NPR Staff

When Beyoncé released her self-titled fifth album in 2013, there was one name among the credits that almost no one recognized: A producer who went by the name of Boots. He had written three of the tracks and co-produced many others — and within days, the ...

Author Michael Cunningham is no stranger to retold tales. He reimagined Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours, and in The Snow Queen, he took a Hans Christian Anderson story as the novel's starting point.

His latest book, The Wild Swan, tackles some beloved fairy tales ...

The Carson campaign recently dropped a rap ad aimed at young black voters. Aspiring Mogul, the rapper behind the track, explains his inspiration — and his reaction to harsh responses on social media.

Tony Award winner Lea Salonga has long been a star on stage and screen. But she learned her grit and confidence years earlier — when she overcame allergy (and dog) attacks to win the role of Annie.

World music DJ Betto Arcos returns from a major performing arts festival in Mexico with music from some of his favorite acts.

A lot of men might like to get a letter from Mary-Louise Parker. She's written more than 30 to some of the men who've been important in her life: The grandfather she never got the chance to know. Her childhood priest. A Hollywood accountant. A man who will one day ...

In this extended version of NPR's interview with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, portions of which aired earlier this week on Morning Edition, the presidential candidate makes his case differently. Having been wrong-footed several times by his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Sanders is joining the battle more forcefully and talking ...

"Electronic music can get really weird," says Clayton Knight, one-half of the ascendant Seattle duo. "And I think we've made it, in some way, more accessible."

Cranston used tapes of writer Dalton Trumbo to study his speech patterns and smoking habit. Then he put on glasses and a mustache, and he says, "I [started] to see that man."

The presidential campaign is the butt of many of Late Night host Seth Meyers' jokes these days. "So many butts, there are so many butts in this campaign," he says.

Practically brothers, both Barry Romo and his nephew served during the Vietnam War. But only Barry made it home.

Instant ramen noodles are often looked upon with scorn as cheap food for starving college kids.

But as a new book points out, those noodles are like gold for people in prison.

Gustavo "Goose" Alvarez spent more than a decade locked up on a weapons charge, among others. And during ...

In her new memoir, actor Leah Remini writes about growing up in the Church of Scientology, becoming one of its prized celebrities, and her family's eventual, wrenching decision to leave it behind.

Jesse started receiving the letters in 1985, when he was in his 30s.

He had signed up for a pen pal service, that was supposedly putting him in touch with a woman he could correspond with and befriend. The woman was named Pamala. She was beautiful, and understanding, and sympathetic. ...

At one of the largest Day of the Dead celebrations in L.A., Mariachi Manchester reinterprets the work of The Smiths' lead singer.

From El Salvador to Lebanon to Nepal, NPR has been exploring the lives of 15-year-old girls around the world. But what's it like to be 15 in the U.S.? To find out, NPR's Michel Martin spoke with three sophomore girls at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md.

Leslie ...

A Saudi Arabian dairy company owns 15 square miles in Arizona — and 15 water wells — to make hay to send home to cows. Local farmers are just realizing their water is being exported overseas as hay.

J.K. Rowling has just published her third mystery under the pseudonym. This time, detective Cormoran Strike and his beautiful assistant are battling a serial killer — and their own dark pasts.

Alan Palomo says he deliberately took his time making his band's latest LP: "At some point I was just kind of like, 'I don't want to spend my 20s in a van."

The basketball legend has become a renaissance man in his post-NBA career. He's an actor, an author and an outspoken activist on issues of race, politics and justice.