Earlier this month, some of the country’s best writers met in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the 2004 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism to share their best work.

Hank Stuever gives a hilarious inside look at what goes on behind the scenes of the hit TV show, “Trading Spaces.” Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh offers a sobering account of the Bush administration and Abu Ghraib. And Loung Ung, a survivor of the Cambodian killing fields and author of a bestselling memoir, remembers her first 4th of July celebration in the United States.

Hear part one of a series of readings from those writers — delivered in the authors’ own voices.

Guests:

Hank Stuever, author, “Off-Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere”

Ann Hull, enterprise reporter, The Washington Post

Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and writer for The New Yorker Magazine. His latest book is “Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib”.

Bruce DeSilva, director of news-features, The Associated Press

Tomas Alex Tizon, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and national correspondent for The Los Angeles Times

Marie Arana, editor-in-chief of “Book World”, The Washington Post and author of “American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood”.

Loung Ung, author, “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers.”