Terry Gross
Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley is a nationally recognized radio program and podcast, featuring in depth conversations exploring a wide variety of popular culture, news and issues. The show sets the standard for long-form audio interviews. Presenting Fresh Air with its second Peabody Award, Stephen Colbert said, “This NPR staple is where many of us come for some of the most insightful interviews anywhere, a place where artists, musicians, actors, directors, playwrights, authors, poets, showrunners [and] talk show hosts, open up about their work, their process and their life.”
Fresh Air is one of public media’s most popular programs, with over 3.8 million listeners weekly on over 646 NPR stations. For over 35 years, co-executive producer and host Terry Gross has engaged in conversations with newsmakers to open windows into their hearts, minds and work. In 2015, President Obama presented Gross with a National Humanities Medal, which recognized how her interviews have “pushed public figures to reveal personal motivations behind extraordinary lives — revealing simple truths that affirm our common humanity.” A regular contributor since 2021, award-winning public media journalist Tonya Mosley was named co-host of Fresh Air in April 2023.
Tonya Mosley is an Emmy award-winning journalist and the co-host of Fresh Air. Previously, she was the co-host of NPR’s midday program Here & Now, where she led daily coverage during the Trump administration, the pandemic, and the racial reckoning of 2021. On January 6, 2021, she hosted live NPR special coverage of the insurrection as it was happening. Before radio, Mosley created award-winning news features and long-form television programming as a producer, reporter, anchor, and correspondent for various outlets, including NBC and Al Jazeera America. She is also the creator and host of the award-winning podcast Truth Be Told, and She Has A Name.
Fresh Air is produced at WHYY Inc. the leading public media organization in the greater Philadelphia region and distributed nationally by NPR. In addition to Terry and Tonya, Fresh Air’s roster of commentators add reviews of books, music, film, TV and podcasts. Fresh Air has received two Peabody Awards. The 1994 Peabody citation recognized the program for its, “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights,” and in 2022 Fresh Air won its second Peabody in the Institutional category.
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Living in the desert is "not for everybody," says Watkins. Her home, in the Mojave Desert near Death Valley, is staggeringly beautiful and brutal. Her new novel Yellow Pine shares this landscape. -
Best-known for his band The Frames and his part in the 2007 film Once, Hansard got his start as a street busker in Dublin. He died July 29 in a motorcycle crash. Originally broadcast in 2008.
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I'll Take the Fire is the third book in a trilogy inspired by generations of Leïla Slimani's Moroccan French family. She is also the author of the bestselling thriller The Perfect Nanny. -
Craig has cooked in a high-end restaurant — and for 7,800 prisoners in jail. He writes about cooking, his struggle with addiction and his Native American heritage in the memoir Our Knives Will Save Us.
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Kaye's collaboration with Smith began in 1971 and continues to this day. He says she taught him to trust his musical sensibilities — and to always keep evolving. Now 79, he has his first solo album. -
When Asher was a teen in the '60s, Paul McCartney lived with his family and wrote Beatles songs. Asher was part of the British Invasion before launching the careers of James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt.
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Ibrahim, who died June 15, left South Africa in 1962 and lived in exile in the U.S. and Europe for many years. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, and we listen to Terry Gross' 1989 interview.
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Fifteen years after The Book of Mormon made its Broadway debut, original cast members Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad once again took the stage as Mormon missionaries — this time at the 2026 Tony Awards. -
Rollins, who died May 25, had for decades been hailed as the greatest living jazz musician. Kevin Whitehead offers an appreciation, and we listen back to Rollins' 1994 interview with Terry Gross.
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Eilish and her brother Finneas started making music together when she was 13 and he was 18. They talked about fame, family and their album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. Originally broadcast Dec. 17, 2024.
