James Young is the Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of English and Judaic Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst . He is also the Founding Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies at UMASS.

Norton Juster is the author of The Phantom Tollbooth , one of the most beloved children’s books of all time. In this interview with Ilan Stavans, Juster talks about writing , his career as an architect and writing children’s books.

Wendy Barker is the poet-in-residence and the Pearl LeWinn Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her sixth full-length collection of poems, One Blackbird at a Time , is the winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry.

Episode 3 features Tim Parks , noted translator and author. Ilan Stavans and Parks explore the art of translation through their conversation. "Translators are obsessed as a rule with the problem of being faithful," says Parks.

The 2nd Episode of NEPR's In Contrast is a conversation on living theater with Stacy Klein, founder and Artistic Director of Double Edge Theatre .

New England Public Radio's newest podcast, In Contrast debuts with a conversation on words and dictionaries with Peter Sokolowski, Editor-at-Large at Merriam Webster . Sokolowski is the author of many definitions for Merriam Webster.