Page. [applause] a National Book festival is and has been one of the most inspirational free events in the nations capitol. And only possible because of you, our sponsors but does take a village to put on a festival like this. I want to acknowledge the more than a 1000 volunteers. Most especially Junior League of washington. [cheering] [applause] 2003 with over 40000 hours the equivalent to . 4 million of time, thank you. And hundreds of volunteers the general public. And of course the hardworking library of Congress Staff who are key and vital to the festival success. So please thank you. Im honored to walk up the chair of the library james mattis counsel and the f cochair of the 2023 National Book festivalib. Mr. David m rubinstein. [applause] so, thank you all for coming. Thank you carla for the kind introduction. I should say as well carlas mother is here thank you very much for coming from baltimore. [applause] so, how many people here have read at least five books in the last year . [applause] many people read at least 10 books last year questioning, people let read at least 20 books . Howth many people read at least0 books last year . Oh well. How many people really honestly read 50 books . Anybody read 70 books last year . Okay, anybody read 100 books last year . Well, congratulations. Sadly 44 of americans did not read a book last year. 44 of American Adults did not read a single book last year. Now that is not a good thing for our country. Our country is not the leading country in the world. In fact we are what are 50th in the world and literacy percentages. 150th. There are lots of reasons for it we cannot describe them all now its a sad fact we are not very good in literacy. People who can read choose often to not read books and people sadly who cannot redo not do much about. Wondered 30 million adults in this country cannot read a book to their children. One of the best ways to teach a child to read is to read to the child yourself. That is how many children no doubt of you learned how to read from your parents reading to you. Butd wondered 30 million americans cannot go. 21 of all adults in this country are functionally illiterate, 21 . Which means they cannot readd past the fourth grade level. 21 of americans cannot read virtually at all. What is this really mean for our society . Y . It does not help you get a job if you cant read. And it turnsns out going to be very involved in the criminal justice system. 85 of people in the juvenile system are functionally c illiterate they could not read past the fourth grade level for two thirds of the people in the federal prison system are rfunctionally illiterate. Obviously if you are functionally illiterate you resort to things that are not great things for our society as a result you often wind up in the juvenile delinquency system of the federal prison system. We have to do much more about this. No book festivals going to solve all of these problems. But the National Book festivals designed to make people realize that we, in washington d. C. And representing all the country believe its important to have a festival where the leading authors in thet country come to meet with children to autograph their books for you to read from their box and to explain the importance of reading. Now its not called the National Tweet festival or thes National Memo festival is the National Book festival and why is that . Books have a way of focusing the brain in a way of tweets honestly doesnt or maybe its annexed now i dont know. [laughter] but whatever it is books have a way of focusing the brain. Because you have to spend time. Yet be concentrating for quite some time to read a book. That helps the brain evolved. All civilization is evolved from reading it not just tweets but reading books. What we are trying through the National Book festival is to say to people come here. It is for free. Come here and meet the great authors and learn more about books. Bring your children so they can see how important is to adults to see other people read. We want people to come here because we want people to appreciate the importance of reading. Were not going to solve that literacy problem in this country, thats not going to be solved overnight but we are not going to solve the illiteracy which means you can review choosefr not to we can take a sp forward and hopefully people will come here, back to their hometown signal back to the communities in the Washington Area sows at the National BookNational Bookfestival i learnedg about reading now i want to do more to help my child learn how to read better than to actually read better and more myself. I want to thank the sponsors pray dont you think the authors i also think laura bush. For those of you heard the story a moment ago. [applause] as you all know we are getting ready to sell but the 250th anniversary of this country. Youd be under iraq if you didnt know were going to silver the tour 50th anniversaryan because we are celebrating it already paid we are not so auteur and 50th anniversary of the National Book festival, why is that question what we do not have a book festival in the United States release in washington for long time. What happened was when laura roesch eight lebron came to washington right before the inauguration she met with carlas predecessor Jim Billington for the reception the night before the inauguration she said rib texas book festival give a book festival in washington . He quickly said no, but we will. And we did. So on the mall right after words that spring i believe it l was they set up their first National Book festival was on the mall do you remember that . As little dusty from time to time sometimes it rained from time to time. Okbut after was the first effort of the United States government really to do something along the lines of having a book o festiv. And so over the years the way the world works and sometimes things happen by happenstance you dont think its going to be good but it turns out sexually better. So for a while the National Park service said you guys its nice to reading books is nicer encouraging people to read but you are hurting the grass. [laughter] eswhat . The grass cannot growth the book festival thereby people can read better. But the grass isnt going to grow. So get kicked off the mall for a little while and we went to the Convention Center. This mustt be temporary as the grass grew back. [laughter] but ultimatelyad we decided it s better at the Convention Center so all of you have been at the mall and all a bit at the Convention Center now its probably much better at the Convention Center furthermore restrooms, the food is better is more accommodation how i people would prefer to save the Convention Center . Most people . Okay that is what we are going to do tomorrow. I hope all of you will have an enjoyable time. I went to echo what i said earlier and thank alle of you r participating great hopefully you will take the word back about what the book festival is all about and encourage people to read let me think she supporting the National Book festival is not a given requirement the library of congress is to support the book festival. She has taken thisch on and made it an incredible book vessel the biggest of United States and onto thank you for doing that. Fax okay. Okay. Thank you very much that we have our authors thank you very much. Please welcome young adult writer. Hello everyone i am angela and i am their client from the chippewa indians. Be able to speak and these hallowed halls. Everyone has a story. I am always fascinated by the stories behind the stories. And my story i was a debut author at age 55. [applause] thank you. The origin story for my story i was 18 and i was a senior in high school. My best friend went to a Different School nearby. She told me about a new boy senior year end all of her classes she thought i might like. I was intrigued and dateless. So yes i asked about him. [laughter] and it turned out he did not play sports and he hung out with the hardcore stoners we calledd them. Until i never met him. And then a month before graduation she said you are never going to believe it. Theres a huge drug bust it turned out the new boy was an undercover cop. Well, this was a few years before the original 21 jump street. [laughter] and so i could not believe it. My mind was blown by the idea of a young looking Law Enforcement officer posing as a high school senior. It was raised on the soap operas and mysteries. So i immediately thought if we would have met and what if we would have liked each other . Or what if he needed my help . The spark of an idea that has been with me for 37 years was why would some undercover drug investigation need the help of an ordinary 18yearold girl . Well, by the time i was 44 cop had figured out i worked out the puzzle pieces of how the story might happen. What if it was a federal drug investigation on the reservation . And what of this young woman was excellent and chemistry . What if she knew traditional medicines, culture and language and was connected to everybody and everything around her. The ideal confidential informant or for an fbi investigation. [laughter] on my reservation sometimes the fbi and other federal agencies are not necessarily the good guys. So i had to create some plausible ideasan of why she wod participate even reluctantly. At age 44 i could write the worlds worst first draft and i could live with that failure easier then the regret of never even trying. And so it took 10 years to write a version that i thought was Strong Enough to get me an agent. Got me an agent within two weeks. Two weeks after we went out on submissions theres a 12 bidder auction. St ice sold u. S. Publishing rights and not publishing 22 other countries. [applause] but wait, there is more. Two weeks after the book auction i sold the film rights to the obama does. I hired them up. [applause] indigenous nancy drew meets 21 jump street will be coming to netflix at some point. [cheering] [applause] i had a mantra while i was writing. And it guides my storytelling that i write to preserve my culture. And i edit to protect it. We have always been storytellers but we were not necessarily the ones getting the book deals. Stories about us but not by us are more likely to perpetuate stereotypes and inaccurate information that not only harms native children and teens but it harms all students who need to learn about nativeet americans. Everyone has a story. But for too long our stories, our indigenous knowledge was treated as yet one more resource to be extracted and exploited. Just like water, timber, mineral rights. Our stories were mined for their trauma without context or nuance and out sharing. Our strength and joy. Everyone has a story. Lets support indigenous invoices telling our stories. [applause] [applause] but please welcome new yorker staff writer a finalist for the National Book award and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe award. I feel that is how we will all end one day. It is so great to be here amongst the great authors and to be with you all for the book festival. I wanted to tell you a somewhat eccentric story behind the story but iin think its something fundamental about the nature of writing nonfiction in discerning the truth. It happened back in 2004 when i was newly hired as a writer at the new yorker magazine. I was behind on my contract already to produce a certain number of stories. Most people know me im very slow. I was frantically fearing i might lose this coveted job. I was calling everybody for a story idea and i called a friend and he said why dont you look for the giant squid . That would make some news. My only image of a giant squid was from 20000 leagues under the sea and i thought it was a myth. If i got off the phone i looked it up and it is a real creature it has eyes the size of a human head. Tentacles that can stretch as long as a school bus but no scientists back then had ever seen one alive. They knew they existed because dead carcasses would occasionally float up on the surface of the water. How are you going to tell that story . There is nothing to see. I did are little more digging lo and behold there giant squid hunters. They didnt tie but that when youre growing up. They were trying to become the first to document why these creaturesbe alive. And eventually i found perhaps the most obsessed giant squid hunter of all. A man in new Zealand David oshea he had come up with a rather novel scheme. Rather than trying to capture the big calamari as he put it. [laughter] he was going to try to capture a baby only the size of about a cricket and then grow it and captivity. Now the mad genius to the scheme because during the spawning. Hypothetically this tribute more babies and be easier to catch. I called him up he said in going on expedition, devil make history. I rush to my editors at the new yorker and in my desperation i may have committed the sin reporter sometimes to which is to over tell the story. And assured them will be the first to document a baby giant squid and i would get them a photograph. Now even in the flesh its in flying to new zealand is expensive but they said godspeed and semi offered right when i arrived in new zealand is whenri realized things were amiss. First all the s boat which i thought would be Something Like in Jacques Cousteau turned out to be a skiff with an outboard motor. Steve oshea my fearless squid hunter had bankrupted himself looking for this creature this is all he had breezily grew turned out to be a graduate student who got seasick and myself who he was ready to put to work. He turned to me and said i should warn you, mates, theres a wee bit of a cyclone coming our way. He was not exaggerating theres a cyclone coming our way is a national emergency. All the part was soon out there were Gale Force Winds us and at thatcenter probably awaited e said no, no, s no hyperbole the giants could only capture this time. Off new zealand we got to go now will is our opportunity. We get in his car on a trailer the little skiff we drive down the short its getting dark is our salons about the waters of what you doing is getting dark wiseman pieces oh, giant squid rise in the water called at night so wed, have to go at nig. We get off and we set off into the water. My squid hunter it was deaf from a diving accident. He points to a bowie in the distance and says what color is that . I said its green cant you see . He said oh i am not just deaf mates i am also colorblind. He begins to aim this little boatde to the chute between thee rocks with a whole ocean and all the mold is funneling through the boat enters that i had a flashlight with me appointed in front of me all he can sit in front of his amount of water 20 feet high i turned behind with a flashlight all i could see is another mounted the boat is going like this. He turns to me and says she wont find this in new york will you, mate . It was that moment i began to wonder whether he was in full each command of all his faculties. Ng somehow with this fearless determination he managed leaders to the chute and out into a spot we began to put traps into the water there made of sod off coke bottles but thats another h sty into the water they go. They put me too work im no longer an observer we have to pull him out but we did this hour after hour when that goes by, we do the next night and the next night. Once i met three in the morning we pull up the traps graduate student looks and says i think that is your dream squid. But his eye up to the tank the squid. St name for giant its this big i could see a big guy and its tentacles. Tired and exhausted. We have to transfer this into another tank. Suddenly where did it go . The complete catastrophe. He had a look of utter despair on his face that we have never seen you i was thinking in that moment i am dead i am completely dead outcome i can get a baby squid and groton cap to have activity. We had it and we lost it at i thought i dont have a story. I have absolutely nothing. And it was only after the expedition as i was still wallowing in my own despair and the despair of the sport squid hunter that was the story. This was a story about a man, andd ahab who had devoted his whole life to capturing he had a lawsuit. Talk so fundamental about the nature and discern the truth. You have to keep your eyes open to the story. You have to be careful about your blinders. Or your biases. You have to recognize the reality sometimes before. And often the most profound are the ones youre not even looking for thank you so much. [applause] please welcome former nfl player and writer are k russell. [applause] [laughter] i would like to start by thanking the good folks of audrey congress for it all before being here and allowing me too be here and show the store but like to think my mother who raised me of the single black woman in america making her superstar. My partner who is here with me cory obrien who loved me before i knew it meant to love myself and my manager who believed immediately when i fell short of poverty my agent for allowing me too write this book and to share the story with him ever may need it. It is an everyday phenomenon to be invited to still feel like an outsider. Ii felt that way being invited o speak with you all tonight. Though i played argument with the toughest sports in america moments like these are more intimidating for me than any nfl game. To be invited but to feel like an outsider is a feeling ive come to know as the unwelcoming. Stemmingyo from corrupt systems conflicts and wrongdoings and it isab so rooted in ugliness thatt seems impossible to be both exceptional andda accepted. Whether you are a black man asked to speak in a per anomaly whitespace or instead of black men growing up in the south as i did the unwelcoming is there. Even in the world of sports we are bound together by shared uniform, memorized chance, and through unison the game is unwelcoming. Through the fields, to that rafters are jerseys hang in hang through the lockers those experiencing though i speak of my ownwn experiences voiced concerns for people lgbt cute folks at large i note that unwelcoming transcends race and gender and sexuality. At one point or another we have all felt like outsiders whether invited or not. I have to ask myself regardless of these external forces what it is inside of me that looks for reasons i do not belong in places i have been invited to or that a live amongst. Its a black bisexual man i thought the unwelcoming we my life companion. It was not until i came out on a personal essay in 2019 the first nfl player to openly identify as bisexualt i realized i did not need an invitation to belong. Whenen i accepted myself no one else acceptance mattered. As i stated before there was a good reason why so many people feel unwelcome, erased,n attacked, whether it be bigotry, and take joe to be cute plus legislation, book bands or take away a womans right to make decisions regarding her own body is clear and true because feeling like our very existence is being challenged but we do notco have to carry that around with us everywhere. As writers and authors and q storytellers and purveyors of story we get to redefine to show the beautiful parts of our world and communities that often do not get the shine they deserve. When we get to talk about the problems we all face together as a society. In writing that coming out essay i remembered writing was my first love. I lost my stepfather very young as ad child. Instead of seeking religion or guidance from parents of others i turned to writing to express my emotions my feelings my thoughts that even at six i could not understand myself somehow they knew all my heart cannot put intoi words. I never felt like a stranger when riding in my journals, i always felt as though i belong belongedto it reading books wite experience about someone like me or someone that was different. I memoir is not just an invitation to those who feel like me or look like me. That way hope people feel seen people get to share their experience and create empathy around those topics that for them are so far removed an invitation is not enough. I hope my book, like so many others here today and here this weekend and give people the courage to accept themselves. The thought we all have is true it is also something gives us Unlimited Power and connection. There is no story more valuable than another there is no existence, then another. I stand here today amongst you at this podium i am in awe of you. It takes for all of us to get here together in the society in this world. I hope to encourage everyone to keep reading, to keep writing to keep experiencing new experiences and hopefully the courage to allow yourself to feel as welcomed as you are thank you. [applause] [applause] please welcome beverly winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize and biography. [applause] thank you. These are all hard act to follow. Its a great pleasure to be here especially to be here in washington. Which is a place i have spent a lot of time in the 12 years i was writing this biography of J Edgar Hoover. Im a butte may know washington was hoovers hometown he was born here just a few blocks away from where we are right now. He lived here his whole life. He died in the city of washington and he never worked for anyone but the federal government. It is a particular pleasure to be here though at the library of congress because the library of congress is a place J Edgar Hoover got his start when he graduated from high school in 1913 havent gone to Central High School in washington which was the most prominent white Public High School in the segregated school system. He needed a job to fund his way through law school at George Washington university he and appear at the labor of congress. This was a moment of excitement for the library. The new library of congress classification system was just coming into being and hoover was there as a young man on the cutting edge of this information technology. Its thanks to the library of congress you learn to classify things. To organize information. To be administratively efficient and to keep effective files. [laughter] so i really did not let this moment pass by saying thank you library of congress. Forgiving us J Edgar Hoover. Well take this from some of the laughter in the audience this is not a room full of hoover admirers. I would like to say here at the outset that i am myself and not an admirer of J Edgar Hoover. I did not set out to write a biography of hoover because i wanted to redeem him or wanted to convince other people to admire him and that some way. Very early on when i was just Getting Started writing this biography i was on a panel with two of my historian colleagues at yale who were also writing biographies. One was writing a biography of George Kennan the great cold war strategist and thinker. One was david blight who was writing a biography of Frederick Douglass the great abolitionist. And there i was writing a biography of j edgarog hoover. What was interesting to me about that panel we were all engaged in this project called biography we each had radically different relationships with our subject. Was writing about someone he actually knew was of the semi a authorized biography george had said go forth and write about me but do it once i am gone and then he proceeded to live to be more than one 30 years old. [laughter] that was a complicated biographical relationship. David blight was writing about someone that he deeply admired for it someone hed spent his career thinking about someone who was among the most admired speakers in all of american history. And i had a slightly different problem than that. Which was that i was going to write a big book about someone who was among the most universally hated figures of the er20th century. I want to say though that was one of theor things that made me want to write about hoover. He is often portrayed in our public culture put in our Popular Culture is a onedimensional bill in. I figures in the back room listening in on everyone. Pulling his strings manipulating and threatening people and thats a big part about this book is about but he did a lot of thehe things. But as they really began to think about his history what struck me was how an adequate that image was to understand not only who he was about the kind that kindof power that he wield. How he came to wield that power in the first place and how he stayed in office for so long. For those who are not in the hoovers story i will just offer a few facts. The director of the fbi for 48 years. He was there from 192041972. So just to fill that out a little bit more he wasou appoind under Calvin Coolidge she then stayed on under Herbert Hoover the dawn of the great depression, they were not related there are lots of stories about that at the time. He was thin for all three plus terms of Franklin Roosevelt presidency. That the Second World War he stays under harry truman he was therefore mccarthy us and for the red scare. He stays on under dwight iser to the 1950s as t they are under junk and he is there under Lyndon Johnson and he is there under Richard Nixon and he finally dies in may of 1972 still in office. E. So, what things that drew me too writing about hoover was this amazing time he has his fingers and everything. But also there were really important complicated things aboutin the changes in washingtn throughout that period changes in the federal government and particulatee growth of federal government and its Security State drink that. A story about single bureaucrat could yield enough power to reshape many aspects of american mppolitics from our law and ord. To its broader politics constraining as well as sometimes enabling movement of the civil rights met the social movements of the 20 century. That is what drew me too hoover. I just want to confess i had a few concerns quite wanted a big fat biography of J Edgar Hoover. The first of those that in our polarized moment hoover does not fit very neatly into political categories that we know. He was a deep believer in the nobility of professional Government Service and nonpartisan service. In career h service. That would stand outside politics and most government work going on. Something we would call a liberal or progressive tradition and he was also a deep conservative particularly on questions of race, anticommunism, religion and a whole host of other questions. What he did was put those together in a way dont see reflected in her politics very effectively. And so i wondered if we could in fact have a conversation about the more complicated politics of what mike tells about the present. My other deep anxiety in these 12io years was, as David Rubenstein said this is not a period in which 800 page book is a big piece of cultural currency. I was little concerned and are quick takeco world there was not going to be a place for a book like this. I am enormously grateful and heartened to find there really is. There is a whole world of people who want to read this book and i suspect people in this room, a whole world of people who still want to write this kind of book. And i want to finish off by saying while work here at the National Book festival celebrating library of congress as champions of theef book. Its an amazing archival resource for the kind of research that goes into writing the history that i wrote and continued to write that could not be done without these amazing Washington Institution for that. Ou all [applause] [applause] please welcome Pulitzer Prize in National Book critics circle Award Finalist luis alberto. [applause] is in the house. No only is in the house, but there are american heroes everywhere. Miss carla, you are such a hero to all of us. But i want to talk to about someone else. My mother is in the house. You cannot see her. But she is here, i promise you. My mother was a war hero. And a book lover. She loved libraries more than anything. And the thought that i would be lecturing about her here at the library of congress would have made her mad with joy. So, let me tell you a little bit about her. My mother was the only american in my family. She was also the only person who had come from somewhere it really alien to the rest of us. She was from new york city. [laughter] and we did not understand the rules of life in new york city. My mother was born in 1916. She was raised to the 20s and 30s in new york. And at a certain point she fled new york and came here to washington d. C. To be trained to join the red cross and go to world war ii. She was in a group, not nurses that were known as a doughnut dollies. Er dont dalis her so much i need to tell you about as well. But just to give youou an idea f who she was and how it felt in the dirt street where my family lives, she never learned spanish. So she would make it up as she went along. [laughter] and she had these quirks. I did not know what manhattan was all about i did not know what it mustve been like in the 30s, the 20s, her family had an antique store on North Broadway and one of their einstein. S albert and her uncle went out drinking beer with him and called him al. Wishing he was kind of cool, but know . Id i and i just want you to see her as best i can before i tell you the story. So she thought she was a movie star. She was 5foot three, auburn hair she had these left over from the flapper era. Whenever there was a party including with our mexican familyse she would stand in this kind of pose. Asa called the teapot. [laughter] she would move her hand as she spoke to you. And she liked jewelry so she often had a big old ring and make a show of it. She also smoked like a betty davis. Now you are seeing my mother. If you said something that was funny or she thought it was fun even if it is in spanish and she didnt quite understand it she would take up off and say oh darling. So she came to washington to train. I wrote a novel about it. In the novel is good night irene. People have asked you why didnt you write a Nonfiction Book about it . I tried but once the interesting reason this women are forgotten as the records building for the red cross with all of their information burned down. So they were erased physically but also culturally. I think it did not seem heroic enough to have these brave women driving into combat to help the soldiers. Not medically. They drove w trucks about the se of this backdrop. If you cut off two columns and raised it that was the truck they drove a gmc two and half tone truck with a galley built n the back they made donuts and coffee. Had a record player so they can plate records for the boys fighting in europe. They also ministered to them. They gave them guidance. They also gave them hope. They also played card games with them. They helpy them sometimes when they break down emotionally. That is what my mother did. And you need to know some things about that. She came here and trained. They left here in a convoy of ships to england. She served troops freshly arrived. Took a train from liverpool tow london which was bombed by the germans. Got to england and worked on the bomber bases in cambridge in the northeast of england. Attending to the pilots there is no record they were ever there even the people who run these sort of museum space that airbase was had no recollection or any proof those women had lived there and taking care of the soldiers. They landed on utah beach. They joined patents and stormed through westernhe europe. They sell the liberation of paris for their trapped, they were caught in the battle of the bulge. They followed patent in the third army through allse of germany and when they arrived they help liberate. For all of this my mother was wounded terribly in a jeep crash. So she kept it quiet. Any of you who have veterans in your families probably know this. Its very hard to find out. And i did not know. I saw my mother as the flamboyant one. I did not know she was a hero i would not have known what to do with that information. But, one day she had her army footlocker and it was full of stuff and i was told not to ever open it i promise of course mop no way ill never open not maybe one day she went to work and i was like all right. I was going through it i tried to beat careful with everything. But i was flipping out for this all kinds of army staff and red cross stuff pictures of bombers and all kinds of stuff. Until i, got to and i had no ia to do this. What is this how do with my mom . I didnt get it. And i put it all away i dont know what this is a made it super meets i closed it and she kept the cloth over it so i covered it with a cloth. I thought im never going to say a word. I am telling youyo all, take one thing with this conversation women are psychic. [laughter] my mother came home and she said dear boy, you have been in my box. I said no i have not and she said did you find any photographs . And i was busted. I said yes and she said what did you see . I said i saw dead people. I need to explain the place to you. She told me the story about it. I wont go into it it is gruesome and awful. But the thing she said toot me which ive never forgotten is i was ashamed of myself for taking those photographs. But ever since that war ended ive been ashamed of myself for not taking more. So my mom, by the time i came along she was married to my dad living on a dirtt street and really weird to my relative. My mother served demitasse cups. It i promise you there is no mexican a family who has ever hd coffee from a demitasse cup. And they would say loca. [laughter] but you know, she didnt reveal things, but things came to meet later that i realized so much of the things in our lives was her reliving what she did. All through high school whenever a guy i knew was in trouble she would move him into the house. We always had three or four guys living and she would work and take care of them. My best friend was gay, he was a dancer. We were in the drama world it was very hard times for him in the early 70s. She was his champion and she cared for him. That is my mom. She is here now with us listening to this. And i cannot thank you enough. I cannot think all of you enough for giving her this opportunity. Because she was a story lover. I just want to tell you a little thing may help you understand her a little bit. My mother was in kind of a cultural war. One hundred mexicans and her. [laughter] and she wanted to makehi sure tt i could be an american boy two. She knew that would be a superpower to have both. She was such a lover of literature that she used literature to wake me up. She started reading mark twain to me at night. When i was a little kid she followed mark twain and then she indoctrinated me i wasnt ready for it but her hero hemingway. Papa, popular rules. And you know, she was right then i started getting that thing i wanted to tell stories i wanted to write them down. She washed her. She watched. I come from ath town that never had an Lending Library did not get a Lending Library until the 90s when the foundation funded it. So i began to write. I was more and more interested she got me a little notebook and i was riding in my notebook. It was 69 cents at the drugstore. Somebody publish an empty book im going to fill it. She saw me do that. I never applied myself to anything. I had a stack of pages i came home from school one day and she was waiting forot me. [laughter] dear boy, i have a little present for you it honest to god i thought she got me like a james bond a plastic pistol or something. I went out into the kitchen she had gotten her world war ii type writer, cleaned it up, put on the table with some paper i thought crab, man, typing . She said no, no seriously try it. Iveon got paper here, try to think you will like it. I put the paper in suspiciously banged it, boom. Boom. Boom boom it was so neat. It looked to publish i was never going to publish i knew that. You all or youngs you probably dont remember this but back when they were typewriters they had ribbon the ribbon was black and red if you wanted to type in red or black ours was broken so it might words for a half black red. S i remember saying i am on fire man. [laughter] so this is what my mother was like. I came home a week or two later from school equally disgruntled by school and she said dear boy. Theres another little surprise for you in the kitchen and i said really . Yes go, go see it. I went out there she had sewn my pages together and put a cover on it. She said now you have a l book. Yes i was a selling author in my kitchen. [laughter] [applause] so i just want to say i am so happy she is here and i am so happy shes probably going to spend forever hanging around. One weird miracle that has been happening both the world war ii women have now passed, they were vietnam donut dollies they have adopted my wife cindy and me theyre going to be here tomorrow so if you see them, give them a hug. Tell them they are heroes. And i am just so happy that she is happy. Her name was phyllis, and just so you know because the novel her middle name was irene. Thank you. [applause] [applause] well,. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you to all of our extraordinary presenters. Who all of the distinguished authors, illustrators, our audience, our sponsors. I hope you had a wonderful time