Watch Monologue

Food writer and journalist Mark Bittman talks about how parents can break their children free of the marketing culture that encourages them to value 'junk food' over real, quality meals. What is 'good food'?

As a child, comedian and impressionist Jay Pharoah struggled with bullying and feelings of alienation. He describes how his father encouraged him to perform his funny, and accurate, celebrity impersonations in public.

Carl Reiner is a legendary comedian, actor, director, screenwriter and publisher. In his monologue, he talks about the power of humor not only in work but in life.

Eric Holthaus is a meteorologist and a climate journalist. He has dire predictions for the future of the world and believes we have to make major changes if we're going to survive.

Rick Steves is a travel guidebook author and TV host known to millions. In this 2019 interview with Topic, Steves explains how to become an activated citizen and why a world in which people get out of their comfort zones is a better world for all.

In an interview with Jancee Dunn, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy explains how an appraisal of his own musical tastes changed his palate and why he thinks the idea of a generation gap was destructive to young musicians growing up in the '70s and '80s.

Dani McClain's new book, 'We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood,' is informed not only by the journalist's years of reporting on race and reproductive health but by her own experiences raising her young child.

If you are among the millions of listeners of Krista Tippett's public-radio show On Being— you may be surprised to hear she's not big on the word belief. Tippett talks about why she longs for a definition of faith that isn't quite so neck up.

Laura Lippman has a message for her fellow detective novelists: One death is enough. In this interview with Topic from January 2019, the award-winning writer points out that books in her genre tend to pile up the bodies—then forget the human toll.