Transcripts For CSPAN2 Roger Rosenblatt The Story I Am 20240712

Doing something in person and a different topic but im thrilled to be kicking off the festival. Its my honor to introduce three people to you. First is roger whose work has been published in 14 languages. The author of five New York Times notable books of the year and three times bestsellers including the memoirs the boy detective and making toast which was originally an essay in the new yorker. The story im, a collection on the writing life came out in april on life, love and responsibility will be out in october. Rogers also written seven offbroadway plays notably in the oneperson free speech in america but he performed at the american place theatre and which was named one of the times ten best plays of 91. Last spring he performed and played piano which will go to the center for the arts at stony brook in new york next year. He also wrote the screenplay for his bestselling novel that will star doctor channing and currently is in production. Roger is distinguished professor of english and writing at stony brook. He formerly held the appointment in creative writing at harvard where he earned his phd. Among his honors are the peabody and essays for Time Magazine and pbs. Fulbright he played on the Irish International basketball team, seven honorary doctorates, the review award for lifetime literary achievement and the president s meda metal from the institution for his body of work. We are incredibly pleased to have roger with us. Next w we have erica that works with libraries to commit you to create Community Change and as the consultant at the Library System she works for 34 member libraries including the Saratoga Springs Public Library and or communities to help people live their best clients. Most recently along with the local historian and the Adult Services and local history later he along with her colleague from the southern Library System has been coordinating and documenting a project to collect firsthand accounts of life during the coronavirus in real time to create a peoples history of covid19. 34 member libraries of the system are working in tandem with our community is to document this historical pandemic. Everyone is welcome to participate in this collaborative effort to capture the impact of the region. And finally, the founder and president of the saratoga festival. A former International Book editor and publishing executives at the National Geographic books, travel and writing press where she managed editorial developed and its multilingual publishing projects while serving as a volunteer coach she became deeply interested in promoting literacy and encouraged the love of reading and is the driving force behind the book festival and with that i will turn it over to you. Thank you very much. I am thrilled as all of us or to launch the first event. We are sad of course that we are not launching the actual first in person book festival this year but we are working on plans for 2021, and during this pause we are going through, we wanted to find ways to stay connected and also to make sure that we were hoping offers get their message out to all of you and connect readers with each other. We are thrilled to partner with Saratoga Springs Public Library and bookstore that has been so important to us i and launching the book festival and we are thrilled to present to you roger and erica. For any of you that like to volunteer and would like to suggest ideas for the future Virtual Events and offers for next year, please visit us at saratoga festival. Org and of course we are on facebook as well. So, enjoy the authors and best of health to you. I hope you find the content useful to you as well. Roger, your most recent book is a collection about your love and obsession with the writing. Some of these are new and some of them are previously published and its getting great reviews. Its a warmhearted testimony of gratitude and humility and Jericho Brown who recently won the poetry a book that will inspire anyone to pick the next. Would you care to share a little bit with us . My gratitude for both of those comments. This is the sense that i think most writers can identify with. The characters lost control of themselves. Its become a two legged dog that travels and plays bluegrass on the banjo. He tries to open and close. It spreads than 100 fractions and there are so many by now. This is what happens when you do not see attention to the novels that you write. A connector stuck his nose into the plot. Its a bad idea dont you think to get a transfusion to a vampire. Sometimes i wish i owned a shop. People come to my shop and i would give them what they want and we would get satisfaction from the transaction. The trouble with writing as you get people that dont invite the time they realized they needed what you gave. Thank you for that. I believe the topic of tonights conversation was inspired when you and i had conversation with your students about the journal of the plague your by dando mako about the 1665 london blue under bubonic plague epidemic. Theres a dispute about whether that should be considered fiction or nonfiction and most would agree its a novel rather than history or record age and that is where we librarians classify it and i guess that begs the basic question of what exactly is a journal if you have thoughts on that. Are you asking me question my. Sim roger. Im sorry. Its a wonderful question it would mean if its fiction it might not be a journal because then it would be a journal that is just using the form. And he certainly wrote fiction and based it on his uncles notes and they were real and they were in actuality and thats what makes much difference when you are reading and there is some events as the five of us to wellknown in the wonderful audience of the book festival. And there are some events that are so big and so preposterous and so unbelievable that they seemed like fiction when we are experiencing in this is what a pen to make involves. In a journal at the pandemic is no doubt people will think you are making that up. But we are not making that up. It does feel like something we read a lot about in the postapocalyptic fiction. Absolutely. So much of rogers work as a writing teacher i imagine in roger correct me if im wrong involves providing prompts for your students and in many ways deleting our fingerprints feels like the mother of all prompts, it is a form basically, do you want to tell us a bit about the project in origin in its goals. Absolutely, if its okay with you i will take over the screen and share some pictures because i love stories and i love pictures. I may give you the ability to do that. Thank you. Youre welcome. Lets see, okay. Let me go back. I always let out stories, that should not be surprising if somebody was a librarian and a journalist and its been my comfort zone. Stories resonate with me so profoundly, the collection which we tell in which we hear in which we absorb, that is what gives us life and makes our world. And its obviously what led me too become a librarian and a journalist and really enjoy the written word. When it comes to pandemic which off my radar until about february when i was traveling home from nashville and while i was in the airport, the airlines began making a lot of changes and they were asking people who used eat tickets on their phone instead of putting their phone on the counter to hold it above or to read it off and they were trying to get people to take pictures instead and i thought wow that struck me that we were in for something serious into think a couple months ago in a simpler time in our world, by the time i was working from home in midmarch, the pandemic had taken over my life and one night i was scrolling through twitter as i should not do because i was procrastinating writing a story i read a post that recommended keeping a journal to document what we were experiencing during the pandemic and eating though and the laziest on the planet it really stuck with me and not the same time i was working on a story how covid19 was affecting my breeze across the country and i can only equate trying to do that to rustling water. Each time i begin to piece together a narrative, it would slip away and morph into a new beast which is no way to get my arms around her. As the pandemic continued in moved from deep concern to utter catastrophe, the interviews i was holding with people were taken on a very earnest quality i would say and it became a lot more personal and even though many people were strangers and we would start with inquiring Peoples Health and Employment Status and their anxiety levels and all that made me started thinking about the initial twitter post that i saw. Around the Library System we were holding weekly meetings with the directors of a 34 library to kind of keep in touch with everyone and figure out what was going on and its my job to think about how we can work with our communities and i was struggling to really do that when our buildings were closed and when people having to socially distant and be away from everybody and then being april i thought about the power of stories and how transformative that would be in the importance of story of dark times when we are looking for a light were way forward and i started thinking what it would be like if we could tell their story of what it was like to be in the pandemic and when i mentioned the idea that one of our weekly meetings, i thought my epiphany was not at all unique, everybody else is thinking the same thing which is great including the association of public historians of new york state. So i went to their website, one of my directors and said do you know about their initiative and they were talking about all the great journals that were kept during the spanish flew in 1918 and how that inform the work of scientists, epidemiologists and historians and gave a cylinder in which to think about what we were doing. Thats when a number of amazing a Library Directors and putting a fabulous host and Caitlin Johnson in the library had all been doing similar projects but it was about pulling it together in the talent to tap into prewe formed this band which includes a local history librarian and michelle who is from schuylerville and my wonderful colleague jack scott who is a tech with begin meeting to talk about and capture very personal unfiltered history of her friends and neighbors in real time and in their own words or images. As we are talking michelle who has a teenage daughter said her daughter and their friends did not communicate as much through writing as through memes or tiktok videos. And so how do we capture this new way of communicating. So we communicated this very Simple Survey of 20 questions and this is our big reveal tonight and ill put the link in the chat box and i hope everybody goes there and fills out the information, you can pick and choose what you respond to but were trying to do is create a robust resource for community to have a chance to sit back and reflect on our collective experience while preserving peoples history for future generation and all the responses are anonymous and we ask for first name and last initial and for people to identify where they live. And we can share that with local historians as well as the archives over this. Im going to stop sharing my screen and get out of this. Or maybe you could take it back, ill put the link to the project into the chat box thank you like. Youre welcome roger your best known books are memoirs and i wonder if you have any thoughts on the distinction between journals and memoirs. Im not thought of it that way but i wrote my last book in last eight books as if they were journals and they were written in segments in my attempt i dont know if i succeed, i like the idea of the movements and the sanctions of the book to mount into one song and one tune. There really is no distinction between writing a memoir and they do the same thing with fiction in the book is coming out in my publisher in the fall is a him to life, love and responsibility and it just plays the tune and they make no claims it just something i feel comfortable with and a wonderful songwriter and his brilliant wife wrote what are you doing the rest of your life and a lot of the standards that we no and adam said to me once that healing is the words of the music. I hear the music and the words so when i write that is what comes out. And so the answer to your question, one reason that the memoir appeals to me is an act of faith and it comes as close to fiction to do in life and still believe youre telling the truth. Thank you for that. You talked of your description with this project and what it reminded me of, people often journal therapeutically. In addition to leaving a documentary and roger a lot of your writing feels therapeutic to me. Is that a Fair Assessment . You are right. Appeals were very regulatory im suppose thats what memoirs are and what they do and if either one of you have any thoughts about journaling in a time like this as therapy or recordkeeping. Or an act of generosity, i always think of writing publicly and that means you want to think well of the public and you want what you do to do some good and to keep journaling this time, im not doing it but to keep in this time has the potential of doing a lot of good, even if you just write the facts, im a great believer in writing the facts. Just write what you see in the streets there renders magazines on beaches where people are in a frenzy, not caring is if they live or die and then you can transfer that to people who work in hospitals and careful as can be. I busted up my shoulder recently and i was in hospital and i felt a little foolish because i busted my shoulder and im looking around at all these people in peril in these amazing nurses and doctors, one byproduct of this time that nurses have come to their own people who did not realize there an immense gift to society, you have these people on the one hand, this is your journal and you said if i was keeping a journal and what i saw and a beach in alabama or new jersey or whatever it is and people are saying in a sense, coming get me. It is interesting that you mention the therapeutic quality because we just went live today and we had not done any promotion but weird he had 11 people respond and fill out the forms and the youngest is 16 and the oldest is 77. At least three of those have said directly remarked how therapeutic debt was and i think we supposed to be socially distant and hunkering at home but were living in a chaotic universe and to stop permanent and to be still and quiet and reflect on whats going on in our lives is very powerful. And for people to think and give them the cells the time in the space to think about the grief and anxiety and Everything Else that is going on but the tremendous beauty like roger is talking about. Different things emerge from this. There is horrible things but really extraordinary moments of kindness and beauty that come out of these really unimaginable situations and thats what i think is interesting. We are all stunned for grief or terror in sudden beauty. In her head is not back in at least we get eclipse of the other side of that. It is been a joy for me to see everyday people, you mentioned everyday Grocery Store and elevated status of a hero and putting their life on the line for us, for society. This is interesting and along that line, how adaptable we little animals are. A few months ago we were wondering about your girlfriend, and whatever it is, we just turn on a dime to survive ourselves and help our neighbor survive. I hope we do it obviously. But in my long life its a most impressive moment. That was a commonality that we seen so far in the responses that people talking about this in this generosity of friends and neighbors or people who do not know each other that well before but now checking in to see if anybody needed anything especially if they were concerned about people going out for whatever health or age reasons and really a sense of community that is coming out of this extraordinary situation. If you keep journal watch the things ellen is talking about and write as carefully as you can about what you see the first goal is to let th the reader see every detail of whats going on in the streets in the homes, hospitals and beaches and so forth so nothing is lost on the senses that will tell future generations what is going on here. Are you journaling or keeping a journal . I have plans, i have the best of plans. Im a journalist and unless i have a hard deadline, i will procrastinate. I did try this morning, this morning i made two entries. But it was very interesting to see the progression of thought and how moving from the stage of panic buying, how do we source everything that we need to have in the house to moving forward to spend some time in the garden and put my hand in the dirt and feel okay about things. But one of the things i was thinking about and thats been extraordinary in that this is done, because we moved to a Virtual World that were talking about earlier, this authenticity and vulnerability that we see in people because we see people in their homes and then kids come up in your outer work meeting and theres an animal or kid and all this other sort of stuff and be professional or expertise or whatever that is troops away and you get to see the full humanity of the people that you know in a very different way. That has been a very different gift. I got a kick out of watching folks on television who show up made up but they are not made up now i think its thousands of times better. Eric and i were talking yesterday that were in a profession that attracts introverts and theres something to what youre saying because working this way now and theres no way i can work in my office on the library but my house looks very much like this working from home. But i never have that many people into my house so it does force you to open up it away and make you much more vulnerable then you might been. Not just letting people in but letting people in here as well. I wonder if there are questions over here in the chat or q a roger said he used to work with you and he wants to say hello. Jeanine and i remember world in which an element is familiar to, we did not have a choice and getting work done, you can procrastinate but this came out once a week. But jeanine may remember. I never Pay Attention to the news, now i do or than i ever did before but that was somewhat of a liability. I was walking in the morning i had a great group of guys and women but the editor who was a rough guy, he would say roger where did we think about that. I had no idea what he was referring to but the chances of it being good were so minimal and i would always say that is terrible and i would run to find out what he is talking about and write the essay. But at the end of the day you had to show up. Someone here is sharing julie issuing a great memory of you at the Public Library Association Meeting in boston having a blast handing out copies of your book, do you recall what book that was. Having a great time handing on my own book. I think many of us wish we could do that. What else, there is a question, this is a question that we traditionally ask at the beginning of the book group that i lead at the library were discussing the book that we are about to discuss and we go around the room and introduce ourselves and talk about a different book. People want to know what folks are reading during the pandemic. Are you reading anything noteworthy . Im ashamed but ellen is going to come out. But i have not read for pleasure and a very long time. I sometimes accidentally i reviewed a book for the New York Times book review just now and it was really very good, it was not as good as his first one that it was good, i had to concentrate but most of the time i read in a see something and he gives me an idea and i can use it and i do. So im the worst person to ask about the social experience, i will meander into the true experience that youtube has but in the last how many years i have been a disgrace. How about you erica. Im not far from that, i am not been a super reader during this time but i have been reading and working my way through through the whole system of thinking which turned out to be perfect for this time because what happens when you dont consider an entire ecosystem and youre only considering little parts of it, it ended up being the perfect book for right now. The book group that im leading, nobody has access to the physical library and were choosing selections from her always Available Online collection or things that are freely Available Online and we had a very interesting discussion with emma which was a nice diversion. That would be a great book for you to write emma in the journalism of the plague year. Why does a girl with a social life do not. Its one of those cork books. [laughter] dino cork publishing, prime, prejudice and zombies. [laughter] next month we will be discussing that. That is a great novel. People are disagreeing with the roger. Never. They say charming and never selfaggrandizing. That is okay. A couple of questions about leaving our fingerprint so people want to know what responses they put up in your address that a little bit and over the sense that the speculator which is the Library Association thinking how wild that is and what quarantining must feel like if youre one of the few yearround residents, especially after the Holiday Weekend where everybody came north. A noise making people nervous. Jennifer works at a small Public Library in southwestern pennsylvania. Hooray i am very impressed you already have survey participants and what might you have for encouraging people to share their thoughts and experiences during this time because part of the challenge is that people are growing weary of the situation and i think that is true. The first tip find an online book festival and weasel your way and to promote your project. I was really surprised, we were hoping to launch a week or two ago but we had tech issues related to Power Outages but im sosa talk about this and we dont have anything. Ive been very happy that its gone so quickly. I do a lot of work with communities, helping people figure out what they want to see happen in the world, i think a lot of times it depends on the questions youre asking and how that resonates with people. So we did spend a fair amount of time thinking about what questions we were asking and its a mix of please tell us what is going on in your heart along with how you are handling this and to mix it up and give people a chance to share what theyre doing. I think people are growing weary of the situation but they still have a story to tell and i am hoping that we are fortunate that your Summer Reading program in the Library World is imagine your story and im hoping will be able to push this out and get a lot of kids to participate. We want to hear what the little kids think. In the line of kids were talking about how times like this can bring out necessarily the best but the most generous imagination and i involved in the Childrens Hospital in stony brook, i dont do much unlike a therapy dog but not as appeali appealing. Now the Childrens Hospital not just in stony brook at the hospitals all over the country you have to remember if the parents come to see them that the parents have to stay there which means they do not work. In incredible guy a young woman who is brilliant and lindsay adkins, is also brilliant and the foremost just recorded videos about writing and look at this and drive something for. If i get a chance ill let him know how the project went and i would love to see it catch on and say to these kids you are not alone because they are absolutely. The magic of kids are so unfiltered. They will tell you exactly what it is in great ways of expressing things and they have not been told what not to say or how not to express themselves so they can be free without. I would love to see what comes out of that, that is fantastic. The musical play that i did last summer and i guess i will do a couple more times and it comes from my granddaughter, my wife and i lived with their grandchildren when my daughter died we lived there 11 and a half years. So one afternoon i was there in my granddaughter jessica introduces me too a classmate and this is my grandfather and he lives in the basement and he does nothing. [laughter] one of the favorite things ive seen this week is a picture posted to the Library Facebook page about some children playing Library Story time. That is so great. [laughter] more from the chat over here, jennifer vibrating friend from pennsylvania says shes worked with a local High School English teacher who encouraged 50 or so of our High School Seniors to prepare. That is great for the Library Archives and that seems pretty terrific. And then steve has just shared a link to purchase the story im from north shire bookstores it is along with the library in the terrific Library Partners in huge supporters of reading an Author Community in Saratoga Springs and manchester were wrought in a terrific organization that were super proud to be associated with. Christians shares people should check out your video at the book festival. Thank you, i just did that the other day, im glad you liked it. Something you shared for me a video of the commencement that you gave for your students at stony brook and did you want to talk a little bit about that because i thought it was a fascinating parallel and here we are having a conversation in six weeks ago we not imagine we wouldve done. The three of us are likeminded on this issue, and dropped in my laugh in virtuality as a writers wheelhouse, we do it and we live in a Virtual World and we stay virtual characters, virtual plots in a virtual life, now suddenly in this perilous time virtuality has come into its own and the difference being and this is why tartar graduates that traffic and virtual crime that we make the best of something that is not real and so you want a king and you get a king leader and you want a distraught woman and now you go back to any of the great heroes and heroines of literature and were all virtual, but then we do something with virtuality and we say the life that can be imagined to go back in erics thoughts, life that can be imagined can be the rise of tomorrow, that is our business in the world, the is part of it, the other part i never shared from this because they believe cold heartedly. Its to make the world better. Make it smarter, feel more, happier or make it more sadder in whatever thought is that the disposal of word and the duty is to make the world a better place and this is now a wonderful time to exercise responsibility. That sounds like the Perfect Place to end our conversation. Not that i dont wish it could go one but that sounds like a perfect summary. I appreciate you being here and participating in this. Both of you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Does ellen want to come back for a minute and say anything. I dont know she has sound. Thank you ellen is the driving force behind all of this and i really appreciate the work that you bring this Book Community together and im hopeful be able to do it in real life sometime. Thank you everyone have a terrific evening, thank you erica and thank you roger so much. Thank you weeknights this month were featuring book tv programs of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Wednesday night beginning at 8 00 oclock eastern book tv features several programs with the late author and columnist William S Buckley junior. Enjoy book tv on cspan2. When you read the things that were said about Thomas Jefferson and he was an infidel and agent of the french government, that was a little reminisce wasnt it the things that were said about Abraham Lincoln and fdr that he wanted to be a dictator and it does come with the territory but i think an trumps case at least in the modern political era postworld war ii, i have never seen anything like it. Sunday at noon eastern on indepth, our life to our conversation with author in faith and Freedom Coalition whose books include awakening, active faith in his recent forgotten country prejoin in the conversation with your phone calls, Facebook Comments text and tweets, watch indepth sunday at noon eastern on cspan2. Host welcome to book tv indepth, this is a special year of fiction on indepth, you will see authors such as david, brad, jodi, last month we had david the Washington Post columnist and thriller writer who writes about the cia and such in this month were pleased to have Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead in his most recent book is underground railroad, mr. Whitehead, what is the appropriate response