Jackson state university, doctor mcdaniels and all yours. [applause] of course i cant sit down that. I want to remind you if you want to ask questions will need to come to the microphone at the podium no matter how loud your teacher voice is, we dont want you to shout it from your seat because weth are filming this. Thank you. Thank you guys for coming. [applause] thank you for joining us with the autobiography panel. I have the pleasure of producing our distinguished panel of their great work. First we have marion graham, a native of georgia, the University Distinguished professor ofhe english at the university of kansas and founding director of the history of black writing which she established at the university of mississippi and 1983. The history of black writing has led national and International Initiatives to promote research, teaching and Public Engagement with literary studies with the National Endowment for humanity. The author of 12 books that redefined the field especially the companions of the africanamerican novel and cambridge history of literature written on the occasion of the history of black writing 40th anniversary and grahams retirement from teaching writing fulltime Intergenerational Panel of distinguished scholars gathered january 2023 conference to celebrate accomplishments, ongoing significant and new ventures and archiving programming and Literary Research and its expanding digital scholars and practitioners. M graham lives in kansas and is at work on two new books. The house where my soul is, the life of Margaret Walker and she will be at the 3 00 p. M. Today. Language association, there were mudslides and everything going on, i couldnt even get there so will really have to be with you. Wayne is a seven historian and educator who retired after teaching for decades i Auburn University where head directed 0 graduate programs. Hes lectured at the university and china and Queens University north of ireland and universities in oxford, cambridge and Great Britain ofd the Franklin Roosevelt center at the university. Hes the author of 14 books dealing with southern politics, history, white poverty and culture. Religion, art, music and literature and numerous awards include the patrick award for florida, history and nonfiction from the sudden regional accounts and every Association Award for nonfiction, the woodward by the fellowship of seven writers and excellence in writing and the Pulitzer Prize in 1900 and his book is entitled afternoon with perfectly. Well be sending at 3 00 as well. For third panelist, virginia beutler, the daughter of a country pastor who grew up in mississippi usually lost in a book made alan beutler, the army drafted out after she graduated, she and three children for 24 years as he pursued a military career. Second grade in germany and in louisiana. Gi Language Arts in louisiana, this last assignment help you figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up a writer. Attracted by the childrens literature collection and the university of southern mississippi, she retired in 2001 and the childrens literature collection look to become the researcher, 50 Anniversary Edition of the snowy day where she found a biography that needed to be written. Providing is all that is, the letter and spc and other publications. Each of those children has been approved one and ten grandchildren, six boys and four girls in interruptions by two of the grandsons and she found hanging out at the childrens literature collection or writing in her blog called reading and writing but not arithmetic. Her book, becoming like the others, they will be signing at 3 00 p. M. Were going to open with our first question. On the published schedule for the 2023 mississippi book festival, the panel designed to describe this in the audience of this room, were glad you joined us, biographers delve into the life of notable authors with resilience, attention andly universal human experiences influencing literatures and landscape focusing on the lower part on how authors, their bodies of work includes literatures landscape, deeply influenced literatures landscape. Hello, everybody. This morning of the book festival [inaudible] that sounds like the foundation. [inaudible] she knew literature is not sufficient for me to know it. I have to translate it public spaces and you have to share it. My role as somebody whos benefited from the smell is to deliver in different ways and it was that transition, the person who needed to have a community could be richly endowed like she has had firstclass education and the whole 9 yards but she was a poet but she really figuredd out how to transfer and translate her experiences to a broader public. When i heard someone was driving here with a she gave us the foundation she did in many different ways. No but it embraced her people, embrace everybody. She was writing that only for herself but she was the intersection between herself and people. That was something she continued to do and all of the books she did, here in mississippi all of her life. Virginia, what about keats . When andrewja jack keats wroe the story day which i assume most of you know about, he had been writing for ten years or had been illustrating for ten years for other writers. And he was really bothered by what he saw and what he had to illustrate. The books that he got had a setting and all the children were white. You could look at his window at his studio at the children of various cultures playing outside, and he knew something was wrong with that. One of his assignments was to illustrate childrens reading books, and he taught those gradeschool kids you may know about panorama, he illustrated the entire reading text for panorama. There is one, one story in panorama that is of a child of color. All the other stories in there were white kids. The story, the picture in the teachers manual of the school and the children coming in had a stairway and ther. Teacher standing at the door. Of course shes white. Every child, come up that stairway to go into the school is white and middleclass. That bothered him. And he thought the children should come all children should see themselves in books. The year that the snowy day was published, the percentages of people i could children of color would not have been enough in childrens books 12 even been statistically significant. There was an ancillary article in september 1965 which is a couple of years after snowy day came out, called the allwhite world of childrens books, and she addresses that. And in her statistics she said that over the threeyear period from 19621964 only fourfifths of 1 , you want to say that another way . That is. 008 thank you. Start over. [laughing] should i can you hear . Okay. Anyway, another way toy say tht is. 008 of children gradebook some 63 publishers told stories of american negroes which was a word they used then. Other ethnicities within similar and they were not even mentioned. So he started riding his snowy day in a time when you just did notnd find children from other ethnicities in books. There were very, very few here and there, and even those frequent were in some kind of stereotypical fashion, not as real children. So this20 year, this past year 2022, the diversity statistics of the book council of university of madison, wisconsin, madison which run statistics on multicultural childrens books all the time, said 40 had at least one creator who was a person of color, 70 had at least one creator who was white. 46 had a person of color who was a character in the book, and 39 had a primary character primary character who is of color. In addition to that, other things that happened this year, this year 2022 newberry award and all the honor books for newberry were women of color, which is also significant. If you go back and look at your guide for this festival and look at your panelists and look at the people who are here presenting, you will see people who are not allwhite. I can go to my library at oak grove in the mara county on any given day of the week, go into the childrens section, and i will see a multitude of enticing childrens books that represent children from many ethnicities, and that happens all the time. Thats the global picture of what happened when keats took it upon himself to write a book about a little boy in the snow and decide that that little boy could be black. I mean, he does the same thing in the stylele that any kid woud do in the store. Hes representative ofds all kis but he could be black. Thats the big picture. Individual pictures are just as important and count one by one. When my book came out and i posted on my blog that it was out, one of my followers are used to sit in my class, and i thought about him a lot what about the section about keats sitting in his english class and in the back corner drawing pictures while the teachers teaching about english. He knew what she said and occasionally would contribute if he had something to say. When i read that i thought about larry used to sit in the back corner of my class and drop pictures while i i was teaching. He was a young black boy, and when i posted this on my blog, he posted right under his, and i want to read it, i wish you could seeee it as he had punctuated it. But this is what he said. Keats was so formative for me. I remember the snowy day from his early asw kindergarten and how his incredible illustrations, in parentheses, got a black all in caps little boy just like the impacted me. I was determined to live in the snow and eventually did, all because of him. And now as an adult and a designer and illustrator professor, his works continue to impact me and motivate me and my students. Brian called your whos one of the best childrens illustrators today, if you ask me, of course at my own opinion, take a speech at the National Society of childrens books writers and illustrators and he was doing the keynote andby he began his speech by saying, when i was a little boy my mother taught head start. Shesh brought home harold and te purple crayon and the snowy day, and for the first time i saw picture book. One offa my favorite keats books is pet snow and use that picture the petulant all the kids coming and the kids are tall, short, then, that, scrawny, and every ethnicity you could think about. And theyre all in a line for the judge who string looks a little bit like Ezra Jack Keats himself. The other thing he did besides letting us know that all children should be in books, every child should be able to find somebody in the picture book that looks a little bit like them. The other thing he did was he used to setting. His settings brought the city to children. Before his riding most of the childrens books were in the country, the suburbs. But he found the beauty in the city and all of his books are set in that environment. So when youab think about someby who turned the world around, the same is that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. He made a giant step in getting diversity into our childrens literature and turning the world of childrens literature really on its head. We are not there yet, folks. We still got l a lot to do, bute got it started. Talk about harper lee. Of course, winning the Pulitzer Prize was the most important moment in her life because it took one of the most private women i know in my lifetime, and made her one of the most public women in terms of aspiration but not in terms of response. [inaudible] if you want to know why she didnt write of the books, her answer was i didnt have to. [laughing] more particularly, a book that still sells a million copies a year after all these years, was a book she enjoyed doing. Thek only book she went to wri. The outcome of the book was that in a contest and australia about five years ago. The question was what is your favorite american book . And by a landslide it was to kill a mockingbird. When i told her that right at the end of her life in assisted living, she said, waltzing matilda. She sang better than i did. Pbs did a contest for six months not long before she died, and the contest was a very simple one of, what is your Favorite Book . And bysl a landslide, americas Favorite Book as responded to by pbs was to kill a mockingbird. Most interestingly, in 2021, in december t of 2021, the new yok times review section had a contest based on their 235th anniversary of publishing the New York Times book review section and the question was very simple, the question was, what is your Favorite Book and he was your favorite author published in the last 125 years . By a landslide it was to kill a mockingbird. F i dont really know what literary critics think of to kill a mockingbird. They are divided. I pretty much know what readers worldwide think of to kill a mockingbird. It is the worlds most beloved book all these years after her book was published. Okay. Moving to question two. Thank you all. In reading your works i found so many profound passages, which i couldnt wait to mark and share with my colleagues. So here im going to just i will refer to one fellow pastors from each of your books and ask you to expound on that passage. So from becoming Ezra Jack Keats, im quoting here, reminiscent of my mothers eliminate, keats took the tartness and flavor of, his own life, added sweetener and greater and idealized childhood, overtly and subtly. He included people who are important to him in his storylines and in his artwork. The stories he wrote sometimes mirrored his memories, and sometimes adjusted his own experience to make a more kid friendly world. And for those of you have your books, that some page 137. So, virginia. Im going to start with one of which he adjusted to make it better. When he was a boy he frequently got this disturbed by what was happening at home, in one day he got disturbed and remembered that int his reading book at school hit heard about a little boy that put his baggage in a kerchief on the end of the stick and ran away from home. So we decided that was when he is going to take care of this problem as well. His mother is clean the floor and so he tells her that hes going to run away from home. And instead of saying anything about staying at home, she says, well look, your think that tied right. Let me help you t type. So shesnn about them outd running away from home. He spent an afternoon first outside with the boys playing cards and doing things, then he wandered over to uncle louis and his aunts house. Stayed there a while and finally decided maybe things are actually better at home. So he went back in the dark, little scared as hee goes back, gets home and starts knocking on the door, and his mother will not let him in. They are having a party inside and she will not let him in. Bags and bags. Finally his father intercedesan and says well, just give him another chance. So finally fellating back in and he spends the next few weeks being very careful to say yes, maam and yes, sir and please and thank you and all those Little Things to be sure he doesnt get gone again. When he begins to write his book, he has peter who is a little disturbed because the new little sister is getting all of his furniture, if youre decides home. Y from i hope you can see, kind of get a glimpse of the picture. I know you are too far away when peter runs away from home he doesnt run very far. Hes right outside the window of his house and sets up shop there. And pretty soon his mother, instead of keeping him themd outcome is out the window laying over saying weve got something really good for lunch. Would you like to come in . So thats how he fixed that family setting. As he got a little older he and the boys were out one day and there was out and roughhousing, running and screaming, doing things that boys do. There ran across the garage door of the holy man who spent a lot of time in prayer, and they did it enough timesme that he finaly got mad and he comes storming out of the seller and screens at him and said, i was trying to pray. You boys go away. Scared, sobrino at his brother his brother went back and said ill go talk to him for you. Those brotherer goes back and tk to me comes back and says, hes not going to bother you. Hes really a nice guy. Well, the next time ezra went by this place that was aboard lying layout by the garage door, and ezra decided he left it for him to paint on. And he really is a nice guy. In this book, lily is looking for a stepfather and he makes several attempts that dont quite work out and are not very good, until he gets in trouble with the junkman and theres a misunderstanding. The junkman yells at him and then chases him. The junkman looks exactly like his neighbor that as her toes about when he was a little boy. The only difference is that there is a dick in this book has the same face as ezra himself. When lily finds out the junkman is really a nice guy, the figures that misunderstand, he figures at the junkman is really a good person to be a stepfather. So keats frequently did that with his own life and took the things that seemed wrong to them as little boy and turn them into something that was really fun in the classic childrens books that he wrote. So from afternoons with harper lee, im quoting, one of lice ironies is how people compartmentalize friendships. Some friends we know from childhood never lose touch with, other best friends say from a consciousness limited for college, mary, moved to a different state, change ideologies or a political affiliation. New friendships begin in middle age or even later. We often thought if we had known earlier in our lives we might not have liked her so well or she us. This is some pages 170 and 170 what if you have the book. Wayne. Sometimes peoples write abot folks they know because of people are like them and sometimes they write about people they know because theyre not like l them. In the case of now, we would not have had friendship but for stroke in april 2005 and all of a sudden this incredibly independent woman who, for instance, almost never took a bus orus a taxi when she was in new york city because she walked everywhere. So you can imagine her stamina. She is also extremely athletic growing up. And so her independence was part of a way in which she dealt with new york city, when she dealt with truman capote, the way she protected him when he was growing up in monroe, and the way she which fought with you again him for being a sissy. So her personality is a really strong personality but a very private personality. I couldnt help but think of one day when she was telling us, because she knew i like dogs and did not like cats, she knew my wife like cats and didnt like dogs she always sided with my wife on every kind of argument like that. So she said we were a cat family and she said, my brother, the fourth of the children who unfortunately died way too young, but ed had picked up their cat, just a little tiny boy, and yet watched his mother and dad throw pieces of wood in the fire, ande you just on a lk picked up the cat and through the cat in the fire. The cat was not hurt. The cat was deeply offended. [laughing] so the cat traipsed over to add, and with its paw slapped it in the face, and since this is basically a book of storytelling. I found this photograph in saint simons island. And its a cat, if you cant see it, reading to kill a mockingbird. [laughing] and it could wait, i told my wife, weve got to go and show nell this thing. Nell, this is what she said. We were cat people. Cats c are independent. Cats are confident. Dogs requireon constant attenti. Dont take care of themselves, are dependent and are far too much trouble. To which i responded, sounds to me as if you are describing the difference between women and men, not the difference between cats and dogs. [laughing] to which she said not one word, but she smirked for quite a long time period. [laughing] so from the house where my soul lives, im quoting, just after classes begin in the fall of 1969, threatened with kidney failure and complications cause by a malfunctioning parathyroid gland, walker entered the hospital. Spending time in hospitals had become such a regular part of her life that she approached each state as if it were her last. Resolute woman that sheso was, e diligently sought to understand as much as possible about how the world and the universe operated. Butti the revolution revolutionist have not forced out of an abiding fear that life would end all four she had accomplished all that she had desired. That is on pages 391 and 392 if and 392 if you have the book. Maryemma. Yeah, thats a passage i think i wanted readers to fully grasp the contradictions that walker faced throughout her life. First of all, [inaudible] knows that veryat well, that she was a very fragile woman in terms of her health. She had a number of medical conditions. She was diabetic. So she was in the hospital frequently. She didnt the doctors advice often, which landed her in the hospital even more often as you can imagine. And yet her idea of herself and what shes able to accomplish was huge. With this fragile health. And wanted to show the contrast in terms of her understanding of what she needed to do was to rest and heal while in hospital. But she also used it to keep planning another big thing, to think about another book she needed to write it and so there was never a lost moment, so to speak. She would bring, she would fuss with her children to say you were supposed to bring me my journal if im in hospital. She was writing journals inso hospital. So never and wastedte moment. Always thinking about what she was planning, what she was doing, and wanting to accomplish. There was a fear often if i dont get done what i have set out to do, what does it mean . So when i think about that passage, my family and i have been talking about the idea of the servant leader tradition. This is not in the book. Theres one chapter titled that comes close to that. I think that chapter title is to teach, to lead, to change the world. Thats just one chapter in the book. I think when we try to talk about this tradition of servant leader, that we know mostly thats a male tradition. Martin luther king, et cetera. But what happens when a woman embraces this idea of i was born to serve . I was born to lead. I was born to give to people in the best way i can. I am a poet, im a writer and i do that . Well, but is it sufficient . Is it enough . That it never was until she could do these other things. So the hospital was this quiet place where nobody bothered her. She didnt have to cook dinner because she did do that every day. And she could go to the next thing. She could figure out the next thing. So thank you for choosing that passage because it really does give a false sense of how she operated. Her body might have been not as strong and she was a small woman, but her mind was huge and her planning and thinking and accomplishments was just amazing. G. But it had to deal with that resilience. It had to do with her fearlessness. And even when i met her i would constantly ask, howth did you do this . That was always my question. How did you think you could do this . Because it seemed impossible. But when she planned, she executed. And often a lot of of the plg was done from the hospital bed because she was a very pretty often. Do think she considered herself a Community Leader . Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Im moving to my third question and then going to come to the audience. So as often as you are probably very used to reading reviews of your own work. And at least two of you, probably all of you, has spent decades critiquing the work of other authors as well. So if you were an aspiring reviewer of your own work on this biography, please tell us how you would assess both how well you achieved what you would hope to accomplish when you completed and published this biography. Ra wayne. I guess my biggest problem with the book was that almost every writer once to determine pretty early in the process of writing what part off literature your book represents. Is it section . Is a nonfiction . Is in history, whatever it is. I am a history of my preference ive been made in alabama historian. And, therefore, when people found out i i was right about harper lee, they said we are going to get a history of harper lee. No, youre not going to get that. Not if you read my book. Shes a wonderful artist, wellwritten and respected her desire to have biography written of her. What i i would call it, this a story. This is a book of stories. It is about 64 afternoons with the women who never wanted to live in alabama after she left the university of alabama for new york city. She loved new york city. Liveever wanted to anywhere in new york city. One of the great tragedies of my life is at as you are wealthy scholar, millsaps college, onto applications [inaudible] sent to an alabama historian do you know anything about harper lee . I said well, shes perhaps our closest friend. She said, i cant believe it. And i said, would you like to meet harper lee . She said i would give anything to meet harper lee. So i said, well, we will come over and pick you up in jackson at christmas, because she comes home at thanksgiving and she stays until christmas. We will take you to monroe and you can spend the day, unavoidably thinking is my wife and i tend to be the only one to their listening quiet without saying a word. So i called luis connor, her little sister, and i said could you call nell nca nell we want to read come to spend an evening with eudora wealthy, your house 30 miles from our house . Ill call her. Miraculously, harper lee said i would love to spend an evening with eudora wealthy here so i think we got the most magical day in the history of literature to me, in my opinion. These two women just sitting there talking to each other about the grandeur of southern literature. One week before that was supposed to happen, i get a call from nells sister. She backed out. Said what . I know shes home, i know shes in monroe. Oh yeah, she came over. She is terrified at being in the same room with eudora wealthy for an evening, and what she would say and what she would do to impress her, to impress her, what would she do . And i thought, what an incredible insight to harper lee. I also thought, what a tragedy to the world of literature, that no one heard that nonexistent conversation. So when i started writing this book i thought, youre an historian, this is not going to be history. You have written two biographies but this is not going to be a biography. What is this going to be . And im pretty much content to let it be, 64 afternoons of storytelling between eudora wealthy and harper lee because not many people have that experience. Ar maryemma . Thats a a good question. The jury is still out i guess i would start by saying the Publishing Industry has changed radically. So weve had to figure out, when i say we, i had to work with my partner publicist to decide how to place this book. Now, thats an issue has confounded me when i was writing the book, what kind of biography to want to write . And it depends on thinking about your readers. Do i want literary people just to tell me about if ive gotten this womans development, her contribution, what you wanted to accomplish, if i got it right . Do i want the average woman to understand the difficulties of being a womanwo at a particular moment in this history of our country and inos the south where she chose to live her life . Andd so one. There were different populations i was thinking about. And so the success for me is am i going toea get those readers . Are those people going p to read this book . And knowing that she had a very diverse audience, i try to combine the sort of literary biography with the intellectual story and an ordinary womans life. And when i say ordinary woman, i mean one who has a family with children, cooks three meals a day, figures out how to make a living and to keep a job and do everything she wants to do, and more. So when i say the jury is still out, i mean i think those different audiences are gradually coming to the book. Different readers are giving a different kinds of feedback. Im getting comments and notes from people who say this is my grandmothers story. If it werent for just the book she wrote, this sounds just like what happened to my grandmother, and i feel like i have accomplished something when i get a comment like that. So a blended biography, i i gs i could call it, is a more difficult sell. If its not, you know, if youre not a Pulitzer Prizewinning author, and everybody is lookinb for your story. Walker was a prizewinning author, not a a clutch of prizewinning author but everybody is looking for her story. Or, if youre somebody whose history is filled with all kinds of intrigue in secret love affairs and that kind of stuff, then you needd to have a tellal book biography. So there was a little bit of that but not a lot because this was a woman with great integrity and, you know, her sensibilities were such that she was a Victorian Woman living in the 20th century. So shesh would not have toleratd that, even if she didnt you were not supposed to talk about it publicly. So i talk about it a little bit but not a lot. I dont know if i have been successful and if i were a reader or a review of this book, i think i would say i did do a good job of reaching multiple audiences. Everybody can see something about the experience they know or familiar with or heard about in this book, and readers can find themselves in the book. But i ask you to tell me if you get a chance to read the book if you can find yourself or find your story because walker was in many ways a very ordinary woman, which is also extraordinary. And that interesting combination is very hard to kind of tackle. Somebody whos ordinary and extraordinary accomplish extraordinary things, unimaginable things in her lifetime, and yet had a very everyday existence that characterizes the lives of so many women come southern women in particular. So i have to wait for you to tell me. You have to be my book reviewer reviewers. While i will share this but i heard you tell virginia before we came out of the holding room that you had lately been getting a critique out there. You are the lady with the what . Yeah, the big ass book. [laughing] that is in the books nickname. [laughing] you see it. On friday. Virginia. Okay. You mentioned i was a researcher for the 50th anniversary of the snowy day, and when he sent me back into the files, the collection has everything Ezra Jack Keats everiv touched almos. It is just extensive including about six boxes of his attempt to write his autobiography. So when he went back in there to get some things to go in the 50th anniversary was on a deadline and i kept thinking as i went through all of those things, i i wish i had known ths when i was using his books with my kindergartners and second graders. Oh, how i wish i had found thi. It just kept going on. I had to get through fast so i did. Then i headed back hoping to get something that people who are using his books could see and that would return him to those books that are really classics in childrens literature. They are as uptodate did as they were the day that he wrote them. They have such intimate experiences of children that are universal. So i wanted it in the hands of people who would use it with their kids. I am kind of like you are, i dontow think im a good persono decide how well this was done. Its an like you asking me to evaluate my tengr grandchildren and i can tell you they are our wonderful. [laughing] and and i feel kind of like tt with the book. The reaction i got the most from the book are people who say i read your book and now i want to go back and read his books here and thats really what i wanted people to deal. I have had one really special thing that is happen that may lead to something i i had notn thought about. One of my sons best friend when he was in high school is done teachingtl and atlanta in a predominantly black school, and shes teaching ap english. When i went out there for a visit and a book signing out there, she came and got a book and she said this fall i would like to use this with my students and have used do a soon call with us. So in thinking that the book is going to not just appeal to teachers and students zoom call my two older students who are on the fringes of trying to decide what to do what to do with their lives. Because that was such a a big issue with keats himself. So far ive been very pleased. Ive had good reviews and good people who are interested in doing the book, so im hoping, unlike, im hoping its going to go well and that you will enjoy. I think we can take one question. And you have to go to the mic if youre going to ask a question. I see you making this movement to the mic. Can each of you discuss any concessions that you have to make in writing your book, either something that you are get in that you wanted or something that you didnt want to get in that the publishers kind of had to make do . Yeah, thats an interesting question because this is a big ass book. [laughing] and it was bigger than is expected to be. But i felt like i have one shot at it and he needed to be as complete as possible. Carolyn brown did didnt introductory, agenda dont biography of walker which is really helped a lot and it left me to do the rest of the story. I mean, i didnt leave out what they probably wouldve wanted me to leave out because i decided that there was not a chance for a second book on this subject. And i had so much richness of her journals, a oliver papers, documents, and i was the guardian and he needed to give it the best i shot i could. So that was the purpose. That was the challenge i had but is also a challenge that i think i stood up to with regard to the publisher. But he was definitely bigger than was expected. Anyce concession . I was extremely fortunate both at the roman collection and the Ezra Jack Keats foundation in support of this book from the very beginning and even given the extra resources that were not in the collection and places to go and look that would give me more information than was in there. I have absolutely nothing that it felt like a meter to be in there that is not there. And wayne. I just left out most of what you would like to know. [laughing] i reallyau do believe i human being has a right to be private. If she wants to be private. And if she tells a story, i will tell her stories and i will tell the stories that dont affect what she was like. But on the other hand, theres just some things you should not know about a a person. Absolutely. I want to thank our wonderful authors,gi our panelists. 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