Youre watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. My name is tashib graham, and i am outreach librarian at vanderbilt library. Im so excited to chat with saeed jones about how we fight for our lives. He is also the author of preruled to bruise prelude to bruise, 2015 stonewall Barbara Giddings literature award. Also a finalist for the 2015 National Book critics circle award as well as awards from lambda literary and the publishing triangle in 2015. Saeed serves as cohost to buzzfeeds morning show and also as lgbt and culture editor. He was born in tennessee and grew up in texas. He earned a ba at Western Kentucky University and an msa at rutgers universitynewark. He lives in new york city. Thank you for being here, saeed. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] u so as a side note, as a sie note, the southern festival of books remains completely free because of Strong Community support, and we want to keep it that way. I love it. Love it. Yeah. So you can donate on the web give them money. Yes. Tennessee humanities. Org, or by the southern festival of books app or by the collection of plates yes, i love that. I love it. So saeed is going to read for us, well have a q a. When we get to that portion, please usee the mic in the corner. And then well open it up for, yeah, well open it upper for questions. So take it away. Thank you so much. Again, thank you for being here. Thank you, nashville. Thank you to this festival. This is just a real joy. And im excited to share my story with you. Im going to read what i call, you know, the sex, drugs and rock and roll chapter of the book. [laughter] and so what you need to know is the book is basically in four acts, and well talk about the journey that gets us to this point. But ime e going to read a secn is, in someally ways, the soul of the book. And its the reason why the book is called how we fight for our lives and not how i fought for my life. This is as much about me as you, youll find out about that. I went to school at Western Kentucky University, this is winter break, and i am partying with some asu friends in arizona, and at the time i had dreadlocks. They were long enough that when i put on my shirt [laughter] i could do a whole thing. I cut them off as soon as i got to grad school. Okay. Chapter 15. Ing december 31, 2007, phoenix, arizona. A joke i used to repeat in those days was why be happy when you can be interesting . If i knew how to be interesting. There was power in being a spectacle, even a miserable spectacle. The punch and the line. Interesting. Sentences like serrated blades, laughter like machine gun rounds. A drink in one happened, a borrowed cigarette in the other. If you could draw enough glances, any room could orbit around you. That new years eve i wound up at a party that was exactly like every party i had ever been to, and i got hooked up to a pair of speakers, an awkward costume theme i tried and failed to adhere to and an apartment clogged with white people. The only difference was that i i was getting wasted in phoenix, arizona, instead of bowling green, kentucky. In the few days i had been there, i had concluded that arizona was perhaps the whitest place i had ever visited. [laughter] it wasac like stepping onto the surface of a very welllit moon. [laughter] the partys theme was the future. Which is why more than half the people in attendance were some combination of synthetic fabric, aluminum foil and sunglasses. I had not known there would be a theme, and the only other shirt i had packed was a blue calico button down, so i put my dreadlocks into two pigtails and kept telling everyone i was dorothy. [laughter] of course, this was the future. And all bets are off in the year 2075. Over the last few years at College Parties just like this one, i had been an ice queen, i had been plato, i had been the hot pink negligee all nuns wear under their robes, i had been dorothy from kansas. Maybe a theme like the future was supposed to get us wonder starryeyed what the future would look like, but i couldnt find it in myself. Instead all i could wonder was whether there would be a future left for any of us. A black man was running to become president of the United States of america. And i was checking the news every morning, anxious, half expecting to read that he had been assassinated. Lately, i had been calling home less. I hadnt even told my mom i was going to be in phoenix for the holiday. A professor, who had known me since i was a freshman, confronted me in her office just before the fall smers ended. What happened to you, saeed . You used to smile. I stared at the professor blankly. Then remembered that this was the part where i was supposed to cry. So i cried. This was a future i would have to figure out on my own, but i didnt want to think about it. At least for one more night, i wanted to dance at a huge, messy waparty and get blackout drunk. In this particular version of the future, i was one of three out gay men at the party, and the other two were dating each other. [laughter] can and theyre still dating each other. Its very a annoying. [laughter] i think theyre even married. Anyway. But i would find a way. I wanted to spending the night in someone elses body. Or met someone boar or let someone borrow mine. For the first few hours of the party, either i i did not notice him, or the man who would later try to kill me simply hadnt arrived yet. All night i was a terrific, bright black mess. I stomped, shrinked and sauntered in and out of the kitchen to refull my cup or do refill my cup or do shots. I was out on the porch smoking cigarettes, then passing around a blunt, i saw stare at an orange tree just out of reach until i finally plucked off a fruit. It seemed miraculous, oranges in the dead of winter. Then i realized the unseen side of thean fruit was rotted. Antsa pouring out of the ruin like ink. Looking back, i can see how someone mightba see me that nigt and argue that i had it coming. That i had a man like him coming. If that someone was america herself, i could understand how she might rattle off a warning. That black boy has been too hungry for too long. One of these nights hes going to bite off more than he can chew. I will say for myself, america, i did the best with what i was given. The man, lets call him daniel, looked familiar when i saw him from across the room. As if each part of him had been borrowed from some other boy or man i had wanted. Leaning against that wall, dispassionately sipping a beer, he was the kind of quiet i have noticed in certain men and long hungered for. The silence of men who have it all and, thus, find all boring. Who dont exert the energy necessary to flirt, persuade or convince, because they know america will come crawling to them on hands and knees. I realized now that what i wanted was not just the bodies of such men, but their power. Is and what they could use that power to do to the rest of us. The brutal exertion of will. Destiny made manifest by the unspoken threat their muscled bodies and white skin posed. I hungered for the power of the allamerican man, the marlboro man and the marlboro mans first born son, the high school quarterback, the companys futurerb ceo, ernest hemingway, john wayne, to disyous, hercules, achilles, the shield itself the one. If i could not actually be the one myself, i thought i could survive by devouring him whole. The more straits the more masculine, the more i wanted to see him with his legs spread or up back arched in an orgasm that did not just bring him pleasure, but a warning. In spite of the man you say you are, in the future i live in man like me are coming to conquer you. And we will take no prisoners. This is what i thought it meant to be a man fighting for his life. If america was going to hate me for being black and gay, then i might as well make a weapon out of myself. Thank you. Just incredible. Just incredible. Wow. I can even. I was going to reread the last line but thats incredible. If america was going to hate me for being black and gay then i might as well make a weapon out of myself. This reminds me of Ralph Ellisons invisible man in which the narrator otherwise known as invisible man describes bumping into people to violently remind them that he was there since they decided they dont like what he is and refused to see him. Can you talk about the period in which you thought that fighting for your life meant inflicting pain on others. You see me struggling, clearly with a lot in this book. Into the bright black mess. What you dont see is i never was like, do i like boys . It took a while for me to have the language. It took a while for me to even be able to pick, what is it like when two men are together . My first few fantasies you see in the book i dream im a woman having sex with a boy i have a crush on because i cant even visualize it. But i never was questioning that desire. I just remember being angry. Marriage equality at that time was a fantasy. I mention barack obama, it seemed as likely as a black man becoming president or Elizabeth Warren becoming president one day. I love her. I really do. At the time to be gay means you never get married. You never did have children. Never to be able to bring your loved one to thanksgiving or christmas. You are saying goodbye to all of these things. Thats the good scenario. Thats just you lonely and safe. But far more likely, matthew shepard, this month is the 24th anniversary of the year he was killed in wyoming. Earlier that summer 1998 jamesburg junior a black man in jasper texas, four hours from where i grew up in lewisville texas was beaten and changed to the back of a truck and dragged until his body literally came apart. Im watching that as a 13yearold boy and then later that year, that october was matthew shepard. I was so scared and so angry that i think by the time i was a young man when you meet me in this chapter in the book its just turned into disgust. At that point i was really ambivalent of the value of my own life. One of the journeys of my book is sayyid actually going to start fighting for his life and to fight for your life you have to value your life. At this point im just fighting. James baldwin writes about a scene in a diner at one point where he just ashes just angry. And he snaps. He runs out of the diner because hes like i could get killed. I just welcomed the death sentence. And my aunt, i sent the book to her earlier this year she called me and we talked for two hours or so and something she said about that chapter she started crying and worked her way up. She had a lot of questions. She worked her way up to this chapter and she said, i think it was a suicide attempt. I think you are trying to kill yourself. She was so upset and i was like, thats exactly what it was. Suicide by cop. Im so disgusted and frustrated and just going to run headon into the terror because why not . Ive always known that at least in this life being like a masculine breaux is not in the cards for me. [laughter] rated off, let it go. That does not mean i didnt have a violent approach to life. That unfortunately so many men do. One of the projects of the book i wanted to show the different ways that anger manifests were all fighting for our lives the thing about men is what we are fighting for our lives or when we dont believe we are we are dangerous to everyone else around us. We are incredibly dangerous. We go down in a blaze of glory. We gotta drag the people down with us so i always say when men are like this when we have not figured out our gender politics to put it concisely, i think men like that are like a ford f2 50, i grew up in texas i know those big trucks. Like a ford f2 50 with a drunk driver speeding down the highway. Hes a danger not just to himself but to every other person on the road. Thats always how it shakes out. I have to figure this out to save my own life. Also in the process it was so clear that we are surrounded by daniels. We have to figure this out because all of our lives are on the line. I think along that same line the memoir contains a lot of scenes and passages about sexual racism. Which im surprised at the number of people dont know what that is but its pretty intuitive. What would you like to say about racism within the lgbtq a community. How is racism couched in the language of preference . And how [laughter] how does internalized racism prevent black men from seeing their own beauty. Thats the milliondollar question. If you can answer that there is a prize. Is there . [laughter] one thing thats very clear, im trying very carefully, cspan is watching them trying to be professional. An essential fact of human nature is that the things we say in the heat of the moment and the heat of desire while we are having sex, those things we say in the dark are not above, they are a future. We cannot allow ourselves to say, i was caught up in the moment. Im sorry baby. No, you said the truth. I think we all need to know that. It has nothing to do with your sexual preference, that something we all need to work on. Pay attention to that moment. If someone says something hurtful in the midst of sex and desire, thats Important Information and your response to it is valid and deserves to be interrogated. Are talking about the seed when you got called the nword. At that point i would be out. Let me get my bag. And as you see in a the book there is a man i called the botanist, its not just the one terrible night, we have whats more or less a relationship that goes on for several months coming together falling apart, coming together falling apart and thats the thing about these dynamics. Theyre not linear. Very few of us when we are in toxic relationships, unfortunately its very rare we have one terrible night an argument and thats the end. Never see that person again. Most of us are entangled and its difficult and maybe we eventually get away from that space get so disgusted that we step away but the truth is that often we are wrapped up and its really hard. I think the thing about sexual racism is that because our culture cultural is still heteronormative we are still getting people to understand that Women Deserve to be paid as much as men. Thats literally still something we are fighting for. Right now the Supreme Court is trying to decide if its fair for a person to be fired for being gay or transgender. 2090. We havent figured that out . Okay. So if thats where we are, a nuanced conversation within our different communities and identities some of the most sexist misogynist things ive ever heard have been said by gay men. Some of the most racist things in fact almost all of the racist things and personally heard people say have been said by gay men. So youre like should i talk about this on cspan and risk furthering the worst stereotypes of gay men, how do we navigate . We all do this. Do i get up there and talk about reproductive rights and risk complicating the way everyone sees all women . Am i going to be the spokesperson for everyone who looks and lives like me. Thats complicated. But we have to do the work because the dynamic is still ongoing. Something you see in the book that i really try to work with is show that all these dynamics are still going on. You can talk about them or not but its still going on. To go back to that truck analogy, imagine that truck is invisible. When you do then . Your car has just been totaled indicating that point what happened. Thats kind of what it feels like. He told me about grinder and this is just my preference, and just attracted to this kind of person then why does your profile say, no asian or latino cuisine. Why is that the way you are describing people. I dont like asian food, i dont like mexican food, thats how this is a menu now . Thats horrible. I think sexual racism is totally connected to misogyny and totally connected that just as a straight man who thinks something is fine like are you crazy . You are a mess. You are wearing us out. I think a lot of gay men assume that because we have to deal with homophobia, and we do, because we been bullied or have to deal with whatever we have to deal with, and we do, that we are off the hook. And we arent. No one is off the hook. I think thats key. This line got me, just as some cultures have 100 words for snow, there should be 100 words in our language for all the ways a black boy can lie awake at night. If you like people forget that black boys get scared too. Can you talk about the ways in which black boys are viewed as model list and how does your work debunk that . The reason i use that is because our language reflects our values. It shows the cumulative value system. Obviously if you live in a place with a lot of snow you have a lot of language to describe it because it is an important part of the reality any ball agreed upon that. In that line thats the night we just watch the news report about jamesburg junior and my mom and i dont remember and try to own in the book of an unreliable narrator about to pretend that he remember everything perfectly. Every ai remember mentioning the news then we turned it off and in my room just like processing. My goodness, black girls everyone. To be a black boy and watch the way our country is talked about Trayvon Martin to be 12 years old and to see what happened to jimmy arise, think about what that does to you. Think about what that feels like. To be that boys mother or father, their sibling. To be a black kid whos figuring out gender politics as my cousin in dallas came out as trans in the early 90s to see how frequently blacks trans women are being murdered. When Camilla Harris was on stage at a town hall and as an lgbt town hall and walks onto the stage and says, my gender pronouns, which is a nod generous not to this conversation. And what is it ato see people that we are supposed to trust to give us information to help us understand whats going on because so much is happening to see them makes jokes of things that are actually very sensitive and painful for people especially for kids. Its just heartbreaking. We dont even have the language for it. ais such a perfect american example that these cops and 12 seconds, that tells you a lot, 12 seconds they saw a 12yearold boy and assumed he was a man with the gun and shot him. Thats a lot of decisions to be making in 12 seconds. Just the fact that they saw him and thought he looked like a grown man, not that shooting a grown man wouldve been better in that instance but it says so much about our culture and you see black girls are always getting suspended. Discipline more harshly. Because they are treated as adults when they are still kids. Talk about dylann roof. Talk about any of those white boys who walked into, name a space, theater, church, concert, and looked at the language that she used. He was just a boy, this is such a tragedy. Thats not a coincidence. Language in the language we consistently use is an opportunity for us to understand what we collectively had decided to value and if we dont have the language, its not an accident. Thats powerful. Round of applause for that. Another aha moment for me ive heard in chapter 1 in which you say, first of all, you are in the library in this scene. Im a librarian, as i said in the beginning. Although Library Scenes i was like yes, i love it. There are a lot i am all for it. Go to your library and write. [laughter] this moment occurred for me in chapter 1 in which you say all the books i found about being gay were also about aids. Gay men dying of aids like it was a logical sequence of events. A mathematical formula or lifecycle. Caterpillar cocoon butterfly, gay boy, gay man, aids. Can you talk about what happens when a boy or anyone else for that matter discovers their sexuality only to have it immediately associated with death. Thats a lot. It was something i slowly came to realize. I was just trying to tell the truth as best i could about what happened to me. Slowly but surely im like there might be something bigger here. Until you see the moments i tried to open the aperture. I wanted to capture the fact that, where around the same age, we are this generation of gay men, and making assumptions. Im 28. This generation, i dont know it as a kid at that moment in the book because all the books are old and out of date but the medication thats about to make hivaids diagnosis no longer necessarily a death sentence is being introduced at that time and thats wonderful. But for us as we were coming into asia in our first few sexual encounters until literally a minute ago basically a few years ago with the introduction of the truvada prep i would say for straight people the way in which every time you have sex if your reproductive system is capable of which, the fact of becoming pregnant something on your mind, its not not something youre not thinking about. Imagine for gay men for our generation and every generation until then its been like and i going to get aids . The net death and terror. Thats a lot. And because of shame, because of Everything Else going on, a lot of queer men and bisexual men in particular are going to all this without being able to talk about it. And thats really hard. Im grateful that is changing truvada prep is a pill you can take once a day to prevent hivaids. Its just huge. I believe gavin newsom the governor of california just in the state of california its good to be for afree. That changes the reality. If you havent lived with this experience. Its even trippy to perceive but imagine death not being an essential part of desire. Wow. Wow. Thats pretty great. I feel that the Birth Control pill. You mean i can have sex and remain in control of the decisions i make about my body . What a trip. Its regulatory. And you realize it freezes up in all kinds of ways. I wanted to capture that in the book but also the library to intended to misinform us. And, you know, were still at a point when, you know, Sex Education if it happens at all in our childrens classrooms very rarely, if ever,at anticipates the questios and concerns of lgbt kids. You know, when i was in the fifth grade, i remember the miracle of life video, and we got to the part about womens menstrual cycles, the teachers let the boys out on the playground. We got to take a break. Literally, the boys got to go play, as if this wasser relevant information, right was irrelevant information. Thats a heterosexual dynamic. That says nothing about what it would be, certainly a gay boy i had h a few questions that da. And certainly transgender. So we have all the information, but we cant jutte say, well just say, well, kids will figure it out. Its really important as mentors, as educators, just as people to make sure that we create a culture in which young people and our peers frankly, you know, know that if they have questions, the questions will e welcomed. Because something you also see in the book is that i get it to a point where i start making assumptions, and i begin to assume that myon questions e wil not be welcome. So i dont even ask. I begin to assume that i cant be my whole self. Obviously, its not going to be okay. This is texas in, you know, 1998 or 2003, so im not even going to assume that i can risk kind of being my full self. Thats crazy. So you see me really endangering myself because of those assumptions. Yeah. And my mom and i had a loving relationship, she passed away if 2011, and you see me grapple with that as well. We had a warm relationship, but there was such a silence around my gayness that you see me just really struggling to figure this out on my own. Do you think that rather than being, having personal biases, do you think she was just afraid for you . And didnt know how to address a lot of that . I think its all one, i mean, i dont think he had the education. Ry big in our household. I will never forgive jonathan france for rejecting oprahs book club. Never [laughter] the Oprah Book Club dont need you. [laughter] i remember watching oprah with my mom and neighbor chris the interior design whiz genius, who is really wonderful and really become a part of the American Household if you are watching the show. His partner died in the indonesian tsunami a natural disaster. It was awful it was really awful. Then when he came back for the first time about it my mom and i are watching this episode and im like im a College Student at this point and talking about this heartbreak, the love of his life they were on vacation together the episode ended and im sitting there like a my god, i met this point like will i ever find love. Heres someone who did. Here is someone who found the love of his wife and lost him in such a tragic way and im just aand i turned to my mom like that was so sad. She just said, its pretty sad. I was so stunned. I get it, he lost his Business Partner. Two different wavelengths. At the time in writing it was like in the newspaper journalism, media, the standard language for queer couples who were in committed relationship was partner. Even when i pulled up articles she said, yet Business Partner saeed. I just use that as an example to show that we were really struggling to communicate. It was really hard. I think she was doing her best but it is scary. Im on book tour and i was just in minneapolis and the mother came up to me during the q a and was like my son is gay and ice she said i still think about matthew shepard. Its still really scary for me. The pulse nightclub shooting, brandon tina, theres so many of these instances. So i understand why parents could be petrified of these conversations. Gun violence, oh my goodness, i get it. But not talking about it is not going to make them any safer unfortunately. The fact that its difficult or awkward and its going to be start and go and a series of start and goes does not mean its not worth it. I think what we can do is just say that. Say that i am terrified and you are the most important thing in the world to me. And because of that we are going to figure this out together and im going to mess up. Im a student too in this context so we are going to learn together. Im going to have questions, you are going to have questions we are going to keep it going. And save the soul of your relationship. And come to the library if you need research. It is something i think about because when you see me go into the library to get these books i walk in and i say let, im not can ask a wrinkle old lady at the circulation desk for advice and that was my misogyny. There was the arrogance of my youth, she probably would have. Librarians are some of the fiercest and booksellers and teachers some of the most subversive educators. When i was teaching 12th grade you best believe, i will never forget i had this latino student with a strict uniform it was like head to toe you really had a stick to it. She was so ashe would come in some days with her hoop earrings and timber leah a timberland boots. And i would say girl you know how you need to quit. I would try to find books that would resonate with the young queer latino student. I wish i had spoken to a librarian because she gave me advice but also the thing about that, she loves the book. She said im picking up where youre putting down mr. Johnson. One of the books i can remember it was still was a book explicitly about like a gay girl in high school as the student was going through stuff and her dad found it. Her dad was very upset that was an aha moment for me. Its not just depend on the librarians disappearance on the other side of that conversation that we need to as educators need to figure out how to bring into the conversation and let them know its like a team taking care of this child but also another reason, parents, you dont want to become the barrier to the one person trying to slip your child something helpful. We will bring you back to do library promos. I would love it now its time for q a. If you have a question please go to the mic. Real questions. My name is diane, my question is about you you mention your an unreliable narrator. How do you when youre writing your process works through that . Im reading aim telling the truth but im lying and she talks about thats why she titled the book because she realized herself that her memories might not be reliable. How did you work that in . There are a lot of different strategies. I wrote very slowly. I took, longer than expected, but im proud of the time i took because something ive said it to quickly written memoir its a memoir full of lies. If youre just racing through it you are not going to give yourself time, memory is a trickster figure. So you can remember something be totally certain and then let, actually, it wasnt that year or whatever or dont you remember, it abyou need to give yourself time to do that and if you are just so insistent in getting it done and turned the draft before you even have in the revelation. Im honest and upfront about the unreliability of a narrator. I think its more important to be clear. Because this is about how informing my identity in memory is a part of how we form our identity. I think the fact that my memory is unreliable as actual relevant. The one other thing i did is i did not interview people for the book. I reread a lot of material i did a lot of research, i did an interview people because i was like, this is about my remembering. Except for one location i didnt go back to phoenix arizona. Im not going back to phoenix arizona. Phoenix stay over there. [otherwise and went to every other location that appears in the book. So you see me watching the a project of High School Students when what, ive gone back to Louisville High School so i know what the classrooms look like, we go down this hallway, go down the stairs and then they still have the rickety chairs in the auditorium and thats for the stage. As im writing i know the goals of what i need to depict but i can break it down into, what would it have been like when youre walking down the hallway. I would been surrounded by other kids and thinking about how they are talking. Are they talking about the play . Its kind of guiding myself through and i found the map was actually really helpful because it made it very simple when you go into your bedroom after jamesburg junior what would you do and i mentioned i had my note book of poems and then collected rocks. The cover is allusion to the rocks i collected. I was like, i had my recollection and thats when i was like, i remember that night i dug through it and found the jasper. Found it. Being vulnerable as a queer man of color is extremely difficult because of the hostility that you talk about. What gave you the strength to open up and to talk as loudly as you have . Thats a good question. I think there is heaven and hell. I think theres deep humanity in anger. I think at some point my anger, it got me to that night that i read from, a man does almost kill me. I almost died. It was such a wakeup call. Like look where that mentality has gotten you saeed. I think it was a wakeup call. But the feelings that energy cannot be created nor destroyed it did not go away so i literally was like grad school, and it went into poetry and writing and if you read my poetry its like athats where the energy is coming from. I was fortunate enough that i began to get positive affirmation, this poem is really good. We get those positive feedback, you can begin to stick with it. Then also just finally ive seen what happens if we dont talk about it. I feel like if one person in this room can go home and read the book or not read the book, just have a conversation that they been afraid to have them a its worth it. Thank you. Im a big fan, i havent finished the book yet so i want to ask you a broader question based on something i think youd tweeted a bit ago. I also recently left new york in a dramatic way. Get girl f. I know for you going there looking at watching rent growing up its like where you can go and be clear and it safe there. Ive been struggling with being my authentic self. Its ongoing work. Its ongoing work. But when identity is a selfserving prophecy. I think when we say, i dont feel that i dont belong in this room i dont feel i belong in this room. Thats gonna become a prophecy. Everything you begin to look for a look at is going to be seen through the lens of you thinking you dont deserve to be there. I was talking about this dynamic recently on twitter and the way language like you read and i have to be nice because the new yorker did just give me a very nice [laughter] thank you girl. I was talking about like you are reading a theater review and it uses language that makes you uncomfortable. Its huge fancy words and you feel dumb. I feel bad and i know im a good writer. The person on twitter said, thats just the price of admission to the party. [app d, i am the party. I said, i am the party. [applause] you remember that. You are the party. Party. Walk into space and no youre the best thing thats ever happened to the space, and it i. An a tragedy if anyone doesnt understand that. I pity them. We have to give ourselves tools to be able to be feel comfortable in spaces and yes there are places like new york city thats like, free . Perfect. But we have to learn to be ourselves everywhere because nashville needs you too. What you said like you ab thank you. Im sorry, im going to embarrass him so much for my younger cousin alex and his wonderful wife jasmine are here. I want to say hello. Hi alex, hi jasmine. [applause] we still have more time for questions. Literary opera, come get some. I know when ive had the experience of reading aloud something i wrote it can really change what i think about it or either thats great or ive written myself a tongue twister. When you talk more about your experience recording your own audiobooks. I recorded the audiobook. I read as i write and that comes from poetry. Poetry the moment i have a decent chunk of apartment do what poem i may read it to make sure it works. Technical grammar im not good at but i think my ear helps me guide it. I brought that to writing but when im writing the book im like one paragraph at a time my head is down. Doing the audiobook was really cool. Not everyone gets to do that. Also because until that moment i didnt understand, i guess i did but i struggled to empathize with readers when people would come up to me who read the book and go, it was a gut punch. I was like why . I dont think of writing generally is a very emotional experience. Like its not therapy for me. Therapy is therapy. Writing is my job. But when i read the audiobook and did it in two days, thats a lot. Hearing it out loud, saying, theres some hurtful things, some hurtful dialogue spoken, saying that dialogue, and just hearing the unexpected ways and things, early in the book you meet a boy named cody and i mention him. In the next chapter you meet cody and you let come of this kid is a jerk. Then just when you think cody is just a memory in the rearview window, his name comes up again years later. Only when i was reading it was able to understand those ways and then im sitting there in the studio like can i go take a break . So speaking words is powerful. Its a different experience. I know im really into not just the information of a book but the lyricism, the writing of the book when i start reading it outside. I reading trick mirror by aand i find myself reading out loud. To me in some ways thats the highest praise. Thank you. We have another question . Hi. I was actually wondering when you decided you wanted to write a memoir and if there was a lapse between that and actually writing it how long it took you to do all that . This is a special book in that you see the phoenix arizona chapter. I start writing about what happens with daniel as soon as im back in kentucky. Writing, writing, writing, over and over. Then im in graduate school and i start writing some personal essays and start working with, like what i read about . Read about my grandma, read about my mom. One of those essays it was a the opening chapter i actually wrote in her class. With a polaroid. I began to develop an understanding. When i was in graduate school i remember my mom calling me once, he mustve told her. She was like i told grandma, who we have a very far relationship in the book, i told your grandmother that you are writing a memoir one day and explain what that meant and im like, jolts, and like what did she say . [laughter] i think ive known for a while but and then my pet mom passed away. Writing was the only thing i could do well. Like grief just knocked me low. Sometimes i could socialize. Friends would call like have you eaten today . I havent. Okay. But i could write. A lot of the chapters started generating then but i think i was scared to write a memoir i was like it will be a series of essays, linked essays, just call it a memoir. [laughter] then i sold the book in 2015 i was like, its a memoir. I had like 100 or so pages of material and felt confident but even then, i sold this book, i think of a talented writer. I got a huge book advance from a major publisher. That was 2015. I cannot tell you how many times between 2015 and now all kinds of people dont try to assume different ademographic. All types of people said arent you young to be writing memoir. ab [laughter] they both liked it. Thats all that matters. Theres a hesitance we often have like who gets to write a memoir . Is your life worthy . Is your life worthy of being written in that kind away . I think its because people dont read. So they dont understand that memoirs are typically, yes its autobiographical but its not your entire life story. Its usually a specific part. A parkland survivor i would argue pretty dumb it probably has a pretty good memoir if they choose to write about their expense because they will read about that. Its something i definitely struggled with. But the one other thing is that every time i started to doubt the value of the book, america would remind me. I was reading the aproject prepared to write about when it comes to my high school and i woke up and it was a New York Times and it was the Church Shooting in south carolina. Right when i was like, today take the magic shepherd, pulse nightclub shooting happened. Whenever i was like, is this worthy . Is this worth peoples time . America was like you better finish the dam book. Thank you. Thank you sally jones everyone. To watch her previous festival coverage click the book fairs tab on our website, tv. Org. On a monthly author calling program in depth journalist naomi klein discussed a range of topics including consumerism, freemarket capitalism and Climate Change. Here she talks about environmental activist greater to berg. I think there are many voices as well as greta who should be resident and have been trying to get the worlds attention for very long time. Ive been going to u. N. Climate summits for about a decade now, and theyre been incredibly powerful moral voices coming from the marshall islands. There was an incredible speech made of United Nations in 2014 by a woman from marsha islands, a young woman named kathy who wrote a poem to her nine month old baby and she read it to the assembled country representatives. It was an incredible speech that shouldve gone as vile as any of her speeches. I point this out. There been other moments like a few years later when at the philippines there was a u. N. Summit happening on Climate Change and the representative from the philippines did know whether his family was safe or not and he broke down crying in front of the entire assembly. That shouldve gone as vile as any of the other speeches. To be provoke honest with you, i think there is an issue of on the fact sheet is a white girl from sweden and thats part of why her voice breaks through with other voices who have really been on the frontlines of this crisis have been living in a fruit feels existential as it does to greta have been ignored. I also think greta is absolutely remarkable young woman. I have so much respect for her. I think she is a prophetic voice and i think other voices are spoken about before, like kathy from the philippines are as well. I could point to many others but greta is remarkable. I think theres something about greta and that she so clearly is not performed for anyone. Shes not looking for anyone to like her. Come back to maybe what we were talking earlier, we live in a culture where everyone is performing a version of themselves, everybodys interest in being famous, interested in promoting themselves. Greta could not be less i never pick she is 100 focus on the science. Shes talked about how having been diagnosed with aspergers, she says im not interested in your social games as somebody on the autism spectrum. I think theres something about how im interested greta is in our opinion of her that makes her a very trusted messenger for a lot of people. Obviously she faces massive attacks and she is very clear about wife shes being attacked by the likes of donald trump and Vladimir Putin and not to mention armies of trolls, its because shes part of building a Global Movement that is growing with exponential speed. There were 7 Million People who participated in the World Climate strikes over an eight date period. Thats unprecedented in the history of the planet. So great is part of an Amazing Movement and should be the first person to say its not about me. Its about a movement of young people thats coming together. To watch this entire program and other episodes of in depth visit our website at booktv. Org, click on the in depth tab near the top of the page. Heres a look at some books being published this week
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