Bernard Cooper writes eloquently about the difficult landscape of memory as it pertains to sexuality, loss, AIDS, and family. He is the author of the collection of memoirs Maps to Anywhere, the novel A Year of Rhymes, and a recent collection of memoirs, Truth Serum. He received the 1991 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award and a 1995 O. Henry Prize. He has taught at Antioch/Los Angeles, for the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC, at the UCLA Writer’s Program, and he has been a core faculty member in the MFA Writing Program at Bennington College. Of Truth Serum, playwright Tony Kushner has written, "One of the most beautiful and moving memoirs I've ever read... Reading Bernard Cooper is like reading Chechov, and he's really that good."

This program was originally produced as part of the 1997 season of Racing Toward the Millennium: Voices from the American West, in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.