Jacki Lyden
Longtime listeners recognize Jacki Lyden's voice from her frequent work as a substitute host on NPR. As a journalist who has been with NPR since 1979, Lyden regards herself first and foremost as a storyteller and looks for the distinctive human voice in a huge range of national and international stories.
In the last five years, Lyden has reported from diverse locations including Paris, New York, the backstreets of Baghdad, the byways around rural Kentucky and spent time among former prostitutes in Nashville.
Most recently, Lyden focused her reporting on the underground, literally. In partnership with National Geographic, she and photographer Stephen Alvarez explored the catacombs and underground of the City of Light. The report of the expedition aired on Weekend Edition Sunday and was the cover story of the February 2011 National Geographic magazine.
Lyden's book, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, recounts her own experience growing up under the spell of a colorful mother suffering from manic depression. The memoir has been published in 11 foreign editions and is considered a memoir classic by The New York Times. Daughter of the Queen of Sheba has been in process as a film, based upon a script by the A-list writer, Karen Croner. She is working on a sequel to the book which will be about memory and what one can really hold on to in a tumultuous life.
Along with Scott Simon, current host of Weekend Edition Saturday, and producer Jonathan Baer, Lyden helped to pioneer NPR's Chicago bureau in 1979. Ten years later, Lyden became NPR's London correspondent and reported on the IRA in Northern Ireland.
In the summer of 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Lyden went to Amman, Jordan, where she covered the Gulf War often traveling to and reporting from Baghdad and many other Middle Eastern cites. Her work supported NPR's 1991 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for Gulf War coverage. Additionally, Lyden has reported from countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Iran. In 1995, she did a groundbreaking series for NPR on Iran on the emerging civil society and dissent, called "Iran at the Crossroads."
At home in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001, Lyden was NPR's first reporter on the air from New York that day. She shared in NPR's George Foster Peabody Award and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Lyden later covered the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In 2002, Lyden and producer Davar Ardalan received the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television for best foreign documentary for "Loss and Its Aftermath." The film was about bereavement among Palestinians and Jews in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
That same year Lyden hosted the "National Story Project" on Weekend All Things Considered with internationally-acclaimed novelist Paul Auster. The book that emerged from the show, I Thought My Father Was God, became a national bestseller.
Over the years, Lyden's articles have been publications such as Granta, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is a popular speaker, especially on mental health.
A graduate of Valparaiso University, Lyden was given an honorary Ph.D. from the school in 2010. She participated in Valparaiso's program of study at Cambridge University and was a 1991-92 Benton Fellow in Middle East studies at the University of Chicago.
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Once family-owned, luxury fashion houses have been gobbled by conglomerates. Industry watchers say designers have suffered from a pressure-cooker environment that focuses intensely on the bottom line. -
A new book collects stories that link clothing with intimacy, emotion and memory: how moms dressed before they had kids, favorite outfits and, of course, garment envy. -
Along with his musical partner and onetime wife, Carole King, Gerry Goffin wrote such Top 40 hits as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Up on the Roof."
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After a two-year renovation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute is reopening with an exhibit on the work of Charles James, who is now obscure, but considered America's first couturier. -
When the officials at a Florida prison realized who Al Black was, they gave him a paintbrush and the walls as a canvas.
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They are credited with churning out some 200,000 landscape paintings in the area of Fort Pierce, Fla., since the 1960s. And a teenager named Alfred Hair was the mastermind behind the whole operation.
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Athenaeums are social libraries, cornerstones of a community where you don't just borrow books — you can visit cherished antiquities, hold talks, attend parties and even bring your dog. In Providence, R.I., the "Ath" is a 19th-century library with the soul of a 21st-century rave party. -
As U.S. forces confront a deadly bombing in Fallujah Tuesday, there's growing evidence that foreign terrorists were responsible for Monday's car bombings in Baghdad that left at least 35 people dead and 230 wounded. A U.S. Army general says one of those involved in the attacks -- shot as he attempted to detonate his explosives -- had a Syrian passport. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden.
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A car bombing outside the office of the International Red Cross in Baghdad kills at least 10 people. Another bomb explodes near the Ministry of Industry. Several more bombs explode at police stations. Three U.S. soldiers are among the dozens killed. The blasts come a day after an attack on the Al Rasheed hotel, which is occupied by the U.S.-led coalition authority. NPR's Jacki Lyden reports.
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Opposition to U.S. forces grows in Dhulwayiaa, a village north of Baghdad, after American troops cut down the town's fruit trees. Villagers complain they've lost their livelihood. U.S. commanders say the grove was providing cover for Iraqi gunmen sniping at American troops. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden.
