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Inspiration isn't always a bolt from the blue. Over the next six months, Morning Edition will explore the ways artists inspire each other. NPR's Elizabeth Blair opens the "Intersections" series by examining famous artists -- such as Van Gogh -- who have publicly acknowledged a debt to others.

Irish writer Eoin Colfer has found great success enchanting readers with the fanciful adventures of Artemis Fowl. His new book The Wish List is about saving souls, cell-phone conversations between St. Peter and Beelzebub, and the online presence of both Heaven and Hell. Frank Browning profiles the writer.

Music critic Michelle Mercer reflects on the music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. For Mercer, the jazz tunes are sound of the holidays, and they reflect some of the season's less-cheerful sentiments.

NPR's Margot Adler looks at the social science research cited in the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision. The symbol and lightning rod for that research were the doll experiments conducted by Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie that tested perceptions of race.

Being the host that he is, Bob Edwards continues the Morning Edition tradition of bringing together the creme de la creme of cookery for a fantasy holiday feast. This year's celebrity chef potluck features Julia Child, Maida Heatter, Paul Prudhomme, Wolfgang Puck — and one would-be party crasher. NPR Online offers a sample of recipes from the gourmet repast, and an illustrated slideshow of the gathering.

Illegal wildlife trade totals billions of dollars a year globally, and conservationists say the problem is most acute in Southeast Asia. NPR's Michael Sullivan reports in a three-part series for NPR/National Geographic Radio Expeditions

From forays into Jamaica's Blue Mountains to battles with stinky fruit in Thailand, Robb Walsh has gone to great lengths to sample the world's culinary phenomena. The food critic recounts his most recent adventures in a new book, Are You Really Going to Eat That? NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Walsh.

For a quarter-century, novelist Anne Rice has created a supernatural realm that often features her native New Orleans at its center. Her latest novel is Blood Canticle with another appearance by her most vivid character, the vampire Lestat. NPR's Liane Hansen visits with Rice at the author's Louisiana home.

Joan Baez was in her late teens when her performance at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival and her self-titled debut album of traditional folk songs thrust her into the spotlight. Four decades later, the voice on her new CD — the first from her in six years — is huskier, a bit rougher perhaps, but no less powerful. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Baez about Dark Chords on a Big Guitar.

In the first of a series of reports on single working mothers in Maine, NPR's Noah Adams visits TJ's restaurant in Auburn for a conversation with two waitresses, Tammy Ogden and Deborah Simpson, and a dishwasher, Rebecca Brown. The wait staff are paid $3.18 an hour, half of Maine's minimum wage, plus tips. They like the spilt shift work, which allows them to spend time with their youngsters in the late afternoon. Simpson now works just half of the year at TJ's, so she can serve in the Maine House of Representatives, which pays $9,000 and provides health insurance. As a lawmaker, Simpson was able to vote for her own waitress pay raise when Maine increased its minimum wage.