“There’s a flaw in human nature, and it’s in all great writing, the tragic flaw... and yet there is the expectation that ultimately it’s going to be okay,” said this beloved author and lay Episcopalian, who described herself as “a writer who is struggling to be a Christian.”

As the world celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, is its voice receding in American culture?

It was the Bible of the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., says author Jon Sweeney. “It’s the basis of cultural identity in the United States more than any other book.”

"That old singing, that old praying which I love so much—that is the great strength of my being, of my writing," says the author of "A Lesson Before Dying" and many other critically acclaimed books.

Read an excerpt from the award-winning 1971 novel “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” by Ernest J. Gaines.

Watch more of producer Susan Goldstein's interview with writer Pamela Greenberg, whose new translation of the Book of Psalms is being praised for its literary beauty.

The vocation of healing is a central theme in the acclaimed novel "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese, who writes that doctors "must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound."

"Patients require that one-on-one encounter, the Samaritan function of being a physician," says writer and Stanford Medical School professor Abraham Verghese. "When the physician examines the patient, this is an incredibly important ritual."

Novelist Allegra Goodman says entering into the minds of religious people is "a very rich place to be as a writer." Her new book is "The Cookbook Collector," and we spoke with her at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC.

The vocation of healing is a central theme in the acclaimed novel "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese, who writes that doctors "must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound."