In his imposing baritone, Thomas Hampson cautions aspiring opera singers that “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

From the mall to the car, music is always in our ears. Opera singer Thomas Hampson discusses the impact that technology has on song.

The classical musician explains Walt Whitman’s begrudging encounter with Italian opera, and the indelible mark this meeting has had on the American song.

Classical musician Thomas Hampson recounts a singing childhood with an operatic debut at age 19.

A conversation with the classical musician and New York Philharmonic’s first Artist in Residence.

Between America’s bullying sense of patriotism and its increasingly divided populace, it’s difficult for a writer to call the land home. Yet, insists John Irving, if he’s going to “pick […]

With its complete disregard for screenwriters and endless, seemingly luck-based, collaborative process, it’s a wonder anybody with literary sympathies can stomach cinema culture. Despite all this, John Irving wonders if […]

After the publication of the “World According to Garp” and numerous other bestsellers, John Irving does not really have to worry about his career. But, for those looking to break […]

The tension between John Irving, John Updike and Tom Wolfe was overplayed and misguided, says the novelist. The real sparks would fly, he says, if he ran into a few […]

With their richly textured characters, intensely visible milieux and wondrous storylines, no novels, says John Irving, have surpassed the splendor and sense of eminence of the nineteenth century novelists.

While John Irving may have never won a major championship as a wrestler, his experience in the sport has equipped him with the stamina and discipline necessary to struggle through […]

For John Irving, whose sprawling novels can take years to complete, one of the most significant challenges of writing is creating the sense that the words on the page are […]

The famed novelist explains why even considering the act strikes many with a sense of anxiety and impending doom.

For John Irving, the need for a daily ration of solitude was his strongest “pre-writing” moment as a child.

For the novelist, obsessions, by definition, control you. Thus, try as he may to control the plot of his stories, a variety of recurring fixations inevitably work themselves in.

When not interrupted by family and travel, the writer begins his work early, keeps at it for hours at a time, and does it every day.

For even our best writers, penning that final sentence can be a difficult and tortuous affair. For John Irving, who never begins a novel without knowing its concluding words, this […]

Big Think sits down with the author of twelve novels, including “Last Night in Twisted River.”

John Irving’s novels have earned him a National Book Award, sold tens of millions of copies and have been translated into over thirty languages. Yet, far from affording him a […]

Men have a goal-oriented approach to sex, Beverly Whipple says, while women are directed simply by pleasure.