Touch and Go

Sydney Lewis is the author of three oral histories and transcribes for and otherwise assists oral history maestro Studs Terkel. She has edited award-winning radio essays for WBEZ radio in Chicago and written for Chicago Tribune Magazine. In the 1980s, she was an administrative assistant in WFMT radio's program department. She currently works at Atlantic Public Media as a producer of Sonic Ids for Atlantic Public Media and NPR stations WCAI and WNAN, and she is the editor of the Transom Review at Transom.org.

Born in 1912, Studs Terkel grew up in Chicago. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1932 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1934. He was an actor in radio soap operas, a disk jockey, a radio commentator, and a television emcee, and he traveled all over the world doing on-the-spot interviews. He also hosted a daily radio program on WFMT in Chicago that was syndicated throughout the country. He is the author of American Dreams: Lost and Found; Working; Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression; Division Street: America Giants of Jazz; and Talking to Myself. He died on October 31, 2008.

Norman Dietz is a writer, an actor, and a solo performer. Since 1962, he has toured coast to coast, presenting his work before audiences all over the United States and Canada. He is the author of the comic novel Nailing It, as well as Fables & Vaudevilles & Plays and The Lifeguard and the Mermaid, collections of his work for the stage. Norman has also performed frequently on radio and television, and he has recorded over 150 audiobooks, many of which have earned him awards from AudioFile magazine, the ALA, and Publishers Weekly. Additionally, AudioFile named Norman one of the Best Voices of the Century. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.