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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Jacki Lyden talks with biographer Lyndall Gordon about the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th-century feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Gordon describes Wollstonecraft's violent upbringing, her radical views on education, and her failed love affair. -
Experts have long warned of the potential devastation that a slow-moving and powerful hurricane such as Katrina could wage on the historic city of New Orleans. Host Jacki Lyden and Debbie Elliott speak with Joe Suhayda, an oceanographer in Baton Rouge who has been using computer models to predict what damage a hurricane of this magnitude might inflict on New Orleans.
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Amid efforts to jump-start stalled negotiations on an Iraqi constitution, thousands gather near President Bush's Texas ranch. Many are there to voice support for his Iraq policy. Others back Cindy Sheehan, a Gold Star mother who opposes the war.
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Parts of the Florida Keys are being overrun by green iguanas. Many are escaped or abandoned pets. They nibble foliage and are a nuisance on the roads. Kim Gabel, a county extension agent, sizes up the situation for Jacki Lyden.
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Along with their neighbors, the Kurds, Christians were persecuted by Iraq's Baath regime and expelled from homelands in the north. But nearly a million Christians remain in Iraq, and many want their land back.
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The music of the Asylum Street Spankers hails from the early 20th century, but many of their lyrics are modern enough to be too naughty for NPR. Key players Christina Marrs and Wammo tell Jacki Lyden about their "postmodern jug band." -
Human-rights groups are concerned the Iraqi constitution will place restrictions on women's freedom in areas such as property rights and divorce. Host Jacki Lyden talks about the future role of women in Iraq with Bushra al Samarai, who helped establish a radio station for Iraqi women.
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You may think you've seen frozen custard. More likely it was swirly soft-serve ice cream. Frozen custard is different. Liz Davis of the Del Ray Dreamery in Alexandria, Va., explains why. -
Richard McCann's autobiographical novel Mother of Sorrows took 20 years to complete. The author tells Jacki Lyden how the book came to be.
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Four of the largest unions in the AFL-CIO plan to boycott the organization's 50th anniversary convention. The unions involved comprise about one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members.
