Well, Andrew Albany is a publishers weekly. Thanks for the update on this case. My pleasure. Book tv will continue to bring you publishing news and new author programs. You can watch all of our programs sunday on cspan two and online at book tv dot org. And welcome to miami and book tv. Live coverage of the 2022 Miami Book Fair. Youll hear from authors on topics ranging from Foreign Policy to medicine and race in america. This is book tvs live coverage of the Miami Book Fair. And another. Day. Thank you. Steve. So, you. Got. Better. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Im nyala harrison, an attorney at the Law Firm Greenberg Traurig here in miami. And its really my esteemed pleasure to welcome you to the 39th Miami Book Fair. Were grateful to the Miamidade College family and the hundreds of volunteers that make this all possible. And for the support of the green family foundation, the batchelor foundation, the meredith and diasporic foundation, aarp, greater miami and the beaches visitors bureau, university of miami, south motors. Leslie miller, saints. The Frederick Deluca foundation and all of the other sponsors. Id also like to take this moment to thank our friends of the fair members. Are there any friends in the room. Good to see you all. Friends receive multiple benefits during the fair week and all year round while helping us to sustain south floridas vibrant community of readers and writers. Please consider a friends membership for yourself or gifting one to a friend at the end of the session. There will be a time for q a and the authors will be autographing books outside a kindly ask you to silence your cell phone at this time. Its now my pleasure to introduce the introducer who we have this evening, who is with the herald. So, amy driscoll, who is an editor at the herald and welcome amy. Hello, im amy driscoll. Im the deputy opinion editor for the miami herald. Im really happy to be here today. Welcome to the Miami Book Fair 2022 taking place online and in downtown miami on the wolfson campus of the Miami Dade College. Ive been coming to the book fair myself for years, but as a Second Generation journalist, i am especially thrilled to introduce these next two journalists and authors. Tony dokoupil is a cohost of cbs mornings. He also anchors the uplift on the cbs news streaming network. Previously, he was a cbs news correspond tonight and a cbs news sunday morning contributor as a correspondent for cbs news, he has written about marijuana legalization, Digital Privacy and the second amendment. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Senior Writer at newsweek and the daily beast. Dokoupil koppel is also the author of the last pirate a father, his son and the golden age of marijuana, a memoir in which he documented his fathers exploits smuggling marijuana during the 1970s and eighties. Katy tur is the anchor of msnbcs katy tur reports. The author of the New York New York times bestseller, unbelievable. My front row seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History. Wonder what shes talking about. And the recipient of a 2017 Walter Cronkite award for excellence in journalism. In rough draft, a memoir, she writes about her eccentric and volatile california childhood punctuated by forest fires, earthquakes and police chases, all seen from a thousand feet in the air. Her parents pioneered what became known as helicopter journalism and became famous for their aerial coverage of events such as the Reginald Denny beating the 1992 l. A. Riots and o. J. Simpsons notorious run in the white bronco. Talk to her talks about her complicated relationship with her father, and she charts her own path from local reporter to globe trotting Foreign Correspondent, running from her past. She also opens up about her struggles with burnout and imposter syndrome. Her stumbles in the anchor chair and her relationship with her husband, rough draft explores the gift and curse of family legacy. Examines the roles and responses, villages of the news, and asks the question, to what extent do we each get to write our own story . Im sure the dinner conversations are fascinating. Katy tur and tony dokoupil. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, amy, as well. And get this microphone to work. So i appreciate all your being here. People who suspect there might be bias in journalism. I can tell you that it is 100 accurate in at least one respect. This is my wife. I think she is one of the most naturally gifted broadcasters on television. I think she is a graceful and stylish writer. I think she has one of the best ears and eyes for language and im so happy that you make me cry. And im so happy shes written a second memoir under the age of 40, which some would say is self indulgent. Because it brings me back to florida and to miami and to this book fair and this is where im from. I was here till the age of ten. Love miami, tiger bay. And we have great memories here as a as a couple. Last time we were here, we just got married. Lets say we were sitting here. Sitting here on the stage with we just been married and and there were stories, believe it or not, even up to i do that we had not shared with one another. And they were primarily stories about our own childhoods. And it was all in a book i had written. And she had yet to write this book. And i got the stories along with all of you when she wrote this. Oh, by the way, i might have come with some baggage i didnt tell you about. And so, katie, ill hand it over to you to introduce the book as you see fit. Okay, so this book, you probably know me from at least that first from unbelievable. And the book i wrote about the Craziest Campaign, which was my time covering lyndon johnson. No. Covering donald trump in 2015 and in 2016. And one of the Big Questions i got after that was put politics aside. How did you deal with that . How did you survive the campaign trail with all of the vitriol and the anger and, you know, he would go after me and why didnt you leave . You know, why didnt you go back to london where you were living . Why did you stay on and choose to keep covering it . And one of the answers is its an incredible news story. And how could you ever give up covering, watching history unfold before your eyes . But the other one is that there was something deeply familiar about about donald trump. And it was something that i didnt really know how to put into words, let alone give that an answer. And so when i was looking at writing the second book and and what i was going to write about, i it was the middle of the pandemic. And that question was kind of lingering in my head. Why, you know, why did i stay on there and the pandemic hit and i thought, well, what am i doing and why am i a journalist . So i, i really want to be a journalist. Am i, i working cable news . Am i making things worse or am i making things better . And if im making things worse, dont i have a duty to get out of this . And all these thoughts were spinning in my head, and it was a very dark place as we all were in the middle of the pandemic, wondering what we were going to do with our lives and i you know, im talking to my husband. My mom sends this giant box in the mail. And inside the box, its like the size of a microwave. And inside the box was a hard drive, like a giant hard drive. And it was so giant because it was filled with all of the videotape my parents shot in their 20 plus years in the News Business, every news story they ever shot. I mean, they shot some real doozies, like the madonnas wedding to sean penn, where she gives the bird to the helicopter, the Reginald Denny beating in the riots, the o. J. Simpson chase, all of the aftermath of the 92 northridge quake. Every Police Pursuit you can imagine. And then also all of my childhood videos. So they use the news camera like it was a camcorder and every piece of my childhood id was documented. And theres also some questionable parenting that was on the hard drive. So we it arrived. I think it was christmas time. And we, we sat down after the kids went to bed and we were we were looking at the tapes and they all out of order. And there was one where a horse had fallen into a ravine. And so there was a kind of an aerial rescue. And katie and her brother are in the back of the helicopter for a while. And then theres a cut. And then suddenly her mom and dad are on the ground and the kids are nowhere to be found. And we called their mother and we were like, what happened there . They were the kids were in the helicopter and then they werent. And she said, oh, we left you with one of the neighbors. We just put you on the hill. We came back. You loved it. They gave you ice cream. They knocked on a random persons door on a cliff and said, can you watch our kids for a few minutes . Weve got to hike down this ravine. So, yes, we went through i was showing tony and it was alternately, you know, me laughing and saying, look at this wild and crazy thing. And then youd click on another video and it would be something very dark and ugly and so i kind of seized up and i broke down and i thought the only way to get out of this, to explain to myself why i did 2016 and whether i should keep doing journalism, was to figure out where it came from and to confront the things i didnt want to confront. So its, you know, its hard, its messy, its complicated. Its also beautiful and joyous and going through it, it made me realize how much i love journalism and the job that im doing and how important i think it is for all of us to continue to have hard hitting journalists out there who are willing to to keep doing the job in the face of all of the ugliness that we are currently experiencing. Do you want to read an excerpt from the book . Because the book has layers. Folks, i would say if youre interested in stories of journalism, journalism history, and then also journalism of the moment, theres that theres also a lot of tough family stuff at the beginning, in particular, the first third of the book is a very cinematic, if you like, miami. Lets introduce you to los angeles in the nineties, in the nineties and the her mother and father built out of nothing. A full fledged video and helicopter journal journalism operation and just this sort of like american entrepreneurial ship. And its incredible as a story. But at one point, my dad walked into a Helicopter Company. Hes 25 years old. He still has pimples. Hes hes beside my mother, who is pregnant with my brother. And theres me. And he says, i want to i want to lease a helicopter. And the guy was like, what are you talking about . And he said, can i lisa helicopter. And hes like, well, do you have any cash . And my dad said, no, but i have this Business Plan and it presented the Business Plan and said this. You know, shes shes the camera woman pointing to my pregnant mother. And they were like, get the out of here. What are you doing . And he went into another Helicopter Company and did it again and managed to get them to hand over 1,000,000 helicopter to him. He had no pilots license, but he was he had so much chutzpah at the time that he went out. He convinced somebody at the Los Angeles Fire Department to teach him how to fly. And he used that license, along with my mom, to to cover news in los angeles in a way that nobody had done before. There had been a helicopter. It was called a helicopter. Ktla had a local station in l. A. , but they used it very seldomly. And it was kind of a it was a bit of a gimmick. And they said the city is giants. Whenever we get to a news event, its over a fire. The blaze is out and you really want to get the flames. A car crash. Everyone has been airlifted or ambulance out of there. How do we get there . Faster so we can see this happening in real time. We got to do it from the air and so they built this business called Los Angeles News Service and they changed journalism as we know it. And this is, you know, at first it was for good. You could see these things happening in real time. I mean, they captured some videotape that held authorities accountable in a way that they had not been held to account before. I mean, there was the chp beating the living daylights out of a group of migrants who had crossed the border. This was just a few miles north of san diego, just beating them just terribly. And that would have never been seen had my parents not been above it with the helicopter and training their camera on it. It didnt make them any friends. I mean, they could capture they could hold authorities accountable in a way that they hadnt been held before. But also, i mean, this is reality tv is news now. So we were they covered the first live Police Pursuit. If its not the first, its the second. And from top to bottom, a guy was a carjacking and a murder and they took this guy took the Los Angeles Police department on a High Speed Pursuit through all of l. A. Up freeways, down freeways, side street walks, curbs, just this wild video of this red cabriolet. What was a license plate . Cruel fate. Cruel fate. Thats where you fate. This is. This is the car you stole a crawfish. And so they captured the whole thing in real time. And the news director says 91 or 92. The news director had a decision to make, do i cut into a rerun of matlock, the station director, which did good numbers or and show this Police Pursuit or do i keep or i keep matlock on and and at the time he made the decision to cut into matlock which was a big deal. And it was a gamble. And the next day the l. A. Times was covering it, and they said it was a marriage of a tragic technology and technology and because they called the voyeurs voyeurism and it you know, it was the beginning of the era when you could carry events live. And it wasnt just an Evening Network broadcast where thered be a 15 second live shot, but there was ongoing rolling live coverage of an event where you dont know at the time you didnt know who was in the cabriolet. You didnt know what they had done, what their motives were. Theyre a good guy, a bad guy, and youre just a voyeur. Youre just observing it. Its context. Its its its without context. And of course, you know, you could argue, okay, its obviously a criminal. Its a bad guy. The cops are on the side of good here. But the principle of taking the coverage without any of the information is the same principle that goes into taking any kind of live political event without any surrounding kind of stealing the thunder of my point that i was going to please. I am a man and i like to explain. Our pillow conversations are a real joy. Anyway. So i mean, it was it was reality tv. The ratings came in the next day. It slaughtered matlock. It did so well. People couldnt get enough of these live pursuits. And so they started covering them more and more and news became sort of entertainment. Reality tv version of whats going on around you. And you can draw a Straight Line to that. Lets just air it without context because we cant take our eyes off of it too. The way that we cover political reality rallies with the way that we covered them in 2015 and 2016, where this is important. Yes, but its also it needs context. Yes, sure. But we cant take our eyes off of it. So lets just air it. Well figure it out later. And thats what we suffered from in that time. And its its part of how we are dealing with the aftermath of what happened in 2016 and the and the the way that it ate away at trust in journalists and journalism. And were trying to now figure out how to how to work back toward that trust. I mean, its very easy to lose trust, and its very, very difficult to earn it back. If i may interject. Yes, please. I youre 1 right about that big national story, but theres also a really good personal story about you and your rise and your relationship with your father. And so the gifts he gave you, thats actually a very moving. So i remember Mickey Mantle supposedly had a father who threw baseballs at him in the crib until mickey, a little baby mickey learned to put a hand up. And thats how you read a baseball prodigy. When i say shes one of the greatest and most naturally Gifted Television broadcasters, her father essentially did that to her when she was a little tyke. He would turn on the camera, turn on the microphone, and he would make her recount in live report or form. What happened during the day . Theres a video. I have it on my instagram. You can go find it of me when i was four years old. Maybe even last. Maybe. Yeah, it was for and my dad is the camera on me and im standing on the sidewalk with my brother and he says, give me a news report. And i look at him and he said, you know, like the lady on the news. And i look at him sideways again. He says, you know, like the lady on the radio, like knx. And it dawned on me and i said, oh, yeah, there was a fire in san diego. Oh, a fire broke out. And all my friends were there. And we went to a party at mcdonalds. But it was the beginning of of being forced to to do these live reports on demand. I mean, we would we would be in the car and he would say, give me a live report about whats happening on our drive to get pizza. And for a long time, it was very fun. And then it as i got to be a teenager, it got to be very annoying. But looking back, it was the best i mean, the best training for the job that i do now because i can i found myself in situations, in local news where youd get to a story 2 minutes before the broadcast. I mean, because local news is run, run, run. And they and they have been decimated financially. They just dont have the resources they used to. Please watch local news. Its good for everybody, but we would get to and read local papers. Miami herald. We get to story in 2 minutes. Before they would they would come to you and say, whats going on . Id have to look around and be like, well, let me tell you about whats going on. And it was just, you know, its observation and all. And a lot of journalism is observational and painting a picture, telling a story and building a narrative for where you are. So theres a lot of that in this book. Theres also a lot of humor. Should i read the part about the Vice President . Yeah. Yes, please. Please read this part. So much of her identity is tied to being a journalist. Shes raised in a family of journalists. Shes a fantastic journalist. And then, you know, when you become a mother, you become a parent, you become a wife. All these other identities come in and, compete. Those identities collided in this is so i just given birth to my first son, teddy and it was as anybodys gone through birth, a traumatic experience, which youre not really prepared for and you dont really understand whats happening and mine ended in an emergency csection and the aftermath of that was a lot. And so im ive just gotten home. This is five four days after five days after just gone back. And im in the bathroom and im working up the courage to look down at what has happened to me. And i have my phone in my hand and here ill start reading. This is chapter 16. Its kamala, right after we arrived home from the hospital, my phone rang. I was in the bathroom trying to get a moment alone, sitting on the toilet lid, breathing deeply and working up the courage to look down at the mesh hospital briefs. I had just pulled around my knees. I knew it was going to be ugly. I wasnt sure i wanted to know how ugly. I didnt even know my phone was in my hand until it started to flash and buzz. I dont know why i looked at it, except for the distraction. And i was looking for any reason on earth not to look down. So even though it was a415 number, San Francisco area code, a city where i know nobody, i picked up. Hello . I said, katie, the voice on the other side of the call sounded excited for me. Like i was about to be presented with checks every week for the rest of my life. Yes, i said the voice was iconic even then. Midway through the 2020 campaign for president , it was the voice of democratic candidate for the white house and senator from my home state of california, the voice of the current Vice President of the United States, the voice of Kamala Harris. But it wasnt really her or was i still hallucinating . I also hallucinated that the hospital was really fun to have the whole psych ward show up and say, are you okay . Thats in here. It took me a second to register what might be happening. I was groggy, half drugged, selfpity, eating, and the voice sang out the name like the announcer on a daytime talk show. I imagined oprah arm stretched out, head tilted back. Is this a joke . This has to be a joke. Someone is pranking me. Hi. I said i heard you had the baby. I just wanted to call and say congratulations. Her voice was alive. It jumped out of the phone and dance around me like a technicolor rainbow. Oh, my god. Its really her. Oh, yeah, i said, still unable to do more match the energy of a sulking 12 year old. I did. How is the baby . How are you . I looked down. Inside the briefs was a mat of gauze folded up like an origami diaper. A catch all for what was still falling out of my uterus. Ladies, you know, you think that when you push a baby out, you push everything out or you think if you have a csection, like i did, they just mop it up before they set you back up. Not so different from a dentist. They remove a tooth, but no, your body spent ten months building a home for another life and it takes weeks for that home to dislodge in pieces and flood down a swollen mississippi of bodily fluid. Six weeks, at least, im sorry, gentlemen. Im so sorry. But most of you are married and you get. I. This is in there, actually. Im sorry. I recommended. They do tell you this at a doctors visit or you read about it in some book with a contented goddess on the cover, but nothing quite you for what actually comes out. They say its like a really heavy period and that is being cute about it. What comes out is not cute. There will be blood, there will be tissue, there will be clots. Golf ball sized are normal, baseball sized are not. I thought about telling Vice President harris the truth making a joke of it all, telling her what i happened to be in the middle of doing. And maybe that would have been the right move. But my professional filter kicked in. It suddenly occurred to me that this was a work call id been covering this person one way or another. I would be covering this person one way or another. Once i got back to work. So i decided maybe i dont tell her about the carrie movie in my pants. Maybe i keep it upbeat. Build a bridge, make a connection be human. The kind of human to agree to sit down to an interview with during the campaign, or if it gets to that point, the white house be nice, but be a reporter and im good. I said, trying to find a spare barrel of excitement today is good. We just got back from the hospital. I felt like harris had opened the door by calling me, but instead of walking through it, i banged my head against the doorframe was so flat, so lifeless. Was morse code to her technicolor rainbow. She must have noticed it too, because she begged off the call pretty okay, she said. Well, i just wanted to say congratulations. Good luck. Talk soon. And have you ever interviewed Kamala Harris as Vice President . No. I wonder why. No, i got to send her the book and say, excuse me, can we talk about what really was going on . And then lets talk about paid parental leave while were at it. So. I immediately realized that i had failed a test. My mother would have passed. She would have realized that while you might be taking some time off from the News Business, the News Business is never taking some time off from you. I was also failing on a frontier. My father would have somehow conquered my father had always been looking for the next thing in news, never stopping and defying rules and regulations, risking life and limb. I wasnt going to be taking teddy up in a helicopter any time soon, but perhaps i should have been shooting video for social media above the neck anyway. Anything to keep this new me connect did to the me that existed out in the world as a journalist. But i was out of ideas and out of energy. I simply hung up and then sat there for a while longer, forcing myself to look down. The other part of this book that i that i found useful to to write down and also i think is worthwhile of a deeper conversation, is the way that we cover big events. And thats not just the rallies, but the way that we cover Important News events and what we can do better as journalists. I know you guys have a lot of opinions on this. Im sure you do. At least id love to hear them in the in the book. I talk about right before i go on maternity leave, it is the end of the mueller investigation. The First Special counsel. Now that we have a Second Special counsel investigating donald trump and so i had covered trump since the beginning and this felt like the the end of something very big. And i wanted to be around, too, to know the outcome. And im ten months pregnant. Im huge. And we get an announcement that bill barr is going to release a summary over the weekend and, you know, just prepare for it. Its going to be a summary of the results of the mueller investigation. And i will barge into my bosss office and i say, you got to put me on the air on the weekends. Give me any time slot. We dont know when its going to come out saturday or sunday at some point, but they gave me a few hours in the afternoon on each day and it just so happened that on sunday the the summary came out, we got a warning about it, a 30 minute heads up. And so we tap dance up to up to the news and then we get the summary itself, which is a four page statement out with one half direct quote. The actual report. And as you know, the statement was deeply misleading. It was a political statement, but thats all we had to go on. And so this is me on Live Television reading the statement without context, again, without any of the underlying the context, obviously, of the investigation that weve been covering, but without the context of the underlying report or the evidence in the underlying report. And all we had and me and every other News Organization was this political statement from a political appointee summarizing what an investigation said. We didnt know it was misleading. And so three weeks later, when the actual report came out. And so the question is we gave this document, the runaway go to paint a picture about and investigate action. That was not true to give the white house this win that they didnt earn and it was bad for the public. It was bad for the country. But what do you do in that situation . Weve caught ourselves in this 24 hour news cycle, both on cable news, but also on social media and in newspapers. These live blogs get you up to speed on. Whats happening minute by minute . What do we do . And this is a conversation you and i have a lot because in the moment there was no other choice but to go with it, live because everybody else was going with it live. We could all decide to say were not going to cover something until we know more about it, but then fox news or breitbart or whatever, gateway pundit, whatever, well say that theyre not covering this because its its good for the president. And so youre caught in this in this rock and a hard place. Use a bad cliche with not being good for the public discourse, but also not having a choice to do it any differently. And so were in this moment right now where we need the publics buy in and the publics Critical Thinking and critical eye in order to navigate this very complicated, informed nation atmosphere where we live in with social media and with 24 hour news and with the politics our politicians ability to to circumvent us. Its just very difficult. And were all trying to figure out how to do it better and so my question to you guys is, do you know a better way to do this . The floor is open for questions. And if you have one, i would love to hear. It took that out of your hands. Very good. Wise choice. So i know if i have any answer. Maybe just to add to the complication is, you know, the New York Post put down at the bottom of the front page after the announcement. Florida man makes an announcement. Page 26. And if i read of that article, which was just one little column on the left of page 26, and it talked about his we dont know about his cholesterol, you know, and they describe him as a man who plays golf a lot. And that was basically yeah, it was a its a very short blurb. Little short blurb. So, you know, comparing that to what the press gave trump, all that billions of dollars of free airtime so that so the question is, where do you feel you need to reside . And, you know, in that full spectrum. So i think that listen its its news that the former president is running again 100 . Its that is something that needs to be covered. But it needs to be covered in context. And the way that we didnt werent able to do in 2016 is we didnt have the foresight that we werent able to do with the bar. Some. We didnt have the foresight we can now say donald trump twice impeached former president who is currently under investigation and by the fbi and the doj is running for president again. And then we have we can say that we can talk about whats the news value that comes or the news the news out of his speech, not necessarily everything he says. Even fox news got away. And then we talk about the field of republicans who are either in or out and what lawmakers are doing, the way that theyre reacting to it, what the donors are doing, the way theyre reacting to it, what the friendly press is doing about it, the way that theyre reacting to it. New york post is something thats worthwhile, but also talking about what it means for congress and how the Republican Party and the Democratic Party legislate together going forward. What sort of hearings are there . How does Kevin Mccarthy navigate it . There are all these newsy questions that affect every one of us because they are are there people in charge of legislation and and then the the money that we that we get as a country and then the laws that are made. But we dont go and just cover it wall to wall for the sake of having it on the screen. All right. Good. Thank you. Hi. My name is roberta velez. First of all, i want to say that you guys are definitely a couples goal. So. So as someone who works in Corporate Media, how do you view the rise of popularity in independent and online media, not just from the right wing . They have newsmax, one right wing, right side broadcasting, one america news, but also from the left wing. So you have like the young turks majority or bored secular talk. Do you people that work in Corporate Media view them a threat . Do you view them as welcoming . Hey, the more media, the better. Do you view anybody as a threat . I think Corporate Media has a certain, certain, uh, implication. I i dont consider myself working for a Big Corporation in the sense that its directing anything i say or any, any story that i cover. And i think thats kind of a its misleading. People think that like comcast is coming in and saying, katie, we want you to cover this and not cover that. Thats not the case. But i think that independent news outlets do a wonderful job and i like propublica. Does incredible journalism, and the more the merrier in that respect. And anybody who can interest the public in current events, i think, is doing gods work. So whether youre coming from the left or the right, if thats an entry point in for any member of the public to become interested in whos being elected and what theyre trying to do, more power to them. And one thing i would say about all media is its good and independent, corporate, whatever. Make sure that you understand how they do their journalism, how they how they source, what are their rules for, sourcing information, what is their rules for fact checking, how they how theyre accountable . The other thing thats important about about smaller, more opinion driven news outlets on the left and the right is they are only able to exist because of larger sometimes denigrated as Corporate Media outlets are funding actual reporting in actual difficult places on campaigns, war zones, in disaster zones, finding things out that then are fodder for conversation. And that includes in a huge way, newspapers and print media, the associated press, reuters, the miami herald, all the other big papers. So its i wouldnt if i had to choose a world where of them went away, the big guys, the little guys, i would choose the little guys. But i like living in a world where both exist because i think they feed one another symbiotic. Thank you. Oh, one of the thing about orbit, it is like the point of Corporate Media. Yes, its a enterprise, but the because its a moneymaking enterprise, its mission, its goal at a place like cbs or abc or nbc is the broadest possible audience. And i think theres virtue in america in having a news source that is attempting, you know, succeeding or failing on some days or others attempting to reach this spectrum, as opposed to this spectrum or this spectrum. The best thing about the last two years is that we havent had to listen to unfiltered trump go on and on, on National News and then last night i stumbled upon nbc and they had trump on from a conservative in mar a lago where they gave him like 10 minutes to thank all the people, you know, all the people that he supported who supported him. And then they cut away and they said, well, well come back because we only are interested in hearing what he has to say about the special prosecutor. So then they cut back in and he did talk about them appointing the special prosecutor and went on and on about how persecuted he has been and how hes given 11,000 pages of documentation and they have everything on him. What did they keep asking for . And i finally had to turn it off because it was going on for too long, unfiltered. So i think were back. Yeah. And thats upsetting. Hi, my name is barry. I assume that there was a question. All right, my name. So i cant. Im all for a Community Meeting style, so any statements or questions is fine. No, i guess ill ask the question. I wont make a statement. My name is barry. Butin is is not meant to be a gotcha question. But i think the most important thing ive been listening to is Keith Olbermann on his podcast. Im not saying it because of you situation. What do you think it is . Podcast. Do you think its integrated . I think it is. I havent listened to it. I have not listen to it either. But theres a Keith Olbermann anecdote in the book as yet. No, i it please listen to it. It just won an episode. Its great. I wish everybody would thank. Pardon me. My name is paul johnson and actually, i was in the media about 25 years ago. I was the senior producer for moneyline with lou dobbs. And i got out of that business. And now im a u. S. Attorney, not the u. S. Attorney, but you asked like, how do we how do you solve or what are some suggestions for, i guess, moving forward . I dont know. There is no not a defeatist, but like how do you compete with social media . That is its not there to inform. Its there to get you back, you know, like the old batman, you know, same back channels saying that time just come back. And i dont really know how you do it. It cant be. Macneil lehrer oh one on this side and one on this side. No ones going to watch. I mean, i think part of it is, first of all, lets all pour one out for twitter while were here yet right now, i think part of it and ive had this these conversations recently, but is just the where we think the other person that were talking to is coming from. If they Say Something that we dont agree with or we find offensive or isnt, isnt, you know, in line with what is acceptable today or if you want to say accurate, assuming that the person i think theres a knee jerk reaction to assume that the person is a bad actor or as you know, angry or mean or trying to do something nefarious is and im not talking about politicians. Im talking about every day your neighbors, your friends, your relatives. I think it would be good for all of us to assume that the person that youre speaking to or the if youre speaking to them on social media is not a bad person, is maybe just somebody you need to have a more calm conversation to understand where theyre coming from and then you can tell them where youre coming from and. Just have a dialog that we havent been able to have because everybody believes that the person theyre speaking with is the devil and were not. Were all americans and were trying to make the country as good as it possibly can be. And we are all dealing with a lot of everyday junk in our lives. And we all are getting information from from now different sources. Some of it were liable and some of it not reliable, but its worthwhile trying to find Common Ground and trying to find a way to speak to each other again and i think its great that twitter is falling apart. I mean, twitter has been good for a lot of things. Its done a lot of good in the world. Thats enabled a lot of people to come together and to and to push back against violent regimes. Its done. Its its opened the world up a dialog. But its also more recently been very angry and mean and divisive. And so my advice to everybody would be to log off if you havent already log off facebook. Maybe if you go on instagram, just like pictures of dogs and cats, baby photos. And then instead, if youre getting into a conversation with somebody, try not to assume that theyre a bad person. Try to talk to them. And if somebody were to deliver a news program that is substantive but maybe a little boring, dry, maybe its good for you. I dont know. In the uk, the bbc is actually quite boring and they have a culture of the news is vegetables there and we dont have a culture of the news is vegetables. We have a culture of the news is bright and shiny and happening now. And if you look away, youre going to miss the most amazing thing. Its going to be bloody, its going to be funny, is going to be exciting. And i, i wish as a person who worked in journalism that it was a little bit more, less entertainment and more kind of, you know, miami dade. Like its an education, but they. Well, thank you all that was a wonderful conversation. Another round of applause for our authors for. That concludes the session and the next session will begin in a few minutes. Thank you. Are they selling. More than a great. Kind of work call. And this is book tvs coverage of the 2022 Miami Book Fair in just a few moments will be back with another author discussion. Marc morano, publisher of Climate Depot aecom, argued that the science on Climate Change is not settled and legislation the Green New Deal will do more harm than good. His book is green. Heres a portion of his interview at freedomfest. Author marc morano in your book green fraud why the Green New Deal is even worse than you think. You write that the Green New Deal is an all encompassing transformation of society. What do you mean by that . Well, in the book, i lay out that the vision of the Green New Deal is not chiefly about climate or energy policy. What theyre trying do is remake society. Quite literally, every aspect of society. And that would include everything from health care, housing, racial justice, identity politics. On down to our energy structures, our climate, our transportation, your home heating, your ability to travel, the entire spectrum of human life. They want to reengineer to make it earth friendly. And this vision, if you will, of equity. And thats going to require people turning over decisions that were previously held by people to essentially unelected bureaucrats who are going to be managing every aspect of our lives. And i mean that. And i and i laid that out in the book down to what your thermostat can be at, through smart meters, down to all your appliance. Since were already seeing whats happened with dishwashers and washers and dryers, even shower heads, every little aspect will be regulated. But beyond that, it goes, you know, it goes much deeper as well. Theres calls for ending private car ownership, roving fleets of rental electric vehicles, assaults on private home ownership, assaults on the suburbs. So all of this is built in to the vision and the broad vision of the Green New Deal. And it means all things to all these progressive. So whatever branch of the progressive wing thats pushing this is going to be pushing different aspects of it. And that is why, you know, people are realizing this is not like, oh, a Climate Energy bill, thats great. I care about the earth. Lets support the Green New Deal there is much, much more in it than that. Well, lets start with some of the environmental factors. You described the Green New Deal as an ultimate wish list of the progressive envi your mental agenda. How specifically would the Green New Deal change our lives . In your view . Well, the first thing its going to do is make energy more expensive. And were were actually already seeing that here in midtown 8021, because, you know, Energy Markets go by signals. And one of the first things that happened with this new administration is they sent a signal to the Energy Marketplace that we are going to do the keystone pipeline. Were not going to do drilling on federal lands. Were going to be going after fracking with the death of a thousand cuts. Were going to be essentially shutting down traditional fossil fuel energy, which america in 2019 prepandemic, we were leading the world with the largest producer of oil and gas. We are. We had to actually been the Biggest Energy producer as opposed to user since harry truman was president. More Energy Exports than imports. We were now we were not even energy independent. You could argue we were energy dominant. So one of the first things we do in. January 2021 is start shutting down this amazing American Energy renaissance sense, if you will, of the last decade and a half, chiefly led by fracking and the way its going to change our life almost immediately is Higher Energy costs and potentially inflation related to those Higher Energy costs. So were already seeing the effects of this in gas prices, and there are other factors. We have a we have a sitting u. S. President now begging, opec, to increase Oil Production and this is a shock because america was the Worlds Largest oil and gas producer, energy dominant, just prior to all of this. And now were begging that we also have russian oil imports reaching record levels. So this is shocking. And were going to be turning over our Energy Dominance and under the Green New Deal for reliance on rare earth mining, which is going to be done by slave labor in china and by human rights abuses in africa when they do mining things like cobalt and other Rare Earth Mineral metals for things like solar panels, windmills, electric car batteries . So the Green New Deal is a lose lose lose proposition for americans, and it will do nothing not only for the climate or extreme weather as its being sold. It will do nothing for global co2 emissions. So it is literally fails cost benefit. It fails a sniff test. It fails logic tests and it fails a science test. It fails a Public Policy test. And thats what my book goes through. It is it is perhaps one of the most ill advised plans ever devised and foisted upon the American People in decades at least. Are facing climate catastrophe. No, and thats one of the things i spent a lot of time in the book. First of all, i have a chapter devoted to the science. And i also have a chapter devoted to the Climate Emergency. And these claims, the alleged Climate Emergency. So starting out, one of the ways they claim we face a Climate Emergency and this is very well documented and even mainstream and climate scientists are now rebuking things like the National Climate assessment, which was done during the trump administration, but it was done by president obama holdovers, and it included activists from environmental groups like the union of concerned scientists, people like Katharine Hayhoe and don robles. They used extreme models scenarios to scare the public. And now these model scenarios are by the by the original architects of this are saying they were never meant to do it. So when current climate reality fails to alarm what theyve done in bedded in these government reports is using extreme model scenario that now is being wholesale rejected by the Climate Community and they use those scenarios in order to scare the public to gin up Public Policy. So now we faced the furthest thing possible from a Climate Emergency. And in the book, if you go and i go behind the headlines, if you look at a u. N. Press release, the summary policymakers, its dire and scary and its all about political lobbying. They use science to lobby for political action. Even al gore said. The u. N. Reports are, quote, talked up in order to get policymakers attention. Well, not just the u. N. Reports, but the National Climate assessment and other government reports like that, including eu reports, uk government reports. But if you look deep within the reports and i do in my book, i show you that floods hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes, wildfires, sea level rise. Even according to these reports. Its that they people cite as evidence of a Climate Emergency. The premise of your question show theres either no trends or decline in trends and decade old climate timescales. 30 years, 50 years, 100 years. So people can say, oh, california has evidence of a Climate Emergency or the heat wave. And then the south in the northwest has evidence. Nonsense, nonsense. Epa data shows up to currently that the 1930s with the hottest heat wave in the United States. So anyone claiming that this northwest heat wave currently is evidence of Climate Change, were below the 30 year average temperature and satellite, so that makes no sense. The us is less than 2 of the earths surface. Theres areas of cold. So if you look at all of these factors, there is no clima emergency. Watch the full program any time onne at book tv dot org. Just search marc morano or the title of his book, green fraud. Weekends on cspan and two are an intellectual feast. Every saturday, American History tv documents americas story, and on sundays, book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan two comes from these Television Companies and more, including comcast. Are you think this is just a Community Center . No, its way more than that. Comcast is partnering with a thousand communities centers to create wifi enabled lifts so students from low income families can get the tools they to be ready for anything. Comcast, along with these Television Companies, supports cspan two as a public service. Heroes, us Senior Writer for town hall, talked about his coverage of antifa during the summer of 2020 protests and argues the Mainstream Media failed to report on how destructive they were. Heres a portion of the program. When i got when i got to minneapolis, i mean, this was after they had set fire to some buildings surrounding the third precinct because they couldnt they the officers were still defending their precinct because thats where Derek Chauvin and the other officers involved in that situation were based out of. Yeah. And i get down there and it, i mean, it was, it was i think i was like, i havent seen before because ive been so used to protests not affecting the blocks surrounding the incident, you know. There were some fights and things can get rowdy, but i can go two blocks over and get something. A mcdonalds. But this this i mean, nothing was open. Every place, especially in south minneapolis, was either closed or they they were they were being looted actively. But so i get there and across the street from the third precinct, theres a strip mall with a target with a cub foods, which is kind of like a in which the Grocery Store chain out there and theres some several small businesses, a strip mall and, people were just going in and out, just nonchalantly looting because usually when especially in the first like theres like a black friday shopping thing, people just rush in and make a fuss. But by this time, i mean theres no fear because whos going to stop . And the cops that are still holed up on the cross street inside. So its very just nonchalant. Im just Walking Around taking photos and video and it was just weird and and yeah, people were still outside of their precinct. They were there are peaceful. They were upset. They very vulgar. You know, they would shout fyou and play, you know, f the police and all this all this stuff. And so they were animated. They were the emotions were high, but they didnt anything. They were peaceful. And i, i the reason why i was so distinct with making the different but making the difference between the the members of the community and generally there are older there was even a church group that showed about halfway through the day they set up like a table and with a band they were giving out snacks, water and stuff like that and they were preaching and love and all this stuff and i remember sitting down because id been standing and walking for 4 hours and i was just trying to, you know, collect my thoughts and trying to coordinate with town hall on on what to do with the tweets that were sending and was on my phone for for about a solid 15, 20 minutes. And then thats when it was getting dark and the summers and i remember looking up from my phone and i just noticed the immediate in who the crowd was and the church group was gone. All the older people were leaving. It was a younger crowd. They were dressed differently. They were dressed in black bloc. They were wearing bandanas. And instead of the surgical masks, i mean, it was such a stark difference, even just not paying attention for that short amount of time. And so thats when i realized that, oh, okay, this is going get out of hand again. Watch the full online anytime at, book torg. Just search julio rosas or the title of his book, fiery, but mostly peaceful. University of washington professor Chantelle Pratt explored how each is different and what we can do to better understand the functions of our own. Her book is the neuroscience of you. Heres a portion of her. I said, if that was your goal, i think you did a good job on that. Well, its its actually hard. Dopamine is of the things that i feel through my husband, whos a model of the basal ganglia model of the basal ganglia and so forth. When you know a lot about something, its way harder to write about it than something you know a little bit about, like, oh, i can see that. I can see the forest. I can see the forest. And so dopamine is a thing. Dopamine reward. And the way that drives us through life is the thing that i gave in bits, because i really wanted to tell the truth and tell the whole truth. And in fact, when i wrote the book, i had this idea, it sounds good until you try it. The idea was, im going to write a more accurate book about neuroscience than exists on the shelf, but im going to write it in a way thats accessible so everyone can can learn it. And then i sat down do that and i thought, oh, this is hard. You know . And so and so i tried to, you know, instead of having introduction, here are all machines we use to study brains. I tried to like introduce it at the time that you need it in the in the place in the story to so that somebody is motivated like, okay, were in a tube and were staring at a screen because were studying, you know, and its i hope, i hope it works, you know. But that was my goal. And and when i sat down to do it, i thought, wow, thats really hard. It is. Thats interesting that you say its harder to write things you really know because you do have so many things you want to dump out of your brain onto the paper and then try to make that accessible. I think i struggled with that too, and i feel like im a misfit as well because i got my training evolution in biology, then work with physicists, my postdoc, and now im doing mostly Computer Science stuff, which there are links by the way, if we have time, id like to get to that element for, you know, i think all the computer scientists should be reading this as well. Watch the full Program Online any time at book tv dot org. Just search Chantelle Pratt or the title of, her book, the neuroscience of you. And book tv is back with more authors. The Miami Book Fair. The first. Right. Good afternoon. Good afternoon im harrison an attorney at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig in miami. Its my pleasure to welcome you to the 39 Miami Book Fair. We are grateful to Miami Dade College and the hundreds of volunteers that make this all possible and for the support of the Great American foundation, the batchelor foundation, the meredith and dark work foundation, aarp, greater miami and the beaches bureau, university of miami south motor leather. The men of faith, the Frederick Deluca foundation and all of the other sponsors. Wed also like to take this moment to thank the friends of the fair members. Are there any friends in the room today . Good to see you all. Friends receive multiple benefits during the fair week and all year round, while helping to sustain south floridas vibrant community of readers and writers. Please consider a friends membership for your for yourself or gift. One to a friend at the end of the session. We will have time for q a and the authors will be autographing books just outside at this time. I kindly ask you to silence your cell phones. It is now my pleasure to. Introduce debbie bussell. Debbie, the author, is sponsored by the sheppard Broad Foundation in honor of its founder whose immigration story began. A 13 year old orphan journeying unaccompanied and included detention and threats of deportation action, but also generous acts of. Kindness, large and small and ultimately a warm embrace by the miami community. With that, debbie. Good afternoon. Its a privilege for the shepherd Bride Foundation to sponsor this session that will illuminate the immigrant experience in this country in honor of its founder, shepherd Broad Foundation supports Community Efforts to welcome the stranger and promote and ensure the humane fair and just treatment of immigrants. You will hear echoes shepherd broads journey to america. 102 years ago as a 13 year old orphan. In the stories of these writers today, both the hardships and the acts of kindness let these powerful stories guide us in. How we can better embrace the immigrant peoples and families among us embrace, them for their benefit for ours and for the whole of the nation and so here are our authors. Maria aina hosa anchors and executive produces Peabody Award Winning show latino usa, the longest running National Latin x news program in, the country. She has won four emmys. The studs Community Media award, two Robert F Kennedy awards, the Edward R Murrow award from overseas press club, and the Reuben Salazar Lifetime Achievement award. Lee tron graduated from Columbia University in 2014 with a degree creative writing and linguistics. She has received fellowships from macdowell, art, artemis and yaddo, house house of sticks. This is her first book. Javier zamora was born in el salvador in 1990. His father, the country when he was one, and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both parents migrations were caused by the us funded salvadoran civil war. When he was nine, javier migrated through guatemala, mexico and the sonoran desert. His debut poetry collection on, accompanied, explores the impact of the war and immigration on his family. Zamora has been a stegner fellow, stanford and a radcliffe fellow at harvard and holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts and the poetry foundation. Welcome. Our illustrious group. A lot of work, a lot of water, high. The books. We love that. Whats up, miami . Yeah. I havent been back since the pandemic, so its like, thank you for inviting me back. Its been great. And incredible career. And lee, i feel so honored to be here. I just a lot of gratitude. Thats because i finally out exactly where i needed to be. If i some if you saw me this morning when i was trying to find where i needed to be, i was a very grumpy. I was like, what is this many people . But honestly, what a Beautiful Community event that so many people. Miami, this is such an incredible cultural event, the city of miami. And im so glad that it remains such an important part of your city. So kudos you make that happen. I mean, not the organizers. I mean. Yes, the organizers really. Its your tone turn out so. Thank you so much. So i im the author of a memoir once i was you a memoir of love and hate and tour in america that was just released in september for Young Readers. And that is called once i was you finding my voice and passing the mic. And it literally is for kids and talking about, okay, this is how i found my voice and this is me passing the mic. So the first thing i want to do actually is to pass the but everybody has their own like and theres something that we do in my i do a show called in the thick, its a politics podcast. Its like meet the press. But with only journalists who are not white men and and we drop a lot of fbombs, which are very. So its not meet the press at all. We have a lot laughter. But the thing that we do, we start out by asking political journalists, right, because we only talk politics like how theyre doing, like whats their state. We call it a Temperature Check. So how were whats your Temperature Check . How youre doing, mr. Fabulous author, poet. Um, lets see, i am tired, but im in a humid place that reminds me of home is only the second time that im ever in miami. So i should be at 75. But it feels like a 95. Oh, lee, whats your Temperature Check . How are you . Um, its a good question. I feeling very happy. This is my first time here in miami, and so far, so good. Just excited to be here with javier zamora, especially. We met back in 2015. Yeah, and weve remained friends since. Its its come full circle, so very happy. So lee, actually, im going to start with you. Did you know you wanted to write a memoir . I actually studied fiction in college. So started this book originally as a novel where i had the idea to write a novel, but it transformed into a memoir. And how do you feel about that . I feel really good about it, actually, because, you know, growing up, i was always searching for glimpses of representation of myself on the page, in literature, in the media. And i never found that. And i think it a lot more to people to know that. The story that i wrote is, a true story. Javier, youre a poet. You define yourself as a poet. Your memoir is no instances. And youre also a podcaster. And the first version of solito was we didnt call it solito, did we return the return, which was broadcast on latino usa. So we feel really special it turning into such a beautiful and i was your guest. Im just going to put this out that joe had just been in the booth to the day before was there. And now that joe is going to be hes going to be here at 6 00. So its like, you know, yeah, fat joes fun. Hes really he should be here. Where are you, fat joe . Somebody put yo, thats beautiful. That you remember that . Yeah. So whats your sense of the poet who is a memoirist who had write memoir, which is such a particular thing. Im from latin america. I feel like in latino, we dont have strict genres i never once started writing poetry free. I never felt tied to it. And like i wrote a memoir, now i dont feel tied to writing a memoir again. Its almost like all, every out there from latin america has at least either started out as a poet or a journalist. And i think its just where you where you test your chops and where you lay a foundation. And for me, being a poet has helped me cut down words to throw in jordan poetry for the people in peace. Her idea of minimum words, maximum can translate very easily into prose as as poetry. So its like its just writing. So. Gabriel garcia marquez, journalist is Isabel Allende a journalist . My journalist inspiration from mexico. Elena tosca, who then writes novels also as well as journalism. And youre right. And i dont know how many people know the incredible tradition poetry in el salvador. But im beside the great writers of el salvador. So youre cool. You dont feel the pressure. You feel like you creatively. Your unique retort to, yeah, im an artist, a northeastern quitter. Okay, do you paint as well . I actually wanted to be first a musician. Okay. And i cant read music and i cant i dont you my wife can say that i cant even sing for. But the rhythm i, i think do i have rhythm. And then i wanted to be a painter and painter, expensive. And then i like okay, pen and paper. It is. Oh, really . Oh, you. What did i want to do . Thank you for asking the question. Yes. I definitely never thought i wanted to. I mean, there were no i couldnt see someone who looked like me doing journalism. So invisibility is actually really bad for your Mental Health because you internalize it and you believe that if if i dont see it, its not possible. So when i would see the incredible journalism, i would be just like, wow, what a cool thing to do, but never. And i want to do it. Hamas and then i want it to be actor and some man took away all of my power. But by the way, if you havent seen in the heights my dream came true because im in the movie. Youre like, youre. Yeah, i was the activist if you havent seen in the heights and you see it now. So my dream came true of being an actor. Yes, but i dont think you know this because we just met and im savoring the minutes until i get to sit down in the plane on my way to rome tonight. I know, i know. Im really doing that. Im taking lives book. Have you ever will be for the return but what you dont know is that in my memoir and in my life actually the vietnamese experience is central. Why . Why . Because the war that was not happening here was in vietnam. And so every image that i had about being a journalist, a reporter, and of course, also covering the vietnam war, the first televised war was not like we understand now, and that made a huge impact on me seeing so many vietnamese people hearing about vietnam all the time. Every single and yet never from any vietnamese people. So i didnt know what they sounded like. I know what they looked like. I knew the crying, but never somebody who could explain or have a voice. This impacted me greatly as a journalist, as a future journalist. Then and then the vietnam refugee reality was the first televised refugee. Im not going to call it a crisis because its humanity, because i dont want to say always there. But, you know, it was a massive moment. It was the first one that was televised. And my colleagues had the capacity in their brains to label human pity, seeking refuge after a war that this country inserted itself in and prolonged and was responsible for so much blood on their hands. And then they label your family, your familys boat people like, oh, you know, the boat people. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So that would mean that the salvadorian yours or what . Multicourse or mexicans who are now forced by law from this country the exclusion and they forced to sleep on the sidewalks and the concrete in mexico that then are my colleagues should call them concrete people sidewalk people in cement. They how could they the people boat people this impacted me so greatly and one of my greatest moments was as a budding journalist when i end up at npr producing for scott simon and it was, les texas says questions. And they were like, youre going to produce of our reports on taxes. And i do things differently i always have. And i was like, well, were going to tell the story of the vietnamese refugees in texas because they are now a part of texas and going to corpus christi, christi, not crispy christi and giving them like to a vietnamese refugee woman who said, yes, have this freedom, but im so alone. Im so alone. And then she took the mic and she sang the starspangled because she wanted to say, but still, i love this country. So what are your thoughts about because like to me, the vietnamese dynamic is just so important in my life. And thats why im so honored to be here and so excited, so happy for all of the success that your memoir is having. Thank you so much. Well, whats interesting about the boat people is that i my family and i dont belong in that category of boat people because we came over by plane through something known as a humanitarian operation in 1993, which helped resettle all former prisoners of war here in the states. And my father served almost a ten year sentence as a prisoner war in the reeducation camps of vietnam. And so when he heard in 1993 that there was this operation that the United States was funding, he applied and came over here. The six of us, me, my parents, my three older brothers, and we grateful to be in this country. So i can really to this vietnamese refugees singing the starspangled banner. But it was, you know, mixed in with a feeling of desperation as because when we, you know, stepped foot off that plane, we already owed america those plane tickets. We had to pay back those plane tickets. So we were in debt and we had to find a way to make ends meet. And, you know, my first job here in america at the age of three was doing sweatshop labor with my family in order pay back those plane tickets and one of the things that has drawn attention was one of the reviews i read that said that oftentimes in our situation, right when we are immigrants or refugees and there is a complicated history as always there and, we know this. I mean, look where we are. Were in miami, in florida, a state that just voted in a way. And people have been asking me for my earlier presentation. What do we do with our family members who come and then kind of turn their back and forget right close the door behind me and im wondering about your like in your memoir. Its both really all three of ours. It is actually about being attached to that, whereas many people are like, i want to get away from this as fast as possible, as possible, and i just want to your thoughts about or lee, your thoughts about that because somebody said it. Lee actually, her work up, what makes it so incredible is that you connect it so deeply to your parents suffering and not that thats what you stay, but that youre like not i 100 identify why i think children are a lot more aware than we give them credit for it. And so, you know, my my three older brothers and i we were doing sweatshop labor together as a family and we were having so much fun. You know, we saw the world, the lens of wondering magic, but we were very keenly of the suffering that my parents were going through, having to keep a roof over our heads. And so we never let on that. We, too, felt their suffering. We were suffering ourselves. We wanted, in a way, protect them from us. And i think its phenomenon that many immigrants, children of immigrants and refugees, share this this, you know, wanting to protect their old was your oldest brother. He was six years older than me. So the time he was nine. Nine. Yeah, yeah. How about you . How did you about your parents. I know your our hearing what i heard was why would somebody once in this country vote read that . Thats what that that thats right. Well, okay, were. Well, thats what i heard. And for i think part of coming to this country, we as immigrants its very hard for us to remember the trauma we dont talk about what it took us to make it here because its very difficult and especially if youre a child, you dont want to see the suffering and when you dont want to see something, you ignore it and you try to hide away and for myself, part of being in this country had to be assimilation. Like i went deep into assimilation to a point where i, i people that i didnt know how to speak spanish and in that assimilation you were trying to hide because youre trying to hide and to make people not ask questions about where youre from, if you have papers, etc. , etc. , etc. , and eventually you dont want them to ask you about the trauma. And thats when you dont have a therapist or you dont have these means for Mental Health. Thats why you see a latino voting red, because a lot of the times we dont want to face the things we that brought us to this country to begin with. Well, because those stories thats why i love that we tell these stories right. Thats why im a professor. Thats why i do the work that i do is to amplify the stories, because so many of these stories are told in shame and its like bitter, porky gives shame, as if its like a salvadoran story or a vietnamese story. And these are american stories. Theyre american stories, period. And so that to me, just the the telling of this story is the the the honesty with which we tell them is what helps. And thats actually why i wrote the Young Readers version, not because i thought i was going to write for teenagers. And then i thought, no, by the time theyre teenagers, its all like trauma has already gotten so deep that if i write the memoir for ten year olds, that then they can move teenage hood with a certain level of awareness. Well, you mean theres theres moment in your book, lee, where you talk about your earliest memory, which is just, you know, because youre like, i open my eyes and i see the blue for the blue tarp from the refugee camp that you were in. And Everybody Knows that. I mean, similar to this blue. But, you know that memory right that you see it right here so much of what you do is about memory your earliest memory my earliest memory. Im three years old and. Its my birthday and im in front of a cake and i mess something up and mom gets mad at me and then crying so and i know youre asking this i dont know because your first memory tells you a lot. Your childhood and your life and for me, my first memory is crying. And i think its almost like a fourth tale of what would to me. And then we can also talk about horoscopes and i believe i didnt believe in horoscopes until like my pluto is in some placement that it told me that something was going to happen, has happened to when you were nine and youre going to this is the event that youre going to talk about for the rest your life. So i was like, oh. Thats why i believe in them. Like, now im a believer of horoscopes and whats your sign . Aquarius. Aquarius whats your sign . Capricorn. Oh, right. Yes. Whats your sign . Cancer. Oh, oh, cancer. The feeling, all the feelings, all the feelings. Explains everything it does, it does it does explain everything which is your first memory . So my first memory. And actually, im going to do therapy between now and my flight to rome. Yeah, im trying to squeeze it in wherever i can. And ill tell you why in a second. But my the most amazing therapist she was my my other therapist actually passed away. And so i had to find a new therapist and started to do work on trauma and was when i realized that i had been raped at 16. Right. And i didnt really understand this all and i had to process it. Its in the book. But she was like, before we get to that event, she was, whats your first memory . And then it turned out that actually its a little bit of trauma. Not for me personally, but it does foretell certain things right . I remember vaguely the death of John F Kennedy, the assassination of John F Kennedy and seeing Walter Cronkite crying. And i was really little bit like that. So what are the possibilities that i would end up being like remembering Walter Cronkite, you know, that that would be something that is seared into my memory and that i end up becoming a journalist and my other earliest memory is trying to learn english by listening to the 45 little record, my fair lady and the song super cool of gradualist, accessible and delicious. And i was like, thats english. I have to learn how to say that because thats english. And i was like, super callow, what the heck. So yeah, do you do you think that youll write more or not . That i mean, because we were like, you just wrote a memoir, you want to write another one . Its like, well, but how are you feeling the in terms because you studied a nonfiction, you wanted to write fiction rather and so were you at a loss. Im actually currently working on a novel so yeah, im returning to my first love. Yeah. Hows going . Its going. You know, i havent written anything yet. You know, writing is 90 thinking or so. Tell myself so what are you doing . Whats. What are you thinking . How are you doing . The thinking, the creative process. Because actually think thats a really interesting part of the story. Yeah well ive storytelling is has always accompanied me all throughout my life and so the book will be an homage to storytelling its going to be about an agoraphobic mother daughter duo, the daughter is yearning to explore the outside world. The only way she can do that is through telling stories and yet and some of these stories will be maybe some of the stories i told myself when i was doing sweatshop labor, growing, it was the stories that i use to keep myself awake, you know, having to so however many hundreds, sometimes thousands of comer buttons and ties before lights out. So thats what im working on. And yeah, like i said, i plotted the entire thing in my head and i just need to sit down and that is what it ultimately comes down to. What were you gonna say . How has your has your family read the the memoir . Yeah, my brothers have read the memoir. What what is your relationship with them or like before. Yeah i think im a lot closer to my brothers now. I love my family dearly, but something about this book has really brought us all together. My mother has been on duolingo for the past year and a half trying to learn english. So she can read this book. Oh my god. Yeah, its really touching and, you know, she she calls me every other week telling me that shes gotten through chapter and she sort of checks in with me. Is this what the chapters about . And im so surprised. Im so impressed that she gets about 70, 75 of it. Um, my father on the other hand, so there are photos of my family more. Yeah dad. So he has just bookmarks the page with his photo on it. And he goes around telling people, you know, my daughter wrote a book, its about me. You should read it. In theaters. You know, thats a good book. I think hes a leo . Actually. Those leos, you know. But i think its his way of showing that hes. Proud of me. I love that. Yeah. Has your family the memoir a my mother. Yes. Yes. No, please do my. And were about to open it up for all of you. Get ready with your questions. So, yes, my mom, my sister one brother, my some of my family in mexico. And i actually had to because was going to kind of write this is for the adult version for the readers version. I actually did not include the assault which happened when i was 16, but because it was in this version and it was such an important part of the adult version. I did have to sit down with my my mom, my sister, my two brothers and just be like, so this happened. Wow. And my mom and my sister my dad, me, he rest in peace. They were in the where it happened. They they didnt know what was happening, but it happened there. And so there was like and also my brother was like, let me out home and i was like, its okay like its a long time ago. Also, im a boxer. If i want to take him out, ill take him out. Um, but was yeah. And theyve been supportive even even actually my conservative mexican family in has read the version in spanish and theyre you know, they try to walk gingerly around the the fact that i write about abortions or you know being survivor of rape and theyre like, im lulu is my little maluleka i wanted to trabajo we wanted them. We wanted travel. Its like, do you want to about we want you to. All right. Well if you want to start. I mean, i love conversations the audience because we can sit here and talk forever and ever and ever at least what i was going to ask you again, start forming. Dont be afraid. William mckinley. You got hypothermia in queens. Did you hear what i said . So in 1990. What three, 1993, me got hypothermia in queens with a roof over her head. And one of the things that im haunted and obsessed about right now is what is happening with. Children being trafficked, right . You were with your family, but now, you know, we have children who are being trafficked along with their parents and ending up like in the city of new york, they put on a beach or randalls island. These are refugees from what, similar a coup, haiti, etc. And the possibility that one of them might get hypothermia in the year 2022. And i think this is for me one of the more frustrating elements of this dynamic. I mean, what success. What extraordinary success. But the fact that the conditions have yet faced or that lee faced horrific conditions in many ways still exist and have only gotten worse gomez possibly. I was going to ask you a question, but since we have a full lineup, just ask your question, please. Thank you. I dont know if can. Yeah, we can hear you. Okay. Mine. I read solito and thought it was fabulous. But i have two questions for you. I dont speak spanish and so i felt most of the book got the gist of it. One part i had to give to somebody to read for me and make sure i got it. I wondered how you. What parts to leave in spanish and and how you made what your thought process was. And then my other question was did since the books has come out, did you have you reconnect it with the people that you were hoping to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank. That is the most asked question and im still asking it myself. Have not been i havent heard for them. I dont i dont know where they are. They not even be in the country anymore. They might not even be alive. I dont know. I hope that they do reach out for those who havent read the book. I wouldnt be here without the help. A 29 year old mom and a 12 year old daughter and a 19 year old man who i named who went by chino because latinos were racist and and i was nine and they literally fed me, cut it old me and helped survive. So theres that. The language question salvadorans the number two biggest immigrant group and United States we just passed Puerto Ricans two years ago and were only going to continue to grow growing up you know the stereotypical Toni Morrison quote you know what you want to read, growing in this country as an undocumented kid from el salvador. There were books that with that looked like me, but they didnt talk like me, meaning theres a i talked about assimilation to the to this country and that would be an assimilation towards english. Theres also an assimilation of your native spanish. So and where you land in this country and the west coast is mostly dominated by mexican spanish. Your were in a mostly cuban centric spanish if you go to certain parts of new york city or be puerto rican, dominican or colombian, you know, and so it is very important for me to highlight culture, which is salvadorans living and yeah, i think its talking about representation and and and passing mic to i just wanted to it and in that we have something theres an audio book of it yeah right so because i just think that salvadoran slang also has just such great its intonation. Yeah its its i love it. I love it very. Yes. Your question our club read and this is this going to be made into a movie. I dont know. I are you actually are you asking if its been optioned. Yes. Has it been optioned . Were were on it. See, that was the question were working on. Okay. My Favorite Book club member. Our book club loved the book so much and for anyone that hasnt read it, i felt like it was reading poetry. But my question is, it was such a deep dive into childhood memories. Like i as an adult, you remember things that happened when you were a child, but the level of detail was extraordinary and its a memoir. But can you talk to us about the process and how you recalled that level of detail or is it actual recollection or did you go back to some of those places to see what the plants look like and things like that how was it for your sex, for your really . Oh , shes much taller now. Oh, thats how did your write the memoir . I did. How did you remember all the details as well . I because i forced myself i mean, i just as a journalist, you know, always thats the whole thing is like the level of detail. I, i do a kind of i go into a level of hypnosis when i write. And i think that thats one thing that helps me unlock memory. Yeah. I mean, i think, my book, there are moments that are extremely detailed, those other moments that have had, you know, the greatest impacts on me. And, and then there are moments that really murky and i just leave them murky because thats how memory is. Memory is reconstructed. Memory is not perfect. There was also a period of my where i couldnt see for about ten years. I had severe and my father was a p. O. W. Suffered paranoia, so he thought glasses were government conspiracy to take away my eyesight. So i was never allowed to wear glasses. And so those of my book lacked detail and i just left it like that because that was more true to reality. So thats interesting because for i suffered when i began to i didnt, i didnt want to be a writer. I began writing when i was eight, 17. I thought that i wanted to be an engineer, but then calculus hit and then i had to try in school. But once i started writing poetry. I have this condition that i go blind. I have a night migraine, which less than 2 of people get it. Its like sometimes its a precursor to a full blown migraine, which i like that i go blind, i dont want to feel headache, but its when im stressed and it was when i began to look at the episodes that i describe in the poetry, which if i were to use about a metaphor, the poetry is just a tip of the iceberg. And i wrote the poem the without therapy, and it took me ten years to write and 88 pages of poetry with therapy. It took me two years to write 400 pages of prose. And i think that is you could see the change of what therapy does and does not. Ive been therapy since seventh grade. Im finally with a therapist who is from the d. R. And as a child immigrant herself, you can her up when the carolina franco ph. D. Like shes the. And and so theres that for me, understanding my actually what you as a reader might think are the hardest things to write were actually the because as a little kid what my brain did it clung to the details. I can tell you like right now the thing that always comes to mind is when im on the ground with i can tell you what that dirt smelled like. Everything happens for me. Not every trauma survivor, but and i also want to say that immigrants, survivors, im a survivor of what happened to me. And so the trauma happened in like blu ray, dolby surround sound, 4k. The hardest parts were the waiting. And for those parts. Yes i would i have now with the privilege i have a green card now that your episode helped with for latino usa. I just got a green card in 2018 so now i can go to the border and i can fly to wadala. I can fly to all these places that i wasnt able to and until i was 28. And so exposure therapy has also helped a lot. Yeah. Like actually being where the trauma occurred really unpack something for the mind. I think one of the reasons why people love solito is because it is such an intimate, personal story. So much about, you know, a child. But i think other thing i said is that and we have to realize, right, there are thousands of habits, right now there and leaves and there will be sadly shifts in that changing and that thats the reason why i decided to write the book kids because i was like a in my opening i dedicate the opening to a child whos been trafficked guatemalan girl who i meet in the airport in mcallen who is being trafficked she sent who knows what had been in a cage and and this to me the its the horror. Right. I think this is the horror of what im living through. Like literally right now, which is and it involves all of you. And thats why the work that lee does and, what harvey does is so important right, is that it is happening today and it fascinates me. How we will then you know, buy your book, make it a bestseller here. These book written about talked about on npr and all of that. It is not pasando and its the moment. Its right here in the trauma, the suffering, the separation and the, you know, possibility, hypothermia. And its not that i have a question, but i have to tell you, i because im doing some deep investigative reporting on the continue all Sexual Assault that happens in every immigrant Detention Camp every hour across the country in camps right here where i visited yesterday. And the fact that just getting worse in the will, the only way it is, you, not me, you actually. And im really thats why im so thankful to be here with such powerful people. By the way, el salvador, like the salvadoran reality form to me as a young revolutionary college, formed me news for me and the vietnamese experience of lees family. And that legacy also formed me. So we are each other. We are actually each. And so until we realize of whats happening right now, its going to, as you said his lobby or theyre going to it will keep on happening now you have a face i think i think that is the important part like now now you that kid that kid is me but that kid is every kid you know now you know lee, if you read about lees experience, you have a face, you know . And i think thats just beginning of empathy and its sad that we thats where we are at. But now, you know, one of us and maybe changes some things, because actually what we have to do is we to deconstruct the false narrative that has been constructed about us. And thats the beauty the work of lee and have yet and of course my dear whos basically standing there saying you know its time to wrap up because i was like, i have another 10 minutes and shes like, no, you dont. We dont have another 10 minutes, right. Okay. But this was fabulous. So please join me in a round of. Okay, well, thats nice segue. Well, nice. Thank you. Miami by this by that book by my friend please support authors and just know what a special event you have here in miami every year. Congratulations. Thank you for having us. Thank you. The authors be signing books just all the way at the end of the hall. This session is concluded and the next will begin a few minutes. Thank you all. And book tv is coverage of the Miami Book Fair continue in a moment. Receive a standing. Recently on book tvs Author Interview program. Afteards, mark bergen of Bloomberg News looked at the creation and growth of youtube and how its changed our society. He was interviewed by politico tech policy reporter rebecca kern. Mr. Bergens book is like comments inside youtubes chaotic rise to world domination. Heres a portion of the interview. The other constituency is the viewer. And i think you can from my reporting shows that you can you can clearly make the argument that, you know what youtube has done for viewers is this amazing mass of entertainment, free entertainment information that never existed two decades before. And we of take for granted, take advantage of now. But its also theres not a lot of transparency for you as a viewer and ill give it like one one interesting example so the past few years as youtube has responded to a lot of criticism theyve instituted this policy called what they call borderline videos. And so these are videos that dont break their rules about hate speech or harassment, graphic violence and supporting kind of extremist positions. But they go right up to the line of them. And this is a really arbitrary line. And what youtube has done is a pretty powerful, which is, okay, were just not going to put this videos on our recommendation engine. So its the traffic on once theyre removed from the youtube recommendation system, it really plummets because that is a majority of views on videos as people being recommended footage, you know just of autoplay, you know, one video that jumps to the next or panel of videos on, the screen, if youre looking at a desktop computer, i mean, as a viewer, i have no idea that this video in front of me has been deemed borderline, have no idea this video, you know, is is potentially violating some rules are in questionable territory. And and, you know, that the creators at the same time necessarily have that indication either and that sort of that part of the reason many one of many reasons why the creators feel shortchanged especially compared to traditional media, which is also on youtube. Right. And and that all kind of came to a head. You talk about in the book in 2017 with the ad pocalypse you call it, and just that was just talking about the tensions with some violent extremist content being promoted on the platform by certain creators, that being tied to advertisers who do not want to obviously be associated with that content. Other examples of, you know, videos that were also viewed as offensive ads were still running on so could you kind of talk about maybe what led to that, what there are some pretty dramatic changes happened after after that time period. Yeah, i think there are are a couple of things going on. One is sort of wonky business, right . Like google is a Digital Advertising like it makes its majority of its money putting ads in front of your search results and then putting ads across the web either on website banners or on youtube videos. This has been a Business Model that has fundamentally reshaped how marketing works and, you know, it kind of took this what traditionally was like a handshake agreement on madison avenue and literally its you know, im a im a and i want my ad to run on this tv station and this show or on this billboard right. What youtube did or google did was it upended that and it said, like, we can will serve out your ad to where it will reach the best consumer. What that did. Was it . And they will do it in an automated way. So they built this fantastic highly complex Automated System equivalent to sort of a Financial Markets that with all these exchanges and markets and like basically a lot of software to to determine when to serve you an ad that youre most likely to on. So what happened in 2017 was, you know, reporters had found that some that they major household brands and names and even nonprofits where sponsor being terrorist videos extremist neonazis the kind of inappropriate material that if you sat down a chief marketing officer and said youre spending money on this they clearly were would not want to continue doing so and they didnt want their names in the headlines associated with that and this was you know it was a relatively small percentage of the budget, but it just damaged ahead how this this model had been built and built so quickly and wasnt prepared to deal with that kind of avalanche of advertisers exiting. Right. And then after that, i mean, they did end up having to change some of their their business and Digital Advertising modeling. And also it led to some major sort of changes in how they moderate content. I think as. Well, this was also i the second point was this was the beginning early in the trump presidency, in the era. And you had, you know, major advertisers, that were much more cautious and id say even venture to say like did not want to go anywhere near remotely political issues and topics. And then you have youtube and google that also wanted to steer of of of anything kind of remotely political. They were the beginnings of this accusation that the company has a bias against conserve it lives in the u. S. So you know their response was was pretty i would say it was pretty severe like the number of changes they made and youtube now versus youtube in 2017 looks profoundly different. And they put in effectively like safeguards and systems to make sure that their advertisers and business would continue to operate and it. And and on some level, that has worked very well like that. They are the earliest numbers we have for youtubes financials from the company is that in 2017 they made 8 billion. Last year they made close to 29 billion. And advertising its been phenomenal growth. And so at least on one metric, they have, you know, satisfied advertisers. Theres certainly open questions about whether or not theyve satisfied regulated regulators or concerned from parents said, you know, you name it watch the full online any time at book tv dot org just search bergen or afterwards book tv has featured many politicians who are also authors who won elections in this years midterms. Democrat wes moore became marylands first black governor. Hes on book tv several times to talk about his books. It isnt just about can we make sure that Police Officers have body cameras . Yes. You know, its not just about, you know, how how do we how do we, you know, add on clause to things like the Law Enforcement order, Law Enforcement officers, bill of rights or qualified immunity. Its not stopping there. The demands that we are seeing right now are actually dealing with Structural Racism and how exactly can we deal with all of these various issues in a way with a very real sense of sincerity and and and a very real sense of activation and movement. Republican senator scott won reelection in south carolina. He appeared on book tv recently to discuss book america a redemption story. I think its necessary for us to wrestle with some of the more foundational issues of who we are and where were going and how were going to get there. Are we going to go together or. I think the answer is were going to go together or not at all. I think its interesting. And in helpful for to go through this tribal conversation to see how hard it is to try to make up for discrimination with future discrimination. Its not working really well for us. Right now, but were going to try to figure that out or ill figure it out. But the truth is that all the all the tribes that were putting together and this republican tribe or a democrat tribe or a black or white one or a class system or caste system, rather a centralized control or not, i think all of that will burn and what it will produce is an American Family that more respect and appreciation for the necessity of pursuing the american dream. As one family in south dakota, kristi noem was reelected as governor. Her recent autobiography, titled not my first rodeo what i believe the republican in the house and the senate need to do is cast a vision for where we are going, not just be opposed to joe biden, even though so many of his policies are bad for our country right now. I do think that we also have to be pretty clear on what were for and to be ready to take action should. We have the opportunity to get congressional bills passed and get them to the president s desk before his election to the senate from ohio, republican j. D. Vance was wellknown as the bestselling author of hillbilly, and he appeared at the National Book festival in 2017. I think we have a pretty significant problem with the fact that youre effectively given a choice when you graduate from high school between going and working in fast food job or going and getting a four year college education. And i think that we should provide more pathways than that. I think its not surprising when those are the only two pathways that you see people going in those two directions. But but i also think but i also think we have to think a little bit constructively about Regional Economic development. You know, the way that this has gone for the past ten or 20 years is that im a municipality. I offer somebody a tax credit to set up a restaurant in my hometown thats thats great. New restaurants are fantastic. But thats not the sort of long term redevelopment that has to happen in some of these areas. And i think that its something that, you know, all levels of policymakers have to be thinking differently than they are right now. And democrat cori bush reelected in her st louis area district. She recently appeared on book tv to her book, the forerunner the Sexual Assault that i experienced before. Most of it happened around. It was like my early twenties, late teens, early twenties. It was when i was still trying to, you know, find myself, quote unquote. And i blamed myself if i went through the next years blaming myself every single time that happened. Oh, it because my shirt was cut short and my my, my were really, really short. It was because was out walking with friends when met them and you know and i was just a particular way so you know so thats why it happened. So when they took me out on the date, they just assumed that thats what i wanted or, you know, like i, i made all of these excuses for what happened to me and all of the blame fell on me. You can watch all of these programs online at book tv dot org and also tune in sundays on cspan two to watch all of your favorite authors. Model and actress Emily Rakowski offered her thoughts on feminism, beauty as a commodity and the treatment of women by men. In a recent talk on her book, my body. Yeah well, that i say is called trans actions, and an excerpt of ran in the guardian. So if you read that, thats what im referencing. I really interested in investigating my own judgment of and how they navigate systems of power in regards men specifically. You know, in my you know, there i could write a whole book just about that called like victorias girl. Shes a great character. And the. Oh, yes, yeah. Shes a real life person. But, you know, i was interested in i mean, i think people kind of like do that in their marriage sometimes. I have friends who, you know, marry somebody wealthy and whatever. Theres all kinds of negotiations. But in the industry, its very specific because as an unknown model, your basically, you know, theres women who kind of are sent out to castings to recruit other young models to essentially out with rich and just like stand with them at a table and theyre kind of hoping to have sex with you but like honestly they just want you to like stand next to them and make them look cool. Its funny, but pretty dark and, you know, its, its a step away from the Jeffrey Epstein kind of world to be totally honest. And as as now living in new york city. I see. I hope they dont really to nightclubs but theres been a few different moments where ive watched these like groups of very underage underage very clearly very young women walk in with like one guy whos the Party Promoter and, you know, the wealthy guys kind of join and its related. Also, theres celebrity men, theres this whole kind of market around this and you know as an unknown, you dont get paid but they host a dinner so if youre, you know, a working in l. A. , youre not making that much money hungry, straight up. And you go to these things and they know what theyre doing. Theyre like, come to nobu. And, you know, the whole vibe is like, eat whatever you want, drink, whatever you want. And so a lot of models go because they just want a free meal and then they get a little drunk and then theyre invited to the club. And thats sort of like when these wealthy men come into play. So i had experiences with that where, you know, i felt extremely uncomfortable as somebody who, you know, had no hope, was always liked, clear transactions, and those were not clear. And then the the other part of that i say is an experience i had with the now fugitive, joe lo, malaysian fugitive who produced and financed the wolf of wall street. And he was essentially stealing money from the malaysian people. A pretty horrible story. The malaysian government, the president was essentially working with him to help that happen to create. If you havent it. Theres a book called i think the billion dollar billion dollar whale or something. Its really crazy. But, you know, manager got a call like, oh, and i had just moved into apartment in new york that had bedbugs and like i was totally not i was living in the east village and it was i was new to the world. So 25,000 is a lot of money. Huge amount of money. Yes. And they were like, yeah, he just wants you to come to the super bowl. And i was like, what do you mean, come to the super bowl . And my manager at the time was like, trust me, its cool. Like jamie fox will be there. Leonardo dicaprio, like others labs. How much do you think they got paid . I would love to know. Id love to love now. I mean, i do know that, you know, its public record. But like there were basically shots that were seized from, you know, these actors homes and whatever that were gifts from joe lo got. Yeah, its worth it. I mean, just to up at the super bowl. Yeah. Well i didnt care about football so my do you like cheer at the wrong oh i had no idea what was going on at all. So i wasnt even pretending. And that was other really bizarre thing about these interactions. Its like, you know, you dont actually have to do that. Like, i wasnt i wasnt being told to cheer anything but was was interesting in both of these experiences was watching how other women like saw opportunities and capitalize on them and was like, okay i like this guy obviously wants to have beautiful women around. Like, how can i parlay this into something larger . And i think that at a certain point in my life, i was like, i would never do that. Meanwhile, im you know, doing paid posts for toothpastes that are owned by the same type of men essentially and maybe the transaction is little bit more clear, but that was another instance, sort of like my own judging, my own internalized misogyny and also, you know, kind of like realize how, how we all exist on. The spectrum of compromise. And you can watch the full program any time online at cspan, dawgs book tv. Just search for emily ratajkowski. This is live coverage of the 2022 Miami Book Fair book. Tvs coverage continues now. For. More. Good. Good afternoon, everyone everyone. Im nyala harrison, an attorney at the law of Greenberg Traurig here in miami its my pleasure welcome you this afternoon to the 39th Miami Book Fair. We are grateful to the Miamidade College family and the hundreds of volunteers that make this all possible and for the support, the green family foundation, the bachelor foundation, the meredith and jasper foundation, aarp greater miami and the beaches visitors bureau, the university of miami. South motors. Leslie miller saints. The frederick h. Deluca foundation. And to all of the other sponsors, id also like to take this time to say a special thank you and. Welcome to the friends of the fair members. Are there any friends in the audience . Hello, good to see you all friends receive multiple benefits during the fair week and all year round while helping to sustain south floridas community of readers and writers. Consider a membership for yourself and give one to a friend at the end of the session. We will have time for q a and the authors will be signing books outside. At this time, i request that silence your cell phones and with that i will go ahead and welcome our esteemed panel. Afternoon. So first we have sebas and Mallaby Sebastian is the author of five books, including the new times bestseller more than god hedge funds and the making of a new elite and. The man who knew the life and times, alan greenspan, his work has been published in various publications foreign affairs, the atlantic, the washington and the financial times, where he spent two years as contributing editor in the power of law, Venture Capital and. The making of the new future. Mallaby tells the story of silicon dominant Venture Capital firms and how their strategies and faith have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy. Next, we have philip short. Philip has written several definitive biographies, including mal a life pol pot, anatomy of a nightmare and, a taste for intrigue, the multiple lives of francois mitterrand. He worked as a journalist for the bbc for 25 years and as a foreign in moscow, beijing and washington, dc, and wrote for economist and the times of london in putin that is the First Comprehensive of fully up date biography of vladimir woven into the tumultuous saga of russia over the last 60 years. Next, we have michael beckley. Michael is the expert on the balance of power between the United States and china, the author of two books and multiple Award Winning articles. He is an associate professor of Political Science, Tufts University and, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute. He had previously been an International Security fellow at harvards school of government Kennedy School of government. And dangerous the coming conflict with china coauthor with hal brands. He provides a provocative and urgent analysis of the uschina rivalry. And finally, last but not least, we have mina narula, ahmed, born in calcutta, india and she has enjoyed a varied working as a development consultant, journalist and, the Foreign Correspondent for new Delhi Television based in london. She has written and has eds and articles published in the age seminar. The wall street journal, the washington and post, cnn and the atlantic monthly. In her book in the matter of india, a matter of trust india, u. S. Relations from truman to trump, she draws a trove of president ial papers, newly declassified documents, memoirs and interviews to reveal the prejudices, insecurities and political imperatives that are so often have cast a shadow over this vital relationship. And with that i turn it over to the panel. Great. Well, thanks for the introduction. So when i took delivery of three books on three very different subjects, i understood immediately that these authors are united in their talent but divided what they write about and. You know, weve got a book on india, weve got a book on china, weve got a book on russia. Okay. So all of these countries are part that brics club brazil, india, china, south africa. But the similarities are actually smaller than the differences. If you think about it, i youve got russia and china which both have a gdp per capita of over 10,000 and youve got india which is around 2200. Last time i looked. So its a sort of, you know, five x or a four and a half x difference. Youve got three countries which are indeed Nuclear Powers, but have different interests, different spheres of influence. And youve got two or parity in governments, but course, india is a democracy. Youve got two members of the Security Council of the u. N. India, to its disappointment, is not among that group of permanent members. So i was thinking about how to knit this group together. I thought, this is going to take some creativity, but mitch over there is expecting the so weve got to come up with something. And what i across was a thought michaels book where he says quite sort of clearly and without much would say without much qualification that the United States does not have a xi jinping problem. It has a china problem. In other words, however tempting it might be to personalize a Foreign Policy clash and say its because this foreign leader is is a bad guy, its wrong. Individual leaders normally simply embody differences which are kind of hardwired into the dna of the countries that they lead. And so what i want to get to with all these countries is, if thats true, when youve got tensions between the United States and on the one hand, india on the other hand russia on the third hand, if you got three hands, china, is it because personalities or is it because something deeper . So, michael, you provided the springboard. So im going to come to you first and xi jinping as a leader who has kind of ripped up the postmao tradition of leading for only ten years and somewhat of a collective fashion. Explain to us why you nonetheless believe that the american challenge, when it looks at china is not about this one person . Well, think unfortunately, the United States, both a china and a xi jinping problem and on why its broader issue with china. First, if you look at the administration of hu jintao, you realize that a lot of the policies were concerned about today the epic military buildup where china has churning out ammunition warships at a rate we havent seen for many countries since World War Two. A lot of the domestic repression, the kind of laying the foundation for what were seen as some people called digital authoritarianism, the sort of orwellian system that uses Artificial Intelligence and hundreds of millions of cameras as well as more expansionist policies is economically. So the precursor to what we now call the belt and road initiative, where china has lent out more than 1,000,000,000,000, mostly to poor countries to build infrastructure and drum up demand for chinas exports. That begins in the last two years of the hu jintao administration. And a lot of this can be traced back to. The 2008 financial crisis because that really jeopardized chinas rise china had been into open markets in United States and europe and japan and when you have this huge financial crisis, suddenly demand for that drops in china, realizes its going to face a more protectionist and potentially more hostile world. And so to get out in front of that china has erected what is now this vast internal Security Apparatus has gone abroad in a big way economically and is also looking for ways to consolidate control over the territories that it claims, which includes taiwan as well as roughly 80 of the east and south china sea. So you can actually you know, in the book, we try to show this the starts under Whose Administration now xi jinping is certainly accelerated many of these and the images we saw of the 20th Party Congress were were striking especially you know, hu jintao being essentially walked out of the proceedings. And so that shows that xi jinping himself, you know, we think that the system sort of selects these type of leaders, the whole system. And if you look at chinas history, well look for leader with these type of qualities. And it seems have found its mark with xi jinping. But would be a mistake to assume that if she fades from the scene you know you get different personalities in play. We dont think that that would radically alter chinas long term trajectory as well as its policies. And in the tension between china and the us, which you see right now and some of it is generated by the us. Right. Theres been a hardening of u. S. Attitudes. China. What would you make the same claim that this is really about something about, you know what, the u. S. Interest is that leads to a more aggressive stance. Could it be tied to personalities whether it be that of trump or somebody . So i think trump obviously helped blow the lid off of the policy of american engagement of china and really radically shifted a harder containment policy. But i think momentum towards that outcome had been building for years, even in the half of the obama administration, they had become exasperated by what felt was just a non cooperator actor and a lot of this just makes sense sort of geopolitics 1 to 1, you know, a very powerful country is going to look to constrain the rise of a potential pure competitor. I actually think american china policy would have gotten more hostile earlier had it not been for a few sort of fleeting circumstances. You know, in the nineties. Is it cold war has just ended. Everyone thinks, you know, democracy and capitalism are just going to spread. And were in this unipolar moment. But when i remember when George W Bush was running for president , he started talking about china, a strategic competitor, and planned to get much more aggressive with china. Then 911 happens and suddenly the United States needs chinas cooperation, you know, not to screw things up in the u. N. Council, but more importantly, not to start in east asia. While the United States is going to be bogged down in the middle east. And so the United States gets distracted strategically. And i think that provides china the chinese themselves have called a 20 year opportunity to build up their own national power. Now that the United States has been able to shift its focus back towards great power, competition. Youre seeing the emergence of what i think was unfortunately a type of policy we see all too often in International History where you have these great powers competing for power, wealth and influence, and thats playing out today. So, so i mean, lets try and apply the same to india. You know, recently the us has been upset and disappointed because Prime Minister modi in india declined to come down on the u. S. Side in terms of isolating russia over the ukraine invasion. But i guess youd argue that that was not a modi problem. Your book and the narration of the very tricky u. S. India relationship over the past 70 years, there clearly seems to be something deeper about how these countries interact that is bigger than modi. So in india case, i would argue that that when World War Two ended and when india gained its independence of india had a unique. Issue, which is having come out of the yoke of colonial ism, india did not have any intention of lining up with another western, so they opted for nonalignment. They did not they wanted to be able to be free to, develop their Foreign Policy based on Strategic Interests that was universally by everyone and the indian establish movement, whether it was the congress party, the opposition of having said that, whenever you have a country thats emerging i think that you you would find that the personalities of the leadership usually has a pretty signifier and a play, you know, plays a pretty significant role and has its stamp on that country whether i dont want to speak for russia we the russian expert here. But you know, if you look at lenin and stalin, they had a pretty Significant Impact on their country. Same with nehru and, india and and you can look at sukarno in indonesia you know you can go down list of newly independent countries, etc. So i think that yes, i think in newly emerging countries, i leadership and personal do play a fairly prominent role. Nehru had a vision for india and india was a very poor and fairly illiterate country at the time. So he he did have a strong role and they did have prickly relations. So you referred to that. And that was because of the the push in this country at the time, especially under truman, dulles, etc. Very much. Youre either with us or against us. Now, indias balancing of nonalignment was a in the side of their relationship. So it led to some pretty deep seated misunderstandings. The two countries from the beginning. One of the fun details that you would learn if you read this book. I recommend all of these books, but in minutes you learn that truman was a natty dresser with 96 pairs of shoes. But his diplomacy was somewhat elegant. He claimed, for example, that he could smell that he could smell that nehru was a communist which he wasnt, of course, there is this famous incident where, you know, theres a Supreme Court Justice Douglas, who every summer would go off on vacation and truman discovered that he was going off to india one summer, and he calls him into his office and he says, i hear youre going to india. Well, i want you to go off and meet mr. Nehru and, you know, justice says, yes, mr. President. And he says he was sitting in that where youre sitting and can tell you he was a commie because i can smell a commie a mile away. And that was a commie. So Justice Douglas goes off to india and he meets nehru. He, you know, spends many dinners with him. And there is an intellectual hes written many. He went to oxford. He you know, hes an erudite man. And they get on get on very well to discuss discuss the Indian Constitution and the framing of it. When he comes back, goes to the president and he says, mr. President i met mr. Nehru and hes more economy than than you are. I and president truman just erupts into this you know hes furious and he said he just refuses to believe him and. He he has a meltdown and adds. Justice douglas writes in these diaries, which i found buried in the princeton archives and says, well, you know, it was like blowing into wind. He says, theres just nothing you could do to. Convince this man from missouri that, you know, a man like was not a communist, just believed in nonalignment. Thats all. So, you know, fast forward to your question about modi. Theres a big geopolitical shift taking in the world. As we we all know. Theres a containment of china. The reason that in those days, despite the problems with nehru, the west did support india was because it was seen as a frontline state against Chinese Communist expansion. So today were back full circle and we are still seen a frontline against chinese expansion. And this time is, of course, its economic power and greater threat. And modi has opted. Now hes watching balance take place where russias lining up with russia. That traditional allies lining up with the chinese and russia has shown itself to be a rather ally. And so and theyve decided put their eggs in the us basket. So i dont want to take up too much time. So apply this same question, philip, to russia, i suppose would be regarded, you know, exhibit a if you were drawing up a list of individuals who appear to have really stamped his mark on the global order, you know through sheer force of will kind of you becoming a you know, a modern. So do you think he would be the exception to the what i call michaels or that michael will send me disavowed but no i dont think he is an exception. One thing ive been struck by listening to both of you talking is that in the case of china and of india, not simply china and, india that forge their policies, the United States, the west had its role play, too. And, you know, it takes two to tango. And each of those relationships. And thats true of russia. But russia has a bit of a special case because soviet union collapsed in 1991 and there was a kind of there were two possible directions in theory, at least russia could have become and the west initially believed it would much more democratic, much more liberal, much more friendly to us, a much more kind of reasonable relationship. Or it could revert the kind of adversarial relationship it had had in soviet times. And you ask about the role of putin, i would say an awful lot of what we have, the foundations for it were laid back in the 1990s when it was bill and boris it was bill clinton and yeltsin who were the the the the couple of power holders and putin has built on that which suggests that no it wasnt putin who did all this stuff. It was a much deeper historical and bill burns, who now the cia chief he was the he was the ambassador in moscow and a very good u. S. Ambassador to moscow. He wrote in his memoirs that kind of a train between the u. S. And russia was it was built into the equation from the start because america had delusion that russia would meekly follow the course america set and the us led rules based society, as its called, that america that russia would be a part of that. And had the illusion that United States would accept it as an equal. And neither of those where ever going to happen. But it didnt have to lead to the kind of shambles we today with a war in ukraine that is much, i think, attributable to putin. A different leader would probably have done different things. So, yes, there are the historical fundamentals kind of take us to the stake. Were in. But putin played a pretty important part in it, too. But maybe just to go back with, one more question, philip, about the bill and boris. I mean, what i remember is, you know, bill clinton going out of his way to, bring russia into the what was the g7 and became the g8, a big effort from washington to prevent the collapse of. Russian Financial Markets before august 1998, which failed and they did collapse into a big devaluation. But i think there was a rounds of assistance before, the collapse suggesting that there a desire from washington to be helpful. So i feel i mean, cant you tell a story that the u. S. Sort of did its best, rather, just as it were, the china when it brought china into the wto to give russia a chance to be part of the western club, and then the russians take it . No, i dont. You can make that case. You know, very much a question of is the part full or is it half empty . The way the russians saw it, the west gave just enough aid so that they didnt revert to communism. And you talk about 1998. I could talk about 1996 when yeltsin was standing for reelection. And was was terribly sick, terribly unpopular. And they really they really had to make enormous efforts, gerrymandering and all the that people do to try to win elections when theyre very much behind. And they controlled the media at that time. Yes. The west did pour in a little bit of money to help, but it was never enough. The first deputy Prime Minister, the guy who formulated Economic Policy for yegor gaidar, said, you know if you could give us just, you know, half as much, wed probably be able to our economy to take off and really establish a proper market system. But you dont. And there was a lot bitterness in russia about the way things didnt go right now, im just giving you side of it because there is another side which many people in the west believed and which has a lot to it, that russia was so dysfunctional, that if you pour money, its just going down a black hole. So theres no point. It was that an argument which happened, you within individual western embassies, the ambassador would argue one way the head of chancery would another way. And in in governments, western governments. The upshot was that by the midtolate 1990s, most ordinary russians felt theyd been cheated by this, you know, democracy deal that they got from the west. Theres a pun, and i wont repeat it because its that democracy, which is. Well, its a its a its a an expletive ocracy rather than the democ racy. So yeah, that was the basis on which putin took over. And yeah he did initially try to make a harmonious with the west, but it went south for reasons which we can certainly discuss later, reasons that came from sides but from the russians very much as well. So i have another question from michael, which is sort gets to the title of his book. I mean, one of the striking things about russia is that, you know, whilst being a declining power economically, its been able to make a lot of geopolitical noise and the story with china, the kind of conventional story is that its not the decline which is what you see in russia economically is the precisely the opposite. Its the rise in that creates the tension or clash with the west. So the decline story. Dangerous rise is dangerous. You have a third story and please explain. So we china as peaking power at this point and its coming off of what more than 30 years of rapid growth but now its economy is slowing its starting to get more pushback internationally. And my my coauthor brandes is a leading historian, johns hopkins. And we go back through history and look at every case of these these peaking powers. And they mellow out when their rise starts to come to an end. They tend to go out often in rapacious fashion, to try to rekindle their rise, as well as just to try to long standing. National goals while they still so its its the rise by the fear that if they dont take decisive in the short term theyre going to be doomed to longer term decline. And actually russia is one of our cases. I mean, we note that in the 2000s, russia was a resurgent power. It was banging out 8 Economic Growth rates every year, largely because of high oil and gas prices. But then after the 2008 financial crisis, when Oil Gas Prices plummet and dragged down putins popularity and, the russian economy, along with it, you know, putin starts, first of all, clamping down domestically. But also this is when he starts putting pressure on former states to join what eventually comes to be called the eurasian economic union. He basically wants them to become economic vassals of as a way to rekindle shore up both russian wealth status and power. And the ukrainians, you know, they part of their country says thanks, but no, were actually much more interested in aligning with the west and eventually signing this massive trade deal with the european union. And we know how that tug war ultimately played out. So we just worry, you know, we go through all these historical cases and then we look at roughly the last 15 years of Chinese Foreign and we find that, you know, rising powers actually tend to be quite peaceful because everything is going in their direction. Why would you upend the applecart if its, you know, youre gaining International Power and to countries that are in freefall like the soviet union in the late 1980s. They also tend to be peaceful because they have no other option. They have to basically sell out. But its these peaking powers where theyve built up formidable capability is its puffed up their egos and their expectations, but theyre looking at a future of closing windows opportunity and opening windows of vulnerability. They tend to be the prime movers and shakers. I mean, there are catalysts examples like argue that germany starts world one in large part because its worried its about to get crushed in a russian and vise with an assist from britain. We know that. Why did the japanese attack the United States at pearl harbor . Was because they were super confident about their ability to defeat the United States. No, its because they that if they didnt make decisive moves in the short term, they were going to be in a lot of trouble in the long term. And we we even if china doesnt go anywhere near, those catastrophic examples, theres any other moderate examples, none of which turn particularly well, because these countries more prickly and aggressive well as more repressive internally. So therefore, youre arguing that its this decade in which some kind of conflict involving china is the most likely. It wasnt before when they were rising first. It wont be in the future when. They stagnate properly. Its right now and you have this nice phrase, the geopolitical catastrophes occur at the intersection of ambition and desperation and so this leads to the obvious question. What probability do you ascribe to a military conflict between the us and china by 2030 . So you know, major power war is obviously is always a pretty rare and not very probable thing. If youd asked me this question maybe five years ago, id say theres a 1 chance of a war over Something Like taiwan. I now were its kind of bumped up into double digits, so maybe 10 to 15 . If you really pressed me, which may not sound like a very high probability, but you know i play a lot of poker and i cant tell you how many hands or ive been, you know, a 90 favorite and ive lost all my money. So, you know, these things can happen and because were talking about what could radically escalate to essentially a massive potentially of a Nuclear Conflagration between the two most powerful countries in the world even a 10 chance of a risk over like taiwan is way too high. And, you know, to your point, you know, the reason the is called danger zone was not just sort of piggyback on tom cruise and maverick, but it was more just because we tend to think about the u. S. , china rivalry as this decades long marathon. In fact, theres a bestselling book called the 100 year marathon on where, you know, each side kind of has years to get its house in order. We actually worry that the sharpest phase of this conflict is going to be more like a ten year sprint in the 2020s, just given all of the that china faces and how quickly its moving, not just militarily but economically, as well as to spread aspects of its system internationally. So mina, thinking about india, i mean this you know, this sort of way of looking at countries and trying to predict how theyre going to behave vis a vis the United States sort based on how theyre growing. They have they gone through growth, but now theyre facing and now its dangerous. This sort of lens. I just wonder whether theres a policy error that u. S. Is engaging in, which goes back to George W Bushs opening to india and the acceptance of india as a Nuclear Power and. And the area would be, you know, the classic view of geopolitics in asia is from the us perspective, you know, were worried about china, therefore we want counterbalance to china. India is a democracy. India speaks english, india has nice tech people that we like. So lets hope for huge indian growth. And this will be a counterbalance to china. But you take the view that you know countries with populations north of a billion people that grow very fast are ultimately going to inevitably want a share of the power in the global and india is not a member of the un Security Council apparently you know that that could end up being the of era that we feel we vis a vis china by bringing them into the wto we thought that a rising china would integrate into the system and become a u. S. Ally maybe a rising india might grow very fast and turn out to be more of a rival than a friend. Or do you think thats negative. Well. Theyve tried to make india a member of the Security Council, but china has blocked it. So. Way back in. And khrushchev way back in 1955, had suggested nehru that maybe they should nominate india and at that time demurred. You know, he thought that was a step too far. That was not necessary. He he thought theyd, be all kinds of resistance. So at that point, india actually didnt think it was ready. Obama as you well know, sort of came to india and made an announcement, then saying that they were going to try and propose india. There was a lot pushback from china and. So they knew they couldnt get it through. But i think the was really to the indian public know and to let the indian bureaucracy know that the u. S. Was on their side and was very much favor of having india in the Security Council. And, you know, india is going to be indias turn is coming up in the g20 later to lead the g20. Now its a temporary position, but if you saw what happened i mean, modis taken a pretty active internationally. Now and india has a lot of power. Its a, you know, seat at the high table, at the global high table. I think its taken as a serious country, partly because its become economically, its become a force in the world and its membership in the quad has made it a powerful player and you know, that, you know, initially xi actually not not xi, but i think his foreign minister several years ago and they had a first meeting a few years ago had said, oh, this is foam is going to disappear into the sea and this is not the quad is not an important instrument and they sort of pooh poohed the idea today, calling it the theyre calling the quad and eastern nato and theyre finding it rather a threat. So now theyre taking taking it quite seriously because the quad has become a slightly more aggressive counter to china. So think that, you know. I think the us is building up the quad and i because australia and japan are now on board with it as a counter where where it goes in the future. I think. I think india is hedging bets bets to be quite honest you know this is this is what someone calls the most dangerous place on earth. Everyone nuclear armed. I mean, the bet hedging feels like, you know, back to what you were saying earlier. You come out of colonization and you want to be nonaligned. Truman says youre with us or against us. And they say, well, neither an, you know, that could be a repeat of that, right . Were back. You know, after what happened last week at the g20, after what happened in the shanghai cooperation last month, where modi came out, frankly, and criticized russia quite strongly, i dont see how india can say that its nonaligned anymore. So i think they seem be fairly clearly in the western camp right now. Now, with. Even though they have come out quite against the war and, you know, theyre still. 90 of their spare parts for their military. Theyre still dependent russia. They have diversified their military down to 60 now so that all their new you know sales are now coming from europe or the us. But it takes a long time to divert ossify your military hardware, takes years so but for all their old military that thats still you know russian made 90 of those spare parts are still russia now im im wondering russia is having trouble supplying its spare parts for the ukraine war and when i just mentioned this earlier to jamychal they turned to china to help them out. And china said, no. So theres a of geopolitical shifts going on in that region. Now, i think china is also seeing trying to hedge its bets. So philip, want to draw on your expertise on both russia and china because of course, you wrote the biography of mao as well as the one of stalin. More recently im not studying putin. Sorry, putins stalin. Freudian stalin rather than putin. I guess i had married in my head, so is in the wrong era . Yeah, but you know, traditionally one argument that used to be made in contrasting and stalin and mao not putin in my was that you know whereas russia had a doctrine of global revolution and therefore was sort of ideologically committed to spreading trouble abroad, china did not. And and now were in a moment where chinas willingness to kind of focus internally appears to have evaporated or at least its by the desire to be more but dominant in the region. And so, first of all, do you agree that that was a valid ideological distinction to make during the cold war . And how do you see that now . Well, i think it was partly valid i dont entirely agree because my saw china very much as a kind of revolutionary beacon beaming out to the rest of the world that would inspire revolution everywhere else. Now, thats not the same as having the comintern, the common form and world network, quite powerful communist parties, which the russians had, but still, you know, it wasnt it wasnt black and white it that way. But ive been very struck by by what you just said, nina, about gop political shifts, because were all talking, michael, about china. You india may about russia, but there is a broader picture that we have entered a period where the the geopolitical givens of the last 30 years are changing. And were going into Uncharted Waters part of the reason is that the relative strength of the United States has declined. And when i say relative but you know, back in 1960, you had 40 of world world gdp. Now its 24 , which means other have got stronger. China, obviously india, the brics countries. But that is a process which is going forward. Its not going to stop this these challenges to american domination and fundamentally, what were seeing, ukraine is, a challenge by russia to domination in europe. American leadership, if you like, in europe, the chinese, the indians as well have a certain sympathy with this and so do so does most of the global south that they would rather have a larger in things which means that the United States ought to listen to them more, that the europeans ought to listen to them more. And there will eventually a much more multipolar world. And its in this context that i think were all talking about are individual. And conflicts and everything else. But the next ten, 20 years, putin said and not everything he said is wrong this is going to be a very dangerous and unpredictable period. And not just of what hes doing in ukraine, but because the whole chessboard is changing. Yeah. And so i mean, in some ways you could say the new cold war is starting right . You see the us imposing an embargo, the export of advanced semiconductors to china, semiconductors are so central to modern industrial economy that its kind of like an energy embargo. And if you look at numbers, as i happened to do for some reason recently and you look at, you know the size of total russian natural gas exports and before the invasion of ukraine and the total size was kind of one six of the size of Chinese Semiconductor imports. So otherwise, semiconductors are a much bigger dollar business than natural gas. And we see how damage putin has done to the economies of western europe by putting an embargo on the export of natural gas. So for the us to say china wont get more advanced semiconductors is pretty big deal and coming off the summit just recently biden said you know were not in a cold war with china. But if you actually look at the walkies, walking the talk hes talking kind of does a bit like a cold war. So i maybe michael to comment on that with his expertise on china and well come back to you, too. Im really glad you brought that up because ive actually been surprised how little News Coverage there has been because me this is essentially a signal of the Economic Warfare by the United States on china spends more to import computer chips than it does to import oil. And you know think how many aspects of our lives depend on high End Computers ships and so for the United States not only prohibit china accessing these chips but also no possibility to build itself and it is i think it could be a devastating blow for the chinese economy and no amount of diplomatic summitry can really squelch that out. So to me, this is a huge itll be not just interesting but terrifying to see how china decides to respond to this. Can they you know, theyve spent more than 100 billion trying to make their own Domestic Semiconductor Industry . I think china has no prospect of being able to catch up just simply because no country, i dont think, can produce these chips by themselves. Not even the United States. United states is completely dependent on the dutch to make these lithography machines that only the dutch can make. Theyre completely dependent on the taiwanese to do the final of the most high end chips, dependent on various parts from south korea and japan. And so how is going to make up for for all of that . It just doesnt seem possible. And i think its notable that despite spending than 100 billion, you, chinas National Champion in this area, makes computer. Theyre about as cutting edge as a flip phone, you know. So its just going to be extremely difficult for china to close that gap. But that actually worries me because chinese have made very clear an assault on chinas economy. They see as an assault on the ccp on its hold on power, which justifies a whole range of options. They dont just have to respond in the economic sphere. They can respond in number of other ways and. So im just im worried that, you know, because we in our book, we study, you know, the history of u. S. Japan relations in the 1930s. And when the United States cuts japan off from from oil the japanese, dont say, oh, well, i guess well just abandon our empire in east asia. You know, end up with with pearl harbor. So its just its very worrying to see how will respond to what i see as economic by the United States on china. You know, i mean, theres a dimension to this policy, which is, you know, can the us keep its allies on board around this embargo. So specifically, as michael is saying, you need actually holland to be your ally, right. Because theyve got the best Lithography Company and thats the one that builds the machines with which you engrave the second sun to the under the wafers semi of silicon. So you need the dutch to be on side, you need the japanese to be on side. You need the South Koreans need the taiwanese, because these are key economies in terms the supply chain for semiconductors. Now when the us in day was trying to say youre with us, so youre against us in the cold war, you know, our allies at least truman did marshall plan, at least truman, you know, was the president who presided over the creation of the gatt, laid the cornerstone of the Global Trading system. You know, he was setting a system of international alliances, natos that mean the u. S. Was not standing on its own in this. Youre with us. So youre against us. Cold war struggle. And this was at a time when u. S. Share of global gdp was actually more like 50 , not 40 , because it was 1950, not 1960. And so the u. S. Was super strong and yet it was super cognizant of the need to have strong alliances. Now, the question today and this kind of gets slightly to u. S. India relations is if the wants to get strong alliances to it up in this embargo and it needs the taiwanese, the dutch and so forth to be on side doesnt have to offer something in terms of trade access or other economic cooperation. You cant say to the dutch, hey give up on the chinese market, but were giving you zero extra chinese american access, you cant say that to you cant say that to taiwan. So do you think that in a way, you know, india in its historic sort of bumping up against the u. S. In terms of trade policy around, intellectual Property Rights and trips and all that . You know, it could become a bit of a figurehead or a sort of leader in the rest of the world of the u. S. Withdrawal, trade liberalization. Yeah. So that india definitely had a very difficult trade relationship. The u. S. No question. Thats very protection asset. But can i actually ask a question from the panelists . Im on this on this issue because it you know, initially. The whole concern was that if countries engaged with each other on trade and, the world became very interconnected on with their trade with their trading and became trading partners. It would actually prevent wars the future right that was the whole theoretical concept that countries would become so dependent on each other that it would prevent wars because they would have so many interests in common. But weve discovered that that isnt necessary in the case and we are in a terrible situation. So especially with china, its most countries their largest trading partner is either the u. S. Or china. And now were in this terrible conflict situations, id love to hear from michael and you about whether what you think about that theory and where we are and where the future lies to your time on trade. Well, it doesnt look very good, does it . I mean, everyones drawing in their horns. Yeah, i think that is that is part of the difficulty of the transition were moving into that people are reshoring or fringe during the new phrases are they want to rely less on globalized supply lines whether that is actually i mean i think one can in a way look at the situation the globalization that occurred as a rather exceptional situation and that were taking some steps back from that is perhaps not as bad a thing as it seems. We may forward again in the future. I dont know where until were very speculative area, but theyre just two tiny things id like to pick up. One from you, sebastian and talked about the new cold war. I really have to disagree because i think one of the essentials of the cold war was and this relates a little bit to trade, one of the essentials of the cold war was it was an ideological conflict there is very little ideology. Now, i know joe biden talks about a war between democracies, autocracies, but thats very much for domestic. Its a spin that this is a war between good and evil. In reality ideology. Doesnt figure that much. Its much more about about in the case of ukraine, military and in more more broadly about economics. And the other thing you chinas pushing back, nina said, pushing back against indian membership of the Security Council. Absolute. But i dont think the british or the french who are hanging for grim death to their permanent membership of the Security Council, would very much like enlargement, which would dilute their powers. You know that its not just the chinese. Others have their interests too. Michael, what do you think about this idea, that the portrayal of the conflict between the us and china as something to do with ideology is is a spin. Whether its spin, i do think we tend to downplay the ideological of uschina rivalry. A lot of people say, well, the chinese, theyre not really an evangelical power. They dont really care if other countries sort of mini chinese. And i think thats certainly true but i do think that the communist party would certainly there to be more autocracies in the world, for one, because other autocracies are less likely to criticize the Chinese Communist party for its own autocratic methods. And second, you know, if china can make democracy look sort of shamble slick and chaotic and corrupt, then the Chinese People are less likely want to emulate those and will be more likely to say, you know what . Cp youre right, we have a hierarchical, wellordered society where everyone knows their place and there is law and order. And so in, you know, especially over the last decade, been amazing the extent which xi jinping has made, you know, loyalty to the party so critical. Every aspect of life in china, you know, every company in china with more than a few employees has to have essentially a political commissar on staff whose whose role is to say are you being loyal. Is everything youre doing in this meeting loyal to the Chinese Communist party. Youve seen this surveillance state and the infuse in of party ideology. I mean, people in, the Chinese Government have to spend 10 to 15 of their time studying. Mao zedong and xi jinping thought. Youre right. So this the idea that somehow this is not an ideological regime always strikes me as a bit odd. And, you know, for the United States, you know, the United States certainly will deal with autocracies. But the United States would probably feel more comfortable in a world where there are more democracies for the exact know mirror image reasons, for for china. And youre seeing this playing out not just in the u. N. Over know conceptions of human rights. You know, to what extent should we prioritize individual which is what the United States or the community or the group china says you can actually trounce on some individual rights if its for the betterment of the group. The United States takes a very different position. But also just in terms of support for various regimes around. The world china has been funneling not just loan, but also technology, Surveillance Systems to more than 80 countries around world to help them clamp down on their populations. And so i think fundamentally there is a strong ideological component and it also exacerbates the military geopolitical aspects of the rivalry, because the chinese and we now know this from documents that have been leaked out not just in the xi jinping era, but in the supposedly days of uschina relations under deng helping jiang zemin, were those leaders. Zemin literally says to his comrades in this internal meeting, you know, clinton just told me the united wants to engage us, but dont be fooled by that. Whether they call it an engagement strategy or containment strategy, what they want is to change us. They want our regime to change, to become a democracy, which means that we effectively lose our iron grip on power. We will never, ever let that happen. Were not going to do a stupid gorbachev move and up. Look how that turned out. In 1989. You know the berlin wall falls because of gorbachev. We faced the Tiananmen Square and we rolled tanks into the streets. Were still here and were on our way to become the dominant country. I think in their minds it was a natural experiment that justifies their ideology. And then accentuates the ideological aspect of this conflict. Today. And im going to ask a slightly different of question, but i also want to get questions from you guys. So if anybody one please echo. Weve got one right away. Okay, lets lets go. Pc yeah, exactly. So many sort of villas. And my question is for the entire panel or even a moderator, i want to hear your opinion as well. So with the rise of authoritarian countries like russia, hungary, belarus, china, north korea and vietnam do you think the way that the u. S. Should reacting to these rising authoritarian nations is by fully embracing our western values, gay rights womens rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press which are all things that are lacking. All those countries i just named, um, philip. Yes, i guess so, um. Yeah, im reluctant always to take a black and white view because what you say, you know, the we, we hold dear in the west, theres an awful lot of disagreement in the in the west, the United States. You, you know, you republicans who wouldnt agree with a lot of what you just said about these being important freedoms. So thats why i kind of hesitated you know, i think we have to stick to our absolutely core values of of basic freedoms, freedom of the press, the rule of law, economic freedoms. Beyond that we get into culture wars pretty quickly. And i think we were talking earlier. Democracy and autocracy. And the chinese will be happy. You know, all happy if our democracy looks a mess were doing pretty good job of making it a mess ourselves. So, you know, yes, core values but thats what we should really stick to. Should we do the next question or do you either want to comment . Yeah, please. No. Yeah, i want to hear from everybody. So yeah, but we also have got three people, four people behind you and you would like to. But i really. Okay, lets take the next one. My question is for mr. Beckley. Ive been reading your book is excellent and you point out many areas in which everything that we hear about great the chinese are and so on, how they do have problem along the way. Now we sort we heard from the russians how great their Communication Service was, how great their army was. And weve seen that they werent. The chinese have built an enormous military, but theyve never fought against a power like the United States or even one thats well armed, like taiwan. So what do you think . Or do you have any ideas or do you have any information about how they consider the effectiveness their military . Are they all wolf warriors or are they still some who are thinking . So i think if you read Chinese Military analyzes, there are, ones that are very straightforward that say, look, we dont have no, no one thats going to be doing the majority of the fighting has any combat experience because china hasnt fought a major war since 1979. They also recognize that they live in a different era and that, you know, the pla chinas military is an awesomely corrupt organization where know to move up the ranks. Theres been massive etc. Xi jinping when he came to power in late 2012 his disdain for the play was so palpable he said this has become a fat bloated corrupt organization and. So he went he purged many many top level leaders. He even went after retired leaders and threw some of them in jail or some of them have just been disappeared. And this really scared the play. Hes obviously pumped a lot of money into it. Youve seen, at least on paper and in watching videos, you know, you can watch do their Satellite Photos of china doing bombing runs full scale mock ups of american bases and taiwanese bases and american aircraft carriers. So theyve been training quite a bit, but thats not the same combat and the Political Science literature that when you try to coup proof a military when you just go through with a sledgehammer, take out a big part of the leadership it tends to not produce a very effective because suddenly the prime directive, everyone in that military becomes not to fight well, but to just show the leader, the leader what they want to hear. Look good for the leader. And so i think xi shipping should worry that his military on paper will perform in actuality similar to how the Russian Military performed. But the problem is, dont know if he gets that information for this exact reason, dictators tend to fall into their own echo chamber. So whether there is top level discussions, im actually frankly doubtful, even though at the lower levels, like even someone you know, outsider like me can get their hands on, certain documents and textbooks that are in Chinese Military academies. But i just dont i really dont think that gets filtered in a big way to the top level leadership, which is why i dont think we can that just because maybe russias military performed badly, that china will say, oh i guess conquest is really hard, maybe we shouldnt we should lay off taiwan. I actually worry that there will drive other lessons like rattle the nucleus loud and clear, move big, brutal from the start. Dont stumble into country and discount the weaknesses of their military. Another question for mr. Sure. Could you Say Something please about the origins effectiveness of putins meddling in . I mean, do you think was decisive in 2016, but also regarding and how you see the wests countermove was how effective are they. In the case of brexit its easier for me to answer because i dont think there was any any significant meddling. The was a little indirect act but no the british managed shoot themselves in the foot without any from the from russia im afraid in your case, you know those in the three key states in 2016 the margins were pretty small. Did putins did russian interference swing votes towards trump or did the the the the democrats perception democratic Voters Perception that russia was interfering actually mobilize them more. You know it could have worked both ways we tend not to look at the the other side of that the possibility that the trumps association with russia in the public mind in the democrat public mind may actually have rebounded against him. So i think its its really i find anyway, as an outsider, impossible to judge now why did want trump in. I dont think he actually that it would succeed he did no i dont think he did. But i think he did want to discredit american democracy was the fundamental goal. And i think could say he didnt do such a terrible job of that. But whether it whether he moved votes, i dont think anyone is actually going to be able to prove it one way, one way or the other. 2021 i, i dont think there a great deal of interference because he didnt need to if we doing such a grand job yourselves of messing up those elections, it was better that he stay away and he he didnt get involved. Next question. Question about the russians, as people and the Chinese People, do you think that they have a National Character theyre like a dna that just never that never accept a democratic rule that somehow built into their culture, that they would always accept a leader they needed and whether they like it or not, thats way they have to live. In the chinese case. I dont buy that because you just look at taiwan and the people that are of chinese heritage, theyre one of the, you know, most flourishing democracies in the entire world. The ccp line, which they communicate to their population that democracy is not appropriate for china. I think just a this is one of the many reasons they wanted destroy taiwan is because its this counterexample to their whole narrative in terms of that, you know, its hard to make generalizations about you. 1. 4 billion people. One thing i would say, though, is, you know, after Tiananmen Square massacre, the chinese regime realized that communism was just not going to cut it as sort of an ideology for the people. So what they what they did and this starts under Deng Xiaoping and extends to the present day is develop this new nationalist narrative centered around the century of humiliation you know from the mid 1800s to 1949 where china just gets ripped apart by imperialist powers and in on itself they say, look, are we the we are the ones that recovered china from that horrible catastrophe and we have to hold together as a nation because were in a dangerous and dark world. All of these other great powers are just out. Get us that nationalist narrative. You know, with my chinese friends who, you know, these Young Millennials who, like in so many other aspects of life, are very just open, globalized, you know, citizens, they study here i have a lot of chinese students, but you bring up some of these issues that the has characterized in nationalist fashion and they can quickly you know, very much espoused in that. So i think there is a certain strategic that has developed in the country precisely because the state has promoted it so heavily. And what about the russians . Can i may i briefly add something. Yeah, i agree with what youve said. I think there are historical and cultural continuities, which you have you you have to take into account in both china and in russia, taiwan, its a bit taiwan on the mainland, a bit apples and oranges. And yes, they are, of course, chinese and they have become democratic. But there were in a very special situation with a lot of american support and and influence. So i think it will be i think what one can say is it will be its not going to happen overnight. Its going to be an extremely slow process. After all, we took a long time to get to our democratic societies the same with russia if you talk to Young Russians in Moscow St Petersburg the biggest cities. Yeah theyre very much like young frenchmen or young germans or young americans. They are very minded. But there a kind of historical overhang and to expect democracy is going to come about in russia ten years time, 15 years time. You know, its its going to take longer than that because the weight of the past and the strength russian culture, not in my lifetime of. Okay, last question and then well wrap up. Good afternoon. My question is why all these topics were talking about here are not in Mainstream Media. Its just. We are in were really right now at war with russia and with china, who knows what will happen. We are not in real, but we are in competition with china and they are pushing us out of asia. So it seems to me that people on the street are just not familiar with that. But we are really at war. I mean, maybe ill take that since i am a journalist, i dont that people are unaware of it. Its always very hard to quantify you know what what people know what they think you can do opinion polls and but i think that in the case of russia the ukraine war is pretty well understood. And what observers um, i think in the case of the general drift is widely i know that when i write or in the Washington Post about china, a lot of people seem to read them. You can just see the numbers shooting up because i think people are prerock upi with china as the main rival in the world to us power. Um, i think the specifics of the semiconductor embargo, as michael said, have probably passed people by because its a bit technical, although its a huge deal. Um, but maybe give the American Public more credit for understanding whats going than you do. But anyway, the public here has been great. So thank you for coming. Youve been listening and thank you to the panelists. Thanks, everyone. The authors will be autographing books just at the end of the hallway and. The next session will begin in just a few minutes. What do you think youre asking. Yes. I know. I think. And this is tvs coverage of the 2022 Miami Book Fair in just a few moments, well be back with another discussion. Heres a look at some recent publishing news. Both mike pences so help god and Michelle Obamas the slightly carry were released this week. The former Vice President opens his book. I have always been loyal to President Donald Trump and concludes by saying that the two will disagree on what happened on january 6th, 2021. The former lady writes in her latest book, it shook me profoundly to hear the man replace my husband as president openly and unapologetically using ethnic slurs, making and hate somehow acceptable. The Washington Posts book. World reviews beverly gages, new book about j. Edgar hoover, gman, saying that its masterful and that hoover emerges as a strangely tortured who wielded power for an astonishing 48 years. And the National Review looked at economist russ roberts latest book, wild problems, and concluded that it fits into the tradition of economists critiquing economics with the aim not to delegitimize it or denigrated, but to improve it. Two of the current bestselling books, according to the los angeles times, are president ial in nature. They historian john meachams new biography of abraham lincoln. And there was and confidence man. Maggie haberman look at president. Finally book tv recently with Andrew Albanyof publishers about the Penguin Random house and simon and schuster proposed merger which was denied on antitrust grounds. Heres what he had to say. Andrew albanys is a Senior Writer with publishers weekly, and hes followed the case from the beginning and he joins us now. So mr. Albanys remind of what this merger was. Begin with this was said to be the the coming together of the Worlds Largest english language trade publisher is Penguin Random house with, its Third Largest big five rival publisher Simon Schuster would have created a megamerger publisher that would have been roughly 49 of the market for bestselling books. So who was supporting it and who was against it . Well, supporting it, of course. The merging parties. Right. Simon and schuster, Parent Company viacomcbs, had decided to get out of the Publishing Business and Penguin Random house, obviously the largest and most successful publisher right now, really wanted to pick it up. So they were the ones who were really pushing for this, who was against it . Well, pretty much everybody in the Book Business against this deal and all eyes then turned to the department of justice to see whether or not they would step in to try to block the deal, which, of course, november of 2021, they did. And what was the Justice Department position really interesting here . Because most times when we talk about antitrust cases, were talking about a monopoly that deal with potential consumer effects. The department of in this case was pursuing monopoly monopsony claim, which is when a market contracts down one or a few buyers, in this case, the buyer was the publisher and seller was authors who were selling rights. These publishers. Now, monopsony claims not uncommon, but they are somewhat unusual. Usually we see with an antitrust, its about monopoly and potential consumer prices. This was all about market for book rights. For authors. It was a very novel approach. And i think that led to a lot of people questioning, whether or not this was going to be an effective case for the department of justice. Of course, in the end, it was the judge clearly bought the department of justices case here and ruled them blocking the deal and. The assistant attorney general, jonathan kantor, said after the judge ruled on this case, quote, the proposed merger would reduced competition, decreased author compensation diminished the breadth, depth and diversity of, our stories and ideas and ultimate impoverished our to morrisey thats a pretty strong statement indeed. A very strong statement, one i think that the publishing community, particularly authors in the publishing, have been looking for for years. The Publishing Industry as judge faunce pan noted in their decision, is pretty highly concentrated. We have five major publishers in the industry. This would have taken it down to four. But more problematic is that it would have made one huge firm at the top of that industry. Penguin random house, Simon Schuster, that combined entity. And it was that entity the government said that was going to have uncommon power to suppress advances and shove potentially not beneficial terms down the authors throats and. If authors cant make money on their books or cant get good deals on their books, that ultimately would have an impact on all of us because we would not. The diversity of ideas out there that we need in this country. And florence pang, judge, florence said in her ruling, the effect of the proposed merger may be substantially lessen competition in the market for the us Publishing Rights to anticipated top selling books. We seem to spend a lot of time this case talking about bestselling books. Exactly and you know, thats just the Legal Standard judge pan was whether or not this deal with it was likely to substantially lessen competition. She found it easily. And you raised the the exact right point that we talked in this case, the department of justice built its case on this very small subset of books. And these are books that get advances of. Over 250,000, which seems like a lot. But really, when you factor in how much work goes into a book, its actually not that much. The publishers had argued that this just a really small segment of the total book market, less than 2 of authors and you know, you really cant block a deal is anticompetitive based on this really small subset. But judge florence easily saw through that noted, that while this is a small number authors that get these advances, they account for. I think she said 70 she found of the revenue of these bestselling books are where publishers really make their money. And if the publishers were to get so much control that these the combined entity should say over this section of the industry it would really change the balance of power in an anticompetitive sense in the Book Business and andrew, one of the celebrity people who spoke up as celebrity authors who spoke up during this trial was stephen king that got a of attention. It did get a lot of attention. And frankly, though, stephen king didnt have a lot to say that was on point in terms of the legal case. What he did resonated loudly, though, and thats was and that was consolidation in the industry is bad and it to be arrested it hurts authors and it was it was interesting trial the defense attorney petrocelli had no questions for stephen king so id love to have coffee with you and sit down and talk about your fascinating career. But i have nothing to ask you today. And that was the defenses their attempt to sort of characterize kings testimony as not really pertaining to the case. But i think if you read judge pans decision, theres a lengthy section there about consolidation and competition in the Book Business, i think she clearly was affected by kings testimony. So was the reaction from simon and schuster and Penguin Random house after the. Well disappointment, obviously. And i really feel for the employees of Simon Schuster right. Because they are still looking for a home more than two years later. And there seems to no end in immediate sight for them to to whos going to be their corporate. Nevertheless, theyve continued to put out outstanding books. Simon schuster has been posting record sales throughout for the last couple of years and still to this day, Penguin Random house. I think its a little more complicated. I think they would like to i think theyre considering an appeal to try to push this forward. Where that gets complicated now is that both you know simon, schuster and Penguin Random house have to agree move Forward Together in any appeal. And you can see where Simon Schuster would want. Just move on and find a new buyer can pass muster and be approved by the department of justice, whereas think Penguin Random house would like to continue the fight and ultimately make simon and schuster part of its portfolio. To use your words, why is simon and schuster looking for a home . I think its you know, it comes down to a corporate decision with viacomcbs that publishing is not part of their core strategy for the future, you know, viacomcbs obviously, were looking at the age of streaming and technology and content and things are changing rapidly. Books are a mature, you know, were not getting like a ton of innovation from the Book Business, right . Were selling books. And while books doing very well, the market for books has been significantly over the last couple of years. Like i said, theres not ton of growth that youre going to squeeze out of an industry thats mature, like the Book Business and not a lot innovation to come there. So i think they just didnt see that aligning with their strategic goals and decided that it was time to move. Well, Andrew Albany is a publisher us weekly. Thanks for the update on this case. Myleasure. Book tv will continue to bring publishing news and new author prra. You can watch all of our programs sunday on cspan two and online at. Dot org. Recently on book tv. Yoram hasson, chairman of the edmund burke foundation, author of conservatism a rediscovery discussed whether western civilization is worth defending any of community has a public it has a public religion. It has a public philosophy there is a an implicit or explicit framework that every human lives. Thats what allows what allows our our children to not have to reinvent. And, you know, every thought idea, every every standard, every norm from scratch every generation is that something something something very big in general is inherited. And and i think quite a few people have argued that that the rapidly rising woke woke neo marxism, whatever you want to call this, whatever you want to define it, that movement is making a bid to offer a public religion and its succeeding, succeeding very, very well in, creating a new public religion, a new public philosophy for the United States and britain and for other countries. And and and the. The previous public religion or, public philosophy, which, again, i you know, i dont want to go down the rabbit holes of labels and definitions, but in my book i argue that from after World War Two until the year 2020, there was a hegemony of a thing that a public philosophy that recognized as as liberalism, that called itself liberalism, at least all the professors would talk about it, called that liberalism. To watch the full program just search yoram hazen or the title of his book conservatism a rediscover re at book tv dot org. Book tv is featured politicians who are also authors won elections in this years midterms. Democrat wes moore became marylands first black governor. Hes appeared on book tv several times to. Talk about his books. It isnt just about can we make sure that Police Officers have body cameras . Yeah. You know, its not just about, you know, how do we how do we add on clauses to things like Law Enforcement order, Law Enforcement officers bill of rights or qualified immunity. Its not stopping there the demands that we are seeing right now are actually dealing with Structural Racism. And how exactly can we deal with all of these various issues in a way with, a very real sense of sincerity and and a very real sense of activation and movement. Republican senator tim won reelection in south carolina. He appeared on book tv recently to discuss book america a redemption story. I think its necessary for us to wrestle with of the more foundational issues of who we are and where were going and how were going to get there. Are we going to go together or not . I think the answer is were going to go together or not at all. I think its interesting and and frankly helpful for us to go through this tribal conversation to see how hard it is to to make up for past discrimination with future discrimination. Yeah. Its not working really well for us. Right now, but were going to try to figure that out. Were gonna figure it out. But the truth is that all the all the tribes that were put in together in this republican tribe or a democrat driver, a black or white one, are a class system or a caste system, rather, of centralized control or not. I think all of that will burn off and what it will produce is an American Family that has more respect and appreciation for the necessity of pursuing the american dream. As one family in south dakota, kristi noem was reelected as governor. Her recent autobiography is titled not my first rodeo what i believe republicans in the house and the senate need do is cast a vision for where we are going. Not just be opposed to joe biden, even though so many of his policies are bad for our country right now. I do think that we also have to be clear on what were for and to be ready to take action. Should have the opportunity to get congressional bills passed and get them to the president s desk before his election to the senate from ohio republic, j. D. Vance was well known as the bestselling author of hillbilly elegy, and he appeared at the National Book festival in 2017. I think we have a pretty significant problem with the fact that youre effectively given choice when you graduate from high school. Between going and working in a fast food job or going and getting a four year college education. And i think that we should provide more pathways than that. I think its not surprising when those are the only two pathways that you see people going in those two directions. But, but i also think but i also think we have to think a little more constructively about Regional Economic, you know, the way that this has gone for the past ten or 20 years is that im a local municipality. I offer somebody a tax credit to set up a restaurant in my hometown. And thats thats great new restaurants are fantastic. But thats not the sort of long Term Economic redevelopment that has to happen in some of these. And i think that its something that, you know, basically all levels of policymakers have to be differently than they are right now. And democrat cory bush was reelected in her st louis area district. She appeared on book tv to discuss her book, the forerunner the Sexual Assault that experienced before. Most of it happened around. It was like my early twenties, late teens, twenties. It was when i was still trying to, you know, find myself, quote. And i blamed myself. I went through the next 20 years blaming myself every single time that happened. Oh, it was my shirt was cut short and my my my shorts were really, really short. It was because i was out walking with friends when i met them and that, you know, i was dressed a particular way so that, you know, so thats why i happened. So when they took out on the date, they just assumed that thats what i wanted or, you know, like i, i made all of these excuses for what happened to me in all the blame fell on me. You can watch all of these programs online at book tv dot org. Org and also tune in sundays on cspan two to watch all of your favorite. And book tvs coverage of the Miami Book Fair continues now. On. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Im nyala harrison, an attorney at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig here in miami. And its my pleasure to welcome you to the 39th Miami Book Fair. Were grateful to the miamidade family and to the hundreds of volunteers who make this all possible. And for the support of the green family foundation, the bachelor and a number of other sponsors and. As i look out this afternoon, i see a number of the friends of the fair are in the room today. So friends where are you all . Right. Good to see you all. I know youve been here since morning and you continue support. So we thank you for that. Im going to go ahead and bring up daniel babin, whos director of the mdc campus bookstores, to go ahead and introduce the authors this afternoon. But before i do, let tell you that there is we will be having a question and answer session towards the end this afternoon. And for everyones viewing listening pleasure. If you would please silence your devices and please come daniel thank you. Hello. My name is daniel babin. Im the area director for the Miamidade College of bookstores. And i just want to say thank you and welcome the Miami Book Fair 2022 taking place online. And in downtown miami at the wolfson campus of Miami Dade College, miami colleges commitment to access for has guided our vision for our miami connected to the world and a world connected to miami through a vibrant, accessible exchange of ideas. So welcome all of you and i hope you enjoy the program so im thrilled to introduce the moderators and authors for todays. First, we have scott turow. Hes the author of many bestselling works of fiction, including the last trial testimony identical, innocent, presumed innocent, the burden of proof, and two nonfiction books, including in one hour, about his experience as law school student. His books have been into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, and adapted into movies and tv projects. He frequently contributed essays and op ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, vanity fair, the new yorker and the atlantic, and suspect. Grand central publishing. We meet lucia gomez, police chief in the city of highland isle near county. In spite of her spotless. Three male Police Officers have accused her of soliciting for promotions. For the investigate that follows. Gomez, who turns to an old friend rick dubuc, to act her attorney and insists that the accused are designed to destroy her career and empower her enemies. And his investigator, clarice pinky gruner, feel that the cases in theres is chance to break into the legal big leagues. But before that, pinky will get drawn into the deepest recesses of the citys criminal networks and unravel some dark secrets. All right. Also joining us is Craig Johnson is the New York Times best selling of the longmire mysteries, the basis for the hit Netflix Original series of the same name. He has received awards for fiction from the western writers of america and the mountain of plains, independent booksellers association. His novella of steamboat was the first one book, wyoming selection in hell and back along by our mystery viking, the 18th installment of the series, johnson, his beloved sheriff to the very limits of his sanity, he wakes up lying in the middle of the street in the infamous town of fort pratt, montana, where 30 young native boys perished in, a tragic 1896 boarding school fire. Every person from that endless night dead. Now he is covered in blood and a bullet from the gun holster on his hip missing. Its something is something out there in the yellow skies . Is it . What . The northern cheyenne to as the wandering without the taker souls. He knows his name only because its printed on the leather sweatband of his cowboy. It says hes Walt Longmire. Only he doesnt remember. And last in our panel, we have brad meltzer. Hes the number one New York Times bestselling author of 12 thrillers, including the escape artist and nonfiction books as the lincoln conspiracy and the series ordinary people change the world. He also hosts the tv show brad meltzer decoded, the history channel, the rod, a zig in nolan novel from william morrow, reunites mortician zig ziglar, koski and the artist nola brown. And a murder mystery involving the of national security. Archie mint, a man with a beautiful wife, two kids and a successful military career is is killed while trying to stop her already in his home case. Similarly close, except it turns out that mints been hiding criminal secrets while working on this body before funeral. Ziggy discovers something he was meant to see that telling detail leads him to mints former Top Secret Military unit and his connection with nola brown following nola nolas, he uncovers one of the u. S. Governments intensely guarded secrets and military facility and a secret willing to compromise americas very safety and security two years earlier. Nola may have saved ziggys life, but she still as volatile and dangerous and. Troubled, always finds her so. Without further ado, heres our author, james bennett. Thank you. Im dave. Welcome. Im dave. I was going to say daves here in the front row, so we have to make a joke about him. Come on. You can. Daves so happy that youre clapping for him. Its fantastic as the person is from. Miami. I just want to welcome what we decided backstage. Actually, we discussed it for about 5 hours. What were going to do here today, as opposed to hastily doing it 5 minutes ago, backstage, were going to each talk about our books one by one and then hopefully some questions and open it up. So want to start . Okay. My new novel called suspect or suspect. You can you can pronounce it as you like, clarice pinky graham appeared as a character. My last novel, the last trial. Shes the granddaughter of recurring character of mine, sandy stern, who was the defense lawyer and presumed innocent. Sandy for whom pinky once worked now in assisted living. And pinky is working for another relative as an investigator, the law office of rick dudek, who david mentioned and pinky is an eccentric. Her own view. Shes got a what looks like a common nail through her nose. She regards herself as a misfit and shes 33 years old now and beginning to come to terms with the fact that she really doesnt want the same things life that most of her age peers do. And shes she has discovered a talent for being an investigator. The fact shes basically an outsider or somebody who misses social cues frequently allows her to be pretty good observer of things. And shes now trying to unravel all the mystery surrounding the sex stories and claims against lucia gomez, the police chief, and this sort of working class city of highland dial and, you know, thats where things take off. She also an untoward interest in her next door neighbor, whos a very strange seeming guy. And she describes him to her boss, rick, and the opening chapter. And rick says he sounds like a guy who wants to left alone. So leave him alone, which you know, and thats thats not in her nature. Next up high. Im im Craig Johnson, the author of the Walt Longmire mysteries. Look about 20 years ago i had this bright idea. Everything that point in time in crime fiction was very noir, very urban, gritty. And i thought, what if you a series that was, you know, even a novel that was based on the sheriff of the least populated county in the least populated state, you know, in the country. And one of the things i did not take into consideration was how many people can you kill in least populated county in wyoming before it starts getting kind, absurd like that, you know . And so so i kind of moved walt out, like into some different places to kind of like open up a little bit. And this, this book actually is kind of an element of that, too the previous book, daughter the morning star like it, which was last years, was kind of an answer to a social problem thats happening. Not really a social problem. It a problem period in Indian Country with murdered missing indigenous which is kind of a scourge thats going on right now like that and im kind of really kind of tickled to death to be here on this panel with these two individuals because whats really, really nice is all three of us, you know, we dont, you know, write our crime fiction with the sense that were just trying to stack up bodies like cordwood to get to, you know, flip pages generally it starts off with like some kind of a social or some kind of an issue that we want to try and take a hand at. And so its great to have an idea like that in a cause like that. But then you have to have a story. And i really didnt have a story for daughter. The star until i got a phone call from a friend, mine tiger scalp. Cain, whos the athletic up at Lame Deer High School on the northern cheyenne reservation. He said, hey, my, my, you know, ive got, you know, this great thats coming up on friday. Look at you know with large like get this is you got to come up and watch game like it and so we went up like and for those of you not in the know lodge grass is crow and lame is northern cheyenne okay and so for those of you who think that the indian wars are over, they are not. Theyre theyre being played out, you know, out there on the basketball. Like ive never seen so many hip checks, elbows tripping, you know, bloody noses. And this was the young Basketball Team each other. Okay. And so when we walked out of there, i looked at jody, my wife, whos here today, like it. And i said, you know, boy, this is this is vehicle is what happens. And so what happens is, is theres a young player by name of jill long like that. And shes a athena, a literal phenom. And the difficulty is that she starts receiving these Death Threats and so the Tribal Police chief gets in with walt, you know, and his good friend henry says, is there any way that you could come up and maybe do a little bit of an investigation into this situation . That and its something that has to be taken very seriously simply because the year previously jeannie long like it had gone missing and they still dont know what happened to her. And so that book kind comes to an end. But there seem to be some some threads that are still kind of loose out there, some spiritual, mystical, kind of that are still open and. And that kind of led me into hell and back at which, you know, does walt waking up, you know, in middle of a blizzard, you know, in the middle of a street in fort pratt, montana. Weve all been there. We all know what thats like. And and so has to, you know, take the situation on, try and figure out, you know, not only, you know why hes there, but who he is. And and all of these things like and hopefully, you know, it turns out be a good read for you. My name is brad meltzer. Im here from miami. Look at the hometown. Theyll give you a pity. Clap now, the fact my father in law literally last right here in the front row, like you guys all clap, and hes like, okay, ill give you one, but i love you. Miami and a huge you just to also i just to start to to books and books and everyone at the book fair who puts this together obviously the best of the best we know that the three of us literally go to the best bookstores in the country and i always will say thats my father in law. His phone, by the way, as well. Its not its that lady right there. Its her. I love that. Embarrassed, too, about that. And for me, we spend our lives going to bookstores and theres nothing like books and books. So i know time you buy your books, you can go click on a thing when you buy your books to help niche and help everyone here. Thats my tedx at this book. Started the lightning rod started me i always start with my own fears i just think your own fears is helpful and and therapeutic and cheaper than therapy and for me every time i parked a car in miami when i would to a valet, i would have this fear. So i started the opening scene as a valet at a fancy restaurant, takes a mans car keys and when he takes the car instead of parking the car in the local lot, he, the valet, takes the mans car and pushes the little button on the gps on the steering wheel, says the magic words, go home, and now the car plots route to the mans house. The valet, the mans car keys. And on that he has his house keys because this is not a valet job. This is a robbery and he gets to the mans house, he breaks into the mans house. Hes going to steal something. But as he opens a door and walks the house, theres another man with, a gun waiting who says, did you really think we didnt know what you were doing . And when our valet winds up dead, another body shows up, that comes to our hero zig and zag, find on the body no ones ever been to see. And that leads to of the governments most closely guarded secrets. Now i just ruined. Chapter one of the lightning rod for you. Its totally ruin. You can start a chapter to. But for me the process is about, you know, again, some kind of issue that im dealing with it. Im worried about myself in this one i found out and this is again at the height of covid that the Us Government has about a dozen secret warehouses hidden all across the country that are filled with antidotes for whether its zika, whether its, you know, smallpox. It was supposed to be of for covid. If we were prepared for it. But the idea being that if there is an outbreak, that we would about and not when you cant predict that whether you live in wyoming, whether you live in chicago, whether youre here in miami, wherever are that, within 3 hours, they can near get to an airport. Theyre always airports and have the antidote. Your doorstep. And i said, youre telling me that the government has secret warehouses nobody can go into one knows whats inside i want to go inside there and i was lucky enough to go inside and get in to see them and you get to the final scenes of the lightning rod, which take place in one of these warehouses. What youre reading is, is i didnt make it up. Its all exactly whats there. Thats whats really. And the fun to me is is, again, exploring some of those things. I talking to a friend who worked on one of the big acronym agencies and. I said to him, how do you even talk secretly anymore in the government . Everyone read, you know, anything thats encrypted, they can crack it within seconds. You put your stuff on signal or anywhere else, they can crack it. And he said, well, heres what you should do. Heres the way. If you want to communicate secretly, he said, get a hotmail account and write an email and hit send instead hit, save. And then i give my friend scott the log into my hotmail account. He opens up my drafts, he reads what it says, he writes his reply, he doesnt hit. He had saved draft and. Now were having a conversation together and weve never put a single into cyberspace. I said, thats a great idea, which it was until general petraeus, the former head of the cia use that trick thats in my book to cheat on his wife with his mistress and i called my buddy and im like thats the thing you gave me you got to give me a better one. Now, the guy just used and hes like, ill give you a better one. I got a better one for you. So the one you see in the book, i wont ruin that. But youll see, i didnt make it up either. Its real. And obviously thats the fun, the book. And to me, you know, exploring the characters are really the part of it and ill use that. We were supposed to talk amongst ourselves, but ill, i will say id love to. Ill ask first question. Were going to ask each other questions. Dont know what were going to ask, but ill say to that, when youre writing someone, sandy, who you wrote when you were you, know, 20, 30 years ago and now youre writing a character, your newest character who clearly is an outcast, is nothing like rusty was and presumed innocent. Know i know you can see you already got your answer. I mean, no, i talk about it because it it really is. Its fascinating me i mean, i read those books, you know, and when it was, you know in the 1990s and here we are in a whole different world but its its a please well i. Got pinkeye. Is 40 years younger than i am shes a female shes by so you know it was a reach to write about her and you know i was afraid of getting with, you know, charges of Cultural Appropriation and or Something Like that. I did not to write in her voice to start its, you know we all know things happen while youre writing and you know, the characters. Its the most romantic and in some ways dumb things that, you know, writers of fiction say, you know, the characters took on a life of their own and you know if they really were if they really had their own life, then how could you rewrite . But you know, that that sometimes thats just the way stuff comes out and its, you know, more vital than writing in the third person. So and you know, my one goal has always been to try not to repeat myself too much and i dont know whether it was Graham Greene or ernest hemingway, one of them in their paris review interview said that all writers write really one book and the older i get, the more i recognize that. True. But, you know, i still like to do different and so, you know, thats where i ended up and but im going to write about rusty next time, whos also in his dotage and you know, thatll be fun to talk about where your character from. Lets see i i think once when i look back and ask myself those type of questions. Like im always its always the same answer. Its always in to something. And i was saying before like that, it like a lot of the characters of that period time like it were alcoholic detective who were burying bodies in their backyard beds and all that like and it seemed like an awful lot of the, the people that i knew in Law Enforcement know were really good people that were working very hard, making, you know, really horrible in their lives. Like to be able to do the job that they were doing. And so i thought, okay, well, you know, maybe walt would be one of those guys. Maybe he would actually a decent guy and then, then, then things started getting more and more complicated, you know, with the character. And then as far as, you know, the repetition aspect to it too, i mean, thats always, you know, a haunting i get to deal with, especially when youre doing the same character year after after year like it. I mean, im on like i think im doing like book 20 right now and always the challenge to try and do something a little bit different each time like that. But then also i might have made it a little bit worse that because i did what i call a love vivaldi is what i call it in the sense that, you know, whenever i would a series of books, they would have know one book and then the next book would be like a year later. And i was always like, okay, well, what happened in that year i want to know what happened in that year like that. And so i decided that the wall books would be like four books per year or be the vivaldis, you know, four seasons, like it. And so that had some really wonderful, you know, side effects in the sense that, you know, since ive started writing world, hes only five years older than when i first met him, like a but then again know at some point in time im going to be older than well dont know if i like that idea at all. I have admit like that. But there are some things that are, you know, kind of unique about, you know, writing in wyoming and you so, you know, when you kind of have that kind of a slowed down of of order technology, a way of like catching up with you, which know i know that you deal with, you know, so much, you know, in your work like it and you do too. But i was on a panel in france like two weeks ago like that. And they were talking about it. The three other authors. I was on the panel with, they were talking about how they had gone back in to set their books, you know, before cell phones and before there was, you know, computer conductivity and all this kind of stuff. And i was like, you dont have to go back in time. You can just come to wyoming like that. And its just, you know, just normal do because i well, i look back on my first book and i like my first five books. If someone just had a cell phone, theres no book like thats its just chapter one. Theyre like, oh, just tell. Okay, thanks. Thats where it goes. Ill talk very quickly about character for mom, for me and scott. Im very much same. I just want to repeat myself. I feel like thats my greatest fear, my greatest and and youre fast. You you can you is can i mean i speak for myself im slow i just cant do em every year and im terrified. Ive read those authors there are so many great authors that long. My series is a perfect example of where youre just like they are crushing every single time. But we all know there are authors who are putting it out every year and theyre not that good right there too. What scott said, that first book is great, and then you go down and theres, you know, one of the biggest authors in the country said to me, if i got to write this character again, i want to put a gun in my mouth and. I remember being like, i never want to be you. You so, so much more than i do and then i ever will. And no, its not even a joke. Like, i just i never want to hate that thing i love. And so for me, finding that new voice, that new and and i thought i was really smart i thought i was like, im going to express myself in a different and and so i found this character or my main character is a guy named zig who believes that, you know, if a good person you put good in the world the world become a better place. And thats a really idea. Its a completely naive idea, but its an idea worth fighting for. And then i was like, well, you know, going to do this character, i found this i was in this government facility and. They had all this these paintings up, these, and the army had all these this, these works of art. And im like, why does the u. S. Military have all this art . And what they told me is that and this true since world war one, the u. S. Military has had a painter on who paints disasters as they happen. And i said you know, whether its storming the beaches of normandy, its vietnam, whether its 911. And i said, youre telling me theres someone who everyones racing with blazing and youve got a guy who races in with nothing but paint brushes their pockets. Im like, thats the craziest guy in the world. I want to meet him, i got to meet that guy. And they said, you mean her you want to meet her . And it was a woman. And my bias, the best of me and i and i met this woman amy brown, who i named my character brown after. And i got this character nola about. And nola believes if you want the world to make sense, grab it by the throat. You force it to make sense. And thats also an idea worth for, right . You see injustice, you must stand against it. You have to not sit there and be nice. You got to take action. I thought, no, but but but the reason i say that is i realized thought i was like, oh, im going to express myself in a different way. And its not that at all. The only one thing i realize. Im curious, do you think the same is as i get older theyre both me, those two characters and their arguments are just me to figure out how i believe the world works. Of course, both of them are right. But i dont, you know, i dont i dont i dont know if any of my best characters ill say my best ones that i like anything but different versions of my view. The universe. Yeah. I mean, you dont know but yourself. So. But that on the other hand theyre parts of yourself that you may not be able to express any other way than imaginatively. So like have you always been interested in Law Enforcement . Greg oh yeah. Yeah. I think that like for me it was one of those situations where, you know, you talking about like doing a book a year. I could very easily become one of those authors like that that would labor over book for the next like 30 years like and if given to my own devices i probably would be rewriting the cold dish. The very first book that i had like but this woman in our lives like gail hochman, our agent who would you know were not allowed that to happen. And so gail is always saying, why cant you be more like. Thats not true. Thats not true. Look at scott. Scott keeps her in the style which hes grown accustomed so she can do mercy jobs like taking me on is what it is, but but yeah, i think you know that its once like that, like you were saying like that. I mean, youve always got to fight the the obvious repetition like that. But i think that also the other big element, i think also that obviously both of you guys have dealt with a great deal like is is the development of those characters and allowing those characters to continue to grow. And thats a dicey proposition. You know, on that tightrope because you are of monkeying with success at that point in time. You are kind of like changing the rules in the game a little bit. And some readers respond to that marvelously. Thank goodness the majority do. But then there are some readers that dont you know, that want those same characters doing same things in the same situations, you know, over and over and over again and, you know, the, the advice, you know, that you always give them is, is like, look, the Grocery Store checkout lines full, you know, of those type of books and if thats what you want to read, then youre more than welcome to do it like that. But for me a lot of it like it comes around to the development you know, in allowing those characters to grow and to something different. And when youre talking about the chronological age thing like that, i mean, know the way that we approach anything and everything in our lives changes. So much over a period of time with that. And so for me, thats a key element. My first book i was i wrote it came out when i was 27 years old. I was writing about 27 year old kids. I couldnt write that book anymore. I mean, i couldnt i dont if you feel, you know, about presumed innocent, if you felt like you were writing about a a younger marriage, a new marriage. But for me, i i missed the fact that i cant dont have that thing i had in my twenties. But i certainly also realize i couldnt write parents back then either. Every parent, the first book i ever wrote, my editor to me, these parents are crazy. Theyre like lunatics. And they were just, you know mad. And i and i did the best thing of all because i didnt know what to do as a as a writer. As i introduced, my editor to my parents and and i brought them these two miami. I put them in his office at my parents may they both rest peace talked this mans face off for like a half hour and i just sat there like that you know and they flew to new york for the whole thing. It was great. And im like, why would i ever bring my parents to my editor . Like, they might get mad. Bring your parents to work. Like, i dont know what i was thinking back then. And then he came me and he hugged them goodbye, not because he wanted to hug them because my parents would have nothing but that. And then he whispered to me and said, keep parents as they are. And but when i look back on i wasnt a parent. Now i like writing parents more than i like writing kids because i understand them. Theres so much more complex. Whereas back then they were just things to be comedy and i can use them as foils for comedy that i wanted to do. Yeah, i mean, do i am content. I cant write what i wrote when i was 20 or 40 and you know, the hard part is that when youre 25, youre this quest and you know, youre trying to discover your and whats central you and you know, i, i had no when i was 25 how important the law would turn out to be to me. But, you know, youre when you get past 70, youre not going to be, you know, discovering fire all over again. And but the compensate is that, you know what youre doing, you know what you can do. And, you know, youre content in the universe. So but, you know, i think every artist in every needs to, you know, come to terms with what, you know, what what brad is talking about, which is, you know its its a game played in time and you know youre youre going to be changed by time and so what we all are well in the multitude of our sins is out there on the on the readers shelves. Thats the thing to like that. And so you can reinvent yourself many times as you want, but the evidence is there what it is that you did. Right. And thank goodness it is like that, because you know, the other thing is, is i remember when i wrote first draft of the cold dish, it like 650 pages long. It was like war and peace and absolute county. It was what it was like and the reason for that was, i just thought you know, my god, if i can get one book published, thats just all i want ever. And so im putting everything, you know, into this book, like and gail was the one that sat me down and said, okay, number one, you need to take about 300 pages out of this, like and so i did and discovered something that, you know, that that generally longer does not mean better like that. And so some places yeah thats true. Thats yeah. Thank you person in the back i appreciate it. Ashley. Openness to questions yeah i anyone got questions you can ask anything want we will tell you okay brave first you know lets keep question shows that show so old im getting my first time i was at this book fair was in 2012 and carl said he never move from florida because had run out of things to write about where you get your ideas. You know, dave and i have had times in our lives when we have traveled with stephen king and of course steve. Its as as kathy goldmark, the founder of this band the where we hang out, used to say, traveling with steve is like traveling with a beatle. And of course, the most common that the reporters who throng around him want to ask is where do you get ideas . And steve will stroke his chin and say, schenectady and. Ahead warehouse there. Right . Isnt that what it is like there . There no good answer to except that, you know, the one thing i will say about you getting an idea for me is its got to be an idea because of what weve been talking about that i write relatively slowly. Its got to be an idea i can live with for, you know, a couple of years. If it if its going to exhaust in two or three months, then its not going to work. But if something vibrates for me as i as i express it, then you know, i can go with it and, you know, right. Im working on a novel that i have always known. I wanted to write. And thats thats a great feeling to come to idea thats been with you for so long long for me. Look at, it. Its pretty easy like that. What he had the first book when i wrote it. Look at it, right . The first two chapters and they were horrible. And so i thought, whats wrong with these chapters . And i thought, know what . You dont know enough about rural Law Enforcement to go talk to a sheriff is what you need do. And so i did. And that led to a lot of ride alongs with a lot of sheriffs like it in wyoming, montana and south dakota and those places like it and the the stories that they would tell were so outrageous and they were so good you had to put them in the book. You have to put them in the book. But the problem, of course, was, is then i would get emails from people that would say theres no way that that story about the guy being tied to the back of the oldsmobile, cleaning the chimney with the mop soaked in kerosene, who goes in town drug back behind his wifes car on the ice . Theres no way that could ever possibly happen. And im like, well, let me introduce you to sheriff Jody Pickering of big orange county, montana. Like, i can tell you the whole story like and so, you know, i dont know. I mean its the truth is stranger fiction and there just seems to be so much out there, you know, and i think what also it seems like over a period of time you do start developing and i you do start getting a feel, you know, for when youre panning, you know, for that gold and whats going to be pyrite, whats going to be the real thing that and yeah, one of the most terrifying things that can ever possibly happen to you is when you start on an idea and then realize, you know, a couple of months into it. Yeah, this is really just not got the width and the breadth that i desperately need to to get this horse to the finish line. Norman mailer once said, you know, being a novelist is a gig. But the worst thing about it is that you very often dont know that youve made a fatal error for six months. And then its like, you know, thank you for saying that because its going to haunt me the rest of my life. No, but i do think i think that thats actually interesting. I do think as you go on an, ideas like an easy thing there, ideas everywhere, just Pay Attention to anyone long and really listen youll hear some good interesting. But i think the fascinating part is what a good idea what makes it that one thats going to sustain you and i you know Elmore Leonard used to say you got to when you write a book, youve got to leave out all the parts that people skip and its clever, but its right. You just kind of start knowing when you see it. I remember going, i do a lot of work with the uso and got involved with the uso many years ago. And ive been all over the world with them and they introduced me to Dover Air Force base, this place where all of our soldiers go when they die. I didnt know anything about that. I had no idea that there was a special place that if you ever if youre a military family, you know what dover is, because your relative could wind up there. And i went there and and i said, oh, you know, id love to know exactly what. You said going in, just tell me about your job. It just seemed really cool and interesting. Dover is a place where like not just our military, but like when the when the Space Shuttle went down, bodies of the astronauts went to dover. All of our and fbi people around around the globe, all of our secret double sevens, their bodies go to dover to it means. Dover is a place full of secrets. And i was like, well, i want to know more about that. And when i got there. I said, have you ever found a body i want to do like somewhere. I didnt know what i wanted. Our job is its like the Supreme Court of pornography, which, you know, when you see it and i didnt know what i want, im like. And he said to me, i said, have you ever had a secret on a body . Because, you know maybe a tattoo or someone has some in their pocket and they to me, if youre on a plane and the plane is going down and you write a note and you eat the note, that depending on how high the plane is, when the plane, a liquids in your stomach, will protect the note. I said that was really clever. Thats a great idea. Says not an idea. Really happened and. I was like, i got chapter one of my book, right . Like thats the chapter youve used that thats spectacular. And just know it when you see it. And i think that as a culture we have access to more information than any culture before. Right. And as a result and i maybe take this back over the past couple of years, but we were for a while really good at knowing when we hear the truth. Now, i think as a culture weve turned out of the palm. We cant tell the truth anymore. Weve lost that. But, you know, when youre reading a book, you know, you get to that point where youre like, the author did make that up. You just know we all have that feeling. And i think as authors, we know that when we see it, were like thats too good to not put in a book book. This is for craig just one real quick question. How do you pronounce the wandering without the elbow . Say, how may i say is what it is like it and what shes referring to is is theres actually its a its a northern cheyenne folk belief like that. Well, i can tell you the whole story, like in a Readers Digest version like that. I was actually a good friend of mine who was a tribal elder Charles White man. I was up visiting him. That and his grandkids were out playing, out past the corral, you know, out there. It was getting dark and everything. And he was yelling at them to come back like that. But, you know, they werent paying any attention to him. And finally he went nuclear on them and said, you know, something, something, something you know, they would say, hey, may i say, look it. And ive got a working knowledge of cheyenne, but id never heard that phrase before. And so i said, well, what was that term you just used . He goes, oh, its just a boogeyman to, you know, scare the kids and get, you know, if they go out too far, itll scare them and get them because the, you know, heavyweights say hell say get them, you know, get. And i said, okay, all right so i went back and i dug out my grinnell bird, you know, you know, dictionary of cheyenne. And i looked up ever id say hail may say like which was the wandering and it just it it was spooky, you know when i found that out, i thought, theres got to be more that than than what charles is telling me, like. And so the next time i saw charles about a month, i went over to him and said, hey, charles, you know, whats the you know, i got to ask you, do you ever think about like where that, you know, came from . And he said, i have because knew you were going to ask me that the next time i saw you. And i said, well, you know, whats the do you mind if i ask, whats the story on that . And he goes, well, ive got a theory on it. And he says my theory is he says, you got to remember that back the day with our people, there were, no police departments, there were no prisons, was nothing like that, he says. You know, if somebody did, you know, to deem them unworthy of, you know, being in the company of the human like get, which, you know, the northern cheyenne refer to themselves as he said, what you would do is you would banish them like and he said, you have to remember that being banished at that period in time was a death sentence. And he said that basically you were you were gone. And he said, i couldnt help but think that like all of those souls that were lost out there in that wilderness could like combine together, you know, to make an entity under themselves. And what was the one thing that they would want more than anything else other than human companionship . And thats what i think it is. And i was like. Thats your moment like that. Thats when you go, okay, yeah. Thats a thats a book is what that is like. And so just real fast to, it theres a couple of Law Enforcement, retired Law Enforcement officers here, too, and your Law Enforcement characters are right on. Thank you very much for. Thank you. And anybody who was here and has only seen the longmire tv show the books are 100 better. Theyre funny. The characters are so good. We didnt like vic on tv, but we like vic in the books. So thank so much. Thank you. I should introduce my sister here. Get today like brads not the only one with family in the audience that so my question how do you feel when your books get adapted to the screen either tv or movies and do you ever like just like have nightmares about what they do to characters and how do you retain some control . I mean, i guess if youre really popular, have a lot of control, i dont know. But i just think its like you just said, you know, it could ruin your character. I think they that, you know, when presumed innocent was sold to the movies was Sydney Pollack of blessed memory, who bought it . He looked at me and he said something that ive always remembered. He said, look, its your book, but its my movie. And if you i dont know how to make a movie, i mean, ive watched a lot of movies. I dont presume that i know what goes into the making of a film and. Ive always respected the difference between, the two media. So, you know, ive been through a lot adaptations. Most of them strike me as pretty good, but i dont try to control them and, you know, hemingway used to say that smartest advice to any novelist to take the manuscript to the california nevada border, grab the check, throw the manuscript over and run like hell in the other direction. I dont know. You know, i was going to say no, ive had a movie made, so thanks for insulting me. I that weve only done tv and all i can say is the tv that weve ive been lucky enough to be the producer on it and do a little cartoon show. Its a long one. Weve had adapted our kids books, got adapted to a show, and theres a character named xavier in the z. And one of the characters on the show is named brad, the most handsome cartoon character youve ever seen in your life. And i think the only semblance of control that ive had that im proud of is that brads cats on pbs on right after street is his phrases or. They and so i can live not having a movie the fact that there are kids that are just little going around and going over a so i think my work is done as a filmmaker personally i i have to float my stick with scott here like getting to say you know, that its kind of like singing about painting, you know, in many ways like it. And one of the greatest that you can come across in life is to know what youre good at and what youre not good at like that and what you should leave alone like that. And so in an awful lot of the time, unless you are, you know, of the level of like some of these more illustrious, you know, writers who can leverage anything, do whatever they want, like the best thing you can do is, is kind of like being in any type of business. You go into business with the very best partners that you possibly and then do the hardest thing in the world, leaving the hell alone. Let them do what they do best, like get and and try and assist them in any way that you can. But try and be an impediment, you know, a lot of the time. So thank you. My question is to all of you, do you ever base characters, your wives and if so please talk about it and also, what role did they have in your writing in success . She asked. To the people who i know at least have two wives in this audience, i will say, im going to im trying to think of their theyre definitely part. I wrote one book about a married couple when. We first got married and. There was this big problem and i chose that the married couple. Never tell each other what the problem is. And it just showed that i was in my first year of marriage, right . Yeah. It just was so clueless about. And again, i was 28, i just got married. Thats what i did, i do think. I dont think i put her in in most of maybe im just too much of a narcissist. I put myself in every character. I dont think i put you on it. But lets ask the source. Do you think i put you in there . She she said she says no. So the answer is no. My boy. One most uncomfortable moments in my public career had to be at a reading an event at the Tattered Cover in denver and. There was a woman that in the q a who stood and said, i absolutely despise the character of vic moretti and your books. I just dont like that character at all. I dont like her mouth. I dont like her attitude. What do you have to say about that . And i was like, well, shes sitting you actually look at this. Okay, so that was my and you know, you know, its you know, its really not fair like that because. You know, judy and i live, you know, on the ranch there in our little town of 25. And so shes one female thats in the house that i can a lot of like the facets of a lot of these different characters, you know off of like and so so i do i do a lot like that and and as far as like you know being an assistance as far as the work is concerned its its you know you get that question a lot you get that question a lot when youre doing workshops or or things like that, you know, people will come up to you and say, you know, what should i should i get my significant other involved, you know, with my writing know . And boy, thats just a really dicey proposition. Like you always look at you look at your marriage. Yeah, its like you look at them and you go, that either turn out to be one of the best partnerships youve ever had in your entire life. Or you may divorced here in about six weeks to like it is another opportunity theyre like that but judy actually comes a newspaper background like that her were the editors for the Hartford Courant and so her knowledge and education is something that i use a great deal as far as the writing process is concerned like that she also you know, i mean i have wonderful editors and people i work with, you know, back in viking and everything like that, but they dont know me as well as judy does like. And so not only does she know what im writing, she knows where its coming from, and so she can give me, you know, extraordinarily honest, you know, of feedback in those situations, too. So so yeah, shes kind of indispensable me in many ways. I dont i dont think. I try to keep like my kids and my spouse out of my books. And i dont succeed completely. But, you know, for example, with my kids, the only people recognize that are the the the brother of the sister you were writing about, you know, and im like, yeah, but dont say that to. Him. So and you know, i use adrian as a sounding board that which not shes not a literary profession which is just the kinds reactions that i want and you know, i get a lot of really smart advice from her and and but shes always coming the perspective of saying, look, im im a lay person, you know, im not a former professor, but let me you how im reacting to this and its very worthwhile as far as characters concerned, too. I mean, the best thing i ever read it was Wallace Stegner once the greatest piece of fiction ever written is that disclaimer at the beginning of every book that says nobody. This book is based off anybody alive or dead. And what a crock that is, you know, because i mean, thats your job is to go. I mean, youre out there talking to us for more than 30 seconds. Youre taking your literary life in your hands just so, you know, like its just too much of a temptation so much of the time. One of the mottoes to live by is never tell a writer your secrets secrets. But all the sex scenes in my wife i meant to say thats what i want to say. Every sex scene that i. You guys dont even laugh at that. Just sad. Sad. Miamis something im going to tell you right now. Think were. I thought were another. Okay. Okay. I think were 5 minutes past when i was told we had to drop dead but now go ahead. Nobodys here to say it came in yell and this could be a really good evening. Yeah, i think i think theyve left for the day so anyway im curious in particular brad because of knowing about the books you write for children run and how do you how do you balance or what is your process for when you decide to write what . It sounds to me like it would be very difficult to juggle. Yeah. So, so i also write in addition to murdering people, all long, i had kids and so wanted to murder a different of individuals and now i had kids and started writing kids books. For those who dont know, we do. The ordinary people change the world series. We do. I am rosa parks and i am Albert Einstein and i am Jackie Robinson and anne frank and and weve had a great time doing them. And the is i think its really what scott said earlier. It just got me going. And i think for me, i know sometimes im writing for little kids, sometimes im writing for adults, and sometimes im writing fiction and sometimes very nonfiction. But to me, a good a good story. So the kid may not have the metaphor or they may not have. I have to watch my vocabulary in terms of what people will understand, but i test my adult books, my kids books on my kids ill say to them, ill tell what the chapter one is. And if they say its boring, i know its not there. And my and if my daughter says that, sounds good, thats a miracle right. A teenage daughter who like is not walking away. If i if i dont get an eyeroll im like this is going to sell and so to me i just i just i do i jump from one or the other. The thing about the kids books is i write the entire book. I dont do anything else until its done, but its only 40 pages and it just a couple of words per page and their lives. Tell me. So were doing john lewis, were doing Temple Grandin are the next ones. And and i need those brakes. Those brake kind of recharged me and then oddly their stories wind up again as in everything you heard here informing other parts of the thrillers, things that i couldnt. But thanks to everyone who supports those kids books. I do appreciate it. All right. Well, i think thats the natural end. I want to thank the audience. And again, thank you to the authors. This was fantastic. Thank you all. Thanks, everyone so the next session is ticketed session. And so i ask that everyone agree that there were thank you so much. And one for a special announcement the others will be autographed and all the way to the end of the hall pass to the elevator and will be autographed. And that wraps up our coverage of the Miami Book Fair. If youd likewatch anything that you did see today, go to book tv org. Weekends on cspan. Two are an intellectual feast. Every saturday, American History tv documents americas and on sundays book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and auors funding for cspan come from these Television Companies and more, including media gone, the world changed. In an instant, the media come was ready. Internet traffic saw and we never slowed down. Schools and businesses went virtual and we powered a new reality because in media were built. Keep you ahead. Media come along with these Television Companies, cspan two as a public service. Cspan is American History. Tv continues
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