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WILKES-BARRE — A bit of “Fresh Air” will be coming to Wilkes University’s Dorothy Dixon Darte Center in April. The host of the National Public Radio show will deliver the next Max Rosenn Lecture in Law and Humanities on April 19, 2020.
Gross may be the epitome of how to succeed with an English degree. She earned her bachelor’s in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo, going on to get a master of education degree in communications. She landed on public radio in Buffalo in 1973 when she hosted and produced programs centered on arts, women’s affairs and public affairs.
Two years later she started a daily 30-minute local version of “Fresh Air” at Philadelphia’s WHYY-FM, which eventually evolved into the daily, one-hour National Public Radio program heard on nearly 600 stations, including WVIA-FM locally airing at a 6 p.m.
Gross is widely regarded for an interviewing style that the San Francisco Examiner has called “a remarkable blend of empathy and warmth, genuine curiosity and sharp intelligence.” In a media release announcing her appearance, Wilkes University said “she sets an atmosphere in which her guests volunteer the answers rather than surrendering them”
The lecture, beginning at 2:30 p.m., is titled “All I Did Was Ask: an afternoon with Terry Gross,” a variation on the title of her book “All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists.” The media release describes it as “a behind-the-mic glimpse of her innovative and hugely popular public radio show, “Fresh Air.”
“Recounting stories of extremely successful interviews as well as relating entertaining tales of particularly disastrous interviews, Gross will share a side of herself that her listeners rarely get to see.”
The lecture is free and open to the public, and will be preceded by a question and answer session for students and followed by a book signing. For more information, go online to wilkes.edu/terrygross or contact Rebecca Van Jura at 570-408-4306 or [email protected]