University of Virginia History Professor Caroline recounts Robert E Lee surrendered to the Union Army and ends of war. Find these titles this coming week wherever books are sold. Watch for many of these authors to appear in the near future on Book Tv. Welcome byron from cincinnati, jennifer formally from cincinnati now lives in New Mexico. I will let them talk about how they met each other in the book that they wrote together. Welcome this afternoon. Thank you jan. Thank you jan. We are excited to be here. It is great to be here today. Byron and i are going to start by introducing each other a little bit. Then were going to do readings from the book and then we will take some questions. And this feed is supposed to be on cspan Book Tv coming up. So it may be replayed again, fingers crossed everything technically works from end to end, that is always the challenge. I am going to start by introducing brian mcauley. Byron will not say it himself but he has been an award winning Journalist Columnist for 25 years. He recently switched careers, but his career has been as a professional writer. He has three daughters, he is from the south and we have said this book is written by a black man from the south and a jewish woman from the north. We are very good friends. We were good friends before this started. But this turned into something more. We also have been told by readers and we are hearing from a lot of readers they feel they are listening in on a conversation between us. That has resulted in lots of people sending us their own life stories which has been pretty interesting. We are working on our next book as well. The book has been out one month right now. We are right at the one month mark. Im going to turn over too byron. He might say a few things about me that will start reading and talk about what we are reading. It is a pleasure to talk about you. You are one of my favorite people to talk about and to work with, i must tell you this. This adventure with you has been i will say a labor of love. It is also been laborious at times because of the pace with each other to keep any really help me with that, so thank you. When i met jennifer she was a public relations and communications executive. She held a big national job with the cable tv provider. And in that role doing public affairs, pr, she was a really big deal. I met her the first time in person at a speech she gave in town. I asked her for that speech and she politely told me she is not sure. And a few days later the Speech Presentation came into my inbox edited and i was very grateful because what she had to say had was so helpful to a guy like me. And then, we decided to have lunch. That lunch turned into an afternoon where we had a Mind And Brain melt and we became friends professionally of course she was the a great source for me. I have to say that right now. But it also bounced a lot of writing ideas so i could double check and make sure Mi Right on this . Am i going off the deep end or is this true . She was also a check. And so fast forward, wrote this wonderful book called hope interrupted, america lost and found in letters. Jennifer told me this morning whenever many techs during the day still, do Note Today is his june 6 i was singing june 6, june 6. Thats the anniversary of the first entry in our book. So here we are. So with that it is the first entry in the book. One thing i want to say is we do hit the hard topics. The topics of race, the topics of religion, the topics of for the topics of health, is more about our aging bodies and anything else. Nothing racy there. The subjects of parenting, the subject of money, someone said to me over the weekend, a man we were hiking with said, you know, you can never talk about politics and religion. And i thought why not . That is what byron and i do in this book. We tried to not be too political, but we do come at it in terms of sharing some of our opinions and that is clear. I am going to actually start. Im going to read first and i am going to start on june 6 which was our first entry. We are not going to read full entries today. We are going to read snippets of these letters and this conversation that we had. June 6 is called bearing a friend. June 6 is also the day that my first friend, whom i met around 20 years ago, when she actually died, june 64 years ago. In burying a friend, is what i was thinking about june 6, 2020 in New Mexico. Im going to cut straight to a section of this that should resonate with people. And in this particular section, i am in the Grocery Store. I have talked about burying my friend karen whose ashes we spread in the Rio Grande River a year after she died. My husband and i are in the checkout line. I said i noticed she was in his face yelling about the selfserve checkout. Again i approached and she yelled. I noticed she was a fingerpointing, i approached and said please move back you do not have a mask on and you are less than 6 feet away from him. This was a Store Employee who was africanamerican and young. She yelled at me and said you are the Problem Part you believe the hoax and you are being violent. He looked at me said thanks and stared straight ahead. I went back to my lane. Don looked as if he thought he might get in a fist fight, never been in one, i took track of her. I know she is again in his face yelling wealthy self serve checkout again i approached and yelled. She said youre a nazi and i said no im a jew and her checker said that lady always causes problem that was my first time ever been called a nazi. Byron you are on mute. As a Matter Fact also going to do a Tshirt Byron you are on mute. So jennifer im going to read the next day. My response from that letter because in that letter you asked me a question about mi one of those annoying people . And i answered that question. This letter particularly moved me and i will show you why. So the title of my letter is our Neighbors Daughter died. It was dated Sunday June 7, 2020 per jen, no you are not one of those annoying white people. I am writing at the end of a very long day. I wanted to write earlier but it also wanted to be done with everything going on today to put things in perspective. I hardly watched any News Today but i was riding in the car and i had the radio on cnn i heard general powell said he would not be voting for trump in 2020. He did not support them in 2016 either purchase now that mitt romney, never a friend of trump is not supporting him either. I always like powell i was always one of the few africanamerican republicans who could provide an example for those of us who fancied ourselves as conservatives as well. Which i appreciated but at that church once considered africanamericans inferior and would not allow them become church leaders. Life is still a contradiction, lord knows the mormons have not cornered the religious bigotry markets. I feel like we are embarking on significant social change, the kind i have not seen in my lifetime even when americans elected President Obama in 2008. Let me tell you about today, we canceled our services at church we partnered with the red Door Church in Florence Park to honor George Floyd and other americans who died at the hands of police. Im going to skip down, we were in suburban cincinnati with their little protests in a large dose of unity. The Police Chief walked with us to along with some of their deputies. Springdale police walked with a heavy heart because they had just lost a promising africanamerican officer in a tragic automobile accident. The bright lights of more than 40 police cars lit up the night. We all knew a tragedy had occurred. I told you i had not been able to sweep mr. Floyds death nearly two weeks ago but reading how you are called a nazi, wearing a mask and standing up for some black men and New Mexico brought those tears. I really dont know why, it could be a feeling of hopelessness that there will always be jerks around. Or maybe the fact i saw myself and that young man once upon a time. And byron when we talk a few minutes before we read a little more about, we did start writing after George Floyd was murdered that was a pivotal moment for us. That is right. We both felt that we were heading down a pretty negative or a rabbit hole. We both felt that our country may not come out of it. That is right. Ask we both thought we are learning things about her fellow citizens that were a little bit unnerving. Yes i will definitely add to that. Because you know, as i expressed to you and you read their in my admiration of powell, i thought america was the apple waiting it was there for us all if we would just play fair, worked really hard, got Education Everyone was going to be on a level playing field. And then, as i have gotten older, frankly, i am looking at all of these incidents. George floyd really crystallized it for me. I can truly say ive been a Reporter And Editor for many years i have never seen anything like that in my life and that changed me. And fast forward, these sorts of murders continued throughout the summer. They continue throughout today. We are learning about them from several years ago and they are just coming back up to the surface right now. 30 miles for i went to school, 60 miles from where i grew up in louisiana right now. You and i talked a lot about, and our writing, but it was like to be you, what its like to raise children. Your daughters would not be happy im calling them children. [laughter] they like to be called people. [laughter] they are still under 21. That is right, that is right, 15 and 16 actually. Is byron and i wrote we talked a lot about technique are technique was i usually wrote in the morning, he liked to write at night. We wrote from june the sixth until Election Day. We put her pendant down on Election Day in her publisher asked us to come back and write an epilogue which we wrote. Mine was on inauguration day, byrons was about a week later. We vigilantly wrote forever we were, whatever we were doing. Someone described to me because were hearing from a lot of people, she felt we wove the Macro And Micro together what was happening in the wider world and how that was affecting us and our own lives. We also had a lot of conversations, does anyone actually care what average people like us think . We contend most people are average people like us. They are not Tom Hanks writing a column for the New York times. They are not a governor of a states. They are people just trying to raise their kids trying to live in a free country and hoping there is an american dream which is something we wrote about. So i am going to go to one on july 14. I was in twin lakes, colorado which is a small town in the middle of nowhere thats hard to get to in the winter months. This one is called in thin air. This one has a heavy theme about parenting. We continue to be at an undisclosed location of remote cabin, twin lakes an old Mining Town in colorado. Our planet coming here was to avoid the constant phone, email, text and many client demands. We are grateful it has been way too long since we unplugged. However as responsible grownups we have continued to stay a bit plugged in. I am thankful for the ability to find a slow connection. Latest news, caroline who lives on the South Carolina George Lane was notified by her landlord the couple living next door with whom she shares a driveway, both doctors have covered. she gets sick and i get sick and the gun from zero to 16 hours, minutes really but im a mom and a contingency planner. Thats the worst part of any of this, families are parted nothing can be done. Norah got in Touch Today as well but shes my other daughter which shall find out in the book and had made plans for her their date will be in denmark in august. She was in germany. She described denmark as era. Im happy for them. Nor did not attend her high School Graduation or her college graduation, covid. Then there is covid and we are all thousands of miles away. You know what struck me about that letter was that you talk about your kids and we both love our kids and we talk about her kids a lot. Kids a lot. And we have seven daughters between us. And we have seven daughters. Nor is so adventurous and living so far away in this Era Covid to me that really hit home. Im here and we are here in the u. S. And we are dealing with everything that is happening in the u. S. But you had an international focus and a very entered in rare international perspective with your daughter in another country. I did and i still do and its been almost two years since we have seen her with all of this going on. As parents we have had to deal with things that are we no arent in our offsprings best interest that we know we dont see them often and how that shakes out and we just back off and say that we are lucky that people are healthy and here and try to move forward with their lives. So yeah its been a challenge but we press on. Good, good. We didnt always write about the heavy things. We also had a book theres a little bit of levity in this book. Are you going to give us one of the funny ones . Im going to try. One of the readers texted me today and was reciting back some of your funny lines. Oh my gosh, really . Hoping this is one of them. The title of this entry is called a Road Trip. This is written july 6 a few days after my birthday in a few days before Jennifers Birthday and we arent going to tell you when the year is. The dateline is from Mississippi Tennessee which is my hometown so we talked a little bit about a Road Trip and if you do it as the crow flies its not that far but if you do it like we do at its pretty far. They are so little time and space. I realized how much i have come to rely on writing these letters to keep me grounded and hopeful and up to date with whats going on in the world. Three things that ive learned on this trip from cincinnati to memphis and there are others, being in charge of yourself and your immediate family and no one else. Two dont try to transfer fresh fruits and vegetables in an uninsulated Container And C never be surprised if your 74yearold Motherinlaw set off from Cincinnati Friday Morning with a Twocar Caravan if you can call it that they rent their car and we were in my car. We had six people and Ginger Lawrence Dog the age of which ranged from 12 to 65. I needed to take a break every 55 minutes and they needed to take breaks in between my breaks its not so hard to coordinate taking vegan meals on the road but you do have to think about where to eat. Jill has the patience of job. I became frustrated with all the court nation. She brought fresh oranges apples dragracing carrots for her mother thinking it would be okay with no ice. I think i told you that i would have done the same with the vegetables. Of course you would. Its your desire to bring goodies to other people. One thing you and i talk a lot about and are writing is where optimists. Thats right, thats right we are and im going to tell you a lot if you didnt hear about joe on our relationship. She is the one who is the eternal optimist and i am as well. Ive written a bit good about my faith and ill read about that a little bit later but you know i think we have to be optimists in america especially now. Social unrest or political upheaval in things that happen in our land of the free and the home of the brave, if you are not an optimist you probably had a pretty tough go of it. Because in optimist i had a heck of a go of it in well and people have asked how it was to read this book during this time and we both describe it as cathartic that it gave us a place to talk about things that we were observing mostly in our own lives but with the news cycles we were all getting slapped in the face with very negative things from what was going to happen to the economy to what was going to happen at home. Im going to read monday, october 5. This is called measure for measure and as we said we are reading the entire letters because they are long. The book itself is about 366 pages. Having said that we are hearing that people almost want more so and when we started we were going to write for 60 days and then we decided we couldnt conclude because there was more happening but the truth of the matter is things were somewhat resolved by the time we put our pants down but life goes on. Im writing this one from cincinnati, ohio and at that time we hadnt fully relocated yet so i say with the rare exception i am most never see real people. Where is one supposed to wear all of these outfits . I thought much about the working world mainly the experience on which my own children currently embark. They have a unique form of anxiety. Working for Mark Place in the hightower overlooking the tower in a sports run charts and their member the Hope And Promise about the workplace but expected it to be significant and then i realized it was just as dysfunctional as most families. Before that time though i found it heavy. In my corporate days i was often in new York City and on capitol hill. The city that doesnt sleep filled with Warner Bros. Favorite hotel. There were tv chefs meetings on high floors in the contemplation of something called the internet. Remember the first personal interactive device called the blackberry and thought my thumbs could move fast enough. Fell like the center of the universe like Gambon Ferrer of the vanities as he said there was the room to paris to london of the 20th century the city of ambition the vast magnetic rock the destination of all those who exist where things are happening and he was among the victors. If only for a moment and then there was capitol hill. I was mesmerized by the sightings or so i thought and the late Senator Kennedy testifying on the floor to me washington with was the city of the overworked bit but too serious and that no lives. My life of magic these are places and times that our children will not likely experience. We live in the world of an unimagined future. You and i talked recently about careers on the downside. With few exceptions when one passes 50 and especially today we become more expendable. Ive learned as a consultant in my history we joked that her many days our work is less important than what we endeavored in her 30s for the good news as it doesnt matter to us as much anymore. We learned being the most entitled than the wealthiest person was not an aspiration for doubt about the family who was the Core Part of my being. At wellknown for my highenergy and might its not what it once was. I also know i seem to have the physical energy for exercise but my mental patients for garbage has diminished however i think im longer with them. I loved washington and i was enamored with everything with the giants, right . And we realized as we talked about a lot in the book its really not that important. Im going to go next with something i talked about and i want to talk a little bit about and the day i got religion written from Cincinnati Ohio in the day is october 26, 2020. Dear Friends Today im critical. None of us have spoken about her faith in the early days of the letters. I look at my faith as power not as a legend but know that im a person of faith. I was baptized in 1972 at the Attribute Tory of the red river which ran alongside 100 yards from the church founded by my grandfather in a dozen or so other men. A handful of kids were there with me and white clothing. We caught catfish and bloody Buffalo Fish there. Animals drank their and every year if you scared new christians were in dr. Needed to god there. When i think about it the baptist church founded in the 1940s was really built on the edge of a Cotton Plantation owned by mr. Charlie ca rodgers. My grandparents were sharecroppers on this land and not far from the church was my Grandmothers House which is where my mother lived after i was born at confederate memorial hospital. What i learned about Religion And Prayer i learned from all of them and im skipping along right now because i talk a little bit about my grandfather and all the people of the church. My grandfather whose temple when he. In Deacon Bryant who sounded like Van Cook so what i said was what i learned about Religion And Prayer i learned from them all. Most from that citation. The church was built further into town about 200 yards from the fixed room that my mother built from cinderblock and red clay for the family. Thats a moment about my history and my origins, where it came from and ive really want to put that in there because to me that represented two things. Help me remember always where i come from but it also showed me that unshakable faith that people had in my town. In that situation the only place he had to go is up. Iran one thing you and i have talked about often is Religion And Religion in your life has played a much more positive role than it has in my life. Even after the time we spent together writing and one thing that is important us about the work we did together is that the conversation from two people between two people with two different backgrounds where we explore difficult topics and i asked you, i asked you straight up how americans becoming christians which was her religion forced upon you when your ancestors were forced to come to this country from a country that they loved to explain in that light how religion can be so important. You did and my answer was something like this. Religion was a way to have Hope And Belief in something that was greater than your current circumstances. I had to imagine that thats what my ancestors did to be able to have hope but it was also one of the only places where this new america could gather and belch out their missouri and that one period on sunday. Other rides you would commiserate so to speak if you were a but you couldnt do that. That was not permitted. And i found that so interesting because in many ways i have shunned my own religion believing people of my religion even though im not an organized religious person and really have not been most of my life persecuted because of religious beliefs so to hear the positivity from you, it taught me a very important lesson. And jennifer you experienced real power and Thats Something that you feel and i think and i have to tell you i dont know how i would have told this to my grandmother. But theres so much out there and you just have to choose to believe what you believe and go what that. And they do right to post Holocaust Generation Reformed Jewish in america and for someone of my age who is going to be 58 coming up here soon, what that is meant. Im going to read lost, be found written from the Sea Island that opera nine, 2020. I had gotten on a plane once during a pandemic and it was to see my Daughter Caroline who lives down there. And on this particular day i hadnt seen her for quite a while, as long as my youngest but she decided that we were going to go kayaking on the Savannah River and she is young and fit and im older and i think im fit. And she brought a friend with her. We ended up missing a turn off on the river. At some point i fell far behind. My arms and shoulders ached. The current was fierce and will going under a bridge i was pulled back three times but i wondered if i should hop out and try to swim it. I felt the phones ringing and beeping in the dry Bag Or Couldnt answer for Fear Id Slip backwards. I left Dons Number for an emergency contact. I had amazing grace stuck in my head on repeat. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost and now im found, was blind but now i see. I thought about an old woman lost in the Savannah River. It is to simply thinking about being lost and i was grateful for this long afternoon which my daughter had no News Coverage no Vitriol And Acceptance of a young man who thought so much differently. This was her friend. I felt hope and i dug in hard. I smiled and traveling upstream is something that comes natural to me. It said that we remember the times that went wrong but its one of my Stepfather Saver concepts. My daughter reminded me of time in urban india in which we had to flee as we were close to an terrorist incident. There was nothing funny at the time and its a time to remember. One memory connects to another different times and different continents. With turned into the dot hours later sunburned and smiling and found troubling messages from don. They have called him of the message from our Kayak Man said wondered where you were. He asked if i wanted to drink trade i said of Vodka Tonic and he gave me a bother. Sometimes we have to get lost to find ourselves. My body hurts and my mind hopes. You know jennifer and it sounds like a broken record but i really love that. You felt that you might not make it for a couple of moments there. I knew i would make it. I knew i would make it but i knew i was challenged. I knew i was challenged. I didnt doubt that i would make it but i knew was a challenging moment and i knew we had some daylight on our site in october in the south. What i was harrowing and unlike you you are like a fish in the water and i am not a fish in the water. Like a big animal that cant swim that well, thats me but thats neither here and are there. Thank you for sharing that. I want to share one more and im going to stay in june because this is kind of where we are. We talked a lot about our fathers. We had a segment where we had several entries about our fathers. Take a moment in read a small excerpt. One thing to you and i learned is we were primarily raised by single mothers. Strong single mothers. Single mothers and extended family. Thats right. I think thats my extended family even though im so far away from them are still a great part of my life. So the name of this letter because this letter is called the most pain for moment sunday, june 21, 2020 said jennifer thank you for opening up about your father. I have had more than 24 hours and ive decided that we both owe it to ourselves to be honest and candid. I have much more to say on this in my 22nd Year as a father. I want to be able to like Fathers Day but i never can, never have you ever think about all the friends in my tiny town where i was growing up who had fathers and mothers in the home they defy the stereotype that things are never ever as one imagines them. We are the thing we think we. I had a father in my life for precisely nine years. My mother became pregnant with me while she was a junior at the university. She went home and taught elementary school with her professional teachers license. She wore a Robber Girdle until she couldnt wear it anymore. It was summertime that confederate memorial hospital. Its a wonder i lived. There was a of prenatal care and the fact that i was a little boy at the Charity Hospital in a dangerously racist and segregated town. I didnt see my biological dad until i was 16 years old and id demanded my mother tell me who my biological father was. I was not going to be satisfied and i knew something was amiss. I think about the people that i lived with my faith my Body Type my feet my eyes. It was always like a new part of me was definitely missing and i will stop there. I was such an important letter to me for a couple of reasons. One that in the 60s in america the hospital was called confederate memorial hospital. I realized and i learned so much about jim Crow America at the time we wrote and i thought i knew a lot. I thought i was educated but i learned so much and also its commonality that something we had never talked about in real life that dealt with our parentage and our fathers and i dont want to give any Spoiler Alert but things happen with your father over the course of writing this book, some things that you may not have anticipated. Thats right. Some really difficult things. Even worse than the two tornadoes so thats pretty amazing stuff. We talked a little bit about process and we have done some reading. I want to ask if there is anyone who has any questions on anything we have not covered. Im really struck by how close honest and transparent the two of you are in the letters that you wrote back and forth to each other. My curiosity is about because you are two different people and because you do have two different backgrounds how did you deal with disagreements when you saw things differently whether it was religiously, personally . I mean that comes up in any human relationship. There are disagreements or even passionate disagreements and in your friendship and your exchange in the book how did you deal with that . Byron do you want to start . I would love to start. We didnt have a ton of disagreements but i will tell you i know jennifer and i, we are becoming more similar and are political beliefs than we once were. When i first met jennifer we were probably not as close politically and now i will tell you that we are very close politically in the way we address that is their honesty. I talk about my belief and she talks about her belief and the good thing about what we are doing is we are trying to model trying to meet people where they are and being real. Part of it is being honest and owning the things that we believe and we talked about the strongly held beliefs but you just have to own it and then be respectful. Thats the thing, to learn how to be respectful. I agree with byron. Byron and i do have a lot of consistency in terms of our views being like one anothers. We didnt know about before. We didnt know that we knew we got along and we knew we like to have long conversations and we knew we respected each other but we really didnt know how we felt about different issues that we brought up. If anything this exercise has taught me where i thought i was an openminded person before it stopped me to be more openminded and ive tried to to be that way across the rest of my life since writing and have empathy and have understanding and not immediately does get to a place of vitriol because an individual and i may have different views on Work Or Parenting or religion or any number of things. Yeah. I definitely agree with that. Sometimes i post a picture of Tip Oneill and Ronald Reagan and laughing just to remind myself hey this is what america can look like. Did the two of you offer or discuss i think it becomes self evident that our country is very polarized. You just need to do little. You read that Letter Jennifer about the scene in the Grocery Store and on many different issues i felt polarization across the country and what thoughts to the two of you have about helping to heal that divide . I will start with this. The Grocery Store is an interesting example. Its more unified and likeminded people then cincinnati is where it i came from other places i live but not everyone here is uniform and i think i have tried as a human to stay openminded but when it comes to certain issues like Bigotry And Racism i also discovered that its important to stand up and to be brave on a few issues that really matter. Our country is polarized. The Vote Wasnt too far apart and we know that and we see that today. I think the only hope for this country frankly we talk about this in the book is that our children are more about uniting then dividing and i see that their generation and we have talked about that quite a bit that we they do things a little better than we did it i dont know if i answered your question. You said something that struck me, our children. It looks like our children are going to do better and be better. The thing i wonder though when i went to kindergarten in louisiana in the 1970s, the very early 70s that was the first integrated kindergarten in my state or at least in my town and im part of the first class of integration and i graduated with people of different races than me. I went to college with people of different races but at some point most of those people disappeared and we were no longer together. Its like we didnt choose to live in the same neighborhood. What happened there . I do not know. We have got to do better still as adults to look around and look about and figure out how we make this Thing Work and how do we unify and thats not just with the race necessarily but its also done with the things that we believe. Who gets to sit at the table and who doesnt . And thats not just the Dinner Table thats the corporate table and who gets the chance and who doesnt and we have to ask ourselves how do we fix that like right now . And that was one of the things that jennifer and i talked about in the book. We wanted to provide a model that people can talk. We are sort of an example of how we feel like people can communicate that we have got to go much deeper. Gosh i guess i gave a little coke will agree. Heres the question. Your book is an important reflection on your experience of the duality of covid. My question from this person is hope still interrupted a . The short answer is yes and the long answer is i believe and im going to talk to younger people than us again our younger people want to heal this nation i believe that there are more people that want to heal it then who want to fight about it. That may be overly optimistic but i cant get out of bed in the morning thinking that that is not going to happen. Iran . I think hope has been interrupted dramatically because we have an analogy but theres a song where someone says Bandaids Cant Fix bullet holes. Thats a very popular pop artist. We have a lot of big holes to fix and that we are putting bandaids on and we cant do that. We really have to look deep down at every aspect of our society from politics to business to social services to figure out how we move forward. I do think our children, the next generation is going to do that and as i look at my young Daughters Today with where we went today before we started our conversation they are accepting and offensive of all people. That is where we start trade and im not saying we have to recognize each other for where we are and that means everyone. I think just like when we came out of the 70s in the 60s and we are all having a ball. I think we are getting there but theres a great edge to it. We are having a ball but our young people i think are going to do much better than we did. I also think our politicians and our elected officials no matter what party they are in they need to be very much about healing. They need to be willing to take some big chances and they need to be willing to risk their incumbency to heal our nation. It needs to be not so much about them and ive been involved and its in the Book And Byron has to in political movements and with elected officials for lots of years in our lives. We need them to lead by example. Absolutely. Ive called it out in my writing. We have to have people who are state men and women again and to be brave and to heck with what might happen to me politically. Do the brave thing. Its always better. I cant tell if we have anymore any more questions. We have been going for about an hour. There are more questions in the chat so we could do a wrapup now and the like are my people and where you can purchase hope, interrupted you can purchase it at the bookstore or of course on amazon and you have a Web Site devoted called hope interrupted. Com and also on and maybe did i hear correctly in the beginning that you are working on some more writing together . We are and i want to give a shoutout to jan and thank you for having us on today. If you are interested in a literary organization who does an amazing job and a historic place please donate to sell my house. Org. They are doing really good work in a really adjusting community and they should be a model for things happening in all communities for readers and writers. We are working on something else. We are in a strange space where we have some regular work and we have the promotion of this book as well as one thing we are doing right now is we are collecting a lot of stories from people who have been moved by our book and we come out into the next round and we are still in it but there are other people who are joining us on this journey. The book titled i will take your questions now will be released october 5 by harpercollins and according to reports it said to be critical of the former first lady. Ms. Grisham resigned from her position at the white house following the capitol riots on january 6. In other news the national Book Foundation has announced former Librarian And Author Nancy Pearl will be the recipient of this years literary and award. She is the former Executive Director of the Washington Center for the book at the seattle public library where she introduced the idea of having the citys residents all read the same book and inspired the one book, one City Program established in locales across the country. Shell be honored as the 72nd annual national book awards in new York City on november 17. And according to npd bookscan. Book sales were down with the week ending september 4. Booktv will continue bringing you new programs and publishing news and you can watch all of our past programs anytime that booktv. Org. Welcome to the free library on line. My name is Jason Freeman and im pleased to