Lifestyle
Sunday Puzzle: For Mimi
Sunday Puzzle
NPR
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NPR
This week’s challenge
Today’s puzzle is a tribute to Mimi. Every answer is a familiar two word phrase or name in which each word starts with the letters MI-.
Ex. Assignment for soldiers –> MILITARY MISSION
1. Pageant title for a contestant from Detroit
2. One of the Twin Cities
3. Nickname for the river through New Orleans
4. Super short skirt
5. Neighborhood in Los Angeles that contains Museum Row
6. Just over four times the distance from the earth to the moon
7. Goateed sing-along conductor of old TV
8. American financier who pioneered so-called “junk bonds”
9. Little accident
10. Land-based weapon in America’s nuclear arsenal
11. In “Snow White,” the evil queen’s words before “on the wall”
Last week’s challenge
Last week’s challenge comes from Benita Rice, of Salem, Ore. Name a famous foreign landmark (5,4). Change the eighth letter to a V and rearrange the result to make an adjective that describes this landmark. What landmark is it?
Answer
Notre Dame –> Renovated
Winner
Chee Sing Lee of Bangor, Maine
This week’s challenge
This week’s challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a popular movie of the past decade. Change the last letter in its title. The result will suggest a lawsuit between two politicians of the late 20th century — one Republican and one Democrat. What’s the movie and who are the people?
If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, April 23 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.
Lifestyle
Day 1,578 of WW3: The UN Security Council will meet on Monday to address Russia's latest strikes on cultural and religious sites, including the attack on Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. ANGH, of course. This is your Saturday Ukraine discussion
Day 1,578 of WW3: The UN Security Council will meet on Monday to address Russia's latest strikes on cultural and religious sites, including the attack on Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. ANGH, of course. This is your Saturday Ukraine discussion
Lifestyle
How actress Laverne Cox became the woman of her dreams (CT+) : Consider This from NPR
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 21: Laverne Cox attends the “Animal Farm” New York Premiere at Regal Theater on April 21, 2026 in New York City.
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Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
In 2013, when the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black came out, the world met the character Sophia Burset — a Black trans woman serving as the resident hairstylist in prison.
For much of the audience, it was also the first time they met actress Laverne Cox — who landed the role of Sophia at the age 40, just when she was thinking of quitting acting altogether.
In her new memoir Transcendent, Cox talks about the challenges she faced long before Netflix came knocking: a mother who withheld love, a father who was never around and the brutal denigration she encountered growing up Black and trans in the deep South.
To unlock this and other bonus content — and listen to every episode sponsor-free — sign up for NPR+ at plus.npr.org. Regular episodes haven’t changed and remain available every weekday.
Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
Lifestyle
Judy Blume says she’s done writing: ’50 years is enough!’
Scott Simon talks with author Judy Blume at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival in May.
Tira Howard Photography./Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival
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Tira Howard Photography./Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival
Judy Blume is the legendary writer of books for young adults including Are You There God It’s Me Margaret, Deenie, Tiger Eyes, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Blubber.
Her last book, 2015’s In The Unlikely Event, was published more than a decade ago. Blume now spends her time reading children’s books behind the counter at her bookstore in Key West, Florida. Though she says she is done writing, her books remain beloved; her readers numerous and devoted.
Judy Blume spoke with NPR’s Scott Simon at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival in May. Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited in parts for clarity and length.
Scott Simon: How did you begin to write? What do you think made you a writer?
Judy Blume: I was a reader. And, you know, I meet so many kids and they say, “I want to be a writer when I grow up, but I don’t like to read.” And I say, “You know what? Forget being a writer.” Because I think every writer — that I know anyway — grew up a reader. And certainly that was true for me.
Simon: What was the spark that set it in motion from reading to writing, do you think?
Blume: I was married young. I had two kids young. And I was desperate for a creative outlet. I loved taking care of babies, but I needed something else and it could have been anything.
Simon: I have read that at one point in your life you made felt art pieces?
Scott Simon with Judy Blume in Santa Fe in May.
Tira Howard Photography/Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival
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Tira Howard Photography/Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival
Blume: Oh God, my first career. You know, I stopped because the Elmer’s glue — I’m an allergic person — started to give me funny things on the tips of my fingers. I made $300 selling those. And I bought myself a small electric typewriter. And the rest is history.
But I always had stories inside my head — when I was 9 years old. I bounced a rubber ball against the side of my house for hours. But really what was going on were stories. Fabulous stories, very melodramatic. I never told anybody. I never asked a friend, “Hey, do you have stories inside your head all the time?” Because I thought they’d think I was weird, which I might have been. So the stories were always there.
Simon: When you were writing, what was the process like for you?
Blume: Well, I kept a notebook for each book and I scribbled everything in it. Everything, everything, everything for a long time. For months.
And then on the day that I feel ready to start, well, that’s either the scariest part of writing or the best. Because, you know, when you have a good day — I mean, I had kids, and I would sit down at the dinner table and I would say, like, “You will never believe what Tony did today.” Because they’re real. They’re real to you. And you’re living with them for months, sometimes years. And you’re locked up in a little room all day with them. That’s why 50 years is enough. I was ready to come out into the world.
But I have found another career that I love dearly. I have a bookstore and I love that.
Tira Howard Photography/Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival
Simon: I get the idea that you, at least for the moment, don’t miss writing right now.
Blume: I don’t miss writing but I’m very glad that I wrote. I mean, writing changed my life. But it was time to let it go. Could I have come up with more ideas and written more books? Yes. But I’m really happy that I found something else that I love to do.
Simon: Do characters ever come calling on you?
Blume: No. They know better. They’re quiet.
You know how many letters I get? “We need Judy to write a book — Margaret In Menopause.”
Margaret is always going to be 12. She’s not knocking, saying, “Let me out. I’m in menopause!”
They are what they are. They stay in the book. They stay in the book. They live for me in the book. And then I have to let them go.
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