 Hamilton opened Prune, a 30-seat restaurant in the East Village, to rave reviews. She was honored with a James Beard award for Best Chef in New York City in 2011, followed by Outstanding Chef in 2018. H...

Calvin Duncan grew up in the ninth ward in New Orleans. His mother died when he was very young. He stole food so he'd have enough to eat. When he was 19, Duncan was arrested for allegedly killing a man during a robbery. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, spending more than 28 years in Angola, Louisiana's notorious state penitentiary. That's when Duncan began s...

Picture this. It was my first job in radio. I decided to do a series about women and comedy. The idea coincided with the birth of Saturday Night Live. The first interview: Gilda Radner. We sat on the floor, right across from Studio 8H where the show is still performed. Gilda told me all about what life is like when you become an overnight star. Then I talked to Jane Curtin about people asking her...