The New Yorker Festival has put out a series of “Just Asking” posts which go a little ways towards revealing this year’s festival lineup. Here are my guesses at the “not-so” blind items that have been posted thus far:

Just Asking: Round One

Which author said that her most famous short story took twice as long to write as a novel “because I had to imagine my way into the minds of two uneducated, rough-spoken, uninformed young men”?
E. Annie Proulx

This creator of an Emmy Award-winning drama was once a contestant on “Jeopardy!” (Answer in the form of a question, please.)
Matthew Weiner

Which young movie actor pretended to have different accents”””Italian, Russian, Irish”””when he worked at a McDonald’s drive-thru?
James Franco

Just Asking: Round Two

Which television personality got her big break when she won a contest to be a radio host on WRNX, in Holyoke, Massachusetts?
Rachel Maddow

What actor and playwright once played a New Yorker theatre critic in a movie?
Anna Deavere Smith Wallace Shawn – Thanks MM!

Which singer-songwriter once said, “I’m one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older””until I drop dead of beauty”?
Rufus Wainwright