Dr. Maya Angelou—
best-selling author and poet, civil-rights activist, educator, historian, actress, playwright, producer, director, daughter and mother—shares all sides of herself in her recent best-selling book Letter to My Daughter (Random House, 2008). She shared quite a bit of herself with us as well.

When Academy and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge blogged that she intended to protest California’s vote against same-sex marriage by not paying her state taxes, she raised a few eyebrows, but made a great point. Etheridge spoke with us about her continuing fight to make her family legal, how surviving breast cancer changed her life, what inspired “A New Thought for Christmas”—her latest album.

Kirsten Gillibrand was the first woman elected to represent New York’s 20th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Gillibrand spoke to us about voting against the bailout, the potential benefits to the Hudson Valley of Obama’s stimulus program, the political and cultural aspects of same-sex unions, and the biggest lesson of her first two years in Congress.

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