[inaudible conversations]tival tv is live coverage of the National Book festival continues. Thomas friedman will be down here later on our site taking your calls. Up that is coming up in an hour or so, two hours. You can go to booktv. Org to get the full schedule. Easier than listening to mr. Friedman, colin when we have that segment. Coming up next, you will hear from author Michael Lewis emma but in the meantime, we are pleased to be joined by one of 362 americans who has actually been in space and that is astronaut Leland Melvin. S calle mr. Melvin, you write that your book is called chasing space and you write that it had all begun with a dropped pass. Exactly. A dropped pass. I was a wide receiver on a running team and that means that they block a lot versus catching passes. We were at our homecoming game. I was running down the sideline. It was perfectly thrown in by hand and i dropped a pass in mym hands. The thing is, a scout is there for the university of richmond looking to s
And that is astronaut Leland Melvin. And, mr. Melvin, you write that your book is called chasing space, and you write that it had all begun with a dropped pass. Guest exactly. A dropped pass. So i was a wide receiver on a running team, and that means that i block a lot versus catching passes. We were at a homecoming game, i was running down the sideline, the ball was perfectly thrown io my hand, and i drop a touchdown pass in my hands. And the thing is, a scout wasro there from the university of richmond looking to see if i could play football for the team. He walked out of the stadium. My coach, jimmy green, believed in me. Get back out there, run the same play. That one catch resulted in a 180,000 scholarship to the university of richmond becauseep the coach said he didnt give up, he kept going. So that was the grit and the perseverance and the second chance. Host how did you get from playing for the university of retch monday spiders to richmond spiders to two Space Shuttle missions
picture of columbia university where she graduates cool. and long ago, i had a friend at new line cinema, sort of a big company, makes big movies. i was saying to her one day is working on this movie about the black panthers and i was doing this research may really wanted to talk to someone. she said well, i m working with this fabulous screenwriter. she loves the work is man dead and she said he s just incredible and you should talk to him. and i thought that is so odd. i didn t understand. was he a black panther? a friend, it seemed very separate things. a screenwriter for hollywood company and not panther. i was my first meeting with jamaal. i found him to be incredibly soft-spoken and gentle man. i think who is in many ways one of the first time that i sort of saw an african-american who really was working in hollywood and writing movies. and i thought that was really far more amazing that he actually lived this history, that i really admire so much. and from then on we s