360 Preview: Josh Ritter, Martha Plimpton, and Junot Diaz Grow Up

This weekend, Studio 360’s got growing pains. In a special rebroadcast of a show recorded live at WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, Kurt talks to three incredibly talented Gen-Xers about the moment they left their youth behind.

“The book is asking you to become the person that you need to be to write the damn thing. It’s asking you to be transformed in the process. The book wanted me to be a better person then I was when I started out and I think that was harder than any of the sentences or the practical literary concerns.”

– Junot Diaz, on writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“I was an only child and I grew up in the theater, so a lot of my time was spent talking to myself into the mirror. And there was one time when I was doing this, that I caught my own eye and thought, “That’s me!” It was very, very disconcerting.”

– actor Martha Plimpton

“I got to a point where I finished the first draft and I thought it was the greatest novel ever written and then I gave it to somebody and I realized how terrible it was.”

– singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, on trying his hand at writing a novel

The full show broadcasts this weekend, featuring live musical performances from both Josh Ritter and Martha Plimpton. Meanwhile, take a peek at this video of Ritter playing “Change of Time” from his album So Runs the World Away.