2024 National Book Festival: Main Stage

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[Applause] [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n [Music] good good morning everyone we are so excited to see all of you here today I'm Carla Hayden librarian of Congress and I just love to see how everyone is fired up about books and reading we're celebrating the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book [Music] Festival and as co-chairs of the festival Mr David Rubenstein and I are thrilled to open the festival to everyone here in the Washington Convention Center and for everyone watching online thank thank you all for joining us now the theme of this year's Festival is books build us up and this is the time more than ever for everyone in our community of readers to Spotlight the vital value of books they allow diverse voices to be heard broad topics to be learned and dynamic engagement and I'm sure the people watching and the people right here know how just just a single book can change a life how books un life unlock life's wonders and how they teach us to live and flourish now we couldn't do this without our generous sponsors donors and partners and thanks to the festival co-chair David M Ridin for his continuing support of this literary tradition we have Charter sponsors General Motors The Institute of Museum and Library services and the James Madison Council the libraryies philanthropic arm you may clap for those people soon because this year we have for General Motors a stem District on the Expo for so it's wonderful and our patrons a ARP you definitely uh the CEO of AARP started with first lady Laura Bush in 2001 the first Festival the co-star group yeah give her first librarian give be first lady co-star group the John W kugie Center and the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities our partners in so many ways and our Champions our new Champions the friends of the Library of Congress now we also have Media Partners led by NPR and of course C-SPAN book TV and I hope you all know that all of our exhibitors our many hardworking Library staff members and volunteers who you'll see in these really nice Rose t-shirts and most most notably the Junior League of Washington who supported this Festival since 2003 and we hope that you remember that the Library of Congress is devoted to you the library staff and collections are here to help you connect to the library and your history and your story we're here for you and every one of you can contribute to our campaign that we have to make more connections because your support makes events like the book possible Book Festival possible and even as we celebrate today we embrace the possibilities of tomorrow in fact you can be part of helping us preserve history and expand our reach by joining the friends of the library in fact we have a table right outside but if you'd like to join us online you can do that too because your support extends the reach of the library and allows people everywhere to benefit from The Riches of the library Congress because they're yours and now let me introduce one of the best friends of the library Congress that we could ever have Mr David Rubenstein in addition in addition to chairing the this Festival he also chairs the libraries come on out David the libraries James Madison Council he's a private supporter in many ways and without him we truly could not be here at the convention center for free for all of you Mr David gim Ruben St thank you very much thank you so um Carla Hayden is uh the libran of Congress she is now in her eighth year as libran Cong Congress and she's done an incredible job uh showing that you don't have to be an old white man to be the librarian of Congress and uh she's really re-energized the national Book Festival which was really begun under our predecessor Jim Billington and inspired by Laura Bush there had not been a national Book Festival in the Wasing Washington at the inauguration of George W bush uh Laura Bush said to Jim Billington then the librarian of Congress do you have a national Book Festival and he said quickly we will and we do so it's incredible that we now have uh this this uh 200,000 person event how many people have never been to the National Book Festival anybody oh wow how many people have never been in this building before oh wow how many people never been to Washington before for anybody okay so what we're going to do today is have a very good time appreciating books and how many people here read at least five books uh a year oh wow how many people read 10 books a year 15 20 25 books a year how many people read 50 books a year anybody oh wow anybody read a 100 books a year wow okay okay so we're going to have some of the be best author in the United States and around the world and I'm going to introduce and interview uh the most prolific author the bestselling author in the Western World James Patterson uh James Patterson has sold more his books have sold more than 700 million copies 700 million copies that's a lot uh he is W the winner of the National Humanities medal he's won t 10 Emmy Awards um he has written books with famous people like Dolly paron and Bill Clinton but also he's written an enormous number of books by himself and um it's my pleasure and honor to introduce now and ask to come to the stage James Patterson yes hey thank you thank you thank you thank you hi I'm Stephen King okay all right that that's where we're going so thank you for coming thank you for inviting me so let me ask you U so who who who turned it down before you went know just kidding just messing around here so how many how many books do you write a year uh I don't really I'm not a counter so um we just do what we do and or you can open it for me this is special secret open this okay there you go okay strong hands so um like for example do do you just sit down during the M day and say I'm going to write a book on this subject and how long does it take you to write a book uh I pretty much everything takes a year but it's a lot of at the same time and you know you want to co-write something we like the stage because I would a lot more books if I sold one toite with you red ties that go we'll go somewhere with the red tie I I have the only tie does anybody else have a tie on today I'm the only person Unity Unity joy joy not getting political so let me ask you um many authors spend their life getting ready to be an author but they they start doing it when they're in their teens their 20s and 30s you went into the advertising world no no no no no don't BR that up for starters I've been clean for over 25 years I don't know why you would go there that's really but were you not in the advertising world I I uh first Fifth Amendment okay yes I was I was but I was writing way before that you were okay yeah now I I was very lucky my lucky in in a sense when I was 25 I wrote a book called a Thomas bman number turned down by 31 Publishers it then went on Edgar's best first mystery so go figure that one out so no I was writing before I got into advertising I I worked at a metal hospital mlan hospital James Taylor was a patient there which was very cool this is before he was famous and he used to go in the coffee shop and he would sing you know Sweet Baby James and and Fire and Rain and stuff like that and it'd be this close to him and it would be it was great and Robert L was there the poet uh and and I you know somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do that it's a miracle somebody will pay you to do it all right but so for example writing you in advertising no you keep going back there you weren't in you weren't in adver I was in advertising and I I mean my I wrote the line uh I don't want to go up and mat Toys R Us kid okay when did you write your first book that became a bestseller when was your first book that was a bestseller that was quite a while later uh actually was a I I I did a non-fiction book the day America told the truth that was the first best and then I wrote the Alice Cross books uh the first one was the long came of spider yeah so we have a new Alice Cross coming on uh Moston historically you you going you want answers or you want questions what do you want well you said to be quick all right most off what is this like an interrogate the lawyer right got me on the stand no it's good it's all good we have to do this in Florida too are you going to do it a second time I doubt it so uh as a general rule of thumb most authors write either fiction or non-fiction but you write both is that right is that fair to say I don't know probably not but yeah we're all over the line I do a fair amount the first non-fiction that kind of got me hooked I wrote a book about Jeffrey Epstein Filthy Rich and this is before PE most people knew the story they knew it in Florida but around the country and I wrote it I was actually going to do a film and then I said to my buddy I said no I want to I want to do this as a book because this story is unbelievable and and wrote the book and you know usually I can get stuff on television to you know nobody want to cover it they say it's an old story I'm go what are you kidding nobody knows this story this is insane this billionaire who's done all these terrible things to young women and so that kind of got got me got me going on the non-fiction okay so when you write a book do you sit down and type it do you have I do not type pencils everything's by pencil yes and we're I'm going on substack and one of the things Wednesday is going to be our free day we're going to give free stuff like used pencils that I chewed and wrote and you know things like that but all pencil so you've written all these books that are bestsellers when you write a book I'm giving you all these writing tips now you're going to pay for this right what but do you give your material to an editor does the editor dare to edit your work or since you're so famous as a writer did they just take in and publish whatever you write no I the autobiography I said basically I do not want you to mess with this I think it's pretty tight and if there's some errors but you know but mostly my I have a very good editor but but sometimes I just go you know kind of leave it alone I'm doing a book now non-fiction book about helping a lot of men in this in this country are in trouble and and they want to be good Dads but it's hard for them I'm writing a book about just being a better dad and this this is another one where I'm going to kind of go just mostly leave it alone don't mess with it too much so the most recent book that I have read that you've written that I know of is the Tiger Woods book Okay Tiger Tiger okay so what interested in that are you a golfer tragically yes here's my sports reel this is very quick when I was in high school I could dunk I no longer can what was the thing about building you libraries build you up and at a certain age they kind of build us down right so anyway you go and you're like there's a basket 10 ft you go like how could I ever have gotten up there that's so weird and then in golf I have nine holes in one wow no I don't know that's true I know I write fiction I know but that's accurate so did you hear if my wife has six after the book came out did Tiger Woods call you up to say he liked it or he didn't like he did he called he said that was so great that no one's ever told my story like that before no he did not call actually I it was very well written I would say it was very easy to read and uh I think it had well you know what I try to do with the non-fiction I try to tell story after story after Story and that's that's what I try to do with the Tiger Woods thing and I'm not I'm not somebody that's going to go beat you up so uh I just I'm not into beating people up people that help you when you write some of these books sometimes you mean like President Clinton yeah he helped a little yeah yeah yeah no he was great I you know the nicest thing I've written with with President Clinton now our third book we're gonna we're doing right now Dolly Parton I wrote with uh kwami Alexander I wrote with and um in all cases they've become good friends of mine I I'm even a friend you know our my agent lawyer he doesn't like being called Agent my lawyer is is a good friend of of yours it went to law school together so who is it easier to write a book with Dolly Parton or Bill Clinton same I I've never had a problem with any of them and I've even written a couple with my wife my wife Sue is out there she sitting right there my line about Sue is if Sue ever leaves me I'm going with her okay so um on a given year you try to write five or six books something like that I don't think about it but yet more higher higher keep going higher yeah and I'm not thinking I have a a a stack of ideas with a clever title on it ideas and it's about this thck uh and and when I'm you know sitting down thinking about doing another book or another in the series Alice Cross or Women's Murder Club uh I will sit down and start going through the idea where where did you where were you born and where did you were you raised uh I was born in Newberg New York Upstate New York about 60 Mi north of New York City uh then my family moved to Lexington Mass I went to grad school at Vanderbilt down in Tennessee and all that's been useful you know my father grew up in a Newberg por house uh his mother was a charom she cleaned the bathrooms in the kitchen and that's all good in terms of just growing you as a as a did your parents live to see your success pardon me did your parents live to see your success yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean such as it is yes yeah they did and and that was great but my father it was an interesting thing when he was going off to the war he got a call and this guy said my name is George Hazelton just stick with me for a little bit and George Hazelton said I'm going off to war soon and and uh last night my parents George Hazelton said took me down to the living room he said George we love you so much but because you're going away to war we have to tell you we're not your natural parents and then over the phone George Hazelton said to my father I'm your brother which is pretty cool yeah yeah yeah that's how my father found out he had a brother and they became best friends best friends was great so the book that I am supposed to ask you about is the one that's the most relevant perhaps for some of the things we're doing here it's a book that you have written in effect and owed to book sellers and Librarians mhm uh and you have given away a lot of money to support uh independent book sellers and librar libraries yeah why are you giving away money to support them why did you write a book I don't know it makes you know the thing of it is and I was talking to David Bachi a couple of days ago and and we started talking he said you know what we shouldn't even talk about it cuz we should give away money that's the way that's the way I grew up that's that's just it's just a it's it's the way it should be you know I now yeah and shouldn't even shouldn't even talk about it I was just at Howard yesterday which we do have scholarships there we should we should we should do that historically black universities and colleges you start thinking about it uh uh they really a lot of them really need our help but we now have uh scholarships at 21 historically back no who cares but we should do that and and those schools a lot of them really need the money they don't have money for enough scholarships so those kids leave there with big debts and or they can't even go uh so that's a good and that's why we love that charity because it makes so much sense I mean you know I went to Vanderbilt Vanderbilt does everybody needs the money but they don't need need the money okay so but you have given a fair amount of money to to these causes but let me ask you uh in your book you talk about the various independent book sellers who talk about how they love the selling books it's the most important thing in their life how Librarians love to help people so where did you get the idea for writing a book about book sellers it just seemed to be a good to do I I I I do I did a series and I'm still doing it Matt eversman was the um the uh uh the sergeant in in the movie Blackhawk Down and Matt's a great friend of mine and we did a book called uh uh walk in my combat boots and the mission was that if you were in combat you would read this and say eversman and Patterson got it right and if you're one of these people that like doesn't know that much but you think you know things you would read and go I was all wrong I really didn't understand the military we did want an ear nurse the same thing if you read it you would go you know yay nurses but if you read it you go oh my God how do these people survive given what their days are like it's unbelievable and the spirit of these books is it always going to be the people who think they know would go like I didn't understand so with Librarians and book sellers same thing you don't understand a lot of people don't understand how hard Librarians and book sellers work how difficult it's become because there's a lot yeah right so is this is so cool I can stand up here and get clapped at but they you know it's the Librarians do all the work this is perfect I love it so when Amazon came along it was widely thought that independent book sellers were going to be going away but now they seem to be having a bit of a Resurgence yeah I think that's fair to say that they're coming back I hope so yeah I mean for sure for the moment we'll see what happens but you know it's one of the book sellers it was so cool when she interviews this is actually it's it's book sellers and this is a book seller and and she said when she interviews she assumes that the people like to read but then the question is do you like to clean toilets and in this case because they were by the ocean do you like to sweep sand out of the store you know cuz it's hard work and and and and the book turnover every week it's turnover and in the library same thing to turn over plus you know just people are taking a lot you know with book bands and and people attacking and it's it's gotten a little hairy out there crazy when you write as many books as you do yeah um do you have any time to read books I I used to read no you talk about the 100 books a year I used to read at least 100 books a year really I did now I'm I've I've really slowed down a lot in so many ways so when you sometimes when people write fiction I I'd like to know whether you actually when you start the book you actually know how it's going to finish or do you kind of work your way through I'm a big I'm big on outlines uh and uh you know and once again you never want to recommend to people but I think outlines save a lot of people from failure but I I'm big I interesting talking to David Bachi and he does an outline uh uh and and and and authors are all over a lot in terms of how they do what they do but but for me outlines are huge do I know the endings I always think that I do and I usually don't because as you're going along certain characters become more important than you thought they were going to be or sometimes you have the villain and you go oh this villain is good I want to do another book with this villain so the villain's going to survive this book you know oh is it easy we'll get we'll get him or her later well is it easy to write a book with another person because I you know you have to fight over who's going to say what and S or is it h today I just found this about writing with other people I got an invitation to another book Book Festival and they I I wrote a book with Michael Kon who was you know died 13 years ago and they invited Michael and I to the Book Festival and I wrote back I said if Michael if Michael goes I'm coming it's true story isn't that weird well my former boss Jimmy Carter once was supposed to write a book with his wife rosn and after struggling to write a book together after 6 months they gave the money back to the publisher and said it was the closest they ever came to a divorce uhhuh uhhuh no Sue and I we've done three or I don't know at least three books together Sue and I and no and we're still going along here's my other thing with Sue honestly every once in a while there are a couple of hours where I can't stand her but there's never a day that I'm not in love with her you know that's true it's true her she says it's the opposite for her she says every every C every once in a while there are couple of hours where she loves me okay so you seem like you're somebody that's enjoying your life at this point you're writing books that are everybody's reading uh is that the greatest pleasure of your life writing or do you have outside Hobbies like golf or tennis or anything you know I'm very family oriented Sue and I are really really really tight uh our son jack is he jack basically calls us pretty much every day uh so we're writer very close no he is not he's too smart for that uh he is smart um so family is very important we have X number of friends uh one of the nice things about the co-writing thing all of those people are friends of mine which is nice we go out occasionally with President Clinton and Hillary and here's the interesting thing about Hillary the first time we were went I did not know her and we were out at dinner just the four of us and it was like a three hours you know blah blah blah blah a lot of as you can imagine everybody there wants to talk at the same time um but she is so warm and funny and down to earth and a listener and I and I would as I'm going like oh my God the people who ran our campaign they they screw they met M up because they had it wonderful in the last speech you know that's Hillary you felt her that's Hillary so when you're writing a book with somebody else uh do you usually come up with the idea first and then you approach them or do they approach you and you get people at cocktails parties saying hey I'd like to be your co-author they try yeah you'll be in a restaurant you have like this stud they I hate to interrupt you you want to go like well don't but you don't you know I think this is funny soon I were at a restaurant tell you a restaurant which we love a lot we had to wait a little bit and then we're walking down the aisle and this woman pops up she goes I know you I know you I go you sold us our life insurance and she would not let it go so you wrote a book on I would never sell life insurance in South Florida WR a book on life insurance that's stupid so when you am I writing a book with that woman no so when you're writing uh where do you keep all your papers other words are eventually you're going to give them to a library out I tear them I get rid of them really 100% y not doing that and computers evid is G you don't use any computers for anything I do I do use no here for research and stuff like that yes I do use a computer and so most of your writing isn't done in your home in Florida or New York or where do you like anywhere on the plane when we go home yeah I I uh you as it say people always looking for something that they uh are good at and you know so I I love doing I don't I don't work for for for I I I play for 11 some writers have something called writer's block I don't know I have writer's diarrhea so the opposite you never have you're never sitting there saying I don't know what to say does it seem like I be sitting there has that been your experience so far probably not so far no and and are we going to do this thing in Florida or are you already I'm ready to do that okay okay so uh when you are starting some writers do this they say I'm going to write a page a day and then I'm done or I'm going to write three pages a day and then I'm done do you have something like that I do not um I I just do it till I don't feel like doing it which is you know but I write every day I write seven days a week Mike Lupa interesting who I write with is you know one of my best friends maybe my best friend now and uh uh you know Mike was a newspaper so he does his 1500 words and that's it and he still even as he writes his fiction or non-fiction or whatever 1500 and if you think about it 1500 words a day is a lot but you write a lot more than that uh I yeah probably but when you write something and then usually some writers tell me after they come back the next day and they look at what they wrote the previous day they don't like what they wrote they redo it do you ever rewrite what you wrote the yeah I always do yeah yeah but not the next day I'll usually just keep going and then at a certain point I'm going to look at 50 pages or so when you're writing and rewrite it's it's all about re it's not for everybody but for me it's rewriting so when you're writing a non-fiction book do you do a lot of research before you write the book or not yeah yeah yeah yeah the the trouble with research I like to make up and you're kind of you're not supposed to do that like I wrote a book about King tot and I didn't want him to die you know and uh so that's the problem but you know if you think about it what does anybody like Alexander the Great we don't know about Alexander the Great but people just make up to stuff Shakespeare we know nothing about Shakespeare and there are hundreds and hundreds of books about Shakespeare what are they have to be all novels we know nothing we know where he was born we know he was married there we know he moved to London we know he may or may not have written some place that's all we know but you've sold more books than he did well I yeah because I didn't you know yeah now I think he's doing okay so is it he's got a lot of royalties due to him yeah is it easier to write fiction that's a cool idea he comes back to Collective royalties right is it easier to write fiction or non-fiction for you I love the fiction I don't I don't really love the non-fiction but I do it I like the series with with eversman because it just helps people to understand things like book sellers and Librarians that they don't necessarily understand or we're doing one on teachers now my mother was a teacher and people don't understand how hard that job is uh yeah it's really I mean it's unbelievably hard you're getting pressure from the parents you're getting pressure from the school boards you're getting pressure and the thing of it is with school boards I don't like school boards in general because if the job is to get kids reading give them books that are going to turn them on don't give them stuff early that turns them off it makes no sense and that doesn't mean dumb down that just means you have to give them stuff especially early on I work with the University of Florida right now the percentage of kids reading in this country at bra gr at grade level is 43% which is a disaster University of Florida has a program they can get it up into the high 7s low 80s it works we have the vaccine we can really and and that will save lives we have it in 13 counties in Florida now Florida actually and there are a lot of things wrong with Florida but are number three in the country in terms of of level of kids reading at grade level they're number one with with black kids reading at grade level and number one with latino kids so things are in that area book Banning they're not doing so well but in that area and what did your mother teach did she teach writing or English or you know in those days you teach third grade everything okay yeah it's whole what did your father do uh my father was in insurance and uh he eventually would train he was with credential he would train every all their all their managers so do you have any siblings I do I have three bratty sisters yeah and do they were brats when they were little and they're still brats unbelievable so is it hard siblings when you're so famous and they're presumably not as famous or that doesn't not a problem you know the interesting thing it's not so much with sisters and stuff it's when you have kids and Jack handles it great and and you know he went to a good to prep school and then he went to Brown and there were a number of kids there who had famous parents and and almost all of them handled it well it's like I didn't do this I didn't do anything I'm not famous I didn't you know and I'm going to just go on with my life uh most of them there was one I don't want to get into who that was it was one who didn't was kind of obnoxious about her dad but you know whatever well some wealthy famous parents decide to give all their money away and some decide to give it all to their kids have you figured that out yet we give away a lot uh uh but but as I I think I might have said it already and I I sping to David about Don about this too big deal we should give it away we should we should and we do okay so if somebody is an aspiring writer who's sitting here now and wants to be the next James Patterson no no oh no no no no definitely don't being a writer one don't being the James Patterson three don'ts yeah no it's just you know the thing of it is you want to do it you're not going to be able to help yourself and and and and you're going to write every day no matter what if you're D you have to be an addict pretty not every writer but most most writers well were you good in English and college and high school yes yes I was and math too I was actually better in math now I'm a bright little right okay and um I used to be now I can't remember anybody's name there's actually somebody in the audience and her whole job is and I go what's the name of that person Molly well have you ever run into the editors who turned down your first books well they would send me books for blurbs and I would I would I would I would blurb them that's fine you want to help writers as much as you can he so today when you do a book like take the Tiger Woods book which I did read and and I enjoyed it you did read that one I read that but I didn't see you had there was no interview of Tiger Woods in that book you didn't interview him I I I approached his people and we didn't get very far and that's fine so I just de what's different about that book is just telling his stories as a series of stories so it's very readable it's not like a sports writers approach which you know which is fine but it's not one of those and even in my autobiography and I just said it's just going to be story after story after story after story so I make a joke I write a page about the normal kind of non-fiction approach to my hometown and I go if you're looking for this you're in the with the wrong book cuz I'm not going to write that kind of you know Newberg with such and such and you know we're not going to do that so after you've came out with the book you did you say to him let's play golf together with tiger yes oh I I I would hate to play golf with him that'd be disgusting I dribble the ball down the Fairway he hits at 340 yards what's what's the fun of that it's bad not playing with my wife for God's sakes okay all right so she she's irritating as a golf today you have career Ambitions beyond what you've already done what would you like to say if we're sitting here 10 years from today what would you say you like to have done the previous 10 years I I don't think that way but you know uh I I I want to do one with Pope Francis and I want to I'd like to come like if we arrive in the pope mobile cool we're sitting here he's with the thing and the whatever and and this the Italian translator have you ever met the pope no but I but I'd like I'm going to approach him and see if he wants to do a novel Putin I Putin oh my God is it's writing a novel with Putin he knows where all the bodies are buried wow so cool don't please don't kill me okay or poison me I have guards here Isn't that cool but I didn't know whether the guards are like protecting you all or protecting me I wasn't they're literally they're guards they're nowhere around you though where the hell are they we're the guards they left so later today after we're done you're going to be signing autographs of your with guards right autographs you're going to sign your some of the books I'm going I am going to sign something yes and and uh do you mind signing books politics and Pros right yay so uh do you mind signing books or he part of what your job is no it's it's a uh you know one of the lucky things we mentioned Newberg a couple of times one of the the uh wonderful things about my life is I still see the world through the eyes of a kid from Newberg this is so cool I mean look at these people this I'm here I'm going to sign books wow and with this famous lawyer wow no seriously I mean it's I'm not Blas about stuff I really get a kick out of most of it and it's you know people know it's an honor no but it's great it's fun it's uh uh and and and I'm very fortunate so you're still too young to be president of the United States but I know well I'm yeah I am younger than Clinton or Trump right so um but you ever worry about aging and whether you can keep wor aging now I try not to worry about stuff I can't do anything about I mean that's I think one of my secrets if I can't do anything else yeah okay I'm just not going to worry about that but you don't go exercise a lot to stay in shape and that kind of stuff or you don't yeah I exercise every day right honey no not as much as I should we we do we do go out in the golf course and walk the golf course frequently very early though we go and they let us out like at 6:30 and stuff so and so are you a scratch golfer I am not I just have a lot of holes in one it's weird it's weird I'm I'm I'm I'm okay but I but I uh have you ever played with President Trump uh I have played with President Trump and I've played with President Clinton and I've played with President Bush who who is the best of those three oh Trump by far who Trump is legitimately but he cheats I don't get that I don't no and he's a really good golfer he's really he's a legitimately really good golfer President Clinton hit some good shots and he's a lot of fun to be out with uh President Bush really like 41 around fast 41 or 43 uh uh 41 41 yeah okay so you could beat all three of them go no oh no no no no no I'm not going to get in who I could beat I could not beat Trump I could maybe beat the other two okay maybe okay so um when you're looking for co-authors like Dolly Parton or I could beat Hillary so how how do you just you call them up or they call you up it's a mixed bag a lot of people now with dolly um I contact I I talked to our manager and he said well come on down so I came down I I actually thought we might do some kids books together because I do kids books and uh I had an idea for an adult book which became Rose's run and and we just hit it off great we're really good friends it's it's really nice the one we were writing together she called up and she sang Happy Birthday over the phone to me and I said I what I wanted to do is say Dolly I'm going to hang up now I want you to call again you're going to get voicemail I want you to sing it again but I didn't have the guts to do it so I didn't do it uh but no it's a nice close friendship and that's the to me the most special thing about about these things the friendships that I that I have with the people that I work with so and never fight it's never been really a serious disagreement well we have a couple other former presidents floating around you 't thought about writing a books with other former presidents of the United States I don't think about it I mean the thing with President Clinton is sort of an accident because our our mutual friend Bob Barnett represents and and President Clinton reads he's a huge reader he reads everything he probably reads I'll bet he reads 200 books a year I mean he really is a reader and and one of the things he reads are he doesn't sleep uh Mysteries and um and Bob Barnett was always trying to get him to write a mystery and he didn't want he's a slow writer so would take him like 10 years to write a mystery but um uh and then Bob went to he said would you like your write a book with Jim so if you go to a restaurant in Florida or New York uh can you have a meal without people coming up and bothering you yeah you know people don't bother you so much they do it's you and it's it's mostly okay it's mostly okay uh but they will and and and the hard thing is a lot of them are people who have been in wars and and and they have a story and it's been burning in them for a long time and they want to tell it and it's hard to say I I I I can't I just can't write your story even though you know it's coming from a from a deep emotional place so do you have any regrets about having spent some time in the advertising world or you oh my God he's going back can you believe this this is like I mean I swear to God this is like have you ever done those Senate committees where you just bad you could you could have uh you could have written so many more books if you because were in Washington this is not you know this isn't what I signed up for uh I'm Sor what about ading no regrets about not having been a writer right out of College full-time writer no you know it was fine I mean the good thing about advertising was you you do learn that there's an audience and you go in and you say well I can do this you know and then they test some commercial that you did and like nobody paid attention like zero people you know oh okay I guess this was a little harder than I thought it was so that's a good thing to understand that there's an audience so in the advertising the other thing about I mean just in advertising or whatever is the thing I hate is when people talk about books that are fun to read as guilty pleasures what is that why should anybody feel guilty especially now about reading a book if you 5 minutes if you 450 there's a thing here 447 and she's holding up a little thing five minutes um if if you go into a bookstore you should get like a little a little star you know you go into the library you take a little star you read a book you get another little star guilty pleasures no guilt read as many books as you want it's okay all right when you want to buy a book yeah if you want to buy a book do you do you stroll into a bookstore or do you order it on Amazon and you can you go in a bookstore the book sellers recognize you if they don't I tell them who I am no uh I I all of the above I'll go in I like libraries my mother was a librarian uh so and a teacher I uh I like all it's all good it's all good online is is is good too they're all and and stop fighting I mean that's the beauty of of the other night Unity yeah let's get back I I tell you what you know and once again this isn't democrat or republican but uh there were a lot of emotional things actually in both conventions we watch both of them and um but in the Democrat there were a lot of emotional moments like the mothers with the guns and blah blah blah blah and I sort of stay dryed for the whole thing but I did C why twice during the acceptance speech uh and it had to do with unity unity and I just find that so emotional because so many of the problems we're having is because we just can't kind of get together and accept other people's differences and move forward speaking and I hope that that we can do that whoever you know whoever wins this thing pres presidents ever called you and asked you to write speeches for them or you don't do that you don't write speeches no I don't write speeches now I yeah now I I I I don't want to do anything where 100 people are going to look it over and give me suggestions which is what happens in Hollywood and I screams I don't know how people do it because literally they're going to have 40 people giving them suggest but you won 10 10 Emmy Awards so how did you do that no I didn't no I nobody nobody for the most part the president of the United States called you and said you're going to get the National Humanities medal were you surprised or you thinking it should have happened sooner or what uh I you know I'll give you a fun funny this is a funny thing so I got the call I they told me that that I was going to get the call cuz they wanted to make sure I would accept it you know so I got the call and it was line said please hold for the president I said which president i f make a little joke you know so you enjoyed it um which president actually gave it to you uh president Trump okay uh yes you're in the white house it's very cool uh it was hard to get some of the little brown people there but they went okay uh yeah no it was it look it's an hon it's a humanitarian okay I can I can accept that I'm I try to be a humanitarian okay so as you look forward to what you're hope to do the rest of this year and next year how many books do you have planned three four five more more I don't a lot you know and there's some cool ones coming um I have one coming with Viola Davis uh which is particularly I'm really really it's a really good book project uh she's you know really great to work with um what else do we have well then I I love the Jane Smith stuff that I do with Mike Lupa that's a particularly strong series I think and um Renee zaenger is signed up to do to play Jane so you're DAV Kelly you're the lead off person at the national Book Festival this year you have a big crowd so I hope you'll come back some other time when you have another book out yeah yeah yeah no I love it I used to love it when they had this on on the mall too that was cool but you know it rains and stuff we had to get it off the mall because sometimes it rains and uh oh no no no I get it I get it I get it all right so um you're going to be signing your books you got 51 seconds in 51 seconds you're going to sign your book 48 do you have a second thing 3 seconds five you know okay so the highlight of your life other than this interview has been what my bride your bride and can she stand up son up here's her wife there she is okay how long have you been married uh we've been married 27 years okay and every day has been great not every day yeah yeah pretty much okay look I want to thank you for coming here and uh enlightening us about your life and uh congratulations on your great success thank you very thank [Applause] you thank you right this right just right just right [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] meoo [Music] oh [Music] w [Music] o [Music] [Applause] [Music] w w [Applause] [Music] we going to do a little song like [Music] [Music] hold [Music] hold it hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] it okay [Music] what do you think [Applause] [Music] about yeah hold it hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Music] a [Music] [Music] n [Music] he [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Applause] B [Music] [Music] [Music] w w [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] good morning and welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival my name is Amanda L and I an archist in the manuscript division at the Library of Congress at this time time we ask that you silence your phones the nearest restrooms on this floor are there's a restroom to your right and to your left as you exit the doors if you need to exit the room to use the restroom please ask one of our ushers for a round green sticker this will allow you back into the room after you are finished at the end of this session if you are going to exit the room please exit through these doors closest to the stage we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to be filmed or otherwise recorded there will be time for audience questions near the end of this event look for microphones in look for the microphone stands on either side of the stage here our presentation with James McBride will begin shortly thank you [Applause] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] yeah yeah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning it's been such a great morning already I'm librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and it is one of my great privileges to confer the library of congress's prize for American fiction each year during during the national Book Festival the prize for American fiction recognizes and celebrates writers their body of work and the power of their words and the author we are honoring today has built quite an outstanding collection of books that have pierced through the American psyche and culture James big bride [Applause] is a best-selling and award-winning author of books we all know and adore from his debut novel Miracle L Ana Anna and his current bestseller the Heaven and Earth grocery store his beautiful words and his sharp wit have captivated readers with his exceptional stories and rather Unforgettable characters like sportcoat from Deacon King Kong and John Brown from the good Lord bird where he expertly Blended fiction and history I like many of you were first introduced to him with his book The Color of water and it has become one of my all-time favorites it beautifully shows the power of family and a mother's love something we can all relate to in fact that's the reason my 92-year-old mother is here [Applause] today to see James McBride and maybe that's his superpower whether it's in his words or for in his music he connects diverse people to his thought-provoking and poignant art taking us on an emotional drawer ride through his stories James also said when he was told about this award that he wished his mother was here today to see him Ascend to the top of the literary Mountain so let's all give him a warm embrace [Applause] as we honor him with the 2024 Library of Congress prize for American fiction the brilliant James McBride [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh somebody said I love it that's right we love it so thank you James for accepting and now we are having a special treat because James is going to be in conversation with nprs Michelle [Applause] Martin they got a lot of people here see we don't normally see eyes when we work so it's a little it's a little different so I take it that Mr McBride has a few fans would that be would that be okay but let's let's do a little any any newbies here anybody not familiar with the work okay okay well that'll change let me ask you though oh audience okay what's your favorite the color of water anybody Miracle at St Anna okay all right I'm going skip the good Lord bird anybody okay Kil and leave Hil and leave okay that's one of my favorit five karat Soul anybody okay Deacon King [Applause] Kong just trying to understand where we're all coming from here you got a few fans here how does it feel like I say most of the time we do our work by ourselves right so what's it what how's this how is this Landing with you all this well I wish I would wor some longer socks so people can't see my anle you know but I mean it's just nice I mean it's uh you know um you know you this kind of thing doesn't happen very often and uh it's nice to uh yeah it's it's good I mean I'm not really show what I'm supposed to say you know um all right well let's keep going cuz you know we first I think first thought of you as a Creator I mean look you went to journalism School you worked at the Washington Post actually we kind of overlapped there although we never saw each other because I was in the metro section and you were at style section so you were in high cotton you know I was just out here right doing police blotter but um but but I think creatively I think you kind of first thought of yourself as a saxophone player correct would that be as a musician right the musician yeah so so when did you say to yourself I'm a writer um well probably after I left the post you know I left the post it was 89 maybe or 90 I came to New York and and um I can't I left the post I can't remember I think it was might be' 88 and it went to New York and I became a full-time musician for several years and during that time I wrote the color water and I when I wrote the color water you know I made so much money from writing the book I maybe I should stop playing these gigs cuz you know traveling and you know going out and you know going to Gary Indiana and a van and coming back with five bucks you know and everything I had was made in the truck stop you know so I just I just realized that you know I had a a talent for writing I mean you know I I realized I had a talent for it before but I I started taking it more seriously I guess after I left the post because creatively fiction started the show itself I was going to ask about that because the first Mark you made was with Memoir was with the color of water which to this day I mean I think people still read it in in school right right you it's just it's finding its audience over and over again people seem to find it when they need to find it right but it's it's Memoir so when did the fiction start to show itself well I I always like fiction even as a um when I was a student at Overland in fact my when I I realized I had a talent for writing I had a teach named Tom Taylor who was he was like an adjunct he was visiting still remember his name and I wrote a story in this class I had to go in a class for like cuz I wasn't really up to speed to oand which is you know I'm very grateful to that school where they had a a class where you if you didn't up to speed they would get you to speed and I had to write a story in that class and I wrote a story and after he afterwards he said you know you you have a talent for this and I said you know cuz the story I wrote was about a guy who went to the bathroom and and sat on the toilet and they had a heart attack but he had a flashback blah blah blah so anyway I don't know what he saw in that when I was you know I'm hoping he didn't see everything that I was seeing but um so I you know I I guess I always started writing creatively but none of it was any good um I was talking about this morning I went to see the National Zoo in Washington DC when I was a report at the post in fact I took my two nephews there and after they we left one of my nephews he was so upset by seeing the animals that I wrote a story called Mr whippy and the wind which is part of the short story collection in the five karat Soul which I see like eight people read but um but I was I read it oh you did God bless you loyal loyal so you know I've always been creative and music you know journalism wasn't creative enough for me and um and also so fiction allows your dreams to come true whereas uh journalism doesn't although like it's starting to a little bit now but that's a whole another whole another [Applause] thing I will say this you know as a mixed race person first of all if you can name me one African-American who's not mixed I'll give you $100 right now but uh you know for years when the col of water came out when I was growing up you know we were we were way out we were considered way out you know you and I we we grew up around the same time um you know mixed race family in those days was just something that was very unusual but in the black community was easily accepted so I'm happy to see that you know a lot of ways My Success is predicated on the fact that people are starting to see the reality that I've always known which is that what difference does it make really in on the grand SCH so and that's probably why I'm here and why I'm getting this $10,000 you know I mean wait they paid you what wait wait what no look I'm not here another room I I've I've made enough money I'm here because I want to be here yeah and because I respect Librarians and the Library of Congress and uh and all your fans who want to see you of of whom there seem to be quite a few this is a little bit this is upsetting because if these people think I'm smart something's wrong so I'm not going to say anything I mean but um I want to talk about the thing about your work and and one of the people I know you don't read your reviews but one of the people who wrote a review of one of your books talked about how he was reading the book on the subway and was laughing out loud and everybody kept looking at him like what's wrong with you and and has anybody have you all done that have you ever done that is the voices in your books are all so different does that you know I mean they all have their own voice like I was rereading good Lord bird when when I realized we were going to be talking I re I reread it and I wanted to read it as opposed to watching the film which was hilarious but still it the voices are so distinct I'm like how do these voices come to you I mean you know I just happen to be the person in the room that holds a handkerchief when God cops honestly I like people you know I listen to people part of my job is to listen to people and um and I I appreciate people so much and I you know I I I happen to look to the kindness in people and when you look to the kindness in people you see their depth and so there's no bad people to me and if you appreciate people people music helps you a lot because music forces you to listen and so when I teach writing to my students I often make them listen to music and then make them walk around and watch and see because you know Everywhere You Go Everywhere I Go I always carry a notebook I carry everywhere you know I always carry a notebook cuz some because people are just handing me money when they talk so I always have a notebook I always have pens is you got anything in there let me see I want to see yeah well I mean just ignore the grocery list and stuff okay I mean like um well let's hand it over pay for okay solution for tree address to frame for Rush picks yeah I coign that well I have okay I could see it I can I can vitamins I'm not going to ask about that set okay all right wait a minute no no I'll give you the good section cuz this is this book um um this book is a a bit of a an anomaly because I I just graduated to a bigger book so um so salsa is what comes out of Goya cans that's what I heard someone say um and here's some types of music U of of Latin music zutan Mana Mambo manuno Mona Muna um the original Tombo three string guitar with strings GC see I mean this is useless to people but if I'm if I'm writing about Latin music cuz I just I heard a a Just A Gifted arranger there was a workshop I was at and this Latin cat when I say Latin I mean I with all due respect you know CH I don't know what he was but he was Puerto Rican and we say in New York right he definitely was Puerto Rican right but his his his language his use of the the these terms was just fascinating because you know he had he figured out that all this the African parts that came into so-called Latin he had worked it out he was a big fat guy bad dude I mean he wasn't he was obese but so I just learned something so I wrote in my little book but I have a I have a I just graduated to a bigger book because I I usually keep sayings in one section names in another section and incidents that happened in another section and then there's a little section with you know I go to the grocery store and get you know get frames for The Rush picks the um but you know you there was nobody you could consult to hear how a 19th century abolitionist vigilante could talk right or and escaped or not escaped he wasn't really escaped you all remember the story of good Lord bird it's focuses on onion and he gets that name because it's a whole thing about how he gets that name and he encounters John Brown and John Brown liberates him and it's told through him and it's sort of based on you know the real John Brown but it's hilarious and I just I'm just trying to think how could you figure out that like this John Brown who was hanged for trying to start a an Insurrection against slavery could be hilarious I mean I just that part well I mean life is how you look at it I mean if you can get over the fact that you know we've had you know in the last three the last you know 2016 to 2020 we we had you know we had some awful things happen I'll put this way in my church you know my pastor happens to be here not my pastor I like when people say my pastor he's not your pastor buddy okay cut it out but people the people that I grew up knowing and that you grew up knowing they always saw the bright side of stuff they knew they were powerless to do stuff you know they knew the mayor didn't care and that the city councilman would just Rascals most of them you know in those days anyway so they just learn the laugh because learning the laugh is a way of survival and so even with John Brown is as ridiculous and as crazy as he was because Calvinists are a little bit crazy um but everyone has a point I mean there what's funnier than watching two Arab guys argue over the cost of a break job I mean that's you know in Punjab whatever this language is speaking not Punjab but you you you get it so it's just how you it's how you see it and so I grew up in a family and and in a community where laughter was really the best medicine and um and so I just try to put it into my books you know what's interesting too is you know a lot of people who write fiction they start with Memoir and then they build out so you started with Memoir but then your next projects were very different from your life like you you know I unless you well you can't write the same I mean you can't write the same book again and again I know some writers do that you know but I'm not interested in that I'm I'm interested in growth I want to change I want to evolve you know I'm I'm I'm always trying to figure out what's the next you know i' love to write a book where you open it up and the characters pop out and they talk to each other and then you allow you're allowed to insert yourself into and then you you turn the page and I mean I'm I'm trying to get I just I can't stop being creative you know I feel like I'm I'm limited really by Books and Music because there's no real neither side music and in the music industry and the publishing industry they really don't understand each other they don't know what to do with someone like me I'm not I'm not you know I'm not your typical writer who just writes the same book about detectives or whatever and someone gets killed I'm I'm always thirsty for something and music is the same way I'm always looking for something new and something a different sound and um I've never found a comfortable place there books is just that's just part of who I am I'm just the creative person you know I'm just under the umbrella of creativity and storytelling which has evolved to in some ways that that are good and some ways that are not good 10-second stories in Tik Tok don't really that that's not story that's just film and blogs and and uh and YouTube channels it just that's just that's not even typing you know so um I'm trying to figure out ways to engage people so that when When someone tells this story that it has some purpose to help someone else we're going to we're going to invite you into the conversation although with this many people here I'm not sure how many people we can get uh to the mic so um I don't want to make it a fitness contest but we're going to start in about 10 minutes we're going to invite you to to sort of join us and we're going to talk for about 10 minutes with your questions and then I'm going to come back to Mr McBride so he can give us a a closing thought or or a benediction or whatever it is you want to want to leave us with my pastor and uh so okay I'm going to Glide a little bit past Deacon King Kong even though I love Deacon King Kong so much so much cuz Mr McBride mentioned that we kind of grew up in a similar neighborhood in a similar time and Deacon King Kong is about everybody I grew up with like if you all have read it it's about every crazy person that I grew up with that we grew up with but I'm going to Glide past it because I want to get to the latest book because I think a lot of most the people here have probably read that that's the one they're most familiar with love this too I felt like when I read it and when I heard you talk about it that you'd actually been carrying the story with you for some time is that right yeah that's true and and part of because when I worked at a camp for disabled or so-called differently abled kids it changed my life and that camp was run by a man who was you know in those years and was was gay and had to hide it um and he was just just he just ch he changed my life and the life of all of the people who worked at the camp um that camp was kind of like a United Nations it was outside Philly it was called variety Club camp for handicapped children it was started by um theater owners Jewish theater owners for for Jewish kids with polio then they opened it up to anybody with polio and then they open up to anybody who was so-called differently abled and a lot of those kids um I'm still in touch with with like three of them now and so I always wanted to write about it and write about him but every time I wrote about it it just was like sappy and it just was just it was corny and but the only chapter that worked I wrote several chapters you know but the only chapter I work was the chapter about the guy who kind of started the camp or whose life inspired the camp was was mosha when I got to Moshi and then you know Chona his wife you know wife to be or Hana if you you know if you want to get all technical um when she got involved when they got involved and they fell in love then the story just you know the story got it just the plane took off the Runway what made this the time to bring that story forward since like I say you had been carrying pieces of it with you why do you think it presented itself when it did it there's no time it's just you know that's the thing with fiction fiction you know fiction you just go around gathering information and then it comes when it's supposed to so that was just God coming into the room I mean I I was going to see pener I said it initially in Pottsville PA which is in Western PA near Pittsburgh um but then I was going to see Pennhurst which is the old institution where they house disabled children again remember I was looking into I wanted to write about a child with children who were disabled or differently able and what happens to them so I was going to see penus which is closed but I went to see it anyway and I saw a sign it said pots toown so I said well you know Pottsville pots toown you know tomato tomato whatever so I drove into potown and I looked around I said this is perfect it you know still looked a little bit like it might have looked in the 30s and then I started doing research and I said I'll set it here right down the road from Pennhurst and uh and the rest just just came from research in my imagination you know seeing the a there was an old Jewish synagogue there there was at a Baptist Church still there building still there everything's different now but and then I just called on you know know the gods of imagination to allow these characters to inhabit my brain and then they begin to take off and then you follow them once they get moving I remember when writers used to say this when I was young they say my characters are I'm following her and I go yeah right buddy yeah yeah I got a bridge I want to say you're too sucker but it's true at at a certain point the characters start to take you know they they start to move and in the case of this book when Moshi and Shona when he fell in love with her and she began to inhabit the pages the other characters from her life began began to emerge Nate and Addie you know the black couple and of course dodo and then later on monkey pant the the kid in the institution and I knew kids like do dodo and Monkey Pants I knew them I I know what a kid with cerebral paly looks and sounds like cereal PA is interesting I don't know what they call it now but you know you're talking to someone in cerebral paly and they sound like they don't know what they're talking about they're actually often times are much smarter than you are I mean people who are disabled or differently abled in their fingernail they hold more experience and wisdom sometimes than most of us why why is that because they spend their life watching being disabled is a little bit like being black you know where you where where you know you're like a witness to your own lynching where everyone gets to make a speech about you but you so you're in a wheelchair and they're talking over your head and well she wants to go you know but she doesn't like meanwhile in your mind you're saying you know why you have a Boog in your nose that one and spits flying out your mouth and they're telling me you know you know because you see it all and when you when you're working with kids they let you know you know I remember Joe Frasier came to visit the camp one time the you know the heavyweight boxer and he went up to one of the kids and he was like Hey Little Sunny you know and this kid said to him he looked up and he said I could kick your ass I mean you can't make this kind of stuff up right so you know when you if your job is to find the humanity and people look to the differently able that's why their parents are have a special shine of course they you know and they have difficulty talking to about you know one of your one of your ex- colleagues writes for the Post um I got about his last name he's the book reviewer I can't remember this I met Charles Ron Ron Charles Ron Charles and Alyssa Charles his daughter and the struggles that he had to raise her and how this guy he's one of the heroes he's walking around here him and his wife these are the people that the the heroes in my world and that's what that's what gives me power in in my writing cuz I I mean My Heroes aren't the congressman and well I mean to be president might be might be a hero I'm not going to lie now but um there's power in love there's power in mothers especially and Fathers as you know but the power of mothers is great and um so I grew up in that kind of you know thing kind of with the kind of mentality and it's it's helped me in my life for folks who haven't read the book yet the three of you here who have not um it it takes place in this town supposed to be in Pennsylvania it really a town that does exist but it's maybe not that town where the black community and the Jewish Community are intertwined and It Centers initially on this Jewish couple who run a theater but then they rally along with their black neighbors to try to save this little boy from being sent to this institution and then things happen you know from there and I will say cuz I don't want to ruin the experience for those of you who haven't read it yet that it takes a sharp turn it you start out and you re you know you're sitting on the Metro and you're laughing your head off and then and then some things happen and it takes a really it takes a sharp turn that really makes you face a lot of the things that disabled people have to deal with that anybody who's living kind of on the margins has to deal with and some some some I'm just going to leave it at that and I just I'm just asking I'm kind of wondering whether was that turn always there and why did you feel it was necessary well I mean did you don't know what I'm talking about those of you have read the it takes a I just don't want to ruin it for people who haven't read it yet it's bracing it's it's one of those things that kept me up in a good way kept me up at night in a good way like you know you ever finish a book and you think I can't sleep now I'll go I'll go clean out the closet because I can't sleep now and it it Disturbed me in a in a very good way but I'm just I wanted to ask about that well this world in this world anything is possible um and you know what happens is in in fiction you know you expect this you expect it to move in a direction it doesn't go that way it just sort of happens so I at once mosha and sha got together I began to follow the story knowing that dodo had to be introduced into their lives at some point and you're waiting for the moment to you as you as this narrative starts to spin out from your fingers you can't force the kid into place he's got to you know it has to be you know you're building a house and so as the house gets built and as these things start to roll out you just simply have to go with what's there um and you you don't want to force things into place and you don't want to not let things happen that are just supposed to be I mean you know my father died before I was born wasn't was you know that wasn't an ideal thing but it worked out if you're patient you know and you have you believe in love everything will work out so um the hard part is you have to believe in love you know if you really believe it'll show in your work and if you don't then it's called Pulp Fiction you know which means that it's like eating the peppermint candy it tastes good but if you eat too many it's no good you know so so is so I ought to hand you a a candy cane I was going to say no so so is anything keeping you up at night now like what's you've had such an incredible ride is something keeping you up at night well we have some issues with the church you know developer you know that's keeping me up you know I feel like you know I put this way one person can't change anything in this country in your community one per it's it takes a community but our inability to talk to each other in within our communities is really destructive because it just causes a lot of fear and you and we all know what fear does Fear exploit exploits us allows the big boys big companies and everything that destroy neighborhoods completely so if anything keeps me up it's the the idea that the harbingers of truth and the people who are at the last line of defense which are Librarians and teachers are are brutally assaulted by mostly mostly by men and women who don't know any better but then I you know what helps me sleep at night is that the wisdom of women is starting to make its way into American Life because and I I'll make this point before we you know before we allow you know women's women keep secrets in their heart women are much more sophisticated I learned this mostly from the black women in my church because you know I when I when I got divorced I you I returned to the church and you know long story short you know I I saw how things go in the black church at least in my church in a lot of churches women carry the whole thing they carry the whole thing and then they lay it at a man's feet and say tell us what to do they're carrying the whole thing now but the level of sophistication that's in a women a woman's heart because their heart is like a vault and they keep everything there and they very rarely open it up let but every once in a while they open that Vault and let some wisdom out it just moves the world so we're stting to get some of that wisdom into our national thinking and so that that helps me sleep at night because I'm convinced that women are going to be the force that moves us into the future and with that come on up we have I think there's some microphones I see one there I see one there um come on up and join us visit okay come on up go ahead let's start hi I'm very happy to be here today and just excited that I can listen to you and know a little bit behind the book so I just fin finished reading uh Heaven and Earth grocery store and I thought what a fabulous book had so many themes to it it was just you know the theme of love moshe's love for Sha Sha and um her love for the community I mean she did not want to move she loved her community so love is a one of the prevailing things in that book and I thought it was so well written all characters were so well developed it was just I didn't want it to end and that's how I know it's a good book if I don't want a book to end it's like okay I need more did you have a question you wanted to ask you just wanted to holler no it's fine no it's fine you're adults you you don't have to ask a fake question just cuz you want to holler it's but I cuz there's I have a question on top of that if you want to if you want to which is so go ahead so it has the Jewish and the black and and that's your heritage your mom is Jewish uh and so how did uh was it part of your mom in your life that made you go in that direction as well well I mean to some degree I mean she grew up in in a small town of Virginia you know grocery store was in the black section of town and that really was a that was a big part of American life in the 30s and 40s uh on in Black sections a white person not always often times Jewish who had a store in the black section of town who knew their Community who knew everyone knew everyone um it's like today we always read about what goes wrong we never read about what goes right and in all the travels I've done for the the Heaven and Earth grocery s it's been a lot I meet a lot of people who tell me my community was like that too I met a lady in Detroit who told me all about her store and she said when her father closed the store she said it was just it was awful for all of us Louis Armstrong talks about that when he grew up in New Orleans and how kind I think there's a Mis ception about and I know for the three Jewish people here they're not going to this is going to be tough but Judaism you know I studied a little bit not a lot but a little bit enough to know that one of the great principles of Judaism is not unlike that of Christianity or uh the the Quran which is that you you're supposed to give it's ironic that Jews are stereotyped as cheap when in fact Judaism is really based on again now every Jewish person is an expert on Judaism so if you're going to come get your book signed please don't bother me with this Judaism is about giving and I've experienced that the majority of my life in New York for those of us who grew up in New York we had Jewish teachers we had Jewish bus drivers Jewish now Jewish people are not perfect by by no means but the stereotypes that we lay on communities is destructive for all of us it's like saying you know when you say Urban centers they're gorillas that you know they destructure what they're really saying is black people da d da I feel safe for walking around the projects in Red Hook hand to God I feel safe for walking around the projects in Red Hook then I feel driving in Pennsylvania cuz I'm scared in Pennsylvania in Red Hook if you say hello that's it that that's it all you got to do is say good morning so these stereotypes we have to answer your question about each other are destructive and they go on for generations and generations and generations we to that's why we read books because we want to look to the deeper to the deeper story so yes that's part of my history but it's it's part of everyone's history as well sir thank you sir uh I just say wow that's my shout out and it's really watching this story this amazing conversation being transformed through our interpreter here and I'm imagining someone yes give it up for them that's very important absolutely we're talking about diversity and coming together and then someone getting into those stories reading your book with their hands in Braille okay now we're talking about neurodiversity okay how about someone who's a visual learner how might they engage your stories as a graphic novel would that cheapen it or would that elevated it I don't know I mean you know see this will happens when someone who's smarter than you ask a question I mean uh they they just have they they have to hear and imagine I you know I people who are are site disabled did he was the site disabled or was a hearing disabled I can't remember well I would say sight if you're talking I mean the words if the words don't lift off the page then i' i' I failed my job the the the hope is that the words will allow them to to imagine the tundra the landscape before them ma'am Miss ma'am person hello hi um I was uh first I want to say thank you so much for being here I'm so excited to see you I was assigned to read um color of water when I was 13 and a freshman in high school it's been many years since then but it was definitely um life-changing um my question I guess is more of a writerly one um I'm a year out of my MFA and of course I've had to do a lot of recalibrating about that and engaging in my work but it's already been addressed that you wrote your Memoir before fiction and so often we're told write what you know which is kind of vague um I don't know instruction or advice but with how your Fiction's been so different I wonder if writing what you know if like writing that Memoir was something you needed to do to like know yourself in order to like open yourself to these very different characters in each of your novels that came after a short story that's a very good question that's very that's a very thoughtful uh sort of uh uh problem that you you're raising um I think that they look write what you can you can write what you know but if you don't know a lot then the question is how do you get some stuff on your odometer and so then when I was 35 or 36 when the color of water was was was completed I think so I had already done a lot of traveling as a as a journalist and as a musician I had a lot of EXP experiences to call on so I was ready at that time to write that book so if you're straight out of school with an MFA my my my suggestion would be to just live as much as you can to keep a good journal and at some point you'll decide that I'm ready to do a memoir or you'll say you know this fiction thing has been just itching at me and I'll do and do that but it'll show in my case the Memoir was was I needed to to kind of deal with that before I pushed into fiction I had to figure out who I was and I couldn't figure out who I was until I figured out who my mother was but in your case it might be different I just met a memoirist who I mean the um a young lady backstage who teaches at John Hopkins who just wrote A Memoir an african-amer she's an African-American historian but she's written history books previous so everyone's different but I hope that's helpful thank you hello my question is how involved are you in the audio books um not at all okay there's a guy um named Dominic I forgot his last name but he does such a good job that I just usually say to them can you get him it they're fantastic oh okay so thank you all right thank you we're going to try to get to everybody who's in line presently but we're not going to be able to take any more questions after that so thank you I should have turned to the question sooner I should have realized that like I say we normally do our work when we don't see eyes so uh sorry for that but please good morning uh first and foremost a little bit of an Accolade I also read the color of water and it's a book that I returned to every so often and you know at the risk of sounding a little bit too you know fan girly it really did level up my writing so thank you um but on to the question so as we all know you got your Starin me Memoir but your Memoirs as well as your non-fiction they're sourced from a collection of voices I found that in Memoirs the author might grapple with the plight of the reliable narrator or putting forth the most distilled narrative for the reader to really interpret how have you navigated that both pre and post color of water that's a good question I mean you with Memoir you have to be careful that you don't pull out your pistol and just slay the room you know someone you didn't like or your cousin stole your homework or you know she had a teeth you the girlfriend left you and now now look at me now so that that you know those are the things that you have to avoid when you're writing Memoir because when you write those kinds of Memoirs you're not writing Memoirs you're just writing vendettas saying you know how you like me now and so um or you could run for president and do that yeah you could run for president do yeah you could do that but you know what kind of President would you be and what kind of memoir would you write you know so you have to write a book that that you listen generally you you when you're writing a m person if you if you can't be in the same room and read that with that person sitting in that room you prob shouldn't write it that's really the rule that I kind of go by here we go hi um what shifted for you to be able to write consistently and knowing what you know now what's the one thing you wish you knew when you first started writing what shifted for me that made me write consistently you see um look when you play enough wedding gigs and somebody you know you you could play Jaa Nila in every key and they come up to you and you're playing something they dancing they they can they play something slow and they you know if you've done enough of that and you've done enough gigs where you know you're in Rochester New York and the guy was supposed to pay you vanishes and then there you are and then you stand over some guy's house and he's in the bathtub and you don't know what he's doing doing in the bathtub and then when you walk in there he's laying in the bathtub you know with like his clothes on and out you don't know if he's out because he shot a needle in his arm and you don't have a car you say books ain't so bad so that's really that's the that's that's the true answer to your question is that true really I really I I believe I kind believe yeah when I was yeah when I was on the road you know I mean you know I never really had I mean I wrote songs for Anita bacer gr was I had some you know I had some minor hits but you know I told with Jimmy Scott we used to play here there was a place in DC cool I forgot the name of the club it's a Blues Alley yeah I mean you just can't make enough money you know you have to work so hard to be a traveling musician and if you're a songwriter you know you go in you see people who are 19 20 years old and you walk in there and they you know they're telling you what's good or they're offering you money for your songs and you know I I've never done a publishing deal in music all my music is unpublished in other words I just refuse to give my songs over for a little so I just I make money writing books okay that's it here we go we have one minute to go yeah you talked about your creativity challenges that you always like to look for the next thing well you have you know this very rare combination of being a gifted musician and an especially gifted writer have you ever thought of combining the two too and coming out with a book that includes the music Andor songs in a you know in an audiovisual pres uh for well um I wrote a musical 30 years ago I won the Steven Sonam award me and a guy named ed Shockley but I saw I had no future on Broadway you know it wasn't but I I just went back to it and working on it now it's called bobos it's about a kid who wants to pay up expensive tennis shoes but the problem with bobos is not the musical the musical is good it's sung all the way through it's got all these different styles of music the problem is that you create a Broadway show do the kids that come to my church in Red Hook will they ever see it they won't so I'm writing it really for high schools and we're producing it so that High School teachers can take the track and let kids just do the musical in high schools because Broadway is not accessible to poor people it's not accessible to the community that produced me so why create something for Broadway when there is no when the closest they'll come to it is to see it on you know is to some like nonprofit group will take 20 of them to Broadway and they say we've seen a Broadway show what's so great about Broadway that they can't do it that that it it belongs with the people that created it so when I first wrote bobos and I suppose we'll end here when I first Ros I I remember going to theaters where the guy playing the they're playing the kits and the the the drum you know the garbage can tops and that's all that's in the musical people in the theater they're watching that and then they go inside and see newsy so how you going to present Newsies to a kid from Southeast DC who they they can't relate to it you know so so the long and short of is I've tried to do it but I've never been a guy who goes out and gets grants and all that kind of stuff and when bobos gets produced gets produced cuz I earn the money to do it I can do it the way I want as opposed to some producers saying well you know done 10 of these you know Disney who cares you know you have to do you have to everything I've done it's because I created it all the movie everything I I don't have an agent I have a literary agent that's it now I was with Cas for a while and they didn't do anything for me so I just quit well so I know you said against YouTube but what about putting on YouTube which the kids do watch again you're talking about you know the the the the the ability to put that together means you got to call 50 people blah blah blah just give it to high school music teachers they'll know what to do with it High School drama teachers know what to do with good stuff it's all about that I'm sorry we're going to I'm so sorry ladies but I'm going to let this lady who's been very patient have the last word and we're going to have the last word I apologize thank you I love you your characters remind I grew up in Harlem your characters remind me a lot of the people that I grew up with and I just want to say this is your best book I thought I knew everything about James Brown black history no I read this book and I fell in love with it so want to ask you can you do the same thing that you did for history and James Brown for um Josephine Baker well um no I I I mean I don't know if I'm I'm at that point I mean uh or somebody else well I mean uh you mean Mrs you mean vice president KLA Harris is that what you talk about can you do that they did there are many more talented people to do no look I I just do what what's there they asked me to do the James Brown book this is great this is beautiful this is wonderful it's my favorite okay thank you all right you got your so why don't you bring us home with you know you have a final thought something no my final thought is that I'm I'm so glad that you all had nothing else to do to come out and come out here today I appreciate you and uh you know love is the greatest it's the greatest novel ever written okay that's it jamer pride thank you thank you [Music] a [Applause] [Music] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] a [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] da n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n [Music] [Applause] [Music] nah n n n n n n [Music] n n n n m [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] o [Music] oh [Music] oh o [Music] oo oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] we going to do a little song [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hold hold it [Music] hold it hold it [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning everyone and welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival my name is Amanda lobe I'm an archivist in the manuscript division at the Library of Congress at this time we ask that you silence your phone the nearest restrooms on this floor are to your right and to your left as you exit if you need to exit the room to use the restroom and are coming right back please get a green sticker from one of our ushers we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to be filmed or otherwise recorded please exit through the door closest to the stage here we also have assistive listening devices outside of the entrance for those who need it I'm now happy to announce that we're joined by darus Karns Goodwin [Applause] who's whose work for President Johnson inspired her career as a presidential historian her first book was lynon Johnson and The American Dream she followed up with the Pulitzer Prize winning no no ordinary time Franklin and elanar Roosevelt the home front in World War II Goodwin earned the Lincoln prize for Team of Rivals in part the basis for Steven Spielberg's film Lincoln and the Carnegie medal for the bully pulpit about the friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft Goodwin's most recent book an unfinished Love Story a personal history of the 1960s is featured at the 2024 National Book Festival she is in conversation today with David M Rubenstein the co-chair of the national Book Festival and an original signer of the giving pledge and a recipient of the Carnegie medal of philanthropy and the Museum of Modern Arts David Rockefeller award he is the host of history with David Rubenstein Bloomberg wealth with David Rubenstein and the David Rubenstein show peer-to-peer conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS his latest book the highest calling conversation on the American presidency is featured at this year's Festival so let's give a big hand for Doris Kars Goodwin and David [Applause] Rubenstein well you have a big fan club uh how many people A Team of Rivals anybody wow okay um we're going to change things a little bit because earlier today I received a uh letter um and I wanted to read it to everybody it's a letter from uh Abraham Lincoln says Dear Doris I just finished reading your latest book of course it extreme it is extremely well written and a real page Turner but I am a bit disappo appointed with it when you were working on Team of Rivals you told everyone including me that you had fallen in love with me and that love affair went on for 10 years but I now know you were actually in love with another man and for a much longer period and you never told me I forgive you I can see from your book why you love Richard in His Four score and 6 years on this Earth he had extraordinary accomplishments using to the fullest his beautiful mind and he made you so happy over so many decades I guess I was only a one decade man I hope as you go forward you will not little note but rather long remember your other loves like Teddy and Franklin and of course me all of us here want you to know that our love of You by you and for you shall never perish from the earth best regards Abraham so so uh you frequently get letters uh from Abraham Lincoln or other people you're written about Teddy Rosevelt over sent you any letters or anything like that I feel like they should send me letters I lived with them for so long I lived with those guys more than any other man except for my husband Richard Goodwin it takes me so long to write these books it took me twice as long to write about the Civil War as the war to be fought it took me longer to write about World War II than that war to be fought so I feel like they're my guys I wake up with them in the morning I think about them when I go to bed at 9ine I used to feel this sense of of embarrassment when I had to move move from Lincoln to Teddy to Franklin and I'd move all my Lincoln books out and make room for Teddy or make room for Franklin I was afraid they'd be sad that I was letting them go but somehow despite my feelings for them this is my first love letter that I've ever gotten and I cannot tell you what a great way to begin this let me ask you was your was your husband ever jealous when you're coming every night you come back I just fell in love with Lincoln I fell in love with Roosevelt your husband ever say what about me he ever say that he it it was a kind of weird thing you do fall in love with these guys they become your pals and you think about them as I say I mean sometimes at night when I'd be wanting to talk to my husband about Teddy Roosevelt he'd say let's talk about the Red Sox so let's talk about this book for a moment uh it's an extraordinary book I highly recommend it I really enjoyed reading it um but it was an unusual book because I'm used to reading your books about former presidents of the United States and this is about your husband and I imagine writing a book about your husband with your husband in effect around was not easy where did the idea come from to write a book about your husband and why did you want to do that well it didn't really start as an idea for a book what happened is that my husband had kept 300 boxes of a time capsule of the 1960s essentially through our entire married life they went with us everywhere they went in storage they went from one house to the other they went to a barn and I never got a chance to really look much into them although I did Glimpse in them every now and then I saw they were great he had kept journals Diaries newspapers memorabilia everything and he was sort of everywhere in the 60s he was with John Kennedy he was with Jackie Kennedy he was with LBJ he was with Senator Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire he was with Bobby Kennedy when he died so he's sort of like a zelig or a forest gum figure during that period of time and I couldn't wait for him to open the boxes but he was so sad about the way the the decade ended with the violence in the streets the the deaths of Martin Luther King and and Bobby Kennedy that he just didn't want to go backward he wanted to go forward then finally finally one day when he turns 80 a couple days couple months later comes down the stairs singing Oh What a Beautiful Morning and I said what's going on I finally decided it's now or never it's time to open the boxes and this is the way he talked he said if I have any wisdom to dispense I better start dispensing now so how many boxes did you have in your basement from your husband there there were 300 of them that's sometimes our houses weren't big enough to C keep them so we went to storage then when we got a final house which had a barn they came and they lived in the barn but they were on shelves they were messy they had mice in them until finally we got them out so you've heard the phrase packrat so your husband saved everything right menus from places that he'd been pictures he even had a club from the Democratic National Convention in 1968 a splintered club that a policeman had used on one of the protesters and that was somehow in the Box um but it really meant that he wanted to remember that time I think and he wanted to wait until he was able to look back on it with a different mood than he had felt from the sadness and that's What mattered so much so as you're going through these books these these materials from your husband are you you're with him and are you asking him questions about it and did the idea for writing a book about this come to you right away or later as you were going through the process no it really was only later but the process of going through the boxes with him was really fun because we decided to go through them in chronological order so we would not know what happened next which meant this is what my my mentor um in in history Barbara kman said even if you're writing about a war as an historian you cannot let the reader know how the war ended you just have to go from beginning to middle to end so that you can just live and know what the people at the time knew so that meant we could enjoy the early days of JFK we could enjoy the peace score we could enjoy the excitement of the inaugural inaugural address without knowing that oh he's going to die we could enjoy the early days of the Great Society without knowing uhoh the war is going to be coming and it really made a difference and the great thing was could talk to him I used to talk to my guys I remember once when my kids were little Franklin and Elanor was the book I was writing and they heard me in there saying oh Eleanor just forgive him I mean I know that he had that Affair so long ago but your great Partners Franklin just know that she's still going to be hurt but you know that she you couldn't be this without her and they come in and say what's going on in here and I'm talking to people but they don't answer me but now here's my guy but the problem is he can then he can then come back at me and say no you're not right this isn't clear you they got it wrong it was worth every minute of the time so let's go through for I doubt there's anybody here that doesn't know your background but in case there is one person let's go through it for a moment you um went to Colby College and you won a White House Fellowship is that right I didn't get the White House Fellowship so I went to Harvard graduate school but yes graduate school at Harvard you w a White House fellowship and at the time uh you were not a big fan of the Vietnam War I guess right correct and so famously you wrote an article by why Lyndon Johnson should not be the presidential candidate for the Democratic party in ' 68 then what happened after you wrote that article yeah it was even more complicated than that which is that when we were chosen as White House fellows this was I was 25 years old it was in 1967 um I was 24 actually and we were had a dance at the White House to celebrate our selection and President Johnson did dance with me but it wasn't peculiar there were only three women out of the 16 White House fellows but he really really danced I mean dips down to the floor I was thought it was over and finally he whispered to me I want you to be signed directly to me in the white house but then two days later this new Republic article which we hadn't even known was going to be published makes its way onto the world scene with the title how to remove lynon Johnson in 1968 so I was certain he would kick me out of the program but instead surprisingly he said oh bring her down here for a year and if I can't win her over no one can so I ended up becoming his White House fellow of eventually and then staying with him for the rest of his presidency and then going to the ranch to help him on his Memoirs and it was a a great experience more than I even realized at the time it's what made me a presidential historian because mostly he just wanted to talk to me he talked and he talked and he talked he talked as we walked around the streets the the the dirt roads of his Ranch he talked as we were in the swimming pool in the swimming pool he had rafts that had floating phones on them floating memo pads floating pencils so if he said something important you could write them down and he NE and he never and I always wondered why is he spending so much time with me I like to believe it was because I was a good listener and he was a great Storyteller I loved his stories even though a lot of them weren't true they were great nonetheless they were kind of embellished so uh famously he gave a speech on March 31 1968 in which he said he wasn't going to be a candidate for the nomination and wasn't going to stand for re-election again were you surprised that he did that I was surprised I think everybody was I mean I I knew him a little bit by then not as well as I later got to know him but I I think no one ever imagined that this person who loved politics for whom it was entire life could give it up even though he was in a tough race for the presidency Bobby Kennedy was challenging him in the primaries Senator Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire but in those days the president had much more power there were primaries couldn't decide it and he had the delegates on his side but he and I talked to him a lot about it afterwards he said he just realized that what he really was hoping to do he had to do was to wind the war down CU he was told by his military guys that he would have to send 200,000 more troops and then even that it would only produce a stalemate he was told that after the Ted offensive in 1968 so he figured the only way I can wind it down and people will believe it is if I'm not running so he makes that extraordinary decision and for a couple days it makes me so sad to remind me of it and I thought about it so much with what was going on with President Biden for a couple days all of a sudden everything changed his public opinion approval had been 57% disapproval after he did that was 57% approval because he had done something for principal over politics and then on April 3rd finally 3 days later after March 31st he gets word that the North Vietnamese want to come to the bargaining table he said it was the happiest day of his presidency on April 4th he has the plane loaded with diplomats and Generals they're all going to go to Hawaii to begin the process and he's going to join later that night and at 5:30 he gets the news that Martin Luther King has been shot so they have to cancel the trip then there's riots in the cities it never quite gets back on track so it was so sad for him so he asked you to go down to Texas with him to work on his Memoirs but you were teaching at Harvard so how did you do the both of those things simultaneously more or less well it was hard at the beginning because in the fall of 68 he when he was thinking about going back to the ranch he asked me if I would come down and I could live in Austin on the weekdays in order to work on the papers and then live at the ranch on the weekends and it would be a great experience he said for you you're a president I'm a pres you're a presidential historian I'm a Pres pres after all you know all the you know what do you need boyfriends I'll bring a boyfriend every weekend you know you want to travel I'll be traveling cuz I was being hesitant only because I wanted to go back and start teaching at Harvard and I wanted to go part-time so I kept saying I'll come down on weekends I'll be there in the Summers nope he said it's All or Nothing All or Nothing so he really got angry with me he never yelled at me but he would just sort of ice me out and I was there at Christmas right before January when he was going to be leaving and ladybird saw what he was doing he would come in a room and not even talk to me pretend tend I wasn't there and she somehow fixed it so the last day of his presidency he called me into his Oval Office the everything else is being dismantled in the white house ready for Richard Nixon and I come in the office and he looks up and kind of grumbly says all right part-time so I went back to Harvard and it was I needed distance from him you need he's such a formidable figure and it worked out perfectly so he was there was the famous Johnson treatment where he intimidated people and as I understand he was very he was 6' 3 or so he would stand next to people why would he stand so close to you so you could barely uh be an inch or two away from him what was his technique I think that was part of exerting power in a certain sense I mean for me it was ridiculous I'm so short that I'm sort of you know can imagine where I am when I'm right up against his chest but he never really as I said there were other people that he could humiliate in public um but then the next day he would send a Cadillac to their door to make up for it um with me it was it was either fire or ice with my husband he had real real treatments so um you um worked on the book with him uh you came to admire him even though you didn't like the Vietnam War um let's go to your husband um let's talk about before you met him where was he from and how did he become so famous so early in life so my husband grew up in Brookline Massachusetts and he went to tough's college and then he went to Harvard Law School and one of the things that was wonderful about opening the boxes was I always wanted to know what he was like when he he was a young man cuz he was 12 years older than me and I always used to ask him would I have fallen in love with you if I knew you then in high school or college and what were you like then and he would say to me I don't know what I was like then I was too busy being me to to understand what I was but I found these letters in the boxes which his best friend had sent back to him that dick had sent to the best friend from TOS 50 letters letters for do for a historian are are treasure they're the best things some of them were handwritten some of them were typewritten and I understood what he was like I watched him at Harvard he rose to become number one in his class and he became the editor of the law review and I remember this day when I was looking at these letters and even then he was saying but I just don't know if I just want to go to a law firm there's something more I'd like to do and I'm not sure what it is I'm chasing a big white whale and so he was being Flo all around the country for one law fir after another and then I found him saying somewhat arrogantly it's kind of a burden of choice I have too much to choose I can take a fellowship I can go clerk for a Justice which he did Frank fo her and then right after that I found a picture of the law review with him holding the Baton in the middle and there's 60 guys and two women one was Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then I came running in with the picture I said you have a burden of choice you can decide what you want to do and she can't even get a an interview with the law firm and he said no it wasn't my fault it wasn't my fault and um but anyway then there was another woman there and I got interested in knowing what happened to her so I went to see her she was in lived in California she was beautiful when when she was young she was still a stately woman and I asked her what happened to you and she did get a job actually that summer with Simpson Thatcher a big Law Firm but she wasn't married like Ruth was she didn't have a child like Ruth did as soon as she got pregnant they let her go that was what it was like back then but she told me then 30 she finally resumed her career but 30 years later she went back to Harvard and she went to a class and it was her contract's professor was there a new woman not somebody she'd known before very young wearing a short dress Dr wearing boots and very pregnant so progress had happened so um when did you meet your husband you had already left the White House you were a fan of Lyndon Johnson despite the Vietnam War but you admired him uh when you met your husband he was um already disaffected from Lyndon Johnson right right what it happened is that even though Dick's major work with Lyndon Johnson had been to work on civil rights to work on the Great Society I've got to tell you the story of the Great Society there's an or orig of the Great Society I'll tell it now is that okay so anyway so what happened is After Dick had worked for John Kennedy he was one of the few John Kennedy people that went to lbj's because there was a real fault line between the kennedies and the Johnson at that point and but Johnson we found out by listening to the tapes with Bill Moyers had had a conversation with we it was so much like you fly on the wall we play this tape and here's Johnson talking to Bill Moyers this is in March of 64 so Kennedy's dead only four or five months and he said I need a speech writer here somebody who can put sex into my speeches somebody who can put Rhythm into my speeches somebody who can put churchillian phrases into my speeches who Could That Be and MOA said well the only person I know is Dick Goodwin but he's not one of us meaning he was a Kennedy but nonetheless Johnson did call him over and he became Dick's main speech writer and about a month or so later Moyers comes to see dick and he saids the president wants to talk to us he wants a Johnson program now he's getting the Civil Rights bill through of Kennedy's he's got the tax bill through and it's time for the Johnson agenda so dick said are we meeting him in the Oval Office he said no we're going to the White House pool so they get to the White House pool and there's Johnson Sid stroking naked up and down the pool dick said he looked like a whale going up and down and so then dick dick and Bill Moyes are standing with their suit and ties on and he says well come on in boys so they have no choice but to strip as well and now you have three naked guys swimming in the pool finally Johnson pulls over to the side and he starts talking about what he wants for his program and it was incredible it was all in his head almost the first night he became president he wanted Medicare he wanted Aid to education he wanted civil rights he wanted voting rights he wanted Immigration Form he knew it all and then they decided well we'll make a speech at the University of Michigan that's how they would sometimes when you want to have a program become something you make a speech about it at a at a graduation so that gave dick until May 22nd to work on the speech and work out the program but then they had to come up with a name so they tried debating different names it could be the good Society it could be a better deal than a new deal it could be the Glorious Society but finally they hit upon the Great Society so the Great Society was born in a pool with three naked guys anyway a long digression so anyway he worked on that and then he worked on the Selma speech which I'd love to talk about later too um after Selma demonstrations the great we shall overcome speech that Lyndon Johnson um wrote with him and then he left him in the fall of 65 who war was beginning to heat up but he really wanted to go back and be a writer he had to fellowship at Wesley and but when he was away from the White House he then really turned against the war in Vietnam and the break was pretty brutal with LBJ both of them began to really argue against each other and it was a a very sad break and for the rest of his life he had grievances toward LBJ um because of the war feeling like the war had swallowed up the Great Society it wasn't true and I kep telling him that it's all around us it's still there we fought about this I would say JFK could never have gotten these bills through only LBJ didn't he' say yeah but JFK wouldn't have gotten it into the war and he was the inspiring one and it wasn't fun it made me sad so you write in your book that um he left the White House to go to Wesley and to be a writer there and that um at one point though Johnson did call him back or Aids did to say can you help me with the State of the Union speech so he wrote the State of the Union speech I forget what year it was 66 66 and then after he submitted it and Johnson gave that speech and he wrote up in the car with Johnson I think as well uh he never saw Johnson again right I mean it was Johnson really wasn't very kind to him when he was back there what had happened is in between the time when Dick had left in the fall of 65 he had become close to Bobby Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy had asked him to go to South America with him and Johnson followed that trip he was there for three weeks with him and he was sure that dick had turned toward Bobby away from him and the feelings between Johnson and Bobby were were really terrible and so he really had lost his feelings for dick even though he needed him for that speech so even that whole time he didn't ride up in the car with him he usually would have and that was one of the great things he loved to do but he was so tired and so sad that Johnson wasn't really dealing with him on the speech he was just getting it and delivering it and never saw him again so one of the things that happened that mattered so much to me when we were going through the boxes as we start he had as I say he had this continuing anger toward Johnson the rest of our lives but as we started going through 64 on gra Society in ' 65 on civil rights and voting rights he began to remember what what it was like to be with Lyndon Johnson what it was like to work on that we shall overcome speech and and I remember we went to bed one night and he stayed up almost all night he said oh my God I'm beginning to feel affection for the old guy again and the important thing was that he began to realize that the Great Society had not died because of the war the war would always be a stayed on his legacy but what he had done domestically was extraordinary and he had known that rally but he felt it emotionally so it meant that the last years of his life this is What mattered to me I think the most about working on the book the last year of his life he softened his feelings not only toward him but it meant softening his feelings toward the fact that he had really made a big contribution with LBJ it was his great contributions and he realized that they would be remembered that they weren't gone and it meant that when he died he was feeling that great sense of yeah the story will be told somehow but at that point in time uh you hadn't met him is that right no no I never I always wanted to meet each other he later tell he later told me he'd been looking for me everywhere I was and we figured out there were times when we would have been together for example we were both at the March on Washington in ' 63 I was 20 years old and he was he was older than me he was working at the peace score at that point from the White House and um but there were 250,000 other people there so of course we didn't meet we were both at the Democratic Convention in 1968 he said he was sure he saw me at Grand Park but it wasn't so but anyway he said I was looking for you my whole life I love that he said that so what happened was um he became close to Bobby Kennedy and tried to talk Bobby Kennedy into running against Dyan Johnson for the nomination is that right and correct and then um so he was involved in uh in in that effort to convince Kennedy but Kennedy didn't want to run initially so he joined Eugene McCarthy's campaign is that right right in fact in some ways that was one of the happiest experiences of his life he he really wanted Bobby he was so close to Bobby I mean they became real friends Way Beyond being political allies and Bobby just thought if he ran he would split the Democratic party and that he'd be going against the president so he kept hesitating so finally he just went to Bobby one day he said I'm just going up to New Hampshire um Eugene McCarthy's up there and he's running for the primary against Lyndon Johnson and I have to do something about the war so he got up there and he found all these young kids that were coming from all over the country and they were you know they had they' taken off from their college time or they were coming on weekends they were coming for months sometimes they were disciplined they were organized they went from house to house in New Hampshire and they just listened to New Hampshire was a hawkish state and they just listened to the people and the people were feeling this great split in ' 68 between the old and the young and here's these kids they were called clean for Jean they cut their beards they cut their hair the girls wore long dresses and they were they really made a difference and they won that state just essentially for New Hampshire for for Eugene McCarthy and Dick said that night those kids felt like they had changed the world and that was a wonderful feeling to be part of so Johnson actually won the New Hampshire primary but McCarthy did so well that people thought that he could continue and after that McCarthy uh close Victor close to Victory not actual Victory uh Bobby kenned changed his mind and came into the race and what did your husband do so my husband had told Eugene McCarthy when he first joined him that he would stay with him unless Bobby got into the race he told him the truth he said he's one of my best friends um but I promise you I'll do everything I can for you until that point and they were all on the same side against the war so when Bobby entered the race then he went to McCarthy and McCarthy was great he gave out a statement somebody said to him what about this dick Goodwin he's moving from John Kennedy to LBJ then he's moving to McCarthy then he's moving to he's like a butterfly now he's going to Bobby Kennedy it was a negative article and Eugene McCarthy said no no he's like a pitcher you can trade him to the team another team and you would appreciate that he owns the Baltimore orales now I've always wanted to have a team so exciting so this you think he's important as a you know as as an incredible businessman and a historian and this is it for me I mean this I'm so excited but anyway um what sorry Bobby so Bobby Kennedy it's gonna get me on track wait prob Bobby Ken he joins the Bobby Kennedy campaign but then tragically and no no I didn't make my point about the what the pitch so what happens is he says he's like a pitcher you can trade him to another team and he'll make his first start brilliantly but he'll never give up the secrets of the team before so that was a great thing to say how I got into Baltimore you see there was a reason I got it I got it but Bobby Kenny's tragically killed in June of 1968 and so what did your husband to be do did he go back to the McCarthy campaign so what happened is yes he was with Bobby when he died actually he was in Los Angeles at The Ambassador Hotel and they were supposed to meet right after Bobby gave his victory speech because Bobby did win the California primary and he had watched him go through turmoil he had lost the Oregon primary first time of Kennedy had presumably lost and he was terrific that night dick said he went through the plane and he said this is my fault don't let anybody else take responsibility and he he then strengthened him he came to California won that race and was was going they were all going to celebrate afterwards and then of course he died so for a while di didn't know what to do but he decided I better just get back in the fight about Vietnam so he went back to McCarthy and he was put in charge of the peace plank at the Democratic Convention so we're both there here's another place where we both were I was just there on vacation um it was my vacation from the White House and my friends were all anti-war people they were there and I staying with them in a suite there were about six of us in a hotel not in the center we couldn't have that but further away and dick was there Mobil he was there officially mobilizing the peace plank but I remember so clearly and I've thought of it so much in this last week with what was going on at the Democratic invention um on a Tuesday night of the convention so it starts on Monday on Tuesday night was lbj's birthday and he was supposed to go to that convention he was hoping he would give a valedictory speech just like Biden was able to do at his convention and he had prepared it and that morning he was still working on it and he um was told then by Hil bogs and his and his people there you cannot come the turmoil is here the protesters and the police were already having skirmishes and fights and it'll only create turmoil so you better not come so I was with my friends watching that night we'd been out Grand Park and running around during the days and then we came home at night and somebody called and said it was the president calling for me and I said I thought it was a joke I picked up the phone and it was Lynden Johnson I thought oh my God he's going to ask me to do something officially for him what am I going to do and with all my anti-war friends there and then he said last I have a favor to ask you he said then I'm getting strong he said last week when you at the ranch you're bored by flashlight and I can't find it where is it it was so embarrassing so anyway so I told him where the flashlight was and then I said to him well how are you and then he said and then all of my empathy got got aroused he said well how do you think I am I've never felt lower in my life I was supposed to go to my convention these are my party 40 years and four years previous when he won the convention in Atlanta they had a huge cake for him a 300 lb cake in the face of a map now they were going to have another cake for him and he said um I Feel Never Felt lower I said in my life so then I just suddenly felt a realization of how sad it was for him so that for President Biden he at least got a chance to go and and say what he wanted to say even though for him the sadness it's really hard to leave the presidency even Abe Lincoln even my Abe you know who wrote to me as you said he he he told me in another letter that he wrote to me that that the um that you want to be the president the second term even more than the first term because it's an endorsement of what you've done and you want to finish the job and that's what Biden wanted that's what LBJ wanted and Biden neither one of them have gotten it well to get to the love story when did you actually meet your husband so he comes to Harvard um in 1972 and I'm a young assistant professor and we we hear that he's coming because I was in The Institute of politics so we were all nerdy people we knew who all these guys were we I knew he'd work for Kennedy I knew he'd work for Johnson I knew he'd been close to Jackie I knew a lot about him sort of because I'd read magazine articles about him I knew he had bushy eyebrows I knew he had um big hair and he sounded great to me so I anyway but I'm in my office and all of a sudden he just walks in and sits down in a chair and he says um so you're a graduate student right I said no no I'm an assistant professor and I tell him all the things he of course knew he said I know I know you worked for Lyon after I left and we started talking that afternoon about Johnson about Kennedy about the Red Sox about all sorts of things he invited me to dinner we kept talking never stopped for 42 years I fell in love with him that night wow so um and you have with your husband Three Sons we have three sons we do indeed and any of them in the political world or well no but they one of our oldest son dick son from his first marriage his first wife died is the only one of us who's a technological genius he's a software engineer in California but my middle son became a high school teacher in conquered Massachusetts where we live and he was such a great teacher that I would walk around conquer and people would say to me well you used to be important but my kid had your kid I was so proud of him and then my youngest son Joe um went to Harvard and after graduating in June of 01 after September 11th happened he joined the army the next day and with no training in the Army beforehand had to go to basic training officers candidate School served in Iraq two tours of Duty earned a brand star came out was called back to Afghanistan as a captain came out but would say that nothing mattered more than the pride of taking his platoon through combat um and he's a v big proponent of a national service program he said that in that platoon there were kids from all different parts of the country and they all had different ideas politically and they all got along because they had a common Mission so that if you could have kids take a gap year after high school and go to a different part of America from the north to the south from the country to the city and have a mission that they're doing in common then maybe we could heal what Teddy Roosevelt warned that the biggest threat to democracy would be if people in different sections parties in regions began thinking of themselves as the other rather than as common American citizens and that's what I think a national service program could do so um what is it like uh you you and your husband live for much of your married life in Concord Massachusetts and uh you have two writers writing books uh during the day do you ever look over his shoulder what he's doing or do he look over your shoulder and at the end of each day you just go out and have dinner somewhere in Concord yeah it really was a ritual to the day I mean luckily I woke up earlier than he did I woke I love waking up early I get up at 5:30 and I used to go downstairs to the study where there was a fireplace and a rug and all the the things I needed to work and I could work until he suddenly came roaring down the stairs time for breakfast he would come maybe at 7:30 or 8: the top of the stairs here I am and then it was time for me to go out and get the newspapers and get the breakfast ready and we'd talk at breakfast and we' read the newspapers and then he would go to his study on the other side of the house I would go of mine but we'd come together at lunch and he would read what I'd written I would read what he was doing he was wrote a play about Galileo and Pope Urban VII in those later years it was put on in England and then in Boston which made him really really happy and then I'd go back in the afternoons he would then more likely read in the afternoons he he loved reading novels and he loved reading science but then we did go out to dinner we went out to dinner every night once the kids were gone um from the house even though they liveed nearby but I wasn't cooking anymore we had a bunch of friends in conquer who would always go to the same bars every night so we' go to we knew we' go to the Colonial in on Thursday we'd go to Fel on Tuesday and we'd all be there together so to be honest After Dick died it was one of the hardest things I moved I couldn't stay in our big house in conquer we had 10,000 books there I didn't know what to do with them finally the conquered Public Library took 7,500 of them and it makes such a wonderful feeling for me because they created a room in the library they have thorough and alcot and Emerson there's a Goodwin room now where high school kids go and it just it makes such a difference so um now you now live in Boston so I moved into Boston and then I came into Boston just at the time of the the pandemic and there was that you couldn't go out to dinner and the whole schedule got redone luckily my son Joe lived in the same building so he had now has two kids had one then and a wife so I was able to have dinner with them every night and you have how many grandchildren now four grandchildren four and what do they call you Doris Doris Yeah my two girls call me my older ones call me but the the little boy stor I love that they called dick dick what happened is that we had our house in m in conquer was in Main Street when the kids were in high school and we were right in the center of the town so it was the house where everybody came we had a pinball machine we had one garage that had been turned into a a billiard tables and I loved having all the kids there and we had a pool that we called the Robert Redford pool because we got the chance to get the pool because of the option on the movie that quiz show that my husband was the investigator of the rig television quiz show some of you may remember $64,000 Question in 21 it was made into a movie by Redford so it was the Redford pool because that was it and so kids were there all the time and and we knew the kids and I I loved that feeling of of being part of their high school life so we didn't cover yet I in time we have remaining uh what was it about your husband that made him so uh important to John Kennedy um he he graduated from Harvard Law School clerk for Frankfurter but how he get a job at the White House and what was his skill that made John Kennedy so um enamored with him he really was maybe one of the the best public writers I mean that's what one somebody said about him after he died califano that there was or several people who worked in the White House thought he was able to put words for a president onto paper that had his history emotion and meaning and and and a sense of of movement forward I mean the most important moment of that for Lyndon Johnson was that after the Selma demonstrations took place when the Alabama state troopers went right after John Lewis and the and the peaceful protesters and we all saw it on television I remember being with my friends watching it and thinking this can't be the country that's America this thing is happening Johnson decided just a week later on a Sunday night to give a speech to a joint session of Congress on Monday night and it meant that my husband had only that day to work on the speech and it's an extraordinary speech I mean I just I couldn't I couldn't manage to do that if I had a month to do it so they he said I need Serenity he said to Johnson nobody can bother me so he said I'll just hand the pages out little by little and they had such pressure under them so the first couple hours probably you have to get that first line you know as a writer that's the hardest thing to do and he finally comes up with an incredibly beautiful line I speak tonight for the Dignity of man and the destiny of democracy and then it goes on every now and then history and fate meet at a certain time in a certain place so it was in Lexington and conquered so it was in aomax so it was last week in Selma Alabama and then he said this is not a negro problem not a white problem not a northern problem not a southern problem it is an American problem and we are met here tonight not as Republicans and Democrats but as Americans to meet that problem and then as dick got up to that point in writing the speech he went out to smoke a cigar he just had to get out of the office and in the distance he heard some kids singing We Shall Overcome so he came back in and he wrote the words that now they call it that we shall overcome speech he came back in and Johnson then would say um but even if we solve the problem of voting there's still a long way to go to overcome bigotry and Prejudice of a century but if we work together and then he paused and said we shall overcome and the audience jumped on his feet people were crying because what it meant was that the outside movement the civil rights movement that was the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement was now reaching the highest councils of power in the government and when when an outside movement reach reaches the inside power that's when change happens that was true for the anti-slavery movement under Lincoln the Progressive Movement under Teddy the women's movement the gay rights movement the Civil Rights Movement it always happens that way and people knew that that's what happened and Dick said as he as he was listening to it at the well of the house God how I loved lynon Johnson that night and I was listening to it too and I thought I could never have imagined that a few years later I'd be working for President lynon Johnson or more importantly even that 10 years later I would meet and marry the man who helped craft that speech so did your um did your husband when you were going through the all the books and files and letters that your husband had accumulated did he know that you were going to write a book about all of this at some point he he after a while he was hoping that I would help him to write a book about it that's what he was and it really gave him he he was he was diagnosed with cancer last year of his life and he had a year to live from that time time on but the the thing that mattered so much was that he cared so much about these boxes becoming a book especially he wanted young people to feel a sense of what people felt in the 1960s the fact that they could make a difference and it made him get up every day during that last year of his cancer treatment excited to work on the boxes and then nearing the end he wasn't sure when he looked at how many boxes were still left he wasn't sure that he'd be able to get through the end and I remember he said to me one day I wonder who's going to finish first me or the boxes and I did promise him then that I would I would do this if when he when he when before he died and it wasn't easy I mean that first couple years afterwards I had to move I had to figure out what to do as I said with the books and I just thought it would make me too sad to just have to live with the work work on it which I was going to do with him together and until finally I realized I'd spent my whole life trying to in a quest to bring the presidents that I studied to life through all of their Diaries and entries and all their huge archives and that I really might be able to keep dick Alive by doing this rather than be sad about his death so I think that's what's happened I mean I I've been on a book tour now for I can't believe at 81 years old I went to 30 cities and I talked to people and I loved it it was so great and um so um and I I just I just kept thinking that you know dick would be very happy I'm talking about him every single day he's certainly not dead at all but I think more importantly than that what is your next book going to be about well what the next book this sounds crazy and maybe it is crazy is coming out in a couple weeks it's a it's a young adult version of leadership in turbulent times it's called the leadership journey and it's how four kids became president so it's it takes you back to Lincoln and Teddy my guys Lincoln Teddy Franklin and lynon when they were young I I want young people to be able to see what it would they sometimes they see an icon as a president it seems too hard to imagine I could ever become one of them so I wanted them to see what the childhoods were like of these guys and they were hard they went through adversity they went through difficulties and they developed the qualities that we need in leaders some of them were born with them Lincoln was born with empathy one of the most important qualities the others developed it so it shows the development of leadership qualities leadership um humility empathy resilience accountability um um being able to communicate authentically and truthfully being able to have an ambition that goes larger than for S to something the team or the country Etc and um and you want these qualities in your kids you want them in leaders at every level whether they're a team leader of a sport whether they're um they're going on to become something in another field other than politics so it's really about leadership and the qualities we need in our leaders the qualities we need in our country so badly right now so on your famous book uh Team of Rivals if you had chance to interview Abraham Lincoln had one question you could ask him what would be the one question you want to ask Abraham Lincoln I I think you know I know I'm supposed to ask him as an historian um what would you have done differently about reconstruction if you had lived but I know that I would say to him would you tell me a story Mr Lincoln because when he told stories especially funny stories they say his whole face would change you know he would smile he would laugh I mean the favorite story that he loved to tell over and over again had to do with the Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen and he told the story dozens of times but every time I would hear him tell it I loved it and Ethan Allen went to Europe right after the war he went to Britain and they decided they would embarrass him by putting a huge picture of General George Washington in the only out housee where he'd have to encounter it sooner or later they figured he'd be pissed off at the idea that George Washington is in an ouse but he comes out of the ouse not upset at all they said well didn't you see George Washington there oh yes he said I think it was the perfectly appropriate place for him what do you mean they said well he said there's nothing to make an Englishman faster than the sight of General George was so then he would come alive he would come alive so if uh somebody hasn't read your book your most recent book um I highly recommend that you do so but what would you like people to most remember about your husband oh wow I mean I wish they knew him just because he was you know he was just a warm and extraordinary um brilliant character who used his talents to make the country better and I think that's what really mattered he was a a great character in fact you know when when I think back on Lincoln the the story that comes to mind as to what I'm hoping this new book on on leadership for young people will be able to do all that matters mostly is character that's what my husband had that's what you want our friends to have that's what Teddy Roosevelt used to say you want a leader who's Like Your Neighbor Next Door who never promises something they can't deliver you know who keeps his word and the the story that I ended the Team of Rivals with was that Lincoln um had Lincoln had always wanted to be remembered after he died it was something that obsessed him ever since his mother died when he was young but never could he have imagined how far his memory would reach and what allowed me to tell that story at the end of Team of Rivals was that um the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy met with um a New York reporter and and told about the fact that he' just come back from the area of the caucuses where there are a group of wild barbarians who never left that part of Russia they were so excited to have toll story in their midst that they told him of of they they said tell us the stories of your great leaders that you've known so tol sto told about um he told about everybody that he knew J only in history right Julius Caesar and Frederick the Great and Alexander the Great and they loved it but at the end the the leader stood up he said but wait you haven't told us about the greatest ruler of them all we want to hear about that man who spoke with the voice of Thunder who laughed like the Sunrise who came from that place called America that is so far from here that if a young man should travel there he'd be an old man when he arrived tell us of that man tell us of Abraham Lincoln tolto was stunned to know that Lincoln's name had reached this far he told him everything he could about Lincoln and then the reporter said to tolster okay so what made Lincoln so great after all he said well he wasn't as great a general as Napoleon or or or Washington maybe not as great a Statesman as Frederick the great but his greatness consisted in his morality and his character the ultimate standard for our leaders that's what I want to have this new book here that's what all my books are really about are people who work characters and what character means is a good person as well as a great leader oh thank you uh for a great story so um thank you very much for the book and thank you for being here today great thank you all thank you so much oh thank [Music] you thank you thank you very much this way we going to go back bye [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] w [Applause] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n n n n n [Music] n n n n n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] n n [Music] [Music] n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n nah n n nah [Music] [Music] yeah [Applause] yeah me [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] B [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] let me [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] ooh o [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oo ah we going to do a little song like [Music] [Music] hold [Music] hold [Music] hold what do you think about [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] hold hold it hold [Music] it hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] he ah [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] he [Music] [Applause] la [Applause] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] good afternoon and welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival my name is Amanda lob I am an archist in the manuscript division at the Library of Congress at this time we ask that you silence your phones the nearest restrooms on this floor are outside the doors to your right and to your left if you need to leave the room during the presentation to use the restroom room you can get a green sticker from one of our ushers that will allow you to get back into the room when you're finished also we have assisted listening devices outside of the entrance for anyone who needs those please use the far door here next to the stage for exiting the room we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to to be filmed or otherwise recorded and now I'm happy int to introduce you to Max Greenfield an American actor and author of several Illustrated children's books he is known for his role as Schmidt in New Girl and Dave Johnson in the neighborhood in the past three years he has published the picture books I don't want to read this book this book is not a present and I don't want to read this book a loud featured at the 2024 National Book Festival Greenfield's new picture book good night thoughts is a bedtime story about acknowledging anxiety he is in conversation with Chast and budajudge a teacher Advocate and husband of Secretary of Transportation Pete Budaj he currently lives with Pete their two children and their rescue dog in Traverse City Michigan B Jud Memoir I have something to tell you was a New York Times bestseller in both the adult and young adult editions his forthcoming children's book Papa's coming home hit shelves next may enjoy the festival and let's welcome Max and chaston no you you no it's you no really it's not you I for I forgot I forgot where they they they told us to sit I I forgot for a moment too and got this is going really well okay hi everybody I know you're supposed to start this but I'm going to start it at you should um before we get into good night thoughts and uh any of the other books that that I've been so lucky to be able to write uh I know we already mentioned this but chaston has his own first picture book stop it Ma no this is about you I know I don't want to stop it and I will not um it's called Papa's coming home oh my gosh Max and it is excellent thank you I feel like you're doing this because you don't want me to ask the embarrassing questions I'm ready for every I'm an embarrassing question that's what my parents say sorry it's so good to see you it's so good to see you um as a dad a dad of two three-year-olds uh thank you and the national Book Festival for having this at 12:45 um I got the best night's sleep last night uh how are you feeling well I requested that specifically for you I was like I don't think chest's ready such an ally he's been in Chicago this whole time he's got kids this is 12:45 is the is the earliest you know how he can be yeah that's right um on a scale of Schmid to very serious author how are you feeling today I don't know that there's much of a difference have moderators or uh you know folks who interview you ever expressed concern that they will accident yes period that they would ever AC l call you Schmidt no but it happens okay so sometimes just me yeah it says Max Greenfield at the top Don't Call Him Schmidt do people feel this is so selfish of me but I'm very I clearly a fan of new girl uh yeah thank you do people assume that you're like Schmidt and real life I yes and for probably good reason is it like do you feel like you have to live up to the hype no I think I'm just I just managed to do that on my own and then every once in a while somebody will yell 29 at me and I'll just do it back and then it seems to make everyone happy that's a great bit just to have in your pocket diffuses any situation so you're a dad of two kids as well I am uh and today's a very special day right oh gosh I know I was I was given permission by my son ozy it happens to be his birthday this weekend and he said I know well it's luckily for him it's his birthday every day with with me as his dad um but he allowed me to come out here and to be with you and to be with all of you guys um so thanks aie I just thought maybe we could give Azie a birthday present we could all because this is recorded and it will live on in infamy on on YouTube we could all just say happy birthday Azie on a count of three is that okay 1 2 3 happy birthday Azie here we go he also is like one of those boys that's going to be like this don't do that oh God you're a girl Dad please don't please don't um yes I'm a girl dad and you have Olivia Rodrigo bracelets on is that right yeah we went we went to the show last week and it was uh excellent um I used to teach 8th grade I thought you were going to say I used to teach ol to teach Olivia Rodrigo it's a little known fact I don't brag about it often um I am terrified of having a teenager of my own I felt like I could teach them but what is it like being the dad of a teenager um I I sort of now love it good yeah you can't say the opposite no well you could I think it would be actually very easy to say the opposite but I love it you know I think you as a parent have to adjust the relation and you have to sort of adjust as she's adjusting and you know they reach a point where they're changing and they're figuring out who they are and you sort of need to do the same um you can get stuck in how your relationship used to be and that's just not how it is anymore and you sort of want to hold on to what that relationship is and you realize that by doing so you find it more problematic as they are moving forward and you're trying to then catch up that's beautiful um I'm going to go stop while we're ahead yeah uh in inter i' so I watched some interviews oh God and in one interview you talked about how which I related to you some of your friends reconsider coming over for dinner because they know that your kids will be there that that happens you know well I mean it's not our kids specifically but you have friends like the kids will be like we have friends who don't have kids and it's like yeah coming into a home with children is a Vibe shift yeah totally like oh my God you know what would be really easy for us if you guys just came over 100% and then all of a sudden those people have plans and all of a sudden Friday isn't good um it saves you a lot of money in child care cost it's a whole thing and like our kids are really cool come over you'll enjoy the experience we enjoy them and then that you know it's just not for everyone I I really appreciate doing that here in Washington cuz I feel like The Vibes are different when you have a senator sitting on your couch wanting to talk about something very important and two toddlers running around with like guitars and tambourines constantly screaming um you're like well we didn't have to get a sitter so how but talk guys guys we're talking about Transportation Gus would be like this a bus no not the not the bus I'm so sorry this no our son is very into Light Rail um uh talk about being a dad like how has a dad changed you or how is a being a dad like informed your worldview yeah well you just stopped thinking about yourself yeah and me that's that's his and you've always struggled with that daily every morning oh hi Matt I haven't see you um yeah every every day um but yeah I mean that it that's that is the immediate shift that happens and it was one of the most it's it has been the most beautiful thing to embrace that and I think has since that attitude adjustment has led to more personal success than I could ever imagine um and then you just try to give it all away as a as an author how has being a dad helped you in writing these books oh my god well these books wouldn't exist without the kids um yeah I mean the first the first book came about uh I don't want to read this book uh during the pandem there it is um thank you for holding that up that made me feel really nice and special um but yeah uh during the pandemic everything shut down immediately um and my daughter was sent home with a curriculum and I was supposed to be the teacher and we took a picture of it we put it on Instagram and the only motivation behind that was to try to connect with other people who might have been as scared as we were because we both knew that this was worst case scenario and the response was immediate and big and um you had First Responders who were reaching out and really the there was such a response from teachers saying oh I miss my kids I miss being in the classroom and we then felt like a tremendous responsibility to keep these videos going yeah and they became daunting after a while I was like we've got to make another video we're saving lives my wife would be like you're not please don't please don't make this a stressful thing um but during that time uh I I had an agent who reached out to me who said hey you know I've been seeing the videos that you and and your daughter have been doing I think maybe this is a book I said a real book and he said he said well maybe not and he goes what about a picture book and I said well you know if I was ever going to do a picture book it would be called I don't want to read this book and it would be all the reasons why a child doesn't want to read a book and by the end of that book they will have read a book and because that was my experience as a reader that was my experience trying to get my daughter to read um and the next day I thought hey that was a pretty good idea it's a shame nothing nothing will ever happen with that and Albert came back the next I don't know two days later and said penguin has bought it and we got into the book and we started writing it and we realized how personal a story it was for me and how uh specific that and how easy it was to write because that experience was so true to my experience um the fear is around reading and the fear is around learning differently um eventually the you know the fear is about reading aloud and that's what those three books are really about um and being able to have a teacher or a librarian or a parent acknowledge some of those fears read articulate them to a child who might be struggling in that way who isn't able to then articulate do you know what I mean um and and so that's that was that's how those books came about and been really and really has been the beauty of watching them sort of exist in this world exist in the classroom exist in libraries um it's been just an incredible experience it's so cute I've watched videos of you uh on YouTube reading the book to a group of kids and and and they love it yeah because it's it's very engaging with some of the Goofy words that you've chosen to include but you've also you know you've broached a subject that some parents and teachers struggle with which is getting kids motivated to read and you sort of touched on that that was an experience for you as well yeah totally you know I reading is something that has always been very challenging to me um perhaps challenges that I wish had been identified and defied much earlier in my life um but I think you know that that's sort of why we wrote these books um and to see and again just to see kids you know get a little indignant when they're reading the books and have fun time and they're exploring the words and we certainly the books are what I I'm so proud of the books because they definitely they in no way speak down to the reader these are not written for like a a child you know these are written for a they're smart kids these videos the smart like these really really smart engaged kids love the book yeah and what and it's an attempt to add to the conversation and it's a tool really for teachers to be in the classroom to be like the one thing I hear from so many teachers about these books which is always my favorite thing to hear they pick it up and they go I know exactly what kid I'm going to give this book to and you because you know that child and they can't and they have such difficulty they're the one who never wants to read and and let me tell you something those kids can Coast those kids know how to get because they're not dumb they know how to sort of sit in the back and get by and it isn't until like third or fourth sometimes fifth grade when a teacher goes like this I think there might be an issue here and then the parents are like yes we don't think that they can and you know I mean and then it becomes a whole thing um and so to identify those issues early is to me such a essential part of the conversation that we're trying to have and now you set yourself up uh to have to write more of them because this kid going be like well I'll read Max Greenfield's book you know I hope no yeah so well the first one was I don't want to read this book and then the second one we did was this book is not a present and that I think really uh it's a really fun book for kids who are like this oh it's a book um those are my kids those are my kids as well um and so we thought it would be funny in that way but really like that book is so much about learning differently and you know you know being able to be like well for the way I learn is with my hands or the way I learn you know like uh I can pick up a guitar and I know I just know how I can't read the music but I know how it's supposed to sound you know it's that experience for kids who are like I'm just I need to be out on the skateboard or whatever it is and they understand that but something about the words on a page doesn't connect with them it's it's so cute and it's very true the other day I picked up two books in an airport and they went to like min inota and Georgia and DC with you know they went all around the country and I came home and told them I was bringing a a present home and when they sat down on the couch and I gave them their books they were like trash you know they just immediately threw it on the ground and were very upset that I there was a video I sent to penguin at some point and I asked my son I was like they loved it so much I asked my son I was like can I put this on like Instagram when the book comes out and then he goes please don't but it was me giving him like I had wrapped a present for him and I gave it to him and he open up it was a book and he went like [Laughter] this my kid has a weird obsession with tearing up books uh but he he'll take this book and he will rip the page like he he sleeps with books which obviously makes his dad's very happy and then in the morning there will like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is just every where and he's like sleeping amidst the torn up pages of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and he'll be like I broke it you did he hasn't torn up your books yet I mean if there's a better it's very important for you to know because it's going to happen like the book I brought him home from the airport cool book about airplanes and airports and he really likes flying and then the next morning there's just airplanes everywhere and he's like I I broke it like I feel like that means you love maybe he wants to be closer to the action I'm going to say he likes the books that he doesn't rip up a little bit better but you know agree to disagree I'm going to send you a picture now it's it's inevit and it really drives me nuts uh so tell us about the forthcoming book you wrote good night thoughts yeah so um the first three books which we've discussed have are all centered around the fear of reading the fear of learning differently the fear of reading aloud and uh we were sort of in the midst of um promoting I think it was uh this book is not a present and Jennifer konky who is the greatest publisher of all time at Penguin Books you can cheer um she goes well what are we doing next and I was like oo there's a next and we knew we wanted to do something different we we felt like there was enough that had been said in in the learning area and the reading area um and the idea of doing a much more traditional bedtime story came about um and I guess I before we get into it can I can I read it can I read it I think we should hear [Applause] it you get to do your Ted talk now they they gave me a clicker to do slides I don't know how this is going to go don't give me toys nor technical things that I'm supposed to figure out anyway I thank you guys so much I am so excited to read this book for you I love it so so much okay this is good night thoughts written by Max Greenfield and beautifully Illustrated oh yeah it works beautifully Illustrated the illustrations are so incredible in this book uh by James sarafino okay we're on the first page if that kid falls asleep during the reading everyone needs to buy a buck okay I'm never going to fall asleep oh wait I think I broke it that's it that was the book that was the whole book it's such a beautiful book okay okay we'll start over they shouldn't have given this to me all right I'm never going to fall asleep oh yeah yeah my brain is too noisy my thoughts are too jumpy and every time I close my eyes I'm afraid of all the scary stuff I see sometimes I see myself being chased by giant robot sharks other times I can see my toilet bowl overflowing with tarantulas one time I even saw a dentist how am I supposed to relax if all I can think about about our robot sharks or tarantula toilets or the dentist this one time I tried to fall asleep and saw the whole world pop into a piece of popcorn another time I thought about my very best friend sailing off to sea on a pirate ship made of toast and just the other night as soon as I closed my eyes I fell off a cloud but instead of falling down I flew straight up towards the sun it was the most scared I've ever been in my whole life because everything got so bright I couldn't see anything at all how am I ever going to fall asleep knowing that the world might pop like popcorn or that my friend might sail away with pirates or that I might fall from a cloud straight up towards the sun I wish these thoughts would stop bouncing around inside my head sometimes I try to have happy thoughts I close my eyes really really tight and try to imagine a baby panda opening its arms and giving me a hug other times I think about a choir of candy covered Donuts all singing my favorite songs and if I really can't fall asleep if it feels like my brain won't ever calm down I try to think about all the people who love me holding hands and wearing every piece of clothing that they own I try and I try and I try to think of baby pandas and singing donuts and everyone who loves me but no matter how hard I try I still can't fall asleep but then I close my eyes again I remember that my brain can be noisy and that my thoughts are sometimes jumpy and then I remember that all that noise and all those thoughts are just in my head I'm not being eaten by a robot shark my toilet isn't overflowing with tarantulas and thank goodness there isn't a dentist in sight as far as I can tell the world hasn't popped into a piece of popcorn my best friend is still here and I'm not falling from a cloud right now everything is okay and so am I good night thoughts good night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] did did the kid fall asleep thank you guys incredible [Applause] right so we've learned that you hate dentists it's in two books I don't like I don't like the dentist people will be like when's the last time you went to the dentist I don't want to talk about it that was really beautiful thank you um tell me a little bit about this idea of conquering your fears uh and anxiety why did you want to write a book about that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to say with the next book a story I wanted to tell um having written three books at that point I sort of understood a little bit about the the structure of the children's book um and what story would best fit uh that structure and it was right around the time uh when a dear friend of mine I you guys remember Leslie Jordan who actually took his book here not too long ago he also was a big star during the pandemic on Instagram um and uh we were very close and one thing we would we would do together is we would uh we would make lists we would talk about our fears and ultimately make a list of all our fears and Leslie's list was always far more entertaining than mine he would say bumblebees pocket knives straight man um and the idea behind it was let's write these lists out let's say them out loud and then let's then ask ourselves which of these fears are in front of us in this moment and if they weren't in front of us which most of them were not there was no bom be in front of him um why were we then carrying these fears around with us and for Leslie and I this was more of a wakeup book in the morning cuz we would wake up with all of our fears um and this would sort of calm them down throughout the day um but I thought oh how interesting it would be to to to utilize that that that exercise um before bed and so uh we started to write it and and Again Jennifer konky a penguin I was like this this is a book I know it's a book and we went back and forth and really sculpted it in that way um and it got to this place which I just I know I love so much I know Les the book is dedicated to Leslie I know he would really love it um he's so upset that he's not up here right now with none of us talking only about the book himself um but yeah it really it's it's when something like this that's as meaningful as it is um and deals with the type of subject it does when it when it really when it when it comes out the way that it has I just I feel so proud of this book and I I I'm just i' I've yet to find the words to articulate how exciting it is that this is now going to be out in the world I think you should really be proud of yourself um you as a dad you know what it's like to read five 10 books sometimes you I mean you've read hundreds of books now to your kids in some nights you read multiple books or you read the same book over and over again and you're also then familiar with the books that have nothing they they they they provide nothing right and uh sorry but um this book is so I really love this book because it invites you in um and it's something real that a child might feel and you're giving parents a way to talk about those things together was that one of the goals for the book is to provide you know the Launchpad for a wider conversation yes so we talked last night about you know the goal of any great children's book is not just you know children's books are not just meant to be read they are really meant I think the good ones as a bridge to a conversation yeah and you know with the first three books if there's one kid who can raise their hand and say I feel that way too about reading maybe that leads to a greater conversation about well what is it exactly that's blocking you from the words on this page what happens when you read a book what's your experience with that um and with this one my vision for no but what I it opens up a conversation about well what are you afraid of you know or maybe it prompts your child to say I mean I can remember when my son at one point and again you know we we we discussed when we all Sayang where we said happy birthday to him he was the kind of kid who was like can you not do that um he I remember we were laying in bed once and he goes dad can I tell you tell you something I'm I'm there's something that I'm afraid of and as a parent you go I didn't prep for this oh my God here it comes I'm like I have to put my uniform on this is Dad time and you have like it's time for you to get ready and this is like all of a sudden this is a huge moment for your child but you're like oh my God please don't mess this up I wasn't ready for this I'm not you know and if that's the moment if this book can lead you into that moment with some sort of preparation as a parent yeah you know it's not just to meant it's just it's not just meant to like be a bedtime book and like hopefully the child is asleep afterwards and wof good I can go watch whatever Netflix show I want to you know it's maybe your child can then discuss some of the things that they are afraid of yeah and if they open up that door it allows you to have a discussion as a parent and maybe what the book tries to do is put those thoughts to bed at least for now because what that fear does and those thoughts that spin us around it blocks us from being present in the moment and it blocks a child from doing what they should be doing in that moment which is go to sleep um and if they're really holding on to those fears if they're clinging on to them on a daily basis it's blocking them from being a child yeah and then before you know it that child is a teenager and they probably haven't let go of it then and then they're adult and they're still probably holding on to it and so the idea is to openly share these things I mean that's been my experience with with life and with my own feelings and emotions it's like you know you I I hold on to these things I'm scared and I'm scared if I let them out that they'll that they'll keep pouring out and I'll fall apart and all and what I would do with Leslie and and and you know the people closest to me it's like you share these fears and you make them right sized and you're able to take them and build a different relationship with them that allows you to then be present in whatever you're doing in the moment yeah and hopefully with this it's to get a good night's sleep I like it and you know for and for those of us who didn't get to process our fears as a child then you can grow up and write a memoir that's exactly right um you've you've you've given us such an important tool as parents right as an opportunity I just like you're going to be fine either way I I'll never write a i it's every every book that every every one of these children's book is the first chapter of the memoir but this is a really important tool because it it it asks or it gives us an opportunity to be vulnerable yes and uh if your kid is comfortable enough to be vulnerable with you to say Dad I'm afraid of something then you've done something right and uh for parents who might not know how to get there you've given them a really good Tool uh you know if they're still awake after the book right or or the next day to have that conversation um is really really important um and I I like to think I think many of us do books are like Windows and mirrors right the opportunity to either see yourself or to look into somebody else's world is there a is there a mirror here for you you've talked about Leslie um but as a as a child do you feel like you were or you know your inner child do you feel like you were able to let go of something by putting this book out into the world oh my gosh do I feel like I was able to let go of something um to be dark but like it's kind of cool to put a a book out into the world right and you've you've done something you've given people a gift but therefore you've been able to share something that you might have been holding on to yeah no well I I think definitely these are these are books that I wish I had when I was a kid these are conversations that I wish I was able to engage in when I was younger um you know my relationship with my kids and and I think a lot of parents relationships with their kids is is different and interesting and and and as close as you are to your kids sometimes you're the person that they're least comfortable with talking about what actually is going on and what they're feeling and so these books and books in general and that's is the wonderful we were talking about this last night and being at this Festival these books specifically children's books can act as that bridge to the that conversation you know it's sort of like let this book be my voice while we're laying in bed and I'm reading this to you to then help you open up to me and to me I mean that's that's the gift of these books and to then have those conversations is really sort of the what I'm I guess letting go of in that in that and speaking of vulnerability did you ask your kids for feedback yes I read good night thoughts to my son to the point where he was there was he's he's been privy to many drafts and and at some point he was like this is this the same one again I go do you think there should be a comma here he's like I don't know what a comma is they really humble you don't they they that's this is that's an understatement that's a generous way of saying it um you you have some really cool language in in the book like you know I'm afraid of my my best friend riding away on a pirate made of toast like where does that come from um and are you like in the grocery store and you have to like quickly write it down are you like constantly noodling over what the fear is I uh we we well so we really wanted to uh make sure that the fears in this book were were had it were a broad spectrum so that different kids could access different fears um and I was really excited having done you know the first three books are all uh it's just all words um and this I knew there was going to be actual you know illustrate like real drawings and so we wanted to make it a very fun visual experience um and so we were like you know what you know that all that fear was well what if my friend moves away you know what if I lose my best friend um and then we thought well visually it' be fun if they were on a pirate ship and then what if that pirate ship was made out of toast were you pitching ideas to your kids like what if what if your friend was leaving like in a sports car made of donuts and they're like you knowum they're sort of dumb they're sort of um gosh I I want to say they're a little bit more mature than I am so I sort of trust I trust my own voice in this um and I will do it like I will I will sort of do it in a Schmid while I'm going around like like a pirate ship made of toast and so and like and everybody like yeah it works we're out of we're running out of time but I would like a reread of the book asmid maybe you can put that on YouTube it wouldn't be much [Laughter] different okay we're we're we're running out of time I have a couple more questions for you it would just be more indignant so sometimes my friend sailing away on a pirate ship made of toast thank you well what kind of toast is it they're eating it up keep going I know it's it's very easy so sometimes when I do book talks I feel like like you know um moderators have no idea who you are they've never read your book and then there are moderators who did way too much research I do want to ask you about something that whole book is Phil just while we have a few minutes this is totally unrelated to the book please according to Wikipedia they're always right in 2015 you were the spokesman for the McDonald's sirloin third pound burger if if you could be the spokesman for another fast food item what would it be well the M the Mixon half pound burger just make it bigger just bigger we live in America guys bigger better um frankly it wasn't big enough no um if I any I don't know what would what would yours be no you don't get to flip the table I'm the moderator now I feel pretty satisfied you have a guilty pleasure a fast food guilty pleasure I don't have a fast food guilty pleasure um I mean if you're in La I wish I had a funny answer to this but um I really like those new sodas the Olli poops okay I don't know I'm over here thinking like I would do Baja Blast or something and you're like Health soda Thanks Max I'm old I've got to you know got to take care of my I got to take care of my ecosystem your ecosystem people are like this I think he's actually Schmid I have to take care of my ego we just got the the five minute um you know when I put these questions together I did not put them in the order I should have because that was a fun one and just how have the Arts impacted your [Music] [Laughter] life well I will say you know getting to getting to work on material like the McDonald's campaign um being around other artists um other Burgers yes other Burgers the Hamburglar Ronald McDonald him I mean he obviously wasn't at the shoot um he doesn't do that kind of thing anymore um but yeah I mean to be able to take that experience and put it out into life I mean it just the artist of they they um they filer into every part of my life and were you upset you didn't win an Emmy for great time great time to the McDonald's sirloin thir PB Burger ad cuz the performance it's I mean it was it's hard work riting yeah people think you just show up and you just no months of prep I actually can you pass me the clicker cuz I teed up the McDonald's I'm just kidding I'm [Laughter] kidding so is there another book in the I know this one's just about to come out and everybody has has pre-ordered it right it's that fun part where you get to shame the audience for not pre-ordering your book it's really beautiful and I hope folks share it you know if you don't have kids yourself I hope you'll share it with other families uh because the best part of a children's book um just as a dad is the moment when they're encaptured and you're having you're sharing a moment together you're not just pointing at things and you're and you're calling out pictures and you're going through this process you know it's bath time brush your teeth put your pajamas on read a book and then go to bed this is a real opportunity with your kid and I think you've done something really great here and I know it's it's just about to come out but are you already noodling on the next one always always um what do you want to tackle reading anxiety I mean I mean it's all all the same um yeah I don't know I think I think uh there's an idea that we are working on right now that uh is is about expectations oh cool um and perspective I think I think it actually I think it's I'm just thinking about it now it's very early days early days but I do you just thought of it like 3 seconds yeah I I just so you don't forget it's called Papa's coming home it's a really great idea I don't think it exists yet um but uh but yeah I think I think perspective is something really interesting and I think it's it's it's sort of f it it's at the foundation I think of what we're thinking about doing next and I think it's one of those things that I think perspective is something that um is very very hard to relay to a child I'm always just like well how come they don't get it you yeah that's it all right but so we're trying to that's I think that's try to put some of that into a book I'm I'm I'm really glad that you've gone in this direction of of choosing to write stories that will either help kids or help parents have that conversation I think that's really cool did you did you ever imagine in in this career that you would be you know the the children's book guy did you ever imagine that somebody would say oh I have all the Max Greenfield books I can tell you this I know we have 20 seconds left I haven't ever imagined any of it truly every day is a discovery and a gift and what an incredible ride it's been and so to be here with all of you I can only describe as completely implausible for my own life and I thank you all for being here I thank you so much doing this thanks for sharing your gifts with us thank you thanks everybody go byy Max's book [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] n n n n n [Music] w [Music] o o [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] woo W woo we going to do a little song [Music] [Music] hold it hold [Music] it hold it hold [Music] it hold it [Music] hold okay [Music] what do you think [Applause] [Music] about hold it [Music] [Applause] hold hold [Music] hold hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] m [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n a [Music] m [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello hi everyone welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival my name is yay my name is Danny Thurber and I'm one of the reference Librarians in the Hispanic reading room at the library at this time we ask you to please silence your phones the closest restrooms will be as you exit both to the right and toward the left uh we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to be filmed or otherwise recorded there will be time for audience questions near the end of the event look for the microphone stance right here near the front of the stage thank you I'm honored to introduce Sandra [Applause] cisos a poet short story writer novelist and essayist whose work explores the lives of the working class her numerous Awards include the National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in both poetry and fiction the Texas medal of the Arts I'm aarthur Fellowship the pen novakov award for international literature the national medal of Arts the Ruth Lily poetry price and the Ambassador Richard SE Holbrook disting Achievement Award from the Dayton literary Peace Prize Foundation her novel The House on Mango [Music] Street has sold over 7 million copies has been translated into over 25 languages and is required reading in elementary high school and universities Across the Nation she'll be in conversation today with Martin the host of wild [Applause] car A new conversation game podcast from the national public radio before that she was the host of NPR's Morning Edition for 6 years and weekend edition Sunday for 5 years before that Martin was also a foreign correspondent in Berlin Baghdad and Afghanistan she previously served as the White House C respondent for ABC News and with that please enjoy the festival and let's welcome them to the [Applause] [Music] stage wow thank you wow wow it's right right s NS everybody so cool I mean I know you have a lot of choices at the national books Festival but I'm sure glad you made this one cuz you're in for a treat and I'm so pleased that on this beautiful Washington day in August when it's usually like 125 give or take that you chose to be here because what's going to transpire is going to be special I can almost guarantee you that so we are marking an auspicious anniversary how many people have read the house on Street yeah it's a beautiful profound book and and it tells although it's not a memoir right but but there's so much of Sandra in this book she uses her character as sanza Cordo to tell the story of a young 12-year-old girl making sense of her world from a corner of Chicago Hispanic neighborhood and trying to find her way and through this book we understand esparza's world and we get to know a little bit about Sandra's world how she makes sense of it and if you have read Sandra's work you understand that you can't separate the work from the woman they are integral she writes from her experience from her heart from her soul and so all of us as her admirers and readers think we know her because that's what we do when we when we become obsessed with an author and we read everything they write and and they become our friend but we're going to have a different conversation that I think will illuminate things about her that you may not know so this show we created called wild card it's an interview show let's be real there's nothing like crazy about it but what we get to do through the benefit of these questions on these cards is open up a door into someone in a different way using particular questions that we've thought really hard about and so even though we may think we know from the pages of Street some of Sandra's life and innermost thoughts we're going to try to get it those a different way through this conversation so thank you for being here thank you for being game um if if you will permit me there are only one thing that may not be on the card that I need to mention to my fans absolutely and that is that I've been working since 2017 On The House on Mango Street the Opera wow yeah a lot of people don't know that and we just premiered the workshop production uh like the week before last at the glimmerglass festival in coopertown New York but the big big Premiere the Real premiere with sets and costumes and full Orchestra is next summer at the glimmer glass Festival so please come definitely and before we get to the game I actually did want to ask a a question about um how this sits with you now this story right because um this it's been many years that you that you wrote this story these essays that are so beautifully hung together and this young girl was deep in you I wonder how she have you kept her with you understanding that there are echoes of her in you obviously but have have you kept her close have you thought about how her life has evolved along you well I'm 69 and I will be 70 at the end of the year but I'm still 11 years old inside I feel like I'm all the years just like you are lodged in one year in your life it's never the one that the public sees so I feel um I have to be very careful not to overuse that voice because it's my natural voice to speak in a young girl's voice and perhaps it came out because when I was writing the book I was censored uh by others and by myself especially about what I was living so I had to go to an earlier time to give myself permission to get past my own Auto sensor to speak about things in an environment that to me then was rather hostile and when you think about the words that you put down the the the particular stories you chose to tell I mean when's the last time you read this um probably a couple days ago because I'm still working on tweaking the Opera you know so I haven't let the book go I've developed the characters I've had to telescope characters I've had to create an arc because as you know house and manga street is based on an experimental uh novel writing based on the boom writers I wasn't looking to write a beginning middle end type of story I I wanted a book that you could open at any page and read just one or you could go from left to right A different kind of Storytelling and later on I found out books like that but when I was writing it I didn't know about them I thought I was inventing it but there are communities and writers like uh mod Martha by the wonderful gwendel and Brooks there an underlooked fabulous novel written in vignettes and uh you know uh other writers like lus kikus by the amazing Mexican writer Elena patowa another story cycle and other books that are written in story Cycles um but I was trying at the time to do something experimental and now with the Opera I've had to create a linear story and uh build to Climax and AD Dan numont and also flesh out characters telescope characters flesh out and I I'm learning more and more about the characters they're still talking to me after all that time and uh the new 40th anniversary edition of the book is out now I think it'll be for sale and there's new introductions but I think that um I'm still writing about the characters because they're still speaking to me is there a character that came to the four in a new way for you yes uh Lucy and Rachel uhhuh uh you know they have a small part in the novel but they have a more voice more fleshed out characters in The Opera because I realized they were migrant children I didn't realize that when I was writing the book now as an uh someone looking back I realized they spoke funny because they probably uh came to the Midwest with parents who were U migrants and then they ran out of money as many migrant people do and got stuck in the Midwest and so you have children that are from South Texas who speak a a unique border Spanish and a very unique way of speaking English uh so I got to understand them uh as I spent more time with them now all these years later okay with your permission I want to let everyone know we're going to save 15 minutes at the end of our conversation for your questions okay so we'll be able to get to that you feel good about this let's do it let's do it okay so there's three rounds folks in this game and there are a couple of things to remember you have two tools at your disposal you have a skip so if a question isn't resonating with you you can just say skip please and I'll replace it with another question from the deck and you have a flip the flip puts me on the spot you can ask me to answer the question before you you do not have to deploy either of these tools but they are there for you okay and when we get to the end there's a special treat I'm not going to tell you what it is food mhm it's not Rice Krispie treats just in case you're King I would like ricep I me I love a good Rice Krispie Treat okay three cards the thing with this game is that you get to pick one two or three I'd like you to ask every question okay can you put them near me yeah but you can't read them s I'm not reading okay oh you're feeling them oh I like it two what was a moment when you felt proud of yourself as a kid I wish I could say there were moments when I was uh feeling proud but I the only ones I remember was feeling ashamed you know I I don't I can't think of a proud moment there was lots of moments of Shame and that's always been something that's come to the four in my writing even my last book of poetry you know women without shame that something I worked towards I think if you're a a girl and if you're poor and if you live with six boys there's lots of moments of shame or you're made to be ashamed because of your economic level or you're made to feel as shame at school because people don't treat you like an equal um so I don't think of a proud moment I think I can I add you even if Beyond young childhood yeah I think um like when was the first time I I don't remember the first time but I think the proudest I always felt was when I made something CU I was an artist am an artist still so making something was uh medicine against the toxin of shame that I felt daily uh against my life it was all kept me alive um making art and writing and scribbling and saving that for myself because I wasn't a public writer for a long time I started writing around middle school and um maybe one story or two in seventh and eighth grade and then hiding my poems in high school and sophomore junior senior year they knew I was a writer so it was always something that um like many people art sustained me during difficult times do you remember the person who you first decided was worthy of your confidence in terms of sharing that art was it a friend a teacher I didn't really have a lot of close friends I had friends but they didn't know about my interior your life um I think that um I didn't really find other writers till I was in college undergraduate years uh I felt as if my friends that I had were my friends because uh the letters in the alphabet put us together you know how they see Med so I I felt quite alone like friends with Johnny Campbell yeah I had friends but I I didn't feel they really understood or knew me I I felt I had to um I felt alone until I found other writers and that didn't happen till my junior year yeah okay but that's good for a writer because you confide to everything to paper right okay we're moving on three new cards is how I do fortune cookies too M who was an adult besides your parents who had an influence on you for good or for ill oh you know there were people that came into my life I'm very lucky um that had big influence on helping me to um lose shame and to be more uh Courageous about speaking out and the first person who did that was um sixth grade fifth grade sixth grade when I changed schools and I had just gotten a new pair of glasses and they were little blue cat eyes I still wearing cat eyes uh from Sears oh and I remember we changed schools and the teacher uh took one of my drawings and took it off my desk and I just felt my heart just leap I thought she was going to do what they did at the other school which is you know make an example of you and make fun of you of what you're not supposed to do cuz that's how they did it the other school so my heart laed and I thought what have I done wrong she took my drawing and she push pinned it Center front of the room and said look what our new student has created this beautiful drawing and you mean that's good and I I no one had ever acknowledged art as being something positive in my last school and no one had ever seen me and of the fact that she was promoting and celebrating me uh made me think I had fooled her because of my little blue glasses and I thought oh she thinks I'm smart hi so I thought well I'm going to do something you know I'll try harder because she's she's obviously mistaken so I will try a little harder and I did something I never did at my other school and that's when I knew an answer I would raise my hand and gradually my grades moved up from D's and C's to uh C's and B's and by the time I graduated ated I was an A and B student and that teacher taught me something and that is that when you love your students your students know it MH and when you don't love them they know it too that's not something they can teach you at a university you either love your students or you don't and uh this teacher loved us and she nourished us with that love so of course I had to step up my game you I had to meet that love and I will never forget her but I for for gotten her name but I will never forget her the reason why I forgot her name is cuz I only knew her for a few months cuz I graduated to the next class I came midy year and but I know I see her and uh I've acknowledged her in the acknowledgements of my last book of poetry I call her Mrs so and so and Mrs so and so was kind and loving and when you're uh an insecure child you need big doses of Love yeah it's a reminder to all of us when we see children in our lives yeah that to just pay attention yeah she came at just the right time and we changed schools because of pipes just like esparanza that broke in our Brownstone and I thank God for those broken pipes I wouldn't be here today if we hadn't changed schools okay yeah that's okay in the interest of time because I want you to have time for your questions we're moving to the next round we are going deeper as we go three new cards 1 2 three I'm an intuitive I believe you how do you get in your own way um I think that one of the things that blocks every writer is fear fear and when I have my old self my 11-year-old self and uh instead of the 69y old woman to being asked to write for a journal or a magazine or an event that brings back my old trauma I get in the way and get blocked so one of the things I tell younger writers is you have to pretend what you have to say can't be published in your lifetime that no one's going to read it and you're going to speak it in the voice you use when you wear your pajamas because you're trusting that other person you don't think uhoh New York Times going to public this or uhoh I have to publish this in a journal no you just sit in your pajamas and you get back into the voice you would use talking to that one person who could see you in your pajamas and you imagine that you know what you have to say it's just so amazing and so dangerous or so brilliant you just can't get published in your life com you can be Emily Dickinson can say anything and that is uh you does that still Vex you from time to time all every time really yeah I'm still frightened every every time I pick up the pen and uh I just have to be in that state of saying okay I give myself permission there's a lot of people out there that's already censoring me especially in South Texas so I don't have to censor myself right yeah do a little that house on manga Street just got uh asked to be removed in South Texas in the Rio Grand Valley so I want to respond to them because I think when books are being asked to be removed it's because people are blocking um right intention with fear they too are working operating from fear not from their best self so I invite people who want to ban books to um invite the author and you know I know that my book isn't perfect my book uh went out to the world and and frightened someone and I want to know why yeah that's my child and if your child was asked to the principal's office and sent home you'd want to know why right so I think we need to to not just get upset on both sides H we need to do some deep listening because I censored that book already I wrote house knowing that some people do not have babysitter sitters or can't have babysitters and little brother's going to be in the audience so I already censored it it's already written in such a way as to not offend anyone so I want to know where did I miss and I have I keep asking that school board please invite me I'll come on my own dime yeah I really want to deeply listen and understand uh why you're asking 675 books to be removed what is in this book that frightens you have they responded to your inquiry well the school let out for summer vacation but I'm not forgetting and September you know okay okay three new cards one two three well I have not picked that direction so I'm just going to say that one this one what's something about yourself that you have reluctantly realized is true you have a skip I would have to write a poem to get the answer to that one so maybe we'll you know skip that's a lot of of no that's a good question because I think we learn things about ourselves every year as we get older don't we I'm trying to prepare for my graduation which is my death you know I'm going to graduate and uh I have in this period I I don't want to be afraid I want to go and you know not cling to life because I think death is kind of exciting you know I'm an intuitive and I know there's something because I've seen Spirits so I don't know what's there well whatever it is it can't be as hard as living you know so I think there are things worse than death and um we know those things we write about them but I want to be prepared to leave this world feeling like I earned my death I want to feel uh courageous I want to be a model for people letting go this life cuz I think we tend to force people to stay alive longer than their time I witnessed that with my father and I want to go and say woohoo isn't this interesting wow I had no idea I didn't think it was going to be like this so whatever it is that's out there whatever that that ether is I want Clarity and I need to practice that between now and whenever that moment is I'm sort [Applause] of forgive me I sort of lost the connection between the card said what is something you've reluctantly realized is true about your song well I guess and you went I guess thinking about because I'm learning so much this an exciting thing about getting older you know there's some horrible things yes the parts are wearing out the warranty's out but there's a wonderful there's a wonderful phrase in Spanish estas from these Heights you are at a height where you can review your life and you have gratitude for your mistakes yeah yeah yeah because like you know when they read my my Awards before it came out I I said H I wish they would read my failures because we learn more from our failures oh I got lots of cards on failures we got we got a long bio list for our failures but think about if you didn't have those failures you wouldn't be who you are now the success isn't the awards it's getting up from those failures and keep you keep going you keep learning turning you keep uh uh transmogrifying you know you keep transforming yourself so I think this is a A Magical Mystery period of my life that from these Heights I can look back and say oh look what she did there well was good lucky she did that you know that I can kind of gather it up and it helps launch me forward okay we're going to go and hopefully we have time for a couple of these this is our last round three new cards 1 2 3 one in the middle is there anything in your life that feels like praying writing poetry is praying if we all wrote poems every day we'd be better human beings you know if we all wrote about the things that strike our heart good or bad every day even just a button and by a button you don't have to think of a beginning middle or end just write one little pearl one little Pearl button of something that touched your heart good bad in different that's all you have to do you collect these and then you put them all together and it helps you to understand yourself and for me it has helped me I suffer from depression but I never have to take drugs I just write poetry I read poetry yeah I read poetry when I when the Poetry is not enough then I see a therapist you know but so far you know um I learned from my mistake that I don't have to get that depressed anymore I know what to do now you know from from my mistakes and you know I had periods in my life where I I I wasn't writing I wasn't connecting with people I was in a new environment I was um meeting my uh my specters the thing that made me most terrified and I was doing it all by myself and I wasn't strong enough enough to handle all that and I went slid into like a 9-month depression and became very suicidal and I think one of the things that we're ashamed about if we're come from poor communities is that um you know we don't think of going to a therapist you know we just kind of drink or take drugs or beat up people or get beaten up you know we beat ourselves up very self-destructive Behavior MH eat you know that's sometimes people overeat from um they can't handle pain that life is giving them but I never thought of going to see a therapist cuz I thought going to see a therapist was something wealthy people did white people did or people that were crazy and uh or all of the above and I didn't know that like if i' had a a a wound on my body that didn't heal for 9 months of course I would go to a doctor not be ashamed but I felt ashamed about going to seek uh a mental health specialist for my 9mon depression and so that's something I talk about if you've been depressed for over 9 months it's not shameful if you were in another Community you would go see a shaman or shamana a kuranda and you can still see them too but also go see a therapist and there are sliding scales so you don't have to worry that it's out of your reach sometimes you don't have to pay anything but it's very important important that you take care of your soul and sometimes writing poetry isn't enough there have been times in my life that is it isn't enough but poetry keeps me healthy it's my medication reading poetry and if you don't know who to read you can go to the library and get an anthology and read the writers that speak to your heart but it's so important that we write poetry that we read poetry it's um like a what do they call that when they do that investigative surgery and they tend a camera in your body what's that called laparoscopic surgery yeah but like it's that for your heart so you see how am I well let me see I have to write a poem see and uh that's a great thing about writing poetry you don't know what it's about you don't know what it's about when you begin you might begin writing about tulips and then it tells you about your mother I thought I was writing about tulips and that's what's so great about it it's a kite that you have to give it string you have to follow it you have to run and then it lifts off and when it picks your feet off off the ground that's that's it and but you have to compost the evil stuff that you're churning if it's evil you often it is and then when when it compost and a little white flower blooms you're done yeah that's a good place to end thank you um okay so with every episode of wild card we play this conversation game and then we end with a trip in our memory time machine and then I make a weird sound effect you know like a time machine and we take you to a place you get to choose one moment in your past that you would not change anything about oh thank you but you would just like to linger there a little longer can you take us there about it it's called Akumal it's a place in the yukatan uh away from Cancun that neck of the woods and I had a mystical experience when I was very young I've had a lot of mystical experiences but that was like a major uh I went uh there with my parents just before I started graduate school and my father and mother were very interested in getting water and we stopped at that time Akumal was there were no hotels no condos like now it was just some hammocks strung up between palm trees and some uh little sheds selling drinks and they left me alone and I lay down on a very shallow um uh body of water that was a little Inlet I don't like beaches and I don't like water and I I'm not a great swimmer so it has to be like that shallow for me to want to get in and it was the softest sand if you've been to um the Mayan Riviera you know it's the softest sand in the world and it was all rippled like the roof of your mouth so when you lay down on it it cushioned you at the right places and the water was warm and the palm branches were giving me a cleansing and the wind was just right and the ocean was lapping at my earlobes and suddenly everything shifted by itself and I was in a a state that we don't have a word for it was like I understood what the Buddha understood that I was connected to everything I could never die because I was also the wind and the trees and the water and the sand and the universe and everything was one textile it was all interwoven and I understood that and I knew that you know well I don't mind dying right now this is perfectly fine because I can't die and it was so wonderful I don't know how many seconds or years or minutes I was in that state of absolute Bliss and then my father said SRA and I had to get up and go back to the real world and get in the car and I thought what the hell what was that what I was too young to know what that was I still not old enough to know what that was and whatever it was it just was a little like um you know zoom we're going to give her a little laser beam and I thought that was so amazing it's happened to me again it happens with great state states of intense Beauty but I don't cause it it's not like meditating it just it only happened to me one other time besides that after that and uh I don't know what to call it except um maslo calls it Peak experience I don't know maslo I don't know what to but anyway GI it's a gift for me it was a message and a vision and I did not know I was an intuitive then and now I do so it's for me to share and to tell you that uh we're all interconnected like the Buddhists say we inter are and so there's no me and you or I or they and it's we're all part of that and I think we're witnessing that uh with the problems we're having with the environment uh with uh something like Co that makes us understand how much we are connected to one another anyway I I don't know what it was but there it is that was beautiful thank you so we do not have much time but we have I'm going to push this clock we got about 10 minutes so if there's anyone who has a question presumably there are people with microphones or there are standing microphones yeah I see I see you guys we'll go over here go ahead you have a question for Sandra hi hi Sandra um first of all I'm honored to be here I'm a huge fan and I may stutter because I'm fangirling right now but um I uh grew up just like you I have two daughters and my 11-year-old is actually very much like us and while your books have helped me heal as a parent I think I struggle sometimes where I try to speak love into them and it's hard for me as a mother not for myself as a mother so um I guess my question is just like what do you feel would have helped you feel seen and um loved as an 11-year-old what would have helped me feel safe and loved safe and loved uh well you know I had something that saved me and that was my father's unconditional love my father I'm very lucky a lot of my women friends do not did not could never have the luxurious relationship I had with my father he was greatly um he just was this super Baro lover and he loved all his children the boys too kissed them on the head you know hug them but he especially loved me and I think girls need that from their parents and I was very lucky that I got it from you know my mother was too busy she loved me too but in a different way but I just felt like my father gave me such a gift that helped me to get up from the disasters and uh I'm so glad I'm not dead because I can say now from this perspective muras uh how rare that is and how I would have you know when you're depressed you don't think about anyone else but yourself but how I would have uh hurt my father if I had committed suicide when I was 33 and how connected we are like in that web uh that we can't just think about ourselves when we're depressed because we are connected and it affects everybody we know and so I give gratitude CU my father's spirit is here now and uh I feel his presence every time I meditate and that's one of the great things he taught me that Love Never Dies we may change our physical form but Love's Eternal and uh if you're a sensitive being you will feel it too thank you for so love unconditional you love your children unconditionally I'm going to go over here and then I'll come back to you okay go ahead um I'm from Dallas Texas and I'm so sorry to say that book Banning and your book is being banned everywhere in Texas and unfortunately I don't think it's anything that's in the book but the color of your skin which makes me even sadder um I remember reading House on Mango Street when I was very young in middle school and it was lifechanging to me I'm from Arizona I was around a lot of white people and here was this voice that was a different and I um recently American dirt came out and there was this huge controversy about who's story and whose stories we should tell and who has the right to tell those stories and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that are there certain people who own those stories that should tell those stories or is it just great for us to hear those stories I think everyone who is on the same team should help one another and I felt that the author of American dirt was on my team and I never took back my blur because I also blur like 26 other books including other writers who write about the Border they're all people who are on my team and I support So if I take her blur back I have to take the others back too and I don't believe that but I think that the uh upro was more there was something deeper than just her telling the tale it was about inequities that people felt upset about but the blurb like me we don't know how much the writer is getting we we get a manuscript we don't see the contract we we get it way before anything goes out to the public so uh I felt that I had to stand by my blur but I also had to uh I was never public acknowledg that I had blured many other writers that year uh I felt it my obligation that year to do that to counter the official story that was coming out of the White House in that period during the Trump era so I made it my business to blur 27 28 books many of them about the border and I didn't discriminate one or the other I just felt everybody's on the same team this author can get to writers that maybe the Latino authors can't get and change their mind she's not preaching to the choir she might be preaching to someone who's very much like her and very unlike me and we're all uh advocating to tell the story of people whose stories aren't getting told that's how I saw it thank you for asking thank you for the question oh there was someone over here yeah hello um so I'm a fifth generation Mexican chicagoan my great great grandparents came here in 1924 um and my great-grandmother is 91 she's still with us she shares a lot of stories about growing up in Chicago back then in the 30s and the 40s and so I'm curious about your concept of changing Cho identity over the past few decades has things changed for mexican-americans specifically mexican-americans maybe from Chicago or the Midwest um yeah that have differed since when you first released your book to when you're now working on the Opera and other things well that's a big question because I'm not a sociologist or a literary theorist or a Critic so I don't know if I can talk about Chicago then and now I do know my family I could talk about my family but I can't talk about everybody I know that um my brother's children don't speak Spanish I know that my niece is half Mexican but it's ashamed being Mexican and that breaks my heart she doesn't know my books I don't think and uh I just feel in my own family I'm seeing this kind of uh disconnect with people's not knowing their culture their children not knowing their culture not visiting uh outside of the United States and um I think it's essential that we all travel all over the United States as human beings and that we go places that are people that are unlike ourselves I love the quote by Mark Twain he said travel is the uh antidote to bigotry and we need to travel because then we can understand other communities don't you yeah and sometimes that's traveling outside of our neighborhood are traveling outside of the region and traveling outside of our country but I'm I'm seeing that um my nieces and nephews even if I give them a free ticket uh they don't come to visit me and I wonder if they're afraid I don't know I don't know um not all of my nieces and nephews but but some of them I I try to give them tickets to travel so that they will um not be uh afraid of who they are and can learn who they are uh because they're not going to get it sometimes in the schools or they may get misinformation that will make them feel ashamed or afraid of themselves that's that's the story I can tell you I can't tell you beyond that so I'm so sorry but I'm getting the high sign that we need to wrap it up and you didn't get to me my website has a place for you to ask questions and I answer all my mail okay so don't feel bad that's a big deal I want to give you the last word I want to give you the last word because again we are marking this phenomenal book it has such a long Legacy it has touched So Many Lives I was moved just hearing these few anecdotes is there anything you want to leave us with I don't know uh why my book is still selling but I'm glad it is it's my oldest child every book I write I try to write a better book and uh I hope my next book is my best book and uh I just thank you for supporting House on Mango Street um I invite you to come and see the Opera I hope the Opera comes to uh DC one day and I just have so much gratitude for all of you for being here it's a lovely oh it was our honor right Sandra S thank you yeah let's do one of [Applause] these thank you Rachel thank you that was so good fun [Music] okay [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] n a [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] he [Music] [Music] w [Music] m he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n n n [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] me me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Applause] good afternoon and welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival my name is Amanda lobe and I am an archist in the manuscript division at the Library of Congress at this time we ask that you silence your phones um if you need to use the restroom during the presentation if you'll please exit through this door closest to the stage and if you're going to come back please ask one of our ushers for a green sticker we also have assisted listening devices for those who need them at to the uh left at the entrance please make sure that you exit through the door next to the stage we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to be filmed or otherwise recorded there will be time for audience questions near the end of this event look for the microphone stands down here and down there our program with Abby gimenez and Casey mcquiston will begin shortly thank you [Music] oh [Music] o h ooh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] w we going to do a little [Music] okay [Music] [Music] hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] hold it hold [Music] it what do you think about [Music] [Applause] [Music] everyone what a great big romantic crowd we have in this room welcome you're all sitting there ready to hear three talented people talk about romance novels but before we get into romcoms I want to make sure you all know about our film costume ball on September 12th that's the night we want you to dress up as your favorite movie character there's a lottery system to get into the event so please register for tickets soon at loc.gov then the night of September 19th we're commemorating Hispanic Heritage Month with with three leading Hispanic poets including former United States poet laurate Juan Filipe Herrera and lastly on September 26 we're producing a celebration of Nordic writers with novelists and short story writers from five Nordic Nations talking about their latest books these are all events in a series called live at the library which happens every Thursday night when we keep the library open the Thomas Jefferson Building open late and invite you in so you can get acquainted with the Library of Congress I'm honored now to introduce Abby Jimenez a number [Applause] one a number one New York Times best-selling romance author her novels have sold over 1.5 million copies and have been translated into 28 languages she has received a Good Morning America book club pick and a book of the month's book of the Year award before her writing career Jimenez was in the National Spotlight as a Cupcake Wars champion and founder of Nadia Cakes Bakery her latest novel is titled just for the summer and Casey mcquiston is also a number one New York Times best-selling author of romantic com iies including one last stop I kissed Sher wheeler and red white and royal blue this is so much fun which was adapted for f for film in 2023 their writing has appeared in the New York Times The Washington Post and Bone Appetit mist's latest novel is titled the pairing they're in conversation with Megan La the editor at large of cirkus reviews she is the executive producer and host of fully booked a weekly podcast featuring author interviews and reading recommendations and a past president of the national book critic circle now enjoy the festival and let's welcome them all to the stage [Applause] [Music] wowe give it up one more time for these incredible author all right we are on the modern dating we love it we hate it panel you're in the wrong room please stay you might have some fun all right we're going to be talking about everything we're going to be talking about happily ever Afters we're going to be talking about meat cutes speaking of how did you two meet oh my God we we did like an amazing race thing at the the Rouge Book Festival not on purpose though yeah um it was 2019 fall of 2019 and I think we were both baby debuts like we had just both debuted um and we were at the Baton rge Book Festival and we kind of um I think got accidentally forgotten by uh some of the the event staff um but thankfully I'm from Louisiana and I've been to many a field trip at the Louisiana state capital so I was like you want to get in this golf cart with me um and and uh we've just been friends ever since yeah she was supposed to come uh host me for my launch of the Happy Ever After playlist and then Co hit yes so this is like our doover this is our doover yeah we love a doover we love coming back together after a long time and we're going to make this one count so just as a form of an ice breaker for this one again modern dating we love it we hate it what do we love about it I love the social media aspects of it I put a lot of it into my books uh I know that can sort of date a book but I don't care because I think it's so relevant and that's the world that we're all living in right now um that's actually very difficult question CU I think anybody who's like anybody I speak to who's in the modern dating scene is like it is dire out here um but I do think that something amazing about modern dating is how many different kinds of people you can encounter through so many different ways now um I know especially queer people I know so many people who have met their partner um through longdistance online friendship um and like are now married um I think that's like the number one way that uh 20 to 30y old lesbians are finding each other these can't dispute so it's interesting that they put modern in there we're talking about contemporary we're talking about now there is a sentiment expressed in one of your books towards the end of the book and we're going to get deeply into the books in just a couple of minutes but there's a sentiment expressed by one of the lovers in the books and it's like the love stories of your lied to us or they sold us something that wasn't exactly true care to comment so as a married person who's been married for 20 years uh it for me the most enduring love stories are not the ones that are overly romantic or you know it's not it's not stars in your eyes it's not dancing under the moon it's real life it's taking care of each other when you're sick it's uh respecting each other and helping with the kids and and being good partners to each other and there was there's a little line I don't want to spoil it but in just for the summer Justin thinks about this and that's actually gone really really viral on the social media platforms that I love so much um because I think it resonates with a lot of people especially if you've been in a long-term relationship you know that that is truly what real romance is and and in the book Justin and Emma never really get what we as Romance Writers consider to be a traditional love story they don't you know their are always interrupted their dates are always uh tinged with you know real life dramas that are happening to them and um you know what they get is is is more realistic and really that's what's beautiful about it I think in the end I mean I think that so much of love is about those in between moments you know those those small embarrassments and miscommunications and and little things that you laugh out like laugh off with your partner um the the big Gest GES the big sweeping romantic score um in the movies I think kind of pales a comparison to the Casual intimacy of like you and your partner like bumping elbows when you're brushing your teeth and like knocking the toothbrush out of someone else's mouth you know um I think sometimes that's what love really is is a very unglamorous unsexy thing that becomes so romantic in its specificity and its intimacy I think what we both described as what I've come to think of as the extraordinary ordinary it's like you know when I think of classic romance I think you know he's a Duke he's a prince she's a you know Maiden you know people have proximity to fame or wealth or power you know but at the end of the day even you know the president or the president's son wants to love and be loved you know the extraordinary ordinary and when you can find that Bliss with somebody it doesn't matter that there are all of those things it all gets stripped way and it's just person to person so you mentioned Emma and Justin Abby um would you please tell us a little bit about a little bit more about the lovers at the center of your new book well I can give you sort of the elevator pitch for the please uh Justin and Emma have a curse everybody that they date goes on to find the love of their life after they break up and Justin does this uh Mi the a-hole Reddit post that goes viral where he mentions this and Emma reads it and Emma reaches out to him she's like hey the same thing happens to me and they come up with this sort of cockamamy idea uh that if they date each other in theory their curses will cancel each other's out so Emma who's a travel nurse goes to Minnesota to date Justin just for the summer and of course things don't go as planned it's a very it's a very realistic love story I know it's got sort of a a tropy premise but uh I think the book has got a lot of Rel things in it um it Dives deep into mental health and the way that relationships that we have as children shape us and um and make us who we are as adults it's also the third book in a Trilogy and I know you must get this question all of the time but please for the uninitiated is it possible to read this book by itself I mean you can but I don't think you should all my books are Standalone and if you want to get the most out of my books I recommend starting with Part of Your World then reading yours truly and then just to the summer because there's some connections in there and it'll take you for the the best ride if you if you read them in that order thank you okay Casey who are the lovers at the center of the pairing yeah um the lovers at the center of the pairing are um Theo and kit who are um two bisexual Exes who split up on the plane ride to their dream European F food and wine tour um four years ago and had to cancel the trip when their separate ways didn't see each other again but were both left with um a voucher good for 48 months to go take the trip cuz it was not refundable um and uh and so it's been four years and unbeknownst to each other neither of them have cashed in this voucher yet and so they book the same tour and don't realize until they get on the same tour bus uh that they're going to be trapped together for 3 weeks of basically a a beautiful sexy pressure cooker of the most delicious Sumptuous erotic uh sights and sounds and smells and flavors of Europe and then um they're going to see how that goes for them sure what could go wrong yeah and it's interesting because with Justin and Emma they both have this thing like the next person when somebody dates them the next person they go on to that'll be the one kit in the paing kind of has a thing to maybe to a lesser extent but what is it well I think that his thing is he accidentally makes people fall in love with him everywhere he goes why is that I mean I think there's something to be said um for somebody who just exudes the air of a romantic um he's he's such a hopeless romantic that it's just pouring out of him constantly and I think that can be very alluring and very intoxicating and someone you just are coming across um but I think I also describe it as like he was born with the face of like a fancy little God Prince and like this and this absolute Earnest interest in everything everyone is saying to him all the time and so you have this person looking into your eyes and being like tell me more about yourself and you're like should we get married right now and uh yeah it happens among the things he's Earnest about is he has been on the quest to make the perfect cinnamon roll yeah Abby care to comment yeah well as a baker I actually don't make cinnamon rolls but I do make a cinnamon roll cupcake that is very fantastic stick at Nadia cakes Shameless plug um no but what I what I can make is a very excellent cinnamon roll hero and uh that is my favorite kind of hero to write and that is the one that I'm going to keep writing for every single book and they only get sweeter as time goes on when you said cinnamon roll hero my first thought was like a hero sandwich I was like you can make a cinnamon roll that big yeah like a foot long but yes a cinnamon roll love hero now I understand it's a beautiful thing I love both ideas we are Foodies for each of you and whoever wants to go first have at it um what was your goal that you had in mind when you were writing this specific book what did you want to explore in this book I really wanted to explore like I said earlier uh the way I I find relationships fascinating and I find human nature fascinating and I find uh the way that I I love unpacking how people end up who they are it's one of my favorite things and then putting that uh in the scope of a relationship you know figuring out why Emma is the way she is and how this uh is a challenge for her in in relationships and I I just really wanted to unpack that and actually I started when I was writing this book I started knowing who I wanted Emma to be and I I use Mental Health beta readers for all of my books I use advisers for all of my books because I I want them to be ACC and I I don't want them to be harmful and the one of the very first things that I did before I even started writing was I sat down with my mental health beta reader Karen fled um who's a psychologist and I said this is who I need Emma to be tell me what would make her this way how would we get here how would this person be uh you know have this attachment issue that that she's come to have and you know we walked through it we spent hours going back and forth really walking through what kind of childhood would create this type of person for this book um and then also what kind of childhood would create Justin and how and who he ended up being and how do they end up complimenting each other and working for each other or not working for each other um so that's really where I I I started with and that's what I wanted to explore in just for the summer um and to be honest I didn't think that this book was going to be as relatable as it is I actually thought this is my least relatable book I actually said that to my editor because surely you know hardly anyone you know's got a mom like Amber that actually turned out not to be true apparently we all maybe maybe it's not our mom but you know we all have an Amber in our lives um you know and I also have an Amber in my life and I was I think a lot of people felt seen reading this book um you know saw themselves in the pages or saw themselves in Emma and you know maybe some of their decisions about how they handle that person felt validated to them and that also made me feel sane so yes this book did a lot of things I think for a lot of people including myself and for me too just one read on a stage thank you I think for me I I mean for the uninitiated um I am I I write queer romance specifically um and and that is what I do and I think that um queer books have this pressure that other books don't often face as much um which is uh it needs to be important you know like there a lot of expectations that your book will educate people on something or challenge something or push for progress in some way um which I think are all like really honorable intentions to have when writing a book but it is also a lot of pressure especially when romance I think some of the most Progressive and transgressive things about the genre is simply the room it allows for pleasure um you know historically you know for female pleasure I think more in in more modern era you know queer and trans pleasure and and pleasure for people who don't often see themselves represented in a a a pleasure genre you know um and and sometimes that is also quote unquote important to see um and so when I sat down to write the pairing I think um the biggest thing I wanted to do was I wanted to drill down into like what is romance and to me it is pleasure and it is saying yes to everything and so this book was sort of an exercise in abundance you know everything every detail I thought about including I was like put it in it's a sound it's a sight it's a smell um I I wanted it to be this sensory Feast for the reader I wanted to be so much of everything that it was um because I think that it was for me this like sort of response to the way that you know I I think there's these limitations placed on on so much queer literature especially um when it should be also about having fun and and in in Romance about you know embodiment and and and Discovery and connection and all of those things you know sometimes the message is just that we're doing it too you know yeah if I'm remembering correctly this book is dedicated for pleasure yeah the dedication just says for pleasure which I thought was a fun pun little Saucy and yours Abby is dedicated um to your readers correct yes when I started writing and this is sort of what the dedication says but I was writing as a hobby I never in a million years years thought that I would ever be a published author I thought you had to have Street creds to be a published author you had to be you had have a blog like a really popular blog or have gone to college or something um and I just was writing for fun I was you know writing as a hobby and I was writing for myself it was just a way for me to be creative and and to you know share stories with my daughters in the beginning and you know of course I got I ended up getting published and now so many people are reading my books and it's I say this all the time but it's so fun because it feels like when you're writing a book it feels like you're you're watching a really cool TV show that you love that you can't talk to anyone about cuz nobody else is seen it um and as soon as it comes out you know you have all these people that are watching the same show as you and you get to talk to them about it and it's just my readers have made this whole experience so rewarding and so fun like I genuinely love what I do and 95% of that is the reader interaction and 5% of it is the writing the joy comes through the pleasure the happiness these books are also really really funny and one of the ways that humor shines through is through dialogue so I want to ask both of you about how you write dialogue because I read a lot of books it doesn't always come off sometimes it comes off as like dialogue yeah but this sounds like a conversation I'm overhearing that I want to continue listening to so how do you think about writing dialogue I think it it's it's really tricky um because I think one of the big things is is chasing the rhythm of a natural conversation um when you're when two funny people in real life are having a conversation unless they're two really annoying people it shouldn't just be constant like that joke and then another joke and then we're trying to one up the last joke um and so allowing room for people to like enjoy each other's humor and and to like play off of each other rather than like trading these little barbs or these little banters I think real banter is about chemistry and about you know responding to each other in the moment and and and sometimes just having a moment to appreciate how funny that joke just was um I think that is a huge part of it um when I think it starts to not sound as natural as when you are you can tell the writer like look I'm funny I can do it again and I can do it again and and you know what I have been that writer and I will be again um and um and I but I think the the best the best band and the best dialogue scenes for humor always come when these characters are actually enjoying each other's brains yeah for me dialogue has always come really natural for me so the first book that I wrote was actually really terrible ya dystopian romance that we'll never ever see the light of day and um I put it on a site called critique Circle which is like my number one if you want to learn how to write even if you want to learn how to write good dialogue join critique Circle it's got so many forums so many resources for budding writers uh they'll teach you you know where to put the beats in in dialogue and you know structurally how to write good dialogue um and I had submitted this terrible ya romance on to critique Circle and of course the strangers of the internet who will always tell you the truth um did and they were like this is a terrible ya romance um however your dialogue was really fantastic so I decided to trunk that book and write a new one a contemporary romance so that I didn't have to do too much World building uh and I was going to lean really heavily on the dialogue that knew I was good at and I wrote The Happy Ever After playlist that was actually my first book that I ever wrote not the friend zone um which is why the friend zone certain things had to happen because it already happened cuz the happy rapor playlist was first so don't be mad at me okay if you've read the friend zone um so in terms of dialogue one of my best practices is I always read it out loud it sounds one way in your brain but if you read it out loud you'll feel the sort of bumpy delivery of the lines you'll feel if the pacing is off sometimes pacing can be fixed just by changing um you know when you put pauses or breaks or you even things like I set and reading it out loud really helps me with that so one of my processes when I'm near the end of the first draft of my book is I call my sister-in-law and she puts me on mute she puts herself on mute not me and I read the book to her for the next eight hours over the phone and she gets to hear the book early and I get to hear if there's any clunky dialogue um and you know to to what Casey said you know you you also have to think about who these characters are and how that character would speak what crutch words they would use when they're talking because your characters are all different people even Side characters um you know what crutch words would they use what Cadence would they use um you know do they speak with an accent and how does that translate into the lines that you're writing but honestly just reading it out loud helps so much yeah I highly recommend reading it out loud too although I don't have anyone in my life who would me read for 6 hours so I'll work on that oh I bet you we could have some volunteers here in this audience there a lot for anybody in the audience who writes romance there's a lot of good information to glean here so maybe I will ask for a writing tip next and let's turn from humor to steam I'm going to take this opportunity to pause now and remind you that at the end of our session there will be time for you to come up and ask a question of these lovely authors if you should so choose there are microphones on both sides of the auditorium so be thinking about anything that might lead from today's conversation that goes on answered by the time we open it up for questions also I'd like to remind you that a question ends in a question [Laughter] mark very much so back to steam back to steam what advice would you give to a fellow romance writer on writing sex scenes for me it's not so much about the physical aspect aspects but about the emotional aspects uh between those characters so you know in my books typically I know part of your world was a bit of a break from my Norm but um you know typically we don't have those scenes with my characters until we are so invested emotionally into both of them and how that plays out um you know with Part of Your World it opens up with a one night stand but we don't actually see that one night stand on the page because again we're not invested yet in seeing that interaction between the two characters so for me when I'm building up steam I'm building it up through intimacy um you know the characters they they they're in love by the time that's happening with them for me that's what I love when when I'm writing my characters I mean I think that it is first of all I love that we're talking about this at uh at a Library of Congress event this makes me very happy thank for having us Library of Congress um but no I mean I think um sometimes the sexiest thing about a moment or a scene is not necessarily what's literally happening but um those those things that are sexy are seeing someone in that place in that zone for the first time like seeing that character Through The Eyes of the person who's learning like what kind of sounds they make what their breath sounds like like what how like where the the freckles that you've never seen before those little moments um I think what we were talking about like the the extraordinary ordinary um I think sometimes um it's tempting to just get bogged down in the The Blocking of it all and then it just sounds like you're describing a game of Twister from memory um and and and like left foot red and it's it's not exactly um and and so I think that sometimes what's more important is exactly what you're saying like focusing on what these characters are feeling what they're discovering about each other through this moment of intimacy what they're discovering about their own feelings where it's like I didn't know when I touched them in this way that like it would ignite this feeling in my body and and I think that's what a true intimate moment uh can be about um and so I don't know I think that we get a little nervous around Steam and around um you know whether that is a detraction from like the literary merit of a book um but I actually think that a good strong intimacy scene is one of the hardest things to write because there's not only the moving parts of it all but the the the tension and then the building of the tension and and the the resistance and then the magnets pulling and pushing I think is such a difficult craft to master and the best romance novels I think are written by some of like the greatest Geniuses of of character tension and and using language to build almost like a a physical reaction in the reader I think that's like Alchemy that's magic yeah magic yeah speaking of literary merit I could couldn't help but notice that we're on the main stage of the national Book Festival furthermore furthermore we are one of three genre fiction panels on the main stage of the national Book Festival no other category is getting more airtime on the main stage of the national Book Festival this year does that so feel so very right to you it feels very right to me Casey does it feel right to you yes I mean I think I think our we always say in this industry like the the Open Secret the best kept Open Secret in this industry is that romance keeps the lights on and it's it's wonderful to see it celebrated I really like that it's the phrase I'm going to carry with me I also you you know that I'm a fan of kind of the onliners that accompany your books with the pairing it was H some things taste better together right it's a triple on Tandra Abby do you do lines I have a lot of really great lines in my books um it do people get your lines tattooed on them yes they do they do that blows my mind I'm like oh my gosh I I hope I never do anything to disappoint you because that's going to be there forever um no there's I always try in my books um to have you know at least one very quotable line and I never go into it knowing what that Line's going to be it just sort of speaks to me as I'm writing um you know part of your world that line was Grace costs you nothing uh and yours truly be harmless to each other that's like an ongoing theme in the book and um you know I just I I just love that though when when readers just hang on to that and they you know print it out or put it on a shirt to come see me on book tour or they tattoo it on themselves just it's incredible to know that you've made that impact on somebody or that you've spoken something into the literary world that people don't ever want to forget that's amazing feeling I was just going to say it just reminds me of like when I was a teenager I was like obsessed with taking one line from a poem or a book or a song and like writing it on my shoes or something you know like how like teenagers do stuff like that because you think it makes you look very cool um but it's like this it was this Gateway of like these little nuggets of of creative turn of phrase that get stuck in your mind and become this Gateway of like I want to learn how to command language like this um I think that is such a delicious little entryway into becoming your own kind of writer what was your delicious little entryway into romance both of you as readers I'm assuming do you remember your first romance or so I grew up going to libraries um and I became a reader very early on being a reader is what made me a writer and I remember the very first time I was introduced to romance uh I it was in history class in high school and the girl in front of me used to read bod rippers like the mass Market with FAO on the cover for her I know I I wish I knew her name I want to find my old yearbook and find her and be like thank you um but you know I would I would lean you know look over her shoulder and these books always had these absolutely stunning covers I mean that was just they were gorgeous and they made me interested in what was in them so she would hand them back to me I would take them home I'd read them and we would you know she would bring a different book to school almost every other day and I would read those books that was my 4 into romance and I loved it uh and I just found myself chasing romance even when I was reading outside of the genre I just always loved the romance within any you know genre that I was reading um and even in movies you know I just love the romance and you know for a long time uh you know I had kids I started NAIA kicks out of my house I was very busy for a very long time and sort of lost um you know my reading journey I I didn't have time and when I did get back into it romance was the number one thing that I reached for I was reading Outlander series um oh I loved and I know this isn't you know a romance but I I loved the um uh gosh I just lost it uh the mocking J oh Hunger Games Hunger Games I love that tension you know when it's like will she won't she which guy um you know I just got really were you team Peter or team Gil oh Peta okay Peta sorry I just needed to know that um no I just love the romance in any book that I reach for and I came to a point where you know I kept chasing um a certain kind of romance read that I wanted to read and it made me want to write it and that's that's what actually got me to sit down and start writing my first book was you know wanting to write the kind of romances I wanted to read it's so funny I've never heard you talk about your Origins trying to write young adult fantasy first before finding your way to like your True Fit um because I had a very similar Journey where I was also um struggling with extremely bad unfinished ya fantasy manuscripts cuz that was what I had read primarily um and I was like well that's that's what I write that's what people write you know um and it turns out World building's really hard um and the thing about contemporary romance is the world is the world we live in and so so much easier and uh and the World building you do is more like okay so like what does the inside of her cupcake shop look like you know um not not that makes it sound much easier than it is um some of the historical Romance Writers I read are um more versed than the leading historians in the world on like historical fashion exactly how many multiples of eyelets a coret should have um I mean the these are the real juggernauts of of History they do the work but uh but to answer the question um I have a sister who's 8 years older than me who's a voracious reader and um I when I was like 11 and she was 19 I remember her having um you know the sup the ppy like Supermarket like Mass Market paperback where it's like slided into your pocket size um and I remember stealing Full Tilt by jennet deanovich from her shelf um and like squirreling it away in my room um like behind like I remember literally like making a little like cubby behind my desk so it was like a summer afternoon I could read the whole thing without anyone knowing um and get it back to her shelf before she got home from work that day um and that was my first romance and it was just like eyes bugging out of my head like this is allow like this is a genre um like like I thought that like I had to I thought that I had to exactly what you're saying um find the love stories inside a bigger story and I didn't know the love story could be the story um and uh so that was like my my first one and then I think um you know I got older and I a member of like the Twilight generation and so so like you know the Hunger Games generation the the generation of of of young readers who really like cut their teeth on like these huge ya fantasy or like ya dystopia or ya sci-fi um books and and and thought that was the path and then um I think it was uh the Royal Wii um by um I always I'm going to get their names right hey Heather Cox and Jessica Morgan is that right did I get their names okay thank you yes I always mix up their last names um but uh they I read the Royal Wii um and it was my first contemporary romance I had read in a long time and I was like God I forgot how much I love this genre um this feels like home and uh it just like everything fell into place and I I had an idea um I had the idea for red white and royal blue like probably six months later and I I just it just felt so natural it just like flowed um and and I think think that is that is like how I knew it was where I was supposed to be and everybody always says that they want to read that like you talking about it they're probably like oh my gosh I would just love to read that ya book that you start no you wouldn't you wouldn't like it trust me it was mine I can't speak for Casey but mine was bad you don't you never want bad mine incomprehensible and you know I think it makes a good point too is that I think sometimes there's a perception that you just you know got published on your first book and just you know hit the ground running and that's very very rarely true there's very often many books that preceded the book that you finally got published with and in my case it was three very terrible ya dystopian romance novels um that no one will ever see um you know you and it's all practice that's the thing is that there is no wasted writing even if nobody ever sees it that's practice because I'm sure your ya book helped you become the writer that you are now oh completely um I think all the time about this quote I think it's from the author Aon Bo I want to say but um she was talking about how um like it's relating bad writing to like uh like the active yeast in a kitchen and like a where you're making sourdough bread and how like the bakers will use those yeast to like mop the floors and and it's all just in the air even the worst loaf is not wasted because it's enriching the Dos that come out of the oven every time um and I think that that's what writing is like you know um every there's no word wasted because every word teaches you something you didn't know before AB you care to comment on yeast you know I thought that was a very good analogy and also tied really well in with the pairing oh yes okay yeast in the sense of bread okay got it okay back to these two excellent books is there a song you if the couples in these books if the lovers in these books had a song you'd associate with them what would it be the next time I fall on Love by Peter Gabriel I actually I think I actually slipped that into the book um when I'm writing I always have a a playlist and no one will ever see it's just for me and it's just songs that make me think about the characters or fit with the theme in the book and you know of course if you read that book you understand why that song would would work um you know but yeah there's always a playlist for me a secret hidden playlist for every novel M for me um it's actually like mentioned in the book as like it was their go-to karaoke song when they were together um which is Can't Stop Loving You by Phil Collins um and I think it it definitely becomes uh a bit prophetic for them yeah I was at Starbucks this morning thinking obsessively about your books and on comes I'm Every Woman by Shaka Khan oo got me really psyched for this event really amped yeah yeah it really can augment the experience um I have kind of a random romance question is the grand gesture on its way out oh I don't think so I feel like the grand gesture is having like a retooling cuz I feel like um when I was coming up um like as a a teenager the grand gesture was like Ryan goling in the notebook being like I'm going to drop myself off this Ferris wheel and die if you don't go on a date with me and I think we're got we've gotten to the point where we're like M that's not great like that's a it's a bit manipulative and like not not not cute um like you shouldn't literally threaten to die um so I but I think we are I think that we're reassessing what a grand gesture can mean sometimes a grand gesture um a friend of mine proposed to his wife um in Spain and arrange like literally like learn some Spanish so that he could arrange for a photographer to be there when he proposed to her and to me the gesture of that is the planning and the effort and like the way he was like she's going to want photos of this um and I'm going to learn like 17 words of Spanish to make that happen um that's a gesture I think that we are learning like a a real grand gesture is about actually knowing someone and knowing exactly what would be so so meaningful to them yeah I have to agree with that I think the grand gestures of you were a little bit toxic um I think as a society we're moving we are very than Ely moving beyond that um but you know I I I just can't see you know books not having some sort of grand gesture but having them to your point be very thoughtful and mindful um you know and something that isn't things that we wouldn't want someone to actually do to us in real life um because a lot of those 1990s romcoms that we love so much I think you'd be sort of horrified if somebody actually did some of that stuff to you in real life like please don't do that um no but I love my grand gestures I love them mhm I love them too but I think if we were to do a family feud of the most horrifying ones it'd be like ding Jumbotron yes oh my God uh in The Wedding Singer which I loved as a teenager um when he like literally disrupts her entire flight to like sing her a song on acoustic guitar that goes on for like two full minutes in front of the whole plane I would jump out I know isn't it so fun I watch a lot of those book or a lot of those movies back movies that I loved when I was younger and I'm like oh but that's not no um yeah I fully agree some of them are kind of horrifying in about four minutes or 3 minutes 43 seconds excuse my math we are going to open it up for audience questions so you can start to approach the microphone if you got a really hot one but I've got another one for you both um in each of your books respectively we get chapters from the perspectives of each lover cas in your book we get half of the book from Theo's perspective and then we shift to kits and Abby in your book every other chapter we switch off between Emma and Justin how did you arrive at this perspective sharing way of telling their respective love stories it just felt very natural to me to do dual povs because I want to see what they're each thinking and as a reader when I read Ro or any book really I love to know I like I like to have that little insight or info as a reader to know what is in that character's head um it's almost like being in on a you know if we're in one character's POV and they're thinking one thing you know we know because we've read the other characters POV what they're actually thinking um I just I love that and I feel like it builds so much more intimacy for the reader with the characters to understand their thought processes and who they are as people um you know why they're behaving the way that they are I don't think I would ever write a book without it um I really admire writers like you who can um do a dual POV alternating and still manage to keep that like propulsive forward motion of tension between the two characters even though the reader can see The miscommunications Happening um for me I really struggled when I decided I wanted to do dual POV I knew I wanted to I mean a second chance romance you kind of got to hear both sides like every breakup people the two parties are going to have a different idea of exactly how and why and who won the breakup or um how over the other person is you know kind of it's I needed both sides um but I was really struggling with how to build that tension because in my books I feel like a lot of um my like conflict inion comes from um one character feeling so much but not knowing how to initiate that uh that contact because they don't know how the other person feels and the reader doesn't really know how the other person feels and that there's that moment of release the first time you see that character acknowledge the attraction on page um so I was really struggling with how to do this dual po alternating and then I was um actually um my Brazilian publisher sent me on tour in Brazil with um another of their authors El lockart who wrote we were liars and we were literally like on the Gondola in Rio and I was just like venting to her about this creative issue I was having and she was like oh we'll just do the first half from one POV and the F and the second half another and I was like it was another one of those moments where like that's allowed like you can do that um and I and I it was so fun to do it that that way because to me I felt like I was able to structure each half almost like its own like 50,000 word noela with the beginning of middle and an end in a sort of abbreviated traditional threea structure to give each character their own little Arc that was happening over the course of their perspective um and and that was really delicious because both of them had separate lessons they needed to learn from their breakup and their reconciliation and and and how they've grown since um and and so it was a really interesting craft puzzle for me that was incredibly rewarding to do and now I'm like I don't know how to go back yeah we are at 15 minutes and the lines are deep so I am going to open it up to questions but thank you so much for your generosity with me in thank [Applause] you now we shall open it up for questions starting on this side of the room I am so sorry I'm probably gonna have a shaky voice because I'm very nervous um what a privilege to be standing in front of both of you Abby you were my favorite author so I'm this is I'm going to try not to cry I'm going to be quick um I thought it was interesting that you said that um be harmless to one another was the most memorable line and yours truly cuz love shows up has actually been the most for me and everybody in my life that loves your books so much so it was in My Best Friend's Wedding bows um literally we love you you so much and so my question is is love shows up some a principle that you follow in your life or was this just true to ban and Jacob I can tell you that almost every well every single one of my books has real aspects of my life reflected into it whether it's um you know the way that I feel about relationships because of the wonderful marriage that I get to be in um I can tell you that in my marriage my husband definitely shows up for me um you know that for me is it's a love language love showing up um yeah I every single one of my books reflects my real life and my real My Real views on what love should look like thank you so much what's your name my name's also Briana actually thank you for your question Bri thank you hi I'm Stephanie um I actually lived at kenoga Park California when I was a teenager I had no idea I live so close to Pulp Fiction film site so thank you um I'm also a nurse and I noticed certain phrases in your books like sedation vacation and other things made really obvious to me that either there's someone in your life who is a nurse or you took the time to get beta readers who are in the medical medical field what is it uh it's that one um well I do know quite a few nurses now um one thing that I really learned especially off of the friend zone so the friend zone was the only book that that I did not have advisers on I didn't have sensitivity readers on I didn't know what I didn't know at the time uh and every book since then I made it a point to get sensitivity readers get beta readers because I don't ever want anyone thrown out of one of my stories for something that's very easily researched um or to cause harm by depicting something inaccurately or inauthentically so I you know for every single book for example you know just for the summary I know I mentioned that I had um you know a a mental health beta reader which I use on every book I also had doctors that I interviewed you can always check the acknowledgements to see the due diligence that I do in my books but I have a lot of nurses that I have read my books and actually a Funny Story one of the nurses I said if you were a travel nurse what department would you absolutely hate to end up in Med Surge and she was like Med Surge and I was like just to be thorough I'm going to make sure that I ask more than one nurse and they all said Med surge um so Med surge it was um but no I I do a lot of due diligence to make sure that things are accurate because I don't ever want anyone like a nurse reading my book to be like that's not how it is I don't want to do the gry's anatomy version of it you know where I know it drives all of you Bonkers because gry's Anatomy isn't accurate to you know the medical world doesn't have to be like that we could do a good job um so yes I I I've got a lot of a lot of advisers thank you thank you hi I'm Hannah um I have a question for Casey I grew up in Oklahoma I grew up in a community kind of like sh wheeler and Chloe Green and all them uh and I think it's very interesting across all your books but especially um I kiss sh wheeler and red white and royal blue in conversation to look at them through a lens of religion um because they have very different perspectives on it like there's some kind of just like throw away like Catholic moment things in red white and royal blue but there's also like very extremely deep spiritual moments like the VNA and like the entire Texas lake house experience I was wondering if you've thought about those books in conversation with each other in terms of religion yeah totally um I think the way that to me like coming from my own personal experience like I was raised Catholic but I went to Southern Baptist school for most of my like adolescence um and it was like Ironically in that environment is you start to feel like wow Catholics are so laidback you know I don't think it's ever been said about Catholics before but I'm like yeah it's like they're like the fun Uncle you know um and so I think I always like related a lot more deeply to Catholicism because I saw it is so much more permissive um which again is very funny um but uh so so to me like I really have always related to like the spirituality of like ritual and like aesthetic Beauty like so much of Catholicism I think is concerned with like um stained glass windows en chanting and I'm like sign me up baby um and uh and then like so much of the environments that I felt were stifling to me were this sort of like kind of repackaged as less um repressive but were ideologically much more restrictive um you know like the like no dancing no drinking no Halloween kind of stuff I was like whoa this is a lot um and and and so I don't know I I think in red white and royal blue Alex being C is very much a function of him like being from Texas and having like half of his family being Mexican and all of those things but they're also kind of reflection of um a more romanticized spirituality where I think Shara um as a book is more concerned with um the the darker sides of of certain kinds of Christianity but I think that both are about um allowing allow both both of them I think allow everything to be true where it's like um I think in Shara as much as there is harm and like spiritual abuse that happens in environments like that at the same time um you can't dismiss it all out of hand because um we're all on this kind of spiritual journey together and for some of us we find meaning in different things and we find Hope and we find purpose in in spirituality and I and I I always wanted that book to feel like empathetic to that as well um but yeah I think the conversation there is mostly um I was going to CCD on the a in the afternoons and and uh Bible class in the mornings and then Bible class they were like oh you're definitely going to hell for going to CCD um which is like so funny like it's like I wait they told me the other way like last night I'm confused um yeah so that's why um Alex has a better relationship with Catholicism than Chloe does with fundamentalist Christianity thank you yeah hi uh my question is for Abby um so one of the we've talked a lot about romance but one of the things that I love about your books is actually the female friendships so if you can highlight um kind of what why you always portray these beautiful friendships in all of your books but also the role that they play in real life real mates I think female friendships actually any of the friendships in the book is so important um not only do they play a role in the book to lampshade certain things so the The Writer's term okay lamp shading means a character or the author inserts something into the book to let you know that they are aware of this thing that you as the reader are getting irritated about or worried about okay um an example of that would be Maddie being like girl I'll be so freaking for real that guy's amazing what is your problem um that was Maddie's role in just for the summer was to lampshade some of these things um um you know that you as the reader or thinking so she plays that role um but also I just love that Dynamic and I actually told my editor when I was writing just for the summer I feel like this book is not just a love story between Justin and Emma but it's also a love story between Maddie and Emma you know these are two people that have this soulmate Bond it's it's a platonic Bond it's a friendship Bond but they are soulmates um you know Maddie's going to be with Emma for the rest of her life and you know I think that that was just so important to depict and it helps too when the guys have friends as well you know um in the books you know obviously the female I know right it's good when they've got buddies um no but I mean just so that somebody's telling them they're being an idiot you know what I mean like you need that role um you know I I I love writing those friendships and I will always do that in my books and I think that probably started with the Happy Ever After playlist um you know they say that your first book is sort of always from your POV right because you don't know how to write strangers yet you know you're not an experienced author so when I wrote the Happy Ever After playlist I very much modeled Kristen the best friend in that book on my own best friend Lindsay and Lindsay's Love Story her struggle in her relationship was really based around infertility um which is why the friend zone which was Kristen's story was based off of my best friend zone infertility struggle from start to finish um I modeled Kristen's infertility Journey literally word for word after what happened to my own best friend um so that's why you felt such a strong female friendship between those two books is because really I was writing myself into Sloan and I was writing my best friend into Kristen and I just loved how that felt so much that I just continued to do that in every single book that I could um and I continue to do it in my next book as well the one that comes out next year in April thank you thank you for your question hi guys um I recently finished writing my debut novel contemporary romance and I started pitching agents um I did it um originally started pitching at a conference and I got over 15 requests including two full manuscripts which is all very exciting but I want some of the big guys I me think these agents are amazing but Abby I just pitched years and I didn't use a dick joke like I heard you did when you pitched your agent so my question to you guys is like how do you get your agent I know Casey's yours is closed for FES right now so we put that one on hold so yeah I would love to like I mean the ones I already got our customer amazing and I'm so grateful but it seems like the three there's three agents who rep like most romance authors so what's like the secret to getting that well I can tell you that critique circle is a again a fantastic resource critique Circle will have forums answering how to write a great query letter it'll have so many different resources on how to do that um and that's the source that I used when I wrote my query letter um I can tell you that you want to look for somebody not only who reps what you write but also somebody somebody that you like because you're going to spend a very very long time with your agent um you know check out their social media make sure you like their sense of humor because you don't want to fake laugh for the next 10 years um and Stacy was actually a boutique agent um you know she wasn't at a big literary agency and that wasn't really important to me I wanted to find somebody that I could have a good time with somebody that uh was passionate about the books that I was writing so that's what I sought out not really like a big you know top tier who's you know Stacy was very new when um I met her she'd only been agent agenting for 2 years and was at a very small boutique agency in Minnesota um but yeah I would just say you know make your query letter as voicy as possible so it reflects you as a writer and you know maybe the characters and the story that you're selling um be yourself tailor it to the person that you're sending it to don't send a form you know just picture how you would want someone to send you something you know do you want to feel like you're being solicited and it's spammy and it's like you're sending something you know that you're sending everyone or do you want to feel personalized and them really get a feeling of who you are and Yes mine had a a a d joke in it I don't know what I can say here at the Library of Congress um uh it did but you know it it's it reflected my voice it was funny it was conversational and that's what she picked up on not necessarily the joke itself but the fact that you know you could kind of get through in my query letter what kind of writer I was and what kind of person I was through the voice in my query letter if I could just add real quick sometimes it's it's good to not be with someone who's like got an absolutely jam-packed list of like bestseller after bestseller bestseller because that means they're incredibly busy and they might if you are somebody who wants a more editorial type of agent somebody who's going to respond really fast and read really fast those people might not be the best fit for you um I would sometimes encourage people to like look at look up the agents for people whose writing you really admire because that's how you know you're going to really Vibe with the agent sometimes you're like I feel like the end product is very tempting to go for the people who are you know repping the most best sellers or the ones who are getting the biggest deals but um when you're building a creative relationship like that like like Abby was saying I think you also want to make sure it's somebody who's like creative instincts and tastes like really inspire you and you think you can grow with them um I that's just my two cents sometimes um sometimes it's better to be a little quieter um and and your stable um and and to know that you can have a bit more of your agent time and attention I agree with that thank you so much I appreciate that if I could just add one I'm sorry we really got to keep it rolling speaking of jam-packed we have a couple of minutes left and that is it do you want to do two more questions or do you want to do a lightning round I'm not in charge okay I I always get hung up on Lightning rounds so let's do another question okay two more questions and it's got to be fast sorry guys oh but everybody you should know you can go and have your book signed later please buy the books wait in the line sign them you might have your moment then your question please uh I'm Laura this question is inspired by Casey but for both of you how do you keep the research process from overwhelming or stopping the writing process I loved how speedily you delivered that we appreciate Youk you um okay now we got to speedily wrap up the Applause okay um uh okay that's a great question I get overwhelmed by research a lot um but I think that but uh the most important thing about it is to think about what's actually going to be interesting to the reader just because you researched it and you know it and and like it feels like a waste of time to cut it out of the book um your reader really is here to read these two characters like Smash and and like and and like quite frankly like they don't need to know that you know a historically accurate hairstyle all the time um and it's really wonderful that you do but they don't need to know that all the time um I think if it's actually enriching the experience of reading the book and it's and like for me with the pairing it was a lot about what was enhancing the environment and and immersing the reader in like this place and and the the way that Theo and kit were experiencing the place then I put it in um but yeah you can really get like down the rabbit hole and in the weeds and you have to kind of reel it back sometimes and think like if I'm a reader do I need to know this yeah Li of Congress we stealing an extra minute one more question sorry it's okay I'll be quick as well U my question is for Casey um when you were doing your travel research trip for the pairing what did you feel like was the most influential experience you've had in your writing of the book o definitely um when I was in Florence uh and I went to the AIT gallery and I saw the birth of Venus that's like what my my like tattoo I got for the pairing is the birth of Venus um I just feel like the Aesthetics of it the the gender of it the like the like beautiful sensuality of it was so like the embodiment of what the book was and um and and that book really is about embodiment um but yeah I would say Birth of Venus done final answer I would say just for the summer I would say the pairing and I would say thank you once more to these amazing [Applause] [Music] authors we did did you see [Music] n [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] n n n n n n [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah yeah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me that me [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] oooo [Music] oh oh wo [Music] o o [Music] [Applause] [Music] W woo [Music] [Music] going to do a little song [Music] [Music] hold it on hold it on [Music] hold it hold [Music] it okay [Music] what do you think about [Music] hold it [Music] [Applause] hold hold it hold it [Music] [Applause] oh okay [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n good afternoon and welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival my name is Amanda lob I am an archist in the manuscript division at the Library of Congress at at this time we ask that you silence your phones please if you need to exit the room please exit through this door next to the stage if you need to leave the room during the presentation to use the restroom get a green sticker from one of our ushers that'll let us know to let you back in we also have assisted listening devices for those who need them they are outside of the entrance door to your left we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to be filmed or otherwise recorded uh there will be time for audience questions near the end of the event you can come to either of the microphones on this side of the stage or on that side of the stage I'm now pleased to announce that we are joined by tamrind Hall a two-time Emmy award-winning television host and executive producer of the syndicated talk show tamrind Hall as well as a best-selling author a self-taught cook and a mother born and raised in Texas Hall had her Co AR Senses ignited at an early age by her grandfather leis Mitchell a barbecue pitm and the bond they developed around food off air hall enjoys cooking at home with friends and family gathered around the table Hall's new book is titled A confident cook recipes for joyous no pressure fun in the kitchen the co-author Lish styling is a chef food stylist recipe writer and James Beard award and Emmy Award awardwinning culinary producer she has worked for and contributed to the Today Show Food Network the New York Times the Tamron Hall Show Vanity Fair gadzi and the kitchen among others leading today's conversation is the 14th librarian of Congress Dr Carla Hayden please enjoy the festival and welcome our friends to the stage oh my gosh wow it's hard to see and I'm the librarian the spicy one all right well this is truly wonderful because I want to say and I've been waiting for a little while to say this let's dish let's dish because we can't thank you enough for tamaron and we've already said that L should be delish all right but okay tamaron I'm going to start with you you've had a very successful career as a journalist a news anchor talk show host but I don't know if a lot of people know about your mystery series cuz I'm a mystery fan all right tell us just a minute about that yeah you know um for many years I hosted a show called deadline crime uh for six seasons in fact and after I decided to end that show we all found ourselves in our home uh locked in and once we realized that the world was not going to end I looked at my husband and said if you don't open these Amazon boxes I don't know what I'm going to do and he said you need a way to work off some of this energy because we were all of course so anxious so I started writing this crime series this character Jordan Manning inspired by my 30 years of being a reporter uh and my obsession from Nancy Drew series that was under my bed as a kid growing up in Texas that my dad kept saying well you dust those books off already but I could never let them go so Jordan Manning is a character inspired by my years as a reporter as a crime reporter she's tenacious it's a little bit of Sex in the City meets I'm old enough to remember a show called police lady with Angie Dickinson I'm not come on I can't be no you you know when you just got owned by the chief librarian life is going to be sof right now Googling Google Angie Dickinson kids uh but it's a she's a scrappy journalist and and now we're in our second book the first was watch where they high as the wied watch and we have watch for the hide which I'm so proud of and then this led me to just really expressing my life beyond the TV show and finding books uh as this beautiful outlet and then and then enters a friend that has a people ask me how did we end up with this cookbook um I'll give you the abbreviated story of it but it it much started after um the death of my father in 2008 I just uh really started to to find my way on the national TV stage and the greatest figure in my life other than my mom my father passed away my dad had a great Love of Cooking you know he was the type of guy he was in the military for 30 years and he would never eat dinner he' just stand there and watch us and I'd say Dad why aren't you eating he said I just love cooking for you guys I love the joy of seeing you all eat my dad could bake he could Grill he could do anything he was like just an incredible cook and when my father passed away I said to Lish once it's like the character in the movie where you go to commercial break and that character is not there this Central character was no longer with us and I knew I was going to Miss many many things but his cooking and the last conversation we had was about this sweet potato pie and I was you know in New York working and I couldn't get the sweet potato pie right for Thanksgiving it was just a mess and it was a disaster and it didn't taste like my dad's and I was so frustrated and then my dad passed away and I was looking for a way to express my love and and to show him that he taught me so many things and I thought wow he would be stunned if I learn to cook he might walk down Heaven stairs and say he might be coming right now he might be coming right now say that's you in the kitchen because when people would say to me I love to cook or it was relaxing I'm like I know you're lying there's no way this because it was a chore you know so many ways so I'm working at The Today Show and I walk over to the kitchen one day because we do the cooking segments at the end that you all complain or Too Short like oh going to do a commercial break before they make the you know recipe so I'm there and a seed Lish and she's got a radish tattoo and a carrot cool and I said anyone would root vegetables you got to be able to cook you could have anything you go for a radish who likes radishes in here I mean come on okay all salted butter that's about 20% so the rest are with me right so I said she's got a radish and she's not afraid to use is it how do I learn to cook and I went over to her and I said you know what's the deal with the tattoos and she you know starts talking to me and then she had a couple of bruises and I was like is that from cooking it's tough It's a tough industry it's a tough industry she goes no no no I'm in a boot camp a boot camp yes and I said like you're in the military she's like no no no we go to a boot camp on the weekends to work out and somehow in about a five 5 minute scenario that involved her giving me food and tricking me to coming to a boot camp the next day we end up at a boot camp true story she showed up like she's not going to come she showed at a at a boot camp in Central Park in New York there's more poop than grass yeah and there I am doing crunches on the ground in Central Park saying so you you ever teach anybody how to cook and she's like one two and we I survived the boot camp I know this is a long answer Dr No but but I do a talk show they pay me to talk well I'm looking at the spoon on her arm too oh yeah and she's got a spoon in a fork so if anyone in life is going to teach you how to cook it's someone with a tattoo spoon fork and a radish and a carrot so we go back to my place I have a little Chihuahua at the time and my chihuahua was the barometer if you could get past may love you were going to end and be in my life forever she weighed 3 lb but she was fierce Fier fiercely protected Lish and her wife Abby walked in May love fell in love and we became family literally she was like oh don't mind her she's not she doesn't like anybody and Meanwhile my wife's holding may love and I'm petting her and we're like what do you mean like she's not very Dr Evil if you've seen that was awesome but suddenly they're like rubbing my dog looking around my house very much so but we started to talk about family and Lisha is from Wisconsin yep I'm from Texas and we started to talk about what it really means to have good friends what does it mean to break bread and have a meal and before I knew it I met one of the my best friends in the world which I do feel like is hard to do as we age so the fact I'm not aging and neither's Dr ha no but as you get older like I mean I met one of my best friends and well into my 30s and you know I mean sometimes you just have to expect the unexpected you know so unexpected Texas and Wisconsin yeah so how did you Bond over food cohesiveness we didn't talk politics that's true but we do agree on that we agree on that but no we you know what we're both like food lovers I I mean I love it from the perspective of the eater she loves it from the perspective of being a James Beard award winner so we started talking and I said to her listen I really want to learn to cook and I don't have confidence I don't know where to start and I shared with Lish that was about a month before we met I decided and I'm a Virgo if anybody's a Virgo yeah I I get obsessed about things I'm like I'm going to do this I'mma teach myself thank you Virgo in the house the one person happy early birthday by the way that's less than 20% by the way I won the I've lost the birth War um I I said I wanted to learn to cook and someone said you know what there's a store that does like cooking um like little what demon demonstration demonstration you can watch and I said okay I go to the store I watched and I was like wow this is great and the woman said you know what I'll tell you what buy AA gardens's book The Barefoot Contessa foolproof and that's where you start so I take that advice and I buy all of the books so I me and all of the gadgets so this is the part of the story that gets really sad I buy all the books I place them on the counter then I walk around the store I pull out everything they've got the onion chopper that looks like the car they've got the potato scrubbers that say potato you know they got I am buying everything that I can imagine I walk out of this store like Pretty Woman when she walks out after they wouldn't do her and so everyone that works at the store they close the store to escort me into the taxi cuz I'm like loading the bags in $22,000 on my credit card and I went home still not able to cook and no food and no food no food this is true but I have a beautifully stocked kitchen that would make Tick Tock cry so I said this is crazy so around this time I met Lish and Lish was like you did what let's go to the Restaurant Depot we go to this Restaurant Depot thank you baby now give me that bottle I know how to uh so we go to this place Restaurant Depot and the first lesson I learned was to become confident in the kitchen like in life it's not about the things you acquire right sometimes we look at life and you think if I get that car if I get that house if my kid goes to this right school it's all going to fall into place it doesn't it takes much more than things and there are was surrounded by things but still not confident and then Lish we started talking about the through line of confidence in the kitchen and life and she said listen you have to listen when you cook you have to you use all of your senses the food speaks to you because it makes sounds so you have to listen you can clearly see it so you visually are like kind of adapting as you need to go you can taste taste taste taste is like if there's one thing that you take away from this book it's taste and season as you go and like you are in control of that you you're using everything you can touch if you're dressing a salad I fully support dressing a salad and tossing it with your hands like it's each piece of lettuce perfectly coated in the dressing and then taste that and add a little bit more salt if you need it and like it's it's all of the senses it's a very sensual experience and it's going to be talking to you too yeah exactly yeah and it's true I wasn't tast like I would get a recipe and I would like if you said A4 teaspoon this was me yeah and I wouldn't taste I was following the directions but not listening and I then started to think about my dad he was in the kitchen papa papa it was a dance it's a dance it was a dance y but it was a dance I was still afraid to get on the floor and then came my coach and ironically Lish grew up as a dancer in Wisconsin that explains the boot camp yes does it I'm not so sure so and we will start dancing in a second for you yeah and so the food talks to you you said L that and I wrote it down I fully believe cooking should be a conversation yes so explain that I mean cooking is a conversation I mean it's a conversation between you and the food um when it came to tamon and my friendship like that's kind of what got us started is that one night she just texted saying what should I make for dinner and I said well what do you have you know like let's talk about it which is also her tagline for her show but like she sent me a list of ingredients I had a bronzino cuz I gotten a fish from the grocery store she was cooking for a Suitor by the way you just which I love you just telling all my secrets here but all as well now I had cuz we all need inspiration and so outside of my father I was seeing someone as you should and I wanted to cook no there was nothing well he's not the person I end up marrying so there's that but oh we're dishing I know this is dishing right you thought this was just a cookbook no no no you are now in the family turn off your phones and I'll deny it all but I was like I wanted to cook dinner for someone I don't remember who but it was a guy and so I do but I won't say so I said I want to cook and so she she says okay what do you have I've got the fish I've got this and I've got a you know I cauliflower and I was like I don't know what I just don't know I don't know how to trust myself and this was via text message and Lish would say put a glug of this put the f f your hand over the pan like for example do you know that you can create your own nonstick pan without buying a nonstick you know the answer to how St Ste well you're close by the book so Lish taught me with a stainless pan or a cast iron in my case turn on the flame heat it up throughout the flame you know you've got the hot pan put your hand there you'll feel the heat come off put your fat in that's your butter your oil whatever it's now non-stick the heat has to Simply make its way through the stainless or the cast iron we're not anti nonstick nonstick but you don't have to buy a non-stick pan heat and fat that becomes a non sck pan I've saved you money I want it for my book but those are conversations that we were able to have you started having these conversations through text message through text message because we lived on different ends of New York and taxis and Ubers D starts adding up I I had to pay for that $22,000 haul from that store right so we started texting and she started nurturing and over time and I'll tell you a true story so at the same time Lish is coaching me through becoming more confident in the kitchen and exploring things the Barefoot Contessa heard my story of my father passing away and she extended an invitation for me to come to her home yes I just Nam dropped her twice for a reason um I went inside we started to talk about why cooking what is the connection right when you're sitting down at the table with your family with your friends when you're in the kitchen cooking together or just for yourself the connection of providing the nourish for your body knowing what you're putting in your body but also just escaping from life I as I said I've been doing this 30 years I have a for a career that I love that I never could have dreamt I'm a kid who was single mom brought me home from the hospital on paper I'm not supposed to have the life that I have I work very very hard but I was looking for ways to escape and suddenly I'm in the kitchen and it becomes this thing I never imagined which was an escape like all of these strange things I would hear people say about the joy of cooking I started to experience it and other than Ina Garden the greatest teacher I've ever had in the kitchen was Lish they have this Common Thread about recipe creating so we have 79 recipes in this book but the book starts with how to pack your pantry like I didn't know what I was supposed to have L is like whole grain mustard I was like lady I know frenches like I am intimately friends with frenches whoever that is she's like no what these are the few things that you should have in your pantry these are the building blocks for a salad for a steak for anything you need then she says you know apple cider vinegar I'm like okay I know white vinegar no you need apple cider vinegar so in our book we tell you how to stock your pantry we give you suggestions on the tools you need my favorite cooking tool in the world is a fish spatula do you ma'am don't try to hum wait a minute a fish just want a hug come on over here a fish spatula now I hope you will explain why there's a special spatula it's very I just like saying spatula it's very thin and there's lots of space so you don't tear up the fish and it's like $2.99 this is not a fancy thing no but it's really thin I thought you had a fish spatula okay well that explains a lot it's a thin it's a thin easy to find you can find it on Amazon you can find it your local kitchen store it's a very thin um spatula so I like whole fish for example which we have a beautiful whole fish recipe in the book it allows you to flip things with ease and so that became my favorite tool your favorite tool you listed the book oh I still say a chef's knife chef's knife an 8 in chef's knife knife I like the brand Mac it fits well in your hand like it's just my go-to and I mean you can do anything with a chef's knife you knives in your kitchen you only need three knives are we just we're just going off here no three only three yep a serated knife a chef's knife and a pairing knife you can do all that you need to do with those three knives you got it pairing knife serrated knife and a chef's knife that's for us non chefs you know the knife the sharp one on the end that's all you need so that kitchen block that you have when you go home tonight and you look at it it's taking up all of that space on your counter you're just going to shake your head at it it's like you can keep it if you have room but we have small kitchens yeah so if you don't have a big kitchen you don't need a 90 piece knife set right and if you use it like if you have a 90 set 90 piece knife set and you use every single one of those pieces God Bless you that's great but you really only need the three so the book starts that way we tell we we explain some Essentials that have a long shelf shelf life for your pantry we tell you some of the tools that we use in our kitchen that if you're a beginner or if you're someone who's experienc in the kitchen that you might want to layer in and then in the book we have an entire chapter called Don't Sweat the technique and we literally start with how to boil an egg because you think you know do you know sometimes there sometimes it works and sometimes of all the little pieces we have L you have the book there oh I got we actually um through a technique that Lish has really mastered and again I can't say enough about Lish her culinary career is is the stuff of Legends a kid from Wisconsin finds a Love of Cooking and goes on to win James Beard award but in the book for example scrambling an egg can you demonstrate the technique that you talk about in our book it's much cooler when there's egg on the pants exactly it looks better well exactly well L you you say in the book that you were cooking and styling food I want to hear about the styling when you were just a teenager oh I started cooking full Thanksgiving dinners at the age of 13 that's they must have loved you we would we would go out for Thanksgiving and Eastern meals when I was kid and then I started cooking them as I got older at 13 and then we'd stay home my parents got me a Martha Stewart Living subscription when I was I think 12 and a half maybe and I just fell in love which is what we talk about in the book you know we have kids in in the room well the baby there is a bottles so too small but you know I was so proud my my son Moses who went viral a couple of weeks ago for ordering 75 onions online Google it it's a whole dramatic story he was making his own smoothie last night he's five and with assistance and through what I've learned through through Lish you know he participates in the kitchen and that he is a picky eater like most kids but I've learned so much of the mystery behind food when he's able to participate he will try MH so he's there and a lot of the recipes that we have in our in our book now that I'm I had my first child at 48 years old I don't have time to make four meals I'm like and for me like we have a bucatini It's a pasta um the sauce you can freeze it's easy to carry on you know if you're traveling or for lunch for school but it's something the entire family can enjoy it's a beautiful bucatini with a barata that you know when I prepare it my whole family is sitting down which is a priority for me back to the the inspiration my dad other than his cooking we would eat dinner together on Sundays and I miss it to this day and it was one of the Traditions I want it for my son maybe not on Sundays maybe it's just on a Wednesday whatever day but we're able to sit down and so we have recipes in there that if you're working whatever if you're not whatever you're doing you the last thing you want is another burden so we have the delicious recipes that you're able to make but then we have even more elaborate things because we want to build your confidence our first vacation together um as a family we went to Antiga yep and we love whole fish and I said Lish there are people who don't like to touch whole fish or intimidate it if we're going to build the confidence we need some like big milestones in the book so we have a whole fish with a salsa verde yep that is incredible and you can make it even if tomorrow you say there's no way I'm going to go get this fish and I'm going to trust Tamron and Lish I can't make it we have it at the end of each recipe we use our real dialogue so Lish created all of these recipes and she is your favorite Chef's favorite Chef meaning there are recipes that you have made that Lish created and you don't know she did because when you're a recipe Creator your name is not in the by Lon so Lish created 79 recipes she sends the recipes to me the novice so I'm you so right now look at yourself I'm you your hair might be different I might be older that's okay but I'm you right now she sent the recipe to me I would prepare the recipe and I'd send my question so I'd say wait a minute I can't find pink peppercorn what am I supposed to do or wait a minute marinade I didn't see that it said marinade and I don't have time what am I supposed to do we have a fried rice we call it friendship fried rice so I'm like I want this fried rice recipe except for it said D rice I'm like I don't care what is this Harry Bellon Dale I don't have old rice around my house like what do I do she's like leave it out dry it out and she walked me through so each recipe ends with real questions that I had like your favorite my favorite chapter is about what does a pinch mean what does a dash of something right what is a Sprinkle or that thing is it's like what does it mean the chapter is literally called what does it even mean because so many recipes I mean not all of them but so many recipes are written kind of vaguely where unless you actually like have a lot of practice and doing in cooking and following recipes it's it leaves a little bit of room right so and that's good it's sometimes done on purpose but knowing what those little things mean empowers you to feel more confident in the kitchen be like I know what finally chopped means I know what roughly chopped means I know how to dice an onion of course I do like those little things make you go okay I can actually cook tell them about the pinch so how many people think of pinch is like a little pinch right that's a pinch but and by the way you're not wrong to think that because it says pinch right but my pinch is a three fingers and a thumb like that's my pinch of salt and you might be saying oh that's salty right well one of the things that we tell you in our book not all salts are the same so for example the one salt we use Diamond kosher salt and we don't get paid to say that so don't clap for them yeah because unless somebody from Diamond is out there and then and in that case pinch away but uh Diamond Diamond koser Salt is a less salty salt and it's anywhere it's it's not a fancy brand it's nothing you're going to have to you know Finance your kids education to get it's a basic salt but the reason that Lish uses it in the recipes which is what we talk about in technique layering your food you know how many times have you cooked it and then all of a sudden at the end you're like salt and then it taste salty right like I've been there I've been you with cooking it's so important to layer in the seasoning because you want each ingredient to taste the best that it can and the best that it can involves a little bit of salt it's salt is there to bring out the flavor of food not to make it salty so and we all need salt in our bodies to function as humans so it's not something to be afraid of it's just taking practice to actually layer in those flavors and learning the technique of seasoning I'm feeling better already yes you are that's right you know and that's what's so important about the book because in life anything you know as I said my son is getting ready to go to kindergarten so we're already having affirmation pep talks to build his confidence right this is what we do in the book we want you whether you're a beginner or somebody who's an experienced cook to continue to feel confident in the kitchen and and feel confident in in this experience of which I see it as a blessing now I did not it is a blessing to be able to go in your kitchen and cook a meal so we have breakfast lunch dinner snacks we have drinks drinks if you're drink and brunch we have a tahini milkshake oh it's a malt that if you what malt it a tahini malt that if you make it you will want to marry one of us oh the Shak and I'm telling you now we're both taken we have two different chickens because we really wanted again for this to be an experience for you whether you are stepping out of your lane we have a beautiful recipe it is a giant crab cake because the joke was every time you go to a restaurant you get those two little crab cakes and nobody wants to take the last piece because you really know you want it but it's like they gave us this little crab cake yep you want the last piece no you take it and then your heart is dying cuz they took it yeah we have a a giant crab cake because we have a whole chapter called move the crowd feed the crowd because one of the things that we do at my house as I said we're lucky enough to probably go to any restaurant that we want and and that's not a you know a brag that's just our life the best restaurant is with friends at home for the wine is cheaper yep and I'll mark the food is cheaper but you get to talk as loud as you want you get to eat more and have have a good time so this book really is about the recipes it's about technique but it is about the great experience of sharing a meal with people that are special to you and that can be friends family all of my holiday meals because we all live away from our hometowns we have a mly crew of people at my house so there's Nelly from Cameroon there's Larry from North Carolina there's Fred from North Carolina and we've got some Texans we pretty much have the DNC roll call without little John but but that's Joy so that's why in the in the book it says joy no pressure cooking so we have Lish has a chocolate chip cookie recipe I said Lish we have to share this with the world because it is absolutely Divine Lish taught me how to spatch a chicken yeah we need to talk about that cuz there's a reason that we have two roast chicken recipes in this book it's because when she was testing the spatchcock chicken recipe she facetimes me going what the heck am I doing okay the Ping the audience who knows what's spatchcocking a chicken see o uh-huh uh-huh quite a few this is an elevated audience well we already had to fish spula see well for those of you who didn't raise your hand you are my kindred We are family I didn't know what spatchcocking a chicken thank you see ma'am she did you had to do it with the visual cuz you just didn't even explain it it is the removal of the backbone of the chicken so it allows the chicken to cook flat but I had never heard this before so I get to ask all of the questions you would be embarrassed to ask so I said ma'am what is fatch cocking a chicken yeah it was pretty good because uh you know she's trying to set the phone up she's got her scissors out she's not sure what section she's supposed to be cutting out and she's like listen we need a whole roasted chicken for when people don't want to have to do this and that's all we have it we did that whole roasted chicken but the second time she did the spatchcock she did it without my help I was a spatchcock and queen yes she was after she sanitized her phone because it was all chicky from her going I don't know what's going on we wanted for the book to have these levels like I said you know for the beginner we wanted you to feel comfortable launching in but for those of you who are experienced cooks and who enjoy cooking as I do now we wanted you to find some interesting things that you may not make we have a Harissa carrot side dish that is Heavenly I can we just read some of the titles of our well I've got one in Mya some of them are personal so the M Maple shado yes it's a drink it is shakes lisha's father-in-law Dennis makes the best maple syrup every year with the few friends in his small town in Wisconsin no joke it's the best and once tamaron tasted it there was no going back now Lish smuggles it back from Wisconsin in her suitcase imagine going to security after almost every visit we even ship it to tamron's cousin Erica in Texas yep true story we pretty much have a maple syrup Black Market going yeah we do but we have the drinks in there we have a grilled cheese sandwich called the Moses grilled cheese with my son because one day Lish was at our house and I said it oh there's the picture of it and there's Moses bringing it to Young Mo young Mo Young Money Mo but I said to Lish we were there and I said can you make this grilled cheese for him i' I've got something so she said okay so I'm thinking it's going to be bread and cheese but when you have a best friend who a James Beard winner Award winner like okay and I came out and she'd used the pears that were in this bowl um mustard the bread and this beautiful grilled cheese that my son devoured um that was an elevated grilled cheese that an adult could enjoy but my son did as well and again I don't listen my kid is a picky eater as well I don't have he's not French he's not sitting there like great Pon you he's a regular he's a regular old five-year-old but the the pears and the cheese just gave it great flavor and he he loved it and that's why that's in the book we have I'm from the south and I grew up with socket Tumi cakes that was a big thing at my church we my mom's Church would do these bake sales so Lish created a socket to them cake that is absolutely Divine my mother's photographed in there with a cup of coffee and I you know when we first gave her the cake we were nervous because my mom is a southern black mom she's going to tell you she's going to tell you the cake so we nervously Slide the cake we hide behind the door and then she's like okay girls um so we have the socket Tumi cake socket tumy cake and there's mom look at that there's my mom with the socket to them cake um so we we have big group um recipes we have this baked french toast casserole that's my go-to breakfast um Lish added a hint of cardamon and cream you prepare it and refrigerate it overnight so that all of this deliciousness can soak into the bread the next morning you take it out bring it up to room temperature and you bake it and why why that recipe was so important to me in building my confidence in the kitchen if it said marinade or overnight I was out I'm like r that just sounds like extra work but what I discovered in building my confidence and this is how Lish prepared the recipe the first thing is I said Lish we have to warn people right right off the top that it is either a marinade or it's going to take extra hours of time cuz there's nothing worse oh no that's why cuz there's nothing worse they warning there's warning because I have gotten home and I'm like go to the grocery store I'm going to make this and then you started reading the recipe and you're like marinade for 24 hours and you have no food you're like okay so I said there has to be a warning because to build your confidence that's a set up for a fail right so this particular baked French toast I thought okay overnight but it's in there the next morning I've got my godson there my bestie from Texas is visited her husband my kid everybody's there I take the French toast out bring it up to room temperature put it in the oven now I can do my bacon now I can do other things and I've got this beautiful French toast recipe that I set myself up for Success the night before we also have a way to prepare bacon that will change your life because full disclosure this is not a vegan book hence the reason I've mentioned bacon Texas Wisconsin we never going to be we were never going to going to walk away from anything that mood but or oink um but but this book is about technique so one of the things that Lish experimented with and has had great success with we take bacon on a sheet pant you turn your Broiler on you have a rack in the middle mhm you put your bacon in the oven broil you crisp it up take it out flip it few more minutes take it out put it on like a wire rack or a paper towel your bacon is crispy delicious and done you don't believe me go downstairs and get the book we'll sign it you make your bacon I'll give you my phone number call me it you don't get the little crinkle rolled up sad looking bacon just stove top clean top is clean so you're not cleaning and while you're doing your bacon you can be doing something else like the scramble egg thing but we literally explore technique so it is more than a cookbook it's a love letter to Friendship we are the only book that Publishers could find with a black woman and a white woman on the cover we're the only cookbook with a woman who's LGBT and a woman who's an ally and I don't Market the book that way because I live a very inclusive life and we don't want people to always believe that we're sharing these things for any other reason then it's the truth and that makes me so proud that this book is about two people who were essentially curious about each other one person vulnerable enough to share that I was going through a grieving process and another person who cared enough to say let me help you out so while the recipes are dropped dead amazing am I I'm approach approaching my 54th birthday and I've met thank you for that sympathy Applause and I was saying earlier to Dr Hayden I'm an ordinary country kid who's had an extraordinary life but I will on the day that I expire from this Earth I hope that people know I rooted for them and I am blessed enough to know people have rooted for me like this person who's on the cover of this book for me yeah and you all have you mentioned Moses and you did the grilled cheese and then Granny's curry chicken salad yes lish's granny in-law was a fabulous and classy lady she was also a big fan of ours so Tamarind and Granny bonded yes me and Granny her granny was 90 we twerked we twerked on FaceTime yeah and Granny is a 90-year-old Wisconsin yep granny connecting with the New York based national news uh Caster over a fierce vintage turquoise necklace and twerking and twerk Jewelery and twerking granny we call Granny on FaceTime and she was in the mirror and she does this I mean it Wasing I don't know the sign for that that's how we twerking Wisconsin just so you that's how they twerking Wisconsin twerking but Grant curry chicken salad again all of these recipes they come from a place you know we didn't want just all right she's got a national show she's got some awards let's sell everybody a cookbook these are authentic I've shared pictures in here there's a swimsuit picture of us that I would never share in real life it's in the book it is oh yeah and I forgot the childhood picture of each of them and we had the same haircut then and we still have the same haircut now so but it is no joke it is no joke we have the same pigtails and bangs we both had pigtails and bangs and we were thousands of miles away but it's a reminder that food is a common thread and I tell people the easiest way to learn or really get to know people is to talk to them about what they ate growing up what was your we were just commiserating in the back about school lunch and I said well this year my kid his school has lunch at the campus and we all started talking about our me memories of lch so I had a Moran Mindy lunchbox you again Google it children Google it this guy named Robin Williams he was amazing uh and it's still got uh but I said I had Bal we call it baloney where I'm from I know some people say balona I had baloney craft cheese and Wonderbread and it would sit in The Lunchbox and it would be steamy and so we're in a room of people different ages different races and everyone is nodding with the same memory of the baloney and cheese sandwich that's a Common Thread how many times have you sat and talk to someone and you like oh God I love and you're you want to learn about someone's culture right you eat their food and then they say oh my grandma made this or this food is a Common Thread and that's what we explore in the book as well and that's why these recipes are from our backgrounds our because I do and I remain steadfast in my belief when you sit down with someone at the table and break bread with them you leave with a connection I believe that I believe it I believe it well and I'm not running for office that's the truth I looked at a see a connection because and I went in the index you didn't have brussel sprouts no thank thank you no no no no so didn't put them in she didn't put them in I full disclosure didn't have a Brussels sprout until I was in my late 30s because when I grew up they used to boil them right slimy and they were they were they were smelly and they boil I went to Catholic School it was a way to get you closer to God um carrots they used to boil them yep you know most vegetables were just we used to do like us boil us anyone under 50 you don't know know what we survived you don't know sow seat belts boil Brussel they didn't care about us it's a wonder we're alive but it's a the book has a roasted carrot recipe they don't understand but that's the thing the the the this book explores so many beautiful beats of fun and joy and no pressure I said to Lish my dream for this book is really for you to look at it almost like the Betty Crocker you know I still have my my I'm again from this small town everybody is like aunt's sister Katie May Josephine May everybody's got may as second name I don't know why I don't but they all had that Betty Crocker book and it was like greasy and it's in the corner or they'd have recipes that you know many of them worked at the post office or were teachers and you'd have potluck and you'd write down somebody's recipe or they'd give you the card remember the card or the recipe I I wanted this book to have that familiar energy of that potluck or that neighbor who had that recipe and you're like oh that's good what's write it down that jello salad that's a keeper no it's not you all know what I'm talking about but we wanted it to here no cut but we wanted it to feel like how you would exchange recipe cards and we wanted you to know that this book is an extension of what we hope we have with with all of you and we won't get to know all of you personally but I believe and she knows I believe that the Universe conspires to put us where we're supposed to be and Dr Hayden said today this was where we were supposed to be so we are so Greatful and honored that you sat in the seat and listen to our little song and dance but I believe that energy transfers and I think in this room we're all here for a reason and for for us it is to show this common thread of this little cookbook that started with someone who really did not cook and I probably cook five four or five times a week I leave my show we do two shows a day we start back live September 3rd the tamr Hall Show returns for six season so thank you to the tan fam Lish Lish will be on the show we are now the second longest running Disney syndicated show in history and the show started because I got fired so there's that but again a reminder that you're never down and there's always a moment to find your confidence and that's what that book is thank you both because I understand we have a oh we have 10 minutes for a few questions feel brave enough the fish okay no we won't come over and cook tonight but next week maybe okay I love it just come on to the mic and please come down and see us we're signing books yeah they're going to sign right after and we're taking selfies and we're giving hugs and we'll answer more questions down there as well we'll talk about spatchcocking fish spatulas everything anything thank you ma'am hi Miss Hall yes ma'am I just want to tell you I have admire you since you were on the Today's Show I didn't know you were fire I I remember bits and pieces of it but I didn't know F but you were excellent and I've always watched you Class Act now I'm going to get this cookbook because it's very interesting my husband and I both like to cook but here lately I let him cook okay um and you're the same age is my oldest son and I cooked for four boys four young men when they were thank you serious yeah God Bless you that's all I I forgot the question I wanted to hell I'm 7 years old so I can't I I receive it I thank you I I hope you en God bless you I hope you en I I pray you will enjoy the book as I said we're going to be signing books this is our first big tour stop and we never imagined that we would be walking around the Congressional Library sitting with a historic figure in the world um it's crazy and so thank you but yes I'm the only person who laughed about getting fire how about that I didn't know you had gotten fired I that was but karma is a you know what you've done well thank you thank you hi hello tamaron so um I just wanted to say a couple things really quick so I saw your girl get up that's on YouTube I have it set in my phone I haven't watched that yet so I'm thanking you in advance cuz I know it will be inspired I wanted to just tell you a few things that we you and I have in common so we're both Tams I'm also a tam um also I'm an author congratulations thank you um my book released was August 13th is about my dad who passed away so the book is a tribute to my father um the other thing was I also have a licensed and registered baking business I'm an awesome cook because of my dad and my mom she's also in heaven and I you mentioned the fish bat so I found 2 years ago a cage so that it's a grill cage so when you want to grill fish it doesn't stick to the grill and it works wonders love a whole different it's it's on Amazon $12.99 let's just keep it real but that's what that's what the the our you know when we talk about tools in the book we say these are the things like I still love a pressure cooker and a Crockpot you will pry them from my cold dead hand so we say everybody has a favorite tool so keep the tool that you love keep if it's a food process whatever and we but like your your fish thing that's what we like yeah everybody has and you can flip it very easily um I just want to say all of my books are on Baron and Noble um I have 10 I hope that you will see them and I love to come and cook on your show absolutely we figure it out thank [Applause] you hi ladies H this question is for tamrind I was wondering if you could give uh me and members of the audience a piece of advice for novice uh Cooks who you know have a lot of things going on in their life like career other responsibilities like a piece of advice for them to become a more skilled cook I love that um start with pasta I I I think it's it's a thank you shout out and and I'm sorry for anybody who doesn't eat it um you can get gluten free so I'm I'm not whatever kind you want start with pasta that's why that butini is in there because it you have the pasta right you have the basics of that which Lish in the book explains how to salt water because a lot of when you see in the back it's like salted water like what does that mean what does it mean l it means a lot of salt like you need to taste the water and make sure that it tastes salty it's your one chance to season the pasta that it actually goes into the pasta so it has to be salty water because I'm sure you've had pasta dishes before and the pasta tastes Bland there's a good sauce but it's bland because they didn't salt the water because it is your chance to season the the salt the the the pasta start with the pasta we have this boutini in there and what I like about it is that it allows you to make your own sauce you can freeze this sauce so when I I'm actually making so full disclosure I'm making the butini from our book tomorrow I'm making the whole roast chicken that we have in there that has Citrus and lemon and onion and it's great but I freeze that sauce and I start my show rehearsals for the tamel show start Tuesday and I'll freeze that so that my husband can make pasta for my kids so I I I think start with pasta start with a good sauce but mostly start with what you like you know we have the book here there are many things launch in I live most of my adult life single and so sometimes I would keep that from cooking because I it's just me well that doesn't also mean I just need a $9,000 door Dash bill you know what I mean it's like and trust me that was like door Dash damn excuse me and so for me I cook much my adult life for myself and that's not a Splurge or a luxury sometimes people like you know you see oh I'm just going to go out and order something get in there try the pasta and it's going to be great have fun I've had bad meals don't get me wrong thank you guys oh thank you hi hi um full disclosure I honestly didn't even know who you were before I came in this room that's okay my mother didn't e until I came out I like it came to this talk because cooking really resonates with me and I feel like you said that I was meant to be in this room um just sharing you know in 2008 I lost my mom so I can really relate to you and just hearing everything that you were saying made me super emotional um my question is are there any dishes that you cook or you eat or you share with friends and family that specifically bring you back to moments with your dad before he passed away I know for me and my family there's a very very delicious recipe we printed from foodnetwork.com for jerk chicken and with a mushroom cream sauce that we cook it and we eat it and we talk about memories of my mom we have a fried chicken um in our book and I was a little hesitant to be honest with you because being from the south and people get real particular about Fried Chicken we also at one point thought about a potato salad and I was like no we can't take that I said no no I'm going to have to defend us from every black person who has a better recipe than us I said I was like no mac and cheese NOP no no but Lish did a fried chicken and she uses rice flour and it gives the chicken an egg and i' never heard of this full disclosure but going back to your specific question my dad and mom we couldn't I went to Temple University I was fortunate enough to get accepted to Temple University shout out Temple Al 1,528 miles from my parents doorstep to college I'd never slept over anyone's house my parents thought everybody his parent was crazy so I never had sleepovers they I was the crew that they picked up at midnight they were like yeah come on out you're not sleeping over so I'd never slept over anyone's house 1,528 miles my dad because we didn't have the money he's in the military he packed up fried chicken sandwiches and put them in foil we had a conversion van and they drove me to college and um um I didn't expect to cry but thank you for sharing your story about your mom and so that that means a little bit because that reminds me of you know again all of our Journeys somebody's rooted for us friends sometimes it's a co-worker sometimes it's a person in passing I refer to my dad and I don't the dad who raised me was not my biological father he was the dad God meant for me to have my father my biological father was not in my life after the Agee of two and to think that I have a book dedicated to someone whose blood I don't share but everything that is in my blood is him is special and so it's that dish and I'm sending you my love and thank you and I know your mom is [Applause] [Music] proud hi you go no nothing like a little comic relief coming up well I was like how we follow that Weir it's like you were real heartfelt and we have we need you to settle debate okay so uh I'm Courtney and this is Victoria and hi Courtney and Victoria this is Lish I'm tamaron yep and so like y'all really uh our question is sometimes friends like I am the cook she does not cook okay y so we're here because she said I need this cookbook because she's deeply resonating for me on everything that you've said so who cook wait you're the cooks so you're she's Lish Lish okay so you're Cameron okay okay so but we need you to settle a debate in like maybe there are times where you two didn't agree on a particular topic or concept okay but we can't agree on one thing I bet this audience might disagree on this one topic what is it okay um so I have tried to explain to her that you don't have to wash the chicken amen you don't you don't don't you don't wash the chicken you don't wash chicken you dry it very well with the towel but you do not wash it chicken Al manella Al manella sink no because washing wait a minute washing it spreads the bacteria everywhere down serious thank you here's what's remarkable you don't even cook and you have and she's like hard set on was that chicken no but germs no but you don't if you if you wash the chicken right first of all your favorite restaurant didn't wash that chicken yeah no that one right put the cryo back in the bat man no because you're you don't eat chicken raw so well you don't know this cuz you don't cook but after but I do sometimes and I always wash the you're going to do it all the time you don't have to but I know people we just had a conversation this is a true conversation happened a few minutes ago so first all you don't you don't need to wash your chicken you Pat it dry yes because water is actually the enemy when you want to Brown something you want fat you don't want water water makes it Steam and get all funky right so why would you add more water to it when you're trying to Brown it plus when you add water to it it splashes all over the pl Place spreading the bacteria then you just have to sanitize your entire kitchen after you're done with it yeah yes which I'm sure you do but then you have to extra dry it extra dry it with the paper towels you're just giving Bounty even more money right and unless you own stock in Bounty which at this point disclosure and we'll tell you you know what conversation we had earlier the the bigger enemy in your kitchen the lemon that you didn't wash because people think with Citrus I'm peeling it so what's in the Citrus is clean except for you didn't wash that orange or that lemon and you go or you cut the melon and you cut through the skin that's got bacteria that's going right through happy eating yeah okay thank you thank you all for bringing this up and we have oh just one more little question and then we have to go signing books and you can ask some more questions but one more help me with that you can take it off the Tippy Toe uhoh uhoh uhoh you can do it hi my name is isara my grandmother loves your show so which dish is the one that you guys can't live without ooh that's [Music] tough who is this Savant genius in this room what school I want your grandom to raise my son what what's your name Isa and how old are you isara nine I love it it's an excellent question oh what I can't can't live without so honestly this is a very impossible question that you've asked little Oprah um but but I am right now currently addicted to the tahini malt so it's tahini vanilla ice cream salt salt yep it is could you think tahini like with the Greek food or whatever with the vanilla ice cream I am I have to get back into my work cloth soon my spanks are anks at this point because I can't I can't the tahini malt it's you know it's right now the end of summer I I'm addicted to it it's a tahini malt that is insane for me I would say it's any way to cook eggs oh she loves eggs I love cooking eggs because there's so many different variations that you can do to prepare them so poaching an egg hard boiling an egg soft boiling an egg soft scrambling an egg big curds small curds like all the things like and they can be so sexy or they can be an appetizer be she's not she'll learn she's not they they're just there's always something to eat when you have eggs yes and what we mean by sexy is like you know child yeah well I think it's time to wrap up thank you doct on that note into the territory before before we wrap up we've not done this this is our first tour stop as we said we have been very fortunate to be here two days we're going to go downstairs and sign books but we want to take a selfie with the crowd Dr hden if you would oh Dr okay so the crowd you're all going to can we turn the I'm all boss can we turn the house lights out okay now how are we going to do this we turn around I guess yeah we turn we go this way I love Dr Hayden's like you turn around yeah it's like it's not that complicated tamon all right so oh we're going to do two sections so we'll do the middle section that gives you time to get ready you on that side over there okay so middle section all right you ready one two three confident cook okay let's do a video that was uneventful all right we're conf out of three we're going to say confident cook you way back there yeah I see you oh yeah there you go right okay three two confident call okay all right this side I didn't turn it off this is TV know all right Dr Hayden you come off now I got you all right all right up [Applause] okay can you say it like you mean it all right three 2 one I love you okay last time all [Applause] right the last group didn't do that did they 3 two one okay and now I'm going to pan the whole I know I got time here we go 3 two 1 go thank [Music] you so good [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] n n n n n n n nah n n n n n n n n n n n nah nah [Music] n he he [Music] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] n n n n n n n n n n n n n n [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] [Applause] yeah me [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] let me [Music] o [Music] oh [Music] ooh oh oh o [Music] [Applause] [Music] wo [Music] [Music] going to do a little song [Music] [Music] hold hold [Music] hold hold [Music] hold what do you think about [Music] hold [Music] [Applause] hold hold it hold it [Music] hold [Music] [Applause] hold hold hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] what [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] sh n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome everybody to the 24th annual Library Congress National Book [Music] Festival I am not James S Cory but they will be out here in just a minute I do have some housekeeping to take care of first before they come out though um at this time as always we ask you to silence your cell phones if uh they are not already silenced also we are all Book Lovers and book friends here there's a lot of people outside who want to come in if there are empty seats in the middle of your rows if we ask you to squish over make new friends and uh uh allow the rose to open up so we can let everybody who's outside come in um also outside at either end of this long hallway are the restrooms if you need to leave during the show um there's people the the friendly ushers at the doors have nice little green stickers that will allow you re-entry so you don't have to wait in the long line that you waited to get in in the first place I also wanted to let you know that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitute your consent to be filmed or otherwise recorded otherwise recorded there will be time for audience questions at the end of the presentation and so you can look for the microphone SS there's one here in the front and on at the front of these two rows they'll ping pong back and forth so when it's question time just line up and they will call on you left and right so without further Ado I honored to introduce the writing Duo known as James ESS Corey authors Daniel Abraham and Ty [Music] [Applause] Frank as everybody here probably already knows they are the creators of the hugu award-winning science fiction series The expanse and its television adaptation the series recently uh concluded with its final novel Leviathan Falls however Abraham and Frank have been working on their new Sci-Fi series The Captive war and uh which recently published its first book the mercy of the Gods which was an instant New York Times bestseller today there will be in conversation with Cindy Landrum who is the acting director of The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences so without further Ado enjoy the festival and let's welcome them to the stage [Applause] I heard a sigh as everyone how's everybody doing well since you all know who we are I think we'll just get down to the nitty-gritty how's that that sounds good awesome um so this uh session was called after the expanse and I think we maybe want to do some what I'll call level setting expectation management maybe and so um considering that this is a new Venture uh what can your readers expect when they think about this new work in relation to what they have loved about your wildly successful expanse series or should I be thinking about anything at all except the new series I don't know do the do the pitch I I mean lower your expectations um the the the the the captives war is a new project it's the uh the way that the expanse was kind of our way of engaging with the the stuff we read like nien and heinan and uh bester um this is our way of kind of going to the other side of Space Opera and working in conversation with Frank Herbert and and Ursa lewinn we we've we've described this as the disappointing love child of leuin and Herbert um so you know it it's it's still Space Opera it's just a different part of that Spectrum so you mentioned lwin and Herbert and in the book there's a lovely inscription that says they were the teachers that you never had so I wonder what did you learn from them what did they teach you uh that has impacted your writing I mean mostly what Lewin taught us is that we're never going to be as good as Ursa lwin I I mean i' I've been a fan of of hers forever I remember getting wizard of ersy when I was a little kid and reading everything she did and of course she had a huge range she wrote she wrote fantasy um she wrote sci-fi she wrote like really far future sci-fi um but she always had this interesting way of engaging with as all sci-fi does current social issues using this lens of the distant future so things like the dispossessed and left-and of darkness really we're talking about things like um gender and uh the way gender affects society and those sorts of things but using these far future things and and those ideas and that really stuck with me the the power that sci-fi has to talk about current things by creating enough distance so they don't feel hurtful but we can still look at them and talk about them and sort of learn new things about how we think about those things without it feeling like somebody's attacking us wonderful Daniel any thoughts oh no I agree with him I hate all of it the whole thing um so that brings me to our our current uh Adventure and so um can you tell me a little bit about this story and this Trilogy that is emerging and um I understand you know we're talking about sci-fi but that they has some uh biblical Roots can you talk about that a little bit yeah so I'm the least religious person on the planet and the reason that I am is because I grew up incredibly religious uh so so my parents beat that out of me very early but but I've always had this sort of affinity for the story in the Book of Daniel not the religious parts of it but sort of the the the history that is portraying which is this idea of of people being conquered by this vast military power that they have absolutely no ability to resist and then being carried off and turned into minor functionaries in that Empire the sort of forced integration of two cultures that they were doing um and the idea of somebody like Daniel carried off to Babylon and said oh you work for the Empire now the Empire that just conquered you and destroyed your country you work for us now and you're a bureaucrat in in our Empire something about that was really fascinating to me so I pitched that to Daniel I'm like what if we did that but sci-fi and Daniel you said yes yes I did yeah I my uh my my relationship to the Bible is uh largely as kind of one of the foundational documents of Western literature um and when P When Ty pitched this um the thing that occurred to me was that that the Book of Daniel is among other things kind of the The Orwells 1984 of the Bible it's this story about being subsumed within uh a totalitarian culture absolutist culture and still keeping something of yourself in that situation I don't know something about that spoke to me just a little bit little bit just a little little bit a little bit kind of um one of the things I find intriguing about uh what you just said Daniel about keeping a little bit of yourself is that and I don't want to give too much away but that um the characters the the human characters in the book uh there is an aspect of them sort of being disconnected from their history mhm and can you talk a little bit about why you made that particular choice and in sort of developing the story there boy I mean a couple of white guys talking about the get happens with history when you get enslaved yeah that sounds fun you did it I I did it I know it's my fault I did it yeah I mean for there are there are plot reasons we did it um I mean there's there are things about the fact that they've lost track of their history that will affect the future plot um but also there's just uh this idea of of this L you know in this in this gxy galxy filled with vast Empires and alien races and and all of the the enormous things the there's something just like very lonely about one little planet that doesn't know how it got there and the people don't know they're not sure how they got there um and it seemed like a good starting point for the story we wanted to tell um and I promise we didn't have any political reasons beyond that yeah I mean we can explore them if you um and I think that something that sort of stands out when we talk about you know this small little planet uh that that seems just sort of out there it's a very it starts out as a very intimate story in many ways um and can you so you know the the relational parts of the characters is where we start U not necessarily in the action which comes later can you sort of talk about those relationship ship and why you thought it was important to start sort of there well going back to to the idea of History all these people have a personal history all these people have relationships all these people have a world that they know and um spoilers um they lose that um and it doesn't have as much weight when you don't feel that loss um you you can tell people that the loss exists you can you can tell people that these people had a life before this they had a culture before this they had a place before this and that that place is gone and that they have an emptiness because of that but if you haven't experienced that with them um it's kind of empty knowledge it's kind of a a way of you know telling a story but not not having the heart of it yeah I mean if you're going to tell a story about people who go to great links to avenge the thing that they've lost you have to have the audience understand what it is that they lost and why they care about it and why they want it back or why they want to hurt the people who took it from them conversely uh conversely and also a point of personal privilege I think I told you all backstage I am a librarian woo woo [Applause] um and um that's why I have like a lot of notes but and um one of the thing that that stood out to me U made me very happy but also very sad uh was that we hear the voice of a librarian uh in this work and of course it makes me happy because you know I've been told that the internet has everything and that I should not expect to have a job one day in the future uh so it's nice to know in other worlds Librarians actually still exist and have jobs um and you know this the the librarian is referred to as the keeper but they are the really The Keeper of the Conqueror uh knowledge experience and culture and can you talk about can you talk about your relationship with Librarians and why that felt like a good place for that person to sort of be a uh informal narrat maybe uh send us a few plot twists as we go along in the work you want that one I got I mean so the the reason why the that cast it's a very the the Conqueror a very cast based society the reason why that cast is called Librarians is really specific and will be more examined in the later books um you'll get to see what it is about them that Mak some Librarians um but I mean obviously the Librarians I think are the keepers of knowledge and I think in the very near future we're going to need Librarians who are trained to dig through the mountains of AI garbage to get to the actual facts hiding underneath them [Applause] so well and there's a I mean when you when you have a librarian you have somebody who is uh in charge of a certain body of knowledge and how you curate that body of knowledge can do a lot of different things it can I mean it can be a Bull workk against tyranny or it can be an instrument of tyranny or it can be uh you know any number of things and in our guy he's he's kind of the bull workk of tyranny he's he's a he's not he's not going for you know freedom and self-determination for the anybody so yeah he's he's a bad guy but the fact that Librarians have that potential is also a statement of the power we all know that we use it for good we will use our powers for good I prise power only for good only what I'm saying only for good um so some question that emerged um about name pronunciation so there's a lot of Welsh names in this work and so uh someone wanted to know I was reading online how should we be pronouncing our main character's name is David anyway want anywh you want anyway any way you like Okay so let's talk about him cuz I'm going to tell you my first uh experience of him was like OMG neppo baby um I mean I this to change but like that's where we start with him you know that's how he feels and he doesn't feel very useful which is interesting given the context of this story um can you tell me where does where does he come from what do you see you know how did you sort of formulate that character well I mean yeah he is a bit of a neppo baby but he's also an academic which a lot of people would argue uh are the useless people I do not I do not my I I'm married to a PhD so I I do not make that argument but but he's you know he's a he's a cog in the machine of Academia and he is a very specific Cog he's the Cog Who Um can get attention to things by having his Rich relatives pay attention to those things which as you know if anybody in here Works in Academia the only thing you ever care about is funding so the the people with control of the purse strings uh have enormous power and so in that way he has sort of the soft power of access to funding but also um coming out of that world uh being somebody who you know I I can say this is absolutely true of my wife when she focuses on something in her discipline she doesn't see anything else it's that one thing right I mean that's what phds are they're the world's leading expert in one tiny thing um and she's very much that way and so I often have to point out to her well you're doing this thing and this there's going to be these repercussions she hasn't even paid any attention to that so you have a character who is by Family Association and by training more he pays attention to all the things that are going on he pays attention to the politics and again the academics I know hate the politics of Academia um he doesn't he's used to it uh so he becomes useful in that way because he's the one who can kind of notice what's going on and go oh I get what's happening here and we should all change our behavior in this way whereas everybody else is like no we're focusing on a tiny problem so we don't see that um so yeah I mean it's part of it is based on our experience in dealing with people who are very job focused well and and having somebody who kind of doesn't belong in that space somebody who who way of approaching the world is a little bit out of sync with the people who are around him because the ways that he makes sense of things systems um are what give him kind of the The Edge that he wouldn't have had otherwise and yeah it and he's there because it it looked like a high status thing and he's not really well suited to it but he got the job and so he he's he's meant to be an outsider yeah and he has a crush you know we all we all do don't we we all have yeah but you know not to give anything away but that's not yeah that Crush you know I mean blame blame that on Daniel Daniel is the guy who has a biology degree because the cute girl was in biology yes so that is true yeah but I don't think the bi the cute girl in biology was like Danny your professor anything like that well was she she was not but if she had been I still would have taken the class um so you know these folks their world is like literally you know there's a lot of you know there's we're introduced to characters and then sort of out of nowhere but kind of not out of nowhere a thing starts to happen and folks are ripped from what they know uh into kind of put and I won't call it the Borg because I already know it's really not the Borg but they are put into to this new world how would you how would you go about describing their experience okay so when Tai was pitching this yes um he was talking about the Book of Daniel and he was talking about being this kind of subsistence farmer in uh the Middle East who's who's uh lived a very simple life being Swept Away to a place that has fivestory buildings for the first seeing mult multiple story buildings for the first time in your life seeing places that have like Waterworks and and infrastructure and a city and a and Gardens um and that sense of absolute awe that comes from from stepping into that new context and we wanted that but in science fiction so it's it's somebody who has lived in a world that looks like ours that kind of feels like ours that has some issues like ours um being transported to a place that is so overwhelmingly Advanced and alien and uh amazing and horrifying and it's it's just the translation of that experience um in our history into this new context yeah the the idea of being somebody who's never seen a building more than two stories in your life didn't even know buildings could be built higher than that and then you get drugg off to Babylon where the walls surrounding the city or 40t High um just the the awe of that like uh there's a line in Gladiator where somebody says I didn't know men could build such things it's that awe moment of like I didn't know this was possible and um having characters who are dealing with that and as Daniel brought out dealing with that in the context of trying to hang on to some sense of yourself um how do you hang on to your own sense of value that you matter when you're suddenly confronted with the vastness of this new thing do I still matter now and how do you not get sucked into as you said becoming a basically a a not necessarily a cog in the wheel but uh you know just part of the mechanism well and and the the uh the drive the the the seductive feeling of being part of this thing that is huge the the thing that has already shown that it has power over you um why would you not want to be part of this amazing great huge thing that is already proven it can take everything from you okay I mean it's it's a protective coloring thing you just you you say oh I'm no I'm one of I'm one I'm with you guys I'm the good one yeah I'm the nice one don't kill me um so you all as we have talked you all have talked about um who pitches an idea and who comes in says okay yeah I'll do that idea that sounds like a good idea can you all talk about your collaborative writing process because I think it sounds like it's very interesting is there like a place where one of you stops and one starts is there I understand that you're good at that and I'm better at this and we just sort of exchange or what does that look like is it you know we get on Zoom how does it work complicated um in in Broad terms um we outline everything together we spend a lot of time talking about what a project is before we start doing it so we know that we're we're kind of running down the same road um we we outline in great broad terms what the the book is going to be what the sections are going to be what what the the things are going are that are going to happen and then even down to you know in a chapter what are the things that are going to happen within the chapter and then one of us writes the first draft and because Tai didn't have a lot of experience writing books when we started um I got to kind of convince him that all chapters are 3,000 words long which is really convenient for me um and he didn't know any better so we we kept that um and then when some has finished the first draft he hands it to the other guy the other guy goes through and makes all of the changes he wants to make uh and then we put it at the back of the master document we just keep going until we have a book and then one of us gets to go through the the final draft and make any changes he wants and then head to the other guy the other guy goes through all the changes he wants we send that off to the editor um so that by the end of the process we can tell you who wrote the first draft of Any Given chapter but we can't tell you who wrote which sentence so Ty um like clearly now you know that that what he told you wasn't completely 100% true Did you completely 100% true 100% of the time following his rules has uh produced a string of bestsellers so I I just assume that his rules must be right because yeah just doing what he tells me to do it worked out great but you've written for television before right and so um and I will say that uh I can when I read it I can see it in a very Vivid way uh I can almost project like project it on my wall and imagine what it what it looks like um and so when you're I mean obvious well I won't say obviously I don't know that's what I'm asking you do when you're writing when you all are writing are you thinking about what will it look like if it ever makes it too a screen if we were thinking about that it would be so much less expensive to produce uh no I I don't think either of us pictures an adaptation when we're writing I mean we were fortunate enough to have um a lot of our previous work adapted but that was years after we had written it so it didn't really affect the the work that we were doing um so no I I I don't think either of us do that no but I will say though that I uh I have to see the scene before I can write it so I I kind of do that anyway I just picture what I have to see what everything looks like I have to see what the people look like I have to I have to understand that stuff before I can write anything Daniel's much more comfortable sort of writing his way into it and having it start out as a bit of a mystery and just sort of discovering it as he goes I'm not comfortable with that I have to know we are not actually the same person it turns out we're not it's a surprise sometimes but but because of that um you know I mean Daniel at this point you've written like 370 Books 4 something like that uh so he's written like a vast number of books and when we started writing for screenplays it was harder for him to make the transition it was terrible Ty could just do it Ty didn't have a bunch of the bad habits right so I was I was there going okay but but how are you going to know what this person is feeling if I don't explain their interior life throughout this entire chapter and and I don't I know the camera can't see it but they have to know it's like they don't they need to know what's on the screen yeah and then the rest of it there's this whole other process that I didn't understand I was not a great screenwriter to start I got better but but Ty Ty could just kind of learn it aresh and do it I'm not I well I I like screenwriting because I I like um delegating and screenwriting is delegating screenwriting is like then he pulled out the prop and did a thing and somebody else is going to figure out what that prop is somebody else is going to design it they're going to bring me a picture go can it look like this I'm like yeah sounds great do that um or I can say interior Warehouse that's it I don't have to design a warehouse somebody else is going to design a warehouse and I'm sitting there going oh yes the the smell of the how are you going to get the smell it's a TV show it's a but I got to get the smell in yeah we kept having to do that like can a camera see this Daniel but but okay I'll take it out well and and it's funny too that like all the other little bits cuz I I watch way more screen stuff than Daniel does I have chronic insomnia so I've watched every movie ever made um and that sounds like an exaggeration it it's not but I found one so far one he hadn't seen But I spend a lot of time when I'm watching movies thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing the things that they're doing and so this sort of language of it felt very natural to me and there was stuff in there that like our showrunner would talk to d d be well how are they going to know the emotion he's like well there's a soundtrack the soundtrack will tell them this is sad I was like oh right right music can I get that for my book how can I get a soundtrack for my book well you could get a soundtrack for your book I cannot I don't know you might I mean some writers will put like the music they were listening to but you can't get you can't get the sting at the right moment you can't get the dun dun dun when they pat the page you know it's it's well you know maybe in the future I think that's a terrible plan and and there's other I mean I joke my God that's like books with like scratch and sniff yeah no the same there was a warehouse Sky Skyy yeah no how would that be better I I'm just trying to imagine if we had scratch and sniff uh books at the library we been replac them all the time who knows what we find in when I was a kid they had those yeah and and now they don't there's what we've learned all right but they still have Ed marker so just in case well got to have fun somehow you yes you do yes you do uh so this book this series will be a Trilogy so quite a bit shorter than the nine previous books um and was that uh sort of intentional or did you when you started were you like yeah we can do this in three I think I think we both had PTSD yeah from from nine books people always asked us like how did it feel to finish the nine book that like felt like such a relief imagine imagine that you're crawling across a desert and you get to an oasis that's kind of what it feels like well you know what it felt like it felt like when you move into that first apartment and it's like the terrible walk up with the narrow stairs and you spend all day lugging your furniture up five flights of stairs to your apartment and the last goes up and you just want to collapse and die um that's kind of what it felt like we drugg the last book up we set it down in the room we're like all right I'm done I'm not unpacking just going to lay on the floor until I die yeah and so now uh the the three book series is uh hopefully less arduous that's the the the idea is we can get the whole story done um we can get we know where we want to end we know what the whole thing looks like we know what the last line is and and well and and the nine book series was in a very early version of 12 book series um that had three really boring books in it that we just didn't write so um the idea here is to to do the thing in the shape that it wants to be and in the length that it wants and not uh spend a lot of time doing stuff that you're going to regret having read anyway I mean are there El more letter fans in El letter fans El more Leonard one of the yeah one of the greatest American Writers he said um his process with writing was find all the places in the book that he knows readers are going to kind of skim over and not write those so when we were looking at it we're like you know these three books don't feel like necessary or important what if we just didn't write them yeah and so in this it's a three book series because it wants to be three books long that's the size of the idea put it that way so is your right so you book one done out in the world do you write book two when do you start book two and book three are because you have a last line well we spent all summer with Tai living in my pool house uh outlining exactly what happens throughout the second book and most of the third um and now we are at the part where we write the first drafts and send them to each other and edit them do and so you've done nine and at any and I'm assuming that was the same process that you did with the N no no we were we were ahead with the expanse uh so I don't know if anybody in here knows a a writer named Carrie vaugh but Carrie is a good friend of Daniel and I and has been writing a very long time and uh she is sort of the beta reader for our our books and tells us all the things that we get wrong uh but one of the things she's really good yeah one of the things that she told us early on so we sent her an early copy of the first expanse book Leviathan Wakes and she read it and sent us back some notes and she kind of sent a letter at this sh said this is going to be big finish the second book now get it done before this is published and it was the best advice because we have watched friends of ours have huge breakout first novels and then it kills their ability to write the second book because now there's all this pressure and all this expectation and oh my God what if it's not as good as the first one and everybody is overpraising the first one and the second one what if it's not as good and then they just never write the second book so or or they it comes out and it doesn't do quite as well as they had hoped in the marketplace which is not an an argument about quality yeah um the idea that something sells well therefore it must be good or something that sells poorly and therefore it must be bad that that's that's a lie and somebody comes and it doesn't do as well as people hoped and then they're thinking oh I'm not good anymore I'm not you know and their their their ego is getting inv involved in the the writing process that way it's just as just as toxic yeah so she said make sure you write the second book before this first one is published so we were always a book ahead with the expanse um this one we are not the first book has been published we're just working on first drafts of the second book so we've already failed on the other hand we are uh we have callous soul and um decades in the the industry to uh support us one of the one of the kind of insights I always had about writing was that there's this this balance in writing between um really developing an un a deep understanding of your fellow human being and a deep empathy for your fellow human being and then not caring what they think yeah uh so I can read the reviews of it I can I can see it I'm not going to take it personally anymore so in that process of of uh book one written book two on the way uh an outline do you ever find that um you Chang course a little bit like you thought you thought we were going to go down this path but then you know in the process we're like we're going to go take a left now sure I mean that you're always going to find Little Things that don't make sense anymore things in the outline that you thought you were going to need to do that you realize you don't need to do um or stuff you need to add that's always true I mean I a writing mentor of mine you know his thing was like it's like doing a trip from LA to New York he's like you know you're starting in La you know you're ending in New York you kind of know the freeways you're going to use because there's only so many freeways that'll get you there you don't know where you're stopping for gas you don't know where you're stopping for food you don't know which hotel you're going to stop at midpoint and so that's the discovery the Discover is all that stuff U but you know where you're going you know generally how you're going to get there and if you can get halfway through a book and realize that the the ending wasn't the ending that you thought it was you've already screwed up the beginning because there's there's I mean Tai always says this there's nothing that that fixes a third act problem like fixing the First Act um if it's not already promised at the beginning of the book uh it's not going to be a satisfying when you get to the end noted so you talked about Discovery and I think one of the things about your writing that has been praised is your ability to build and describe these worlds and there's a lot of Discovery and research that goes into that you know I think there's some people uh who think oh sci-fi we're just going to make everything quote quote unquote futuristic whatever the heck that means and there so can you talk about building a world like building these worlds that your characters occupy and their stories are told in I I think I think that sci-fi is a broad tent that encompasses many things and I think the absolutely valid and worthy works of sci-fi that pay no attention to realism in the science um and they're perfectly fine that's that's okay I don't think it has to strive for realism to be valid or or worthwhile I mean telling a good story is really the main thing I think World building though consistency in World building is important um once we know how Jedi Powers work even though they're Magic it doesn't matter as long as they keep working that way we're along for the ride um it it's it's just keeping it consistent that makes it feel like a real place when things randomly change for no reason and suddenly things that used to work this way don't work that way and there's no explanation that's when you sort of fall off yeah when you have a magic object in book two that does something that would totally fix the plot in book four just nobody thinks about it yeah yeah they why didn't they use the magic thing you know it was right there she was using it to go to her classes the whole time but three it's gone oh see that sloppy [Applause] writing so consistency I think is important yeah so anybody who is writing science fiction speculative fiction consistency just maybe should reread what you wrote before so you don't lose the thing that is the magic that does the thing yeah right well I mean if you're going to have the science of Your World randomly change that should be a plot Point like people should be going wow it's weird that the science of our world keeps changing like then then then it's okay all of a sudden our GPS has stopped working again yeah yeah um so getting back to Mercy of the god uh and how would you sort of like describe like there's the book jacket and of course there's reviews I know you don't you know you reviews um and lots of descriptions every's got an opinion opinion everybody's got an opinion but honestly yours is really the only one that counts I mean to be truthful um but when you're thinking about this story and sort of like like pitching it to each other um how would you sort of summon up in just like a few sentences for someone who is just like I pick this up off the shelf and what is it I mean disappointing love child the vers lwin and Frank Herbert is pretty much the best I got I don't know that I have anything that's more enticing than that um yeah you got something no I mean yeah what you I don't I'm not good at cover copy no the cover copy guy Tales of lur Adventure Tales of lur space adventure sounds good to me um well you know we do want to take some questions and I know that we've had about uh had to cut some folks off in our the last few sessions so we have a few extra minutes so we maybe could start taking some questions I know we have a we're going to microphone here microphone there and we're GNA do the alternate thing so if you guys want to failing that we'll just start talking about something random alienis a movie I don't know there there's this person we've got this person here so we you're first hi I was just wondering if you could offer one piece of advice to a debut author what would it be write the second book before the first book is published seriously that's a very good one yeah um but since we already did that one I think we should come up with something else what's the second thing you would tell somebody I so I'm I'm a big believer and don't read your reviews and and the the reason I say that is not because other people's opinions aren't valid or not be because they don't have anything useful to say but because no matter what the review is it's bad for the writer if it's great if it tells you you're amazing that's actually not good for you and if it's terrible and it tells you the worst thing that ever happened to a keyboard that's also not good for you there's no version of a review that leaves you better as a writer than before you read it um so find finding a a small circle of people's opinion you really trust and getting their like our beta readers you know people like that people who understand how the business works and how writing works and can give you true feedback that's a much stronger thing to do than to just go out on to Amazon and read every review and just wreck your own psyche in the process good good reads is is for readers it's not for writers it's not for the writers thank you and we have a question here sure hey guys hey Michael all right um just yeah they know me okay I assume everybody knows Michael all right um just real quick is it going to be Netflix is it going to be Amazon is it going to be Max we have nothing to announce today that's my question really we just want to know that's all we have nothing to announce we want to know too I'm afraid I'm about to get the same answer but in in the dedication in front of the book um you're thanking several people including durin Shankar for having patience with you for the time you were putting into this project instead of something unmentioned yeah that something that can come mentioned or hinted or no we have nothing to announce today so so Daniel and I have um have a couple of business partners that we work on developing projects for for television with and they're always asking us to do things and we're always going but we're writing a book and so we're apologizing for that poor me w a book yeah but none of those things are ready to be announced well I'll squeeze in a short second one and it's just mostly for TI probably going to jail probably it um how soon will you and uh that guy maybe discuss Romulus uh I I don't know I can't I can't answer that I will say I've lost all faith in the alien franchise so I don't know when that will happen yes ma'am hi um I have kind of a craft question when you're in the nitty-gritty of outlining and drafting um how do you find the balance between sort of the emotional themes of your characters and the detailed World building that allows you to approach those themes with that that you talked about in sci-fi earlier okay so um the there's a taxonomy of writing that we use to talk about it um like where World building and character development and plot are all separate lenses that we're using to do that that isn't that that's a great way to talk about it analytically but it doesn't match my experience of actually writing um when when I'm writing when we're writing um all of those things H are happening at the same time and they're all happening in the same moment that I'm I'm describing so what I'm trying to do is really fully imagine what I'm what's what's happening that I'm reporting what the imaginary thing that I'm reporting and then I'm giving you the description I'm giving you the instructions on how to imagine that in your head you're going to reconstruct that I got no control over that um um and all of those things come through in that dramatization and they all exist together and they all exist in your performance of that um so taking it apart like that and trying to build a balance is not my experience thank you hi I wanted to know what some of the most unexpected sources of in Inspiration have been when it's come to building the world whether it's token or video games or other literary Works Star Wars I've been writing fanfiction in the same universe since I was 11 um no this this is a joke uh so of I I I I read a story by Alfred bester when I was 11 called the Stars my destination which I was way too young to read that book it is pretty headyy stuff for an 11-year-old um but I fell so in love with that vision of the future that all the Sci-Fi stuff I've been doing ever since has been sort of me trying to write sequels to Stars my destination which kind of is like the expanse really yeah so so that has stuck with me ever since the other thing that I right around the same age was the first time I watched the movie Alien somebody was asking about alien the movie Alien just locked into my brain the way it looked so everything in my sci-fi future looks like stuff from the movie Alien because it just that just the way things in the future look so those two are huge Inspirations for me um and everything I do is sort of ripping off those two things thank you hi uh so we've heard that the expanse started as Tai's uh ttrpg project before it was it did not start as it started from me that way so so I was going to ask I heard before it was a ttrpg that it was a setting for an MMO is that what you're referring to okay so now after the kickstarter we we have the ttrpg or we have a new ttrpg um have you guys ever I'm sure you have nothing to announce but have you ever considered going back to pitch I'm sure Amazon game studios has uh you know Investments they would like to make they were considered uh pitching a MMO or um any kind of video game I know we had The Telltale uh game but uh is that something that's ever been on your minds we don't have the rights anymore I mean that's really an Alcon entertainment question at this point so one of the things that happens when you when you have a work adapted like this is uh they give you a contract and you sell your baby and then the baby goes away and has adventures and um in this case we were very lucky and that we were allowed to kind of go along with our baby on their Adventures but that's not our baby anymore that's Alcon entertainments now and any game uh decisions would be announced by them got it thank you hey uh love the new book love the expanse there are a lot more alien races and alien characters in the new ser and I just wondered if you could talk about writing non-human characters and some of them are you know quite non-human so okay you want this one or I got something go ahead okay so there's a book called an immense World by Ed young and if you haven't read it Ed young is amazing I'm not supposed to curse so um Ed Yong is amazing and the the way that he talked about um other animals sensory experience of the world and other animals ways of making sense of the Universe um is uh it's transporting and it's really useful when you're coming in and trying to make some other creature uh to have that that in your toolbox so I'm just going to just going to use this to pitch Ed yum that's that's all I'm going to do in here right uh so you guys already talked a little bit about uh consistency in your world building and I'm I actually just recently started the first expanse book and my impression so far is that it's very grounded in real life science and physics in how it approaches some of it's all right so my question uh is how do you guys uh juggle real science and incorporating that into how your worlds work and where some places that you're that you let that fly free a bit and uh interpret in a different way I I mean we get a lot of credit for having two things be realistic in the expanse and that is gravity works the way gravity actually works right and light delay exists um and it turns out most sci-fi just hand waves to those two things away it just says there's gravity plating and now we can all walk around in our ship like it's a boat rather than a tower and no nobody ever explains why that works and then light delay there's instantaneous communication everywhere um so people go oh this is very grounded because there's actually gravity that works the way gravity works and you can't just call Jupiter on the phone and somebody in Jupiter answers um but beyond that I mean we're a little we're a little squishy yeah I mean it it I mean the the the Epstein Drive our joke has always been you know how does the Epstein drive work it's very efficiently efficient it's very really good it's really good at not melting itself yeah yeah um and then when the other weird stuff comes in in the expans you may not be there yet um it it feels different because we have had that kind of semi plausible grounded stuff to begin with so yeah uh it gets weirder yeah this is that's a lesson I actually took from uh a fantasy writer um so the the first book Game of Thrones the the first book in Georgia series um the thing the thing with the thing with Game of Thrones that made it so groundbreaking as a fantasy story is for most of the book it feels like history you know it's just kns and and peasants and horses and and there's like no magic in the world it just feels except for one brief scene at the very beginning with the White Walker but other than it just feels like a normal place and you get very sucked into it's basically just medieval Europe and then there's a scene toward the end where Danny gives birth to Three Dragons and you're like whoo right so if you want the weird thing to feel weird you have to let people settle into not weird long enough that when the weird shows up it takes people they're like oh my goodness what is what does this mean now I mean if if as you were walking around in Game of Thrones there were just dragons flying overhead all the time when Danny gives birth to Three Dragons at the end yeah there tons of dragons it doesn't mean anything so we wanted to give some make it feel like late Apollo 13 and then when the weird stuff shows up people go oh well this clearly has dramatically changed the world thank you uh so for both of you guys kind of in your writing process when it comes with like the story and World building like how mixed is it like do you guys think about like when you write a alien race is it like do I write the alien race and then I think about where does it come from what's their name what's the planet name that kind of thing cuz I know you guys have said you know like certain stuff like the librarian comes back in a second and that like role expands and you know the last name like last line so how mix is the process for you guys when you write it like I answered the last one okay fine um it's it's inextricable I mean th those things the the experience that I'm having as you know Ty and I are are walking through this thing what we're doing is we're imagining um a version of what we're trying to make inside of your head and you know I'm I'm not going to go through and and do an encyclopedic history of every single alien culture and how they got there I'm going to try to think really clearly about what I want you to imagine and how I can make you imagine it and then anything that need anything that doesn't need to be there I can know that or not um as long as I'm able to evoke a good performance from you as a reader I've done my part I I spend more time thinking about the details than Daniel does because I've just sort of World building is my piece yeah um but great I can ask him questions he knows the answers to it I don't have well thank you thank you hi uh so kind of to follow up on the alien writing question uh both the expanse and mercy of gods kind of have this plotline of trying to figure out how these aliens think and how it's different than humans and so I wonder how you approach like writing aliens that are different enough that that's an interesting thing to explore but also similar enough that we understand how they like how we can actually relate to them well we have a whole bunch of examples um if you if you spend a little bit of time trying to figure out how octopi think they're weird if you try to think about if you if you even or even something like much simpler if you if you look at the evolutionary history of dogs and understand that when the dog seems to look up at you with that heartbreaking love it's because we sterilized or murdered everything that didn't love us um there there's a lot going on with other animals right here uh that you can draw from that you can you can make stuff uncomfortable with I mean if if your aliens aren't at least as weird as octopus yeah you kind of you kind of you're behind thank you hello um when you guys are collaborating and you have a disagreement how do you guys resolve that do you have to pull in someone else or do you have a trial by combat yeah I lose a lot no we we just keep talking I mean it's a very Quaker kind of thing we're just going to keep talking about it until somebody convinces the other that their idea is actually the better one and yeah I mean the rule is the best idea wins and if you're being honest about that it's becomes very clear which one was the best idea and um that works if you don't bring your ego into it and I'm very arrogant about several things none of them are about having the best ideas when it comes to writing so it's easy for me to go no Daniel actually you're right that is a way better idea than mine thank you hello um I just wanted to ask as uh reading the expans for the first time I found it to be extremely systemic you mentioned George R Martin's books before and how Westeros is really the main character of those series we have characters we follow but we mostly follow Westeros in the same way the expanse the solar system is the main character we have characters we follow what sort of draws you to that sort of systemic style of Storytelling and is there anything about working as a Duo that makes you particularly Adept at it I don't think being a Duo helps at all but uh uh I mean it helps from other things but not not that the the I mean what what I'm hearing you ask is what is it about having this particular setting and this this sense of the scope of the story that that's exciting that's drawing um and that's I mean that's kind of asking that what's the cool bit that Drew you in the first place right and you get the you you you get the map you've chosen the map of the place and then you start figuring things out you know what's what's on gamate what's on um this is all the stuff that Tai did before I was ever in the room and in that it was because I was designing a game world so I came at it backwards are we down to one more I think we have one more question and I think that's here yes uh so in hopes of avoiding some PTSD flashbacks and not to ruin it for the one guy who's reading the first book yeah and and referring to what you said about knowing how things end and what's the final line are you happy with how the expense ended and and do you believe that we've achieved closure on that entire story now when you say the expanse are you talking about the books of the show The Books thank you I'm the the end of the expanse books is the ending that we had intended when we were doing the outline back when like 2012 when we were uh still writing book two um the story is told it's complete um I I I'm very pleased with where it ended right thanks and thank you [Music] I thank you all and enjoy the rest The Book Festival [Applause] [Music] see what [Music] [Music] [Applause] he [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah yeah [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] me me [Music] n Oho oh [Music] wo [Music] o oh [Applause] [Music] wo woo [Music] going to do a little [Music] song okay [Music] what [Music] [Music] hold it hold it [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay what do you think about [Music] hold [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hold it on hold it [Music] [Applause] on okay [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] sh [Music] [Music] [Music] he a [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] he [Music] [Applause] good evening is everyone excited welcome to the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival at this time we ask that you silence your phones and any other electronic devices if you need to use the restroom there's restrooms to the right and left outside the doors we also want to notify you that this event will be recorded and your entry and Presence at this program constitutes your consent to be filmed and otherwise recorded there will be time for audience questions near the end of the event get your questions ready we have two microphones in each of the aisles that's where we'll be asking the questions from we do want to make sure that everyone is able to get a seat so if there is an empty seat in your row and you can move towards the center please do that so that everyone who wants to be here is able to find a spot and now what you have all been waiting for all day long I am honored to introduce Rebecca yaros the number one New York Times best-selling author of fourth wing and iron flame in addition to the imperian series she is also the author of The Legacy series the flight and Glory series and the Standalone novel in the likely event her work has received multiple starred Publishers Weekly reviews and a cirkus best book of the Year honor yar's latest novel iron flame is the second in Her imperian Fantasy romance series she is in conversation today with Emily Quang the founding reporter and co-host of NPR's shortwave so please join me in welcoming Rebecca and Emily to the stage hi guys okay there are so many of you out there give it up for Rebecca yuros one more time hi hey all right hi all right I'm feeling what you're feeling I'm a little like it's everyone as far as I can see it's everyone I've ever known welcome to the closing event of the national Book Festival that's wild it's a wild my name is Emily Quang I am the host of shortwave which is NPR science podcast and oh thank you oh my gosh uh and obviously you know who this is Rebecca Aros esteemed writer of this series and many other [Applause] books how many of you have read fourth wi just by a show of hands good good cuz there'll probably be spoilers and if you haven't man I just I can't if you haven't you might as well leave the room this is not the space to be in um no we really we we made a pack we were told by her team not to unleash too many spoilers for those of you who hadn't read it but maybe will drop a little bit of morsels I want to just say it's hard not to at this point yeah it's true it's been it's been a year so um one thing I will say is uh I asked for five more minutes of time for Q&A so we're going to give you I did it for you you're going to ask way better questions than me so you're going to have 20 minutes of Q&A and the microphones are right there you can just filter in just come to me with my Violet fit and uh Rebecca and we'll we'll do our best but we're just going to have a little bit of a conversation right now that okay great so um this book I mean it's hard to even quantify its success it's spent 67 consecutive weeks on the New York Times hard cover fiction bestseller list that's it has been sold in 30 languages it has been optioned for a TV series from Amazon MGM Studios um and I learned this you are the first romance writer to have a Main St a mainstage event at this Festival in the history of the festival yeah um do go romance here well uh you know oh my gosh it's like it's like that's amazing it's like um we're having like a Barnes & Noble moment um yeah there have been there have been Romance Writers but there's never been a main character moment for a romance writer until tonight yes um so you guys so I wanted to ask you romance and fantasy as a genre Romany equal parts both important fantasy and romance together what does the breakout success of not only your book but romantic as a genre in this moment tell you about what people need in the world I don't know you guys want to tell me like what is it like what are we 11 I get asked there's an echo um so I get asked a lot like what I why I think it's successful and I'm like I don't I don't I don't know people like dragons um it's I think it's it's escapism but also romance has always been wildly popular right I think it's it's usually written by women it's usually written geared toward women um women we we Propel a lot of polishing right so I don't know you guys would have to answer that for me I really think it has to do with escapism and just a popularity of romance yeah your first love was actually fantasy yeah so paint me a picture like young Rebecca where were you growing up every what were you reading um and how did you feel when you were reading that first fantasy author so I grew up I mean everywhere because we were a military family so you know Bas to base and post to post y um and my parents never censored what I wrote or what I read sorry they were like interesting um it was more like like Mom what are you reading where are your books and at 12 years old and 11 years old I'm like hey what's up dude Deo and Katherine cter so when we moved back to Colorado my aunt had this like basement just full of books and she would always put books in my hand and she handed me my very first Mercedes Lockey book Mercedes Mercedes also can you hear her as the echo problem can you all hear at the back I don't want to shout at you I'm a sound person I work for NPR this is very important to me that you all can hear cuz you all waited in line thank you so much okay Mercedes the fact that she guys wait in line just stuns me really it does like thank you I can't believe that um yes so Mercedes lacky she handed me the Heralds of Almar series and I tore through it and after that it was you know an mcaffry and it was Mar and Zimmer Bradley and I just really loved fantasy it was the ability to not be in my world I would pick up that book I would open the page and I would disappear to wherever that was and the longer the series The better cuz I just I was somewhere else um and I Lov tally as a heroine because she was smaller um she was more of an underdog kind of Vibes and I just I just really loved fantasy but I also love romance why because I love happy ending things and because I I fell in love with my husband at 19 and I feel like you get to fall in love over and over and over again to get those emotions when you read romance cuz he's the only guy I'm going to fall with right brain doesn't know the difference Pi up the good chemical go I'm like dopamine the oxytocin right yeah so when you blend the two it's like this perfect just perfect amalgamation right at least for my brain that's what I love I love that you guys love it too it makes me very happy thank you I think I got can I can I confess something I had never read a dragon novel until yours really yeah I kind of felt like dragons weren't for me not really yeah like I needed to be a a man in order to no I'm serious most fantasy with Dragons was written by men I looked this up yeah and I found it when I was like a dragon book set in a war College if you haven't read it it's set in a war College if that's the worst spoiler you get and uh these students are embroiled in a a 400-year war they are training it features Violet soring Gale she is this badass falls in love rides dragons um takes no but I was like dra dragons dragons when you sat down to write Your Dragon Fantasy novel what tropes were you most excited to destroy dude I been touched in fantasy so one tropes I always feel like tropes get a bad name cuz tropes are really just a description of what's there is really things you're going for I wanted to write an enemies to lovers because I had written like right I'd written like 20 like 20 contemporary books at this point and I always feel like enemies tever in in a contemporary setting unless you're doing like a mafia romance or something like like you're really just having a dispute over The copier like it's not like you're like where's the Stak it is yes like you can settle that with like a therapist and a cup of coffee true so so much enemies to lovers is just miscommunication and semantics it's like if you had just had a different word choice we could have all it never would have had a plot dude you killed like you know my mother killed your dad you you killed my brother like oh we're at it we're like Romeo and Juliet you know cap that's true wow so I wanted to do enemies to lovers but I also love a good forced proximity like a good you have to yeah like oh no there's one bed well I mean always okay there is always one bed like let's just get that right and then I'm going to tell you when we get to that moment and we're like guess what there there's one bed like if there's a moment you're like yeah there is but um housing is expensive okay sometimes you four to one bedroom so but you know in that moment one bad is you know one good but we decided or I decided that what do you call it when I looked at the the dragons I wanted the force proximity to be between the dragons so the meeting like that mated bond is between the dragons and not not the hum yes because they can't stand each other yeah yeah was there any Trope you were like I really want to maintain this cuz this is the thing I love about fantasy I'm not not going to let anyone take it from me I'm going to write this this High fantasy element that I love from other books I've read in my past into my no there wasn't anything that I looked at another book and was like I want this in my book um there wasn't anything that I was going to die on tropes it was mostly that I really wanted to talk about the elements of revisionist history and that was the one thing I stuck on I was like this will be this will be in this book that was my biggest like this has to be in this book um and of course I wanted a a heron with EDS yeah so that was TBR so that was really that was really it other than that I just had fun with it like I really just I wrote it in like two and a half months and I just I know right um it just like fell out of me I just I had a really good time with it how many of you did you know that she wrote that in two and a half months no yeah okay some people some like we watched how are you I'm tired I'm like I'm I'm really tired um I'll I'll probably take a break like onx storm is an edits and then I probably won't write for a while don't get scared it's going to be fine okay but when you have chronic illness and you don't respect the limits of your body there will come a time where your body will make you respected and I at that level so after Onyx storm has turned in I will sleep for a long time [Music] the Mind comes the books come from your mind so we want that mind to be rested and well yeah not brain foggy you were telling me backstage that you're really into Chapel rone right now for more than her which is pretty great right for more than her music it's also kind of how open she's been that this Ascension to fame has had a real toll on her physically and I think writing is just as physical as many other activities you're not just sitting at a desk I mean you are your brain's going and you're here so the fact that I'm here and I'm not like you know at home in bed or things like that there it's it's a physical aspect I just respect the fact that I think what I have felt over like a lot of the last year she's openly saying and I've never felt strong enough to go out there and openly say it like hey you know creatives need space to be creatives and things like that and I think watching her is very inspiring with how she's handling it cuz oh Lord she's gone from like just do you like my sound effect effect I can do it again okay but she's inspirational in the fact that she's not scared to speak her mind of the consequences of it do you feel like you're at a place where you can speak openly about the consequences of meeting these demands of the publishing industry the demands of your wonderful fans who nonetheless in this age of social media I think really want more content it depends it depends on when you get me like am I in a day where i'm like today and I got like 11 hours of sleep hey or are you getting me on a day where it's 4 hours of sleep and I'm on a deadline and I'm like hey this is impossible it depends I think I've spoken a lot with the fact that the scent has been difficult on my kids um and this is probably it got said in Australia so I'll say it now like we had to move people found our address and scared my kids and so we had it's okay my new house is gorgeous and I'm going to make a two-story Library okay it's going to you know what I mean we're gonna we're gonna get the we're gonna get the lemonade out of that but um it's been the kind of year that I didn't expect any of this at all I had been writing for a certain amount of time I had what I thought was my my sense of normal yeah and then fourth wi happened and I wasn't prepared for it on any level whatsoever um and so I feel like I'm just now kind of getting my feet to where they might be under me and I can kind of take a look and take a look around because a lot of the last year I don't remember and things like being on Good Morning America I don't remember you were disassociating yeah well it was more like like um because you're in figh ORF flight like I'm I have such like my anxiety that I can remember things like sitting down in the chair and I can remember looking up from the interview and thinking where's my sister cuz they brought my my my sister had been with me and so certain things like that I'm hoping that over the next year I can kind of get my feet underneath me to where I can remember things that happen and kind of more enjoy it and less fear it yeah yeah sorry I love you guys a lot it's just it's it happened really fast you know um you and I both love history yeah and I found that uh we discovered backstage that your favorite line in the book is also my favorite line it's not one of the smutty lines I'm sorry I mean those are good too just yeah my parents might be W no I'm joking my parents are like got it it only takes one desperate generation to change history even even erase it yep one generation to change the text one generation to choose to teach the text the next grows and the LIE becomes history how did history Inspire this story I got got really mad at certain changes to academic texts in our country that we're taking slavery out of our our textbooks and our history and the things that we don't like about ourselves and I got mad so [Music] yeah I wanted to kind of take a look at that and what happens when you take the ugly parts of ourselves that we don't like out of history and you don't allow the Next Generation to learn from that and correct that mistake and take accountability for it um it just it made me really mad I know that's an ungraceful way to say it but that was that was pretty much it and as a student of History I the censorship of History yes the censorship of History I always look at history like it's a collection of stories just stories that impact other stories and if this story can't happen if the story has has already happened but if you take this story out how did we get here and where do we go forward from that without this context of history and fourth wi is based on that general idea of if you don't have your own history your accurate history you have no idea how you are affecting the world around you let alone your own citizens and the next question of it is would you willingly give up your sword to be someone else's Shield right cuz everyone says they would until you ask like Lilith singale and then she says what would you do to protect your kids so if you have a shield and someone else needs it as a sword do you do you give it up to them or do you protect your child your children and there's no there's no right answer but that's yeah just took that energy level way down sorry about that I think that violence creates impossible choices and you write about violence unabashedly in your book and I'm not talking about so Violet she's I can't can't swear oh man they did warn me I'm on my best behavior yeah yeah yeah we're both trying to like censor the f bomb and side that lives deep inside of us thank you Library of Congress we're so grateful to be here um but I uh my parents are super excited they're like look she's not swearing yeah yeah um I'm not just talking about violent vi vi violence the tongue fster barring on the mat I'm talking about the fact that your book is about a 400-year war it is about the eraser history and culture to control The Narrative of War how given that war and events of the kind described in your book are happening all over the world they have shaped countries and cultures how do you approach writing about war on the page I think um I've never been to war but my husband has uh many times and I live with the consequences of of that and I've seen what it has done to him we've buried our friends um and I I'm very personally affected by the actions that that happen in war and I think I like to examine it because I would like everyone to question it after being a m spouse for you know 20 you 22 years right um it got to a point where I'm like can you explain to me why you know I I constantly have to worry about a doorbell right what is it about us a doorbell ring yes a doorbell ring say he's not coming home correct and my husband has been seriously wounded in combat before um and we nearly lost him so I like to examine it as so why why do we do this to each other why and people be like why are you putting 20-year-old kids on a parapet and I'm like why do we put 18-year-olds in you know in the military why do we have these wars between kingdoms I don't know why do we have these wars between kingdoms and I think a lot of it has also been me deconstructing how I feel about it from that first deployment to how I felt when he got out and watching the steady progression of PTSD and what we do to each other yeah you wrote uh the same year that he was set to retire yeah the Army offered him a bonus yeah of $105,000 to go deploy for three more years that was the first time I got canceled on the internet super fun because Rebecca wrote an open letter to the Army I did on her blog saying essentially no we will not take this payment for three more years of combat you said um in a lifetime of War this man deserves peace what what just happened I I'm like I don't know what that says I haven't read it in years oh my I'm sorry okay that I uh am am reminding you of this moment but I think it amazed me that you kind of even then were starting to question the premise yeah of of endless Wars and um and I know that moment was really hard because you got a lot of oh yeah criticism for it how do you look at it now because you are still yet on a journey of trying to understand oh man dude if I had like I don't know had a dollar for every time someone said something negative about me on the internet at this point um I would be fun so the way I look at it now are you talking about militarily or how when I don't know um I feel he's been out now for uh gosh five years I want to say I think almost five years and it's anyone who leaves the military will tell you it's something really hard to leave behind it's a structure it's a Brotherhood it's a camaraderie and a Sisterhood it is it's really hard to leave behind and I feel like I'm still looking at it and I'm still examining it but the blog was gosh it was taken so out of context um we had two kids who in here has EDS hello zebras so Jason's fit deployment I've got a kid who dislocates a thumb catching a soccer ball okay oh no that's not first first I have a kid who breaks his ankle falling up the stairs like his leg kept going his foot stayed behind right and my husband is deployed yet again and three or four days later I picked another kid up from soccer practice and he has dislocated his thumb and broken part of his wrist from catching a soccer ball and is now a cast and my husband calls me um as we're pulling out of the ER and says hey I got this offer for this bonus and y y Yad Y and I'm like legit you send that paper paperwork you will be sending divorce papers and it was said in that connotation and he laughed and I laughed and then we had a genuine conversation about what that money would mean to our family which is life-changing and all I could think was but what is the point of lifechanging money if he's not alive and so I wrote the blog to say I love my husband more than I love the idea of life-changing money and what got taken out of it was if you sign those papers you will sign divorce papers as well and I was like dude really really but that was my first experience with what happens when anything you say can be twisted into a narrative that that people want to believe you're so much like your character I mean you in that I don't poison people you are all safe in that I mean it reminds me of violet and zayan's whole deal where she's like not on my not on your terms on my terms right and I feel like Violet is this way for you to explore all these things that can be difficult to say in life but you can say them through her um and that's just beautiful it's fun I do that a lot with books I think I have a good time um exploring what's going on in my life or how I'm feeling and it tends to come out in the books I don't mean it to so like you read the last letter I'm so sorry um but it's it's just kind of I think whatever I want to have a discussion about or whatever I'm feeling or dealing with sinks into the bugs yeah uh the last thing I just want to ask you before we open it up to Q&A if you want to start lining up now might be the time everyone be nice everyone be nice I look if you push I won't answer your question I'm watching I have six kids um my goodness guys oh my gosh okay how do we do this should we just ask and we'll go let's get ask and we'll go um I have not been been this moved by a sister Dum um since where where one sister has a lock of silver hair since Anna and Elsa and Frozen and my sister is actually here she's a volunteer for the festival with the Junior League give it up for the Junior League who like managed this whole event right in front of you oh hi she's like see me oh hi and I feel like you know there's so much of um chosen family is so important but transforming your relationship with your biological family can be equally difficult yeah and I wonder if um well one is Kate the inspiration for mea no oh okay okay I would never do that to her I also would never answer to my mother and two dude I'm not doing that no are you kidding me my mom would be like you made her say this no absolutely not and two can you give us any hint as to what family Dynamics you hope to explore with the soring Gale Clan now that they have gone through so much together and this idea that Violet is a way for you to explore things in your own life what do you hope for them as a siblinghood I think um I love I love the singale siblings like spoiler alert there's more you know if you haven't God this is so like no not like that I mean if you haven't read fourth wi everyone settle my goodness my goodness your life is wild I know it's it's it's fine so it's it's good so I love like my relationship with my sister is very I think they're about six years apart as she's ruffling through her purse down here you can't find your phone a do you want me to call it no you have mine my my just call it from my my I recognize the older sibling that's me and the younger siblings like it's fine it's fine um so my sister's serly protected like meor and things like that but I never bring real people into my books ever I don't ever want to look at someone and say that is based on you that is based on you I never do that and I I hold to that um I do love that they have this very complicated family Dynamic I think all families are complicated and I think that I love seeing how how Mera handles other sibling um who in here's red Iron flame are you talking about Brennon yes yes okay I'm like just so like that moment I knew like there's certain scenes you know when you're going into and I was like dude she's going to punch the like she's just you know cuz I knew that would be mea's personality so I do love watching them Forge just relationship but I also love the differences between them like they they are very different and I just I enjoy complicated family Dynamics I have six kids so I watch their Dynamics all the time and I'm like ah like who's closer this year who's closer that year who's you know how are they relating this year how are they relating that year and I think a lot of that lot of beaten good way to avoid spoilers you did very good just navigating around that Kindom like by the way there's a Brun in all right are you ready for yeah totally let roll okay I'm G to start with you and then we'll just switch back in fourth does that seem fair okay yeah all right hi Rebecca I'm a little nervous so I wrote down my question what's your name I'm Shan and I'm also a m spouse so thank you for your honesty about the experience there's a whole lot it's you everyone feels a little differently about it I respect all opinions thank you um so after finishing iron flame I'm sure I'm not the only person in this room who went down a deep dark spiral into the fan art um so I'm there's some really interesting and and um detailed artists out there talented too right very talented no incredibly so I'm wondering what's your relationship to Fan Art and has seeing fan art ever change the way that you visualize any of your characters so no the characters appear how they are to me from day one so like I can see them sitting I mean I'm not I can't see them actually sitting in front of me no one call anyone but like if they were sitting here they they exactly who they were to me the day I saw them the day they walked into my head and then walked onto the page I set that description and that's it that's who they are um fan art holy crap are you guys talented like my goodness um but I also I also avoid myself at all costs so typically like I might stumble onto something and see it but for the most part I don't seek it out I try to like I avoid myself let's put it that way but I do think good God are they talented thank you not a problem hi thank you so much for providing a main character with a physical difference do you have any thoughts about having more characters with disabilities or differences to make it more a normal mainstream thing and maybe even accommodations that enabl body the Able Body characters have to make in order to be more inclusive so the decision I went to my publisher and I really would like my heroin to have EDS and we had to have a very in-depth discussion about me not feeling like I'm monolith or I can represent all of EDS I have all four of my sons have it um so I've seen a lot of different ways it has affected us and we we kind of put it into there I am always looking for ways to make the books more inclusive while being realistic so when you're set in a military setting it's very much how can we be inclusive but how do we not put people in danger who you know can't be in danger so how are you inclusive without being illogical and and actually be like tipping into harm but I'm always like I'm constantly looking for for ways to make make it more inclusive thank you so much and speaking of inclusive it's so hard you know getting Ada stuff together this lady over here actually has EDS and we weren't able to stand in line long enough so just her book but I'd love for you to sign it later get you we'll get you oh we're going sorry adhc no I got you hi hi nice to meet you um so I'm in a group of eight and there like one of us have to ask the question all right do it you got and they pointed to you yeah okay all right you were nominated in your squad I know right um so first I have two thank yous and I have my question my first thank you is I'm an educator of seven years and thank you for not just making the Educators villains I'm sick of that got all bad people we love our students um second is thank you for making such a diverse cast of PC characters cuz a lot of people if you read fantasy we're either dead back character or we're only there to push the main character up and I love when Rihanna just I can't say that when she just stuffs at the violin and says shut up no we're not doing that I love it so much she's I think she's the best honestly I think she's the best of their year like we I really think she is I think she has that balance of that intelligence and that drive and that just like she has her like I can't swear she has her stuff together yeah that makes sense like she's got her stuff together and her priorities on her family and on her friends and on her Mission at the same time like she's able to to achieve this balance that Violet has yet to true that way what was your question sorry my question is no that's cool I love I love when you talk um you might sliit it might slip about Onyx storm who knows um but my question is I'm sorry foreshadowing you're like the queen of foreshadowing if you've read fourth wi and iron flame you know exactly what I'm talking about the queen of foreshadowing like how do you do it do you have like a bullet to board Q cards like your editors like whole remember you want to like sprinkle something from Onyx store in there no so usually like one I plot like a mad woman okay like I sit down with um I sit down I I imagine all the scenes that I have in that book that I are in my head and I write them all down on index cards and then I transer them to colorcoded um Post-it notes so I can see where my action is where my plot is where my Easter eggs are where my romance is on my like threea structure so when I step back I can see where my holes are where am I lacking action where is it going to be slow where am I missing this romance like am I evenly coded does that make sense and then sometimes I lay Easter eggs out thinking about it and then I'm like oh dude you set that up in that like that one like look at go genius yeah like sometimes I am just winging it like winging it and then sometimes I'm like nah this is this is going to come up so it depends on when you catch me but a lot of the times like right now as I'm finishing um edits for onx storm I'm looking at Books 4 and5 and I'm kind of like where are those scenes and is there anything I needed to have put in here here but it's also a balance of like how many strings do you pull put on there and like which ones do you pull cuz eventually dude it's a lot of strings right but thank you thank you for saying such nice things like sometimes it happens by accident well thank you for coming to DC people don't stop by here as I've been here four times this year man four times four times guys four times four times and you were telling me backstage you have ADHD my husband is ADHD and it's like this incredible ability to just see like three points further so if you have ADHD like your brains are all so powerful I love yeah yeah yeah yeah see that dog all right we have H over here yes hi there I'm DEA I am a fluent signer I really saw myself in your book and just specifically I'm curious what inspired you to include a deaf character in your book so I wanted to be as inclusive as possible while maintaining of course the safety of that character which is why naturally Thebes quadrant is the safest place for that character my agent's assistant is deaf and so I'm always aware of her opinion and I um I had her I has her to read it to make sure that you know we were doing the best we can but it seemed like the most logical next next point of inclusivity thank you thank you thank oh my gosh I see that the name of you and your beautiful dog yes hi my name is suel and this is my service dog Alani hello hi elani you're so excited to be here like the fact that you're like looking at me like we're making eye contact I'm like I'm like guys I'm just me man I'm just me bro I can't wait to tell my mom about this she's never going to believe it she has hurt look listen like I I like go into deep Dives with again ADHD like I go into like that Mastermind mode and I'm like let me let me see exactly like what this line means and like focus on it anyways besides the point I really want to know what that experience was like for you um ask somebody who has to advocate for herself clearly um on The Daily what was it like to experience um putting those things into your books and then seeing how much love and compassion and empathy that you received because I know when I see it to day today basis it's like it's like my heart like beats out of my chest I'm like oh my God I have so much love for you you don't even understand but I can't even imagine on that magnitude of how moving it could be so first I was terrified I was terrified that I would do it wrong and that I would immediately be called out for doing it wrong you know as one should but I was I was terrified and then all I could think was well this is my lived experience I had just been diagnosed I'm a late I'm late to diagnosis um I spent two years when you know my first pots flares were hitting and the STI migraines where I thought I was going to die yeah and so like actually like please you know autopsy my body kind of things so writing fourth wi is very cathartic to me because I was still discovering what my limits are and what accommodations I would need and what accommodations my sons need and we were going through a period where my son had just had a titanium bar put in his chest for you know for pecus and things like that um and I was writing his accommodations and seeing how the world looks at it and then the book came out and it caught me off guard that people with chronic illness spotted it and they spotted it so fast and some able-body people did not it was very much she's too weak to survive she shouldn't have survived this and all I could think was ah yes there's that ableism it is it's just real life right so hearing people come up and say it's amazing to see ourselves represented is the highest compliment I could ever give because I never saw anybody like us in fantasy period and it's mindblowing and it's extremely humbling and I think it's really um it's just really beautiful to see everyone come out and and be like hey this is awesome and it's humbling that's the best word I've got for it just it's mind-blowing it's the real thank you so much I love your do thank you I love her too she said that like thank you so much hi hi Rebecca I was wondering if you were a rider in fourth Wing what would your signant or signets be I asked her this and she had quite an answer so I would cuz it's based on like unique Chemistry Between You and Your Dragon and how powerful Your Dragon is right so I would have to assume i' I've got tar and because because if I'm crossing that parit mhm yeah that's the only person I'm CL I'm climbing Gauntlet for and I would want to do something that you guys haven't seen yet it's called distance wielding I would want to be able to you know cross time and space to be somewhere because I've got a kid in New York and a kid in LA and man there are times that they're going through something and I just want to be able to take that single step and be there for whatever they need or get to be able to see them so that that would be that would be mine yeah thank you yeah thank you hi I was just telling her I'm really nervous you are doing great dude I'm up here like just going it's them it's just us it's just us it's you too I've been wanting to tell you for forever that when I finished the second book I just cried for so long it just I felt so connected and it was I just oh my God it broke my heart you broke my heart um I'm sorry I mean I'm not but I am but like if you made it through fourth wi like this I think I said this in Australia like dude the first book I get it if I take you off guard the second book it's like consent like you like like you know what you're getting but I'm also sorry yes um so my question is um because this book's gotten so popular you know there's like there's whole podcasts that are based on it and there's all kinds of fan theories and everything have you ever seen a fan Theory that's come up that you've been like how did you guys know about that oh so I avoid myself at all costs and if I see a podcast I turn it off I skip right by it I don't listen I don't look at Fan theories I mean sometimes like sometimes one will come because someone will directly say it to me or something like that but if like I open an email and it mentions fan Theory I close it I don't cuz I don't ever want it to influence my writing so far there are certain things like I don't think anyone's caught on to a few things that at least that I've seen God that's how vague can I be such as like how vague can I oh no you care to elaborate but I will say the one fan Theory someone was like dude Zaden was in love with Violet like forever and I'm like dude Brennan's last memories of her are at like what age and you think grown men should be falling in love with like little bit of teenagers uh-uh no we don't that around here so I think that was like that was probably the only one but but I I avoid them at all costs so I'm sorry feel like I can't give you satisfying answers hi yes hi hello I'm dimma um I know you spoke a lot about war and I really appreciate that I'm an Iraqi American who immigrated to the United States shortly before the US invasion of Iraq so the reason I've Loved These books so much is because they make readers root for resistance of marginalized communities against their oppressors in war so I wanted to ask when writing about those types of themes and characters like Zaden do the parallels in the world or in society Inspire your writing I think I look at it especially gosh when you have a 20-year war that how how you get there and why you get there and how that happens that definitely leaks in I think because I had to ask myself like why why is he there why are we there what have we accomplished where is those accomplishable goals like you don't you don't defeat an ideology you just can't so it's not a do any mean like it's it's a absolutely it's a gosh we lose so many you're preaching to the choir yes exactly so yes they bleed in to what I think about and how I look at it and they also can adjust my own views so as I write I start to look at things differently because I have to put myself in that situation so it's both I'm both inspired by and forced to can like microphone and forced to look at my own opinions of it and how that should change or how that should not make sense absolutely thank you so much and it also resonates with all of us cuz we do all love dragons yes yes we do it's the dragons man oh we're over here hello hi hi I'm such a fan my name is Kimberly I teach High School in Washington DC thank you uh been doing this for 22 years so thank you I so I teach English and I'm always trying to uh pull the inspiration out of my students to write because they hate writing so I'm always trying to p P the inspiration out of them so my question to you is you mentioned that you wrote this in 2 and A2 months and fell out of you yeah do you feel like that was more like automatic writing where the story was being channeled through you and you were the conduit that brought it forth or was this story and world something you've been inwardly growing and cultivating for years no okay so literally it was like um I can't turn it off I'm I can't turn it off that's time cuz they had asked me for five pitches and it's like okay well I've got like who all right like think about having to come up with five unique fantasy ideas and five unique fantasy worlds I'm like pacing the floor listening to like Taylor Swift at 2: a.m. right like like what am I going to do here and so the one I'd given for the dragons I was shocked they chose and then it kind of cuz I was like dragons really all right I mean I was like I was game CU I put it out there but I was like that's where we're right on let's roll and it evolves I'm character-based so I start with my characters and I started with the dragons I started with a military unit I was like it's going to be a military unit it's going to be here and here and my editor was like well you've been writing new adult for you know 10 years already what if you said it at a college instead and I was like dude a war college and then it evolved from there and from there I looked at it and I was like okay we have a war College okay we've got four majors and I know some people say it's like Divergent deep but I'm like no it's just a college with four majors guys like no one's like you can leave I mean the writer's C it's the only one that's going to you know like but it's it's it's a war college and after that it just goes and goes and goes and my brain expands upon it it is nothing that I thought about I WR with the pitch gosh um I thought about overnight sent the pitch I sent the pitches the next day and then when fourth Wing was picked as the pitch I had that call where it was like okay set of a war College I wrote an eight-page synopsis and then it took off from there and I got up in the morning and um I'd almost quit writing a few months beforehand I'd almost just quit and I know right sometimes I'm like H uh but so but I got up in the morning and I looked at my husband and I was like I get to play with Dragons today and it was just what's fun like The Gauntlet wasn't even in the synopsis Gauntlet just came to me and I was like we will we will do the gauntlet is phenomenal but no it's nothing that I sat on for years it just evolved as the characters needed things or as the world would need them that is awesome thank you thank you that's thanks hi hi I'm Haren and oh I'm so nervous right now don't be doing so well yeah you're awesome it's crazy like you're so famous and I'm just like a regular person let me tell you though dud no no no no I'm telling you when my sister arrived yesterday to get me to the airport I was like typing the edits in the last page of onx storm and she looked at me like I can't take this woman in public okay like no don't don't stress yeah so I have a question and uh a friend uh texted me about a question she had and my question it was um what was the question you're doing great okay you tell Rebecca yaros is like the most down toe person ever she's so dude it's been 15 months okay there's not a lot of time for your ego to grow so I was reading um Iron flame and it was like Jack Barlo would like never die like and I was I was thinking about how if you uh watch The Vampire Diaries how um Matt Donovan also wouldn't die and stay as a human the whole the whole way to like they some dudes just won't go away I know man like they won't go away we all want them to they just won't why so are you are you trying to correlate the two yeah like was like have you watched vampire daries like I I me I mean yeah up to like I think I think up to like the last couple Seasons I think for the most part I'm I'm like an arrow girl but yeah yeah yeah totally I know right Oliver and Felicity for life so um yeah I mean I yes I I remember Matt surviving a lot of things but like I would say that like Jack's a snitch bit worse than than than Matt you know po Matt's just struggling out there trying to survive Jack's just evil man spoiler alert and my friend had a question about uh Brennan and naan and how are do they have a relationship did they have a relationship I don't know maybe you should read I think the easiest I mean logically if you were going to push yourself you know to the to death right to save someone you would have to feel a certain way right without my publisher being like stop it thank you thank you everyone good job I it actually physically pains me to do this but that is all the time we have for questions what what what what were you going to say can we at least do there too cuz they just got up there and they're all excited oh the librarian this is uh all right thank the librarian of Congress this is um yes that's that's the right reaction for the librarian of Congress this is Dr Carla Hayden she's incredible she's the coolest woman in the world by the way okay they've already said that Rebecca you are the Taylor Swift someone said that just now and I just want to say give it up one more time for Rebecca and Emily I got one more [Applause] question and thank all of you for proving that reading is wonderful it can take you places so yes one more question now how are you going to choose one she was waiting all right let's do it um what I want to pursue creative writing when I'm molder and I think you do a really good job of combining like emotion and action in your fight scenes and that's something I've always struggled with so I want to know like how you do it and like what your process is while writing fight scenes um gosh I suck at those um are you sure oh dude yeah yeah after writing 20 romance novels you're like we got to fight now wait what okay what's going on I sit inside the character because I write in deep POV first person I sit inside Violet's body I'm inside Violet's body inside while I'm sitting in my ergonomically correct chair are you like throwing punches in your office I'm looking at it to how would where is my hand where is that and I'm looking at it like where are we in combat are we on the mat are we on the dragon what's my stomach doing where are we in the air where is everyone in regards to the airspace where's you know where's the formation where the other dragons and it's sitting inside that character and thinking logically what do you have time to feel and what don't you have time to feel so are you in a position of fear or are you in a position of determination and just setting that emotion and then viscerally being inside their body make sense does that help yes good luck oh yeah good luck with your writing you're going to be up here someday you want to we can we can I'm good I just don't want to like do you want to question is that too much pressure no it's okay okay incredible I love this generation okay go ahead so um I'm Lisa and I also am like working on a novel and stuff so I really do like writing and um I really admire like your writing style it's just like amazing to me because it really gets me absorbed in the story and it's just like really um what's the word like I feel like I'm really in there which I mean usually I feel but like it just has me speeding through your books um anyway so my question is out of all of like the five books in the imperian series which is your favorite oh I know that's a question fourth wi is always going to hold like a a spot in my heart because it just it fell out that quickly and I just it was and I got to shape the world and wasn't constrained by like leaving myself in Arisha right so like I wasn't under those constraints I really do love Onyx um I think because because I'm now so rooted in the world that now I'm like ah and here's where it opens and here's where that goes so I really love Onyx I think the most one because I love a morally grey man okay don't we don't me all and uh two because I'm at that point where I get to expand and I get to actually know where I am nor my theater okay Onyx storm is available for pre-order right now no pitches it comes out January 2025 it does please give Rebecca Yos a huge round of applause so thank you than so I guess you want Rebecca to come back and then Em are you g are you game Emily Rebecca's coming back Emily you coming oh I'd love to all right all right because we can't thank you enough for really honoring us for being here you have proved the power of reading the power of romance and thank you you're both wonderful it's been an amazing day this is one of the best times of the year so we're actually pleased that you are closing the entire festival and look at all the people that stayed to see you look at this this is crazy so the hardworking staff of the library the donor that make it possible and before we leave I want you to I'm revealing I'm doing a big reveal oh mark your calendar the librarian go okay mark your calendar for September 6 2025 that's the Saturday after Labor Day that's the next Festival we hope to see all of you here thank you thank you thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you all for attending this year's National Book Festival the stage is now closed we need everyone to make their way to the exits [Music] hell