E.L. Doctorow on Storytelling and Creativity

Celebrated novelist E. L. Doctorow reminds us that stories were the first repositories of human knowledge, as important to survival as the spear and the hoe. Eons later we are still understanding the world and ourselves through stories.

Doctorow has written plenty, from his blockbuster "Ragtime," years ago, to his latest, "The March," a novel set in Sherman's Civil War march to the sea.

Now, the master is turning to look at storytelling and creativity itself, from the book of Genesis to America's creative stars — from Edgar Allen Poe and Harriet Beecher Stowe, to Twain, Hemingway, Harpo Marx and Einstein. He calls them, impishly, "creationists."

Hear a conversation with E.L. Doctorow on the art of creation.

Guests:

E.L. Doctorow, author of many books. His latest is "Creationists: Selected Essays: 1993-2006."