Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth With Jodi Picoult 20240712

Compassionate empathy and perhaps protect roe versus wade a little longer. The book is actually a shooting at a reproductive rights in mississippi, one of the eight states that only have one clinic left in america because of over 280 laws at the state level has shifted away a reproductive rate since for 2012. In my book a gun comes in with a grudge and start shooting, he kills some patients and hostages and he patients employees any take the rest hostage. One of the people he takes hostage is the 15 euro daughter of the Hostage Negotiator on the outside and the people in the clinic are a wide range of people who have all been brought here at this moment they believe Different Things about reproductive rights, use the individuals were prochoice and prolife and all of their points of view are very evenly and accurately represented. How do you storyboard a complex story like that with all sorts of connections and things going on. That is a particular question, there is another twist in this book that makes a difference from my others, its told in revert, the very first thing that you see is the standoff between the gunman and the Hostage Negotiator, every chapter goes back in our in time until the very end of the book and that was much harder than 90 is impeded, i wound up writing a 48 page outline because i had to write it chronologically, i also had to follow the storyline of ten diverse characters in an outline like that was about three pages lon long, little synopsis, i know the characters in the pot and the twist and i want to make sure i leave a paper trail, in this case there was so much going on i really needed to map it out and the magic was not in outlining but the editing, when i edited the book, i took little postit flag that i made my husband go get in a marked up the book by character and then i edited in reverse, ten different times like following each characters thread to make sure each story was coherent and then i added entirely going forward. How much time did you spend in jackson mississippi. About a week bouncing between jackson and alabama working in particular with an amazing man named doctor Willie Parker, an africanamerican Abortion Provider who identifies as a devout christian and says he performs abortions not in spite of his religion but because of it, he heard a sermon at church, about the Good Samaritan and he thought he was going to provide if not me he went back and got trained and goes all over the United States to the most underserved areas performing abortions to women who need it the most. He invited me too come shadow him. Why do you feel an important to tell us that youve not had an abortion. Only because its the truth but more importantly, if i had had an abortion, writing this book wouldve taught me too speak about it, one of the saddest tax that i came upon during the research of this book was the interview of 151 women who had terminated pregnancies, less than 25 wanted to be acknowledged, they wanted to use initials or student or an ominous. In the decade since they terminated, they still have not told parents, partners, friends, employees, they have kept it to themselves and to be completely honest when i was listening to the kavanaugh confirmation hearings, i was think about these women, when women dont tell their stories, narrative is visited upon them in one of lehman shane, you did something wrong you shouldve known better. I think that to me is the most resonant message from this book to take back the narrative to get rid of the umbrella of stigma that women who terminate a pregnancy or living under and women have to normalize this, one out of four women will terminate a pregnancy in the course of her lifetime. Putting a face to that instead of casting of selfish and evil is really important and its a way to take the narrative back. You observed actual abortions happening, what was up like for you. One thing that is upfront about we cannot talk about abortion and usingism, you may not feel that it is a person being killed but you are interrupting a life process, even if you are prochoice, you have to recognize that and he feels that we should acknowledge that and acknowledge what is being done during a termination, he biden m invited me too obsere a five, eight, and 15 week abortion, it was quite a privilege to be there with women who were going through a difficult moment and let me interview them before and after and to watch what was happening during, i tell you the five week and eight week took less than three minutes, the products of conception were nothing more shocking than if you blow your nose in a tissue and peek inside, the 15 weeks was a little different, it took seven minutes and mixed among the mucus and products of conception were things that looked very tiny and very human like, a small hand or an elbow, that was pretty shocking to see. But interviewing the woman who had that termination had had three children under the age of four, she could barely afford to feed them, she knew if she had her fourth child she would not be able to feed them, does that make her a good mother were very bad mother, it comes from which side your stated on. You personally are prochoi prochoice, how did you find jeanines voice . Jeanine is a character who is outside the clinic but in this particular day she put on the disguise and had gone into the clinic pretending to be a patient so she could secretly tape the workers into saying something incriminating and put on the internet. Jeanine is a character who does exist, every Abortion Provider that i spoke with for research has actually had multiple women who are protesters on their own table having an abortion or their daughter is having an abortion, going right back out the next day to protest. Jeanine for me is the voice of someone who is prolife, i did that Due Diligence as well and i spoke with people who identifies prolife and i have to say, i went in there with misconceptions, i went in there assuming that these people must be very evangelical, zealous, i would have nothing in common, in reality they were funny, smart, interesting, we had wonderful conversations, we just disagreed on one important point where this life begins, for me it hammered home that we had more in common with the people who think differently than we have not in common with them, these people to come from a place of deep compassion and deep conviction just like i would, they dont want to be seen as antiwoman anymore than someone prochoice wants to be cast, you never want to hear women use abortion as Birth Control, that is not true either, there really are misconceptions on both sides of the aisle. Youre telling a very topical story or youre telling in the page turner, how do you find the balance . I dont know how you find a balance except with practice and ive been doing it for a long time, i do love the concept of the novel as a way to educate about social justice. I think for example when i wrote this book i sat down and i Read Institute studies about reproductive rights and abortion statistics and things like that, most people do not sit down and do that on a daily basis but they might pick up a novel and you think youre picking up a booktv entertained, you think youre picking out a book that is going to whisk you away for a few hours, if i did my job right by the end of the book you think hard about a topic that you might otherwise not have approached, and that way i think fiction is so wonderfully sneaky because it really gets peoples minds to crack wideopen. One point to million abortions happening in the 1950s that you reported in this book prior to roe v. Wade. Yep and theres every reason to believe if roe v. Wade is overturned, we will continue to have abortion, they will just be unsafe and women will be in more danger, i think its really important to recognize this as a fact i did not know until i started researching the book, 97 of the work that planned parenthood and other clinics do has nothing to do with abortion, that part is federally funded in its womens healthcare, std testing cancer screenings and contraception and a lot of women in poverty use those clinics to get the healthcare, only 3 is abortion and is the only part of those clinics that fund itself, federal funding does not cover abortions, if you go to get when you have to pay for which means each week defund planned parenthood, all they will be able to do is abortion care which i know is not what protesters mean when they say defund planned parenthood, they think they will stop abortions but that will happen. Are Abortion Services possible. I would not say the profitable, no one isnt it to make a living but what they do is pay for themselves, they cover their own cost in the clinic because there are no federal funds already that are allocated to that. Basically what you will wind up doing if you get rid of federal funding is cut all the womans healthcare. Jodi picoult before we started we were chatting in the hallway in the studio and talking about your book tour in england, some of the questions that were asked. Its interesting i did not get that many questions but in england in the past week id multiple men in evidence that would ask me did you talk to the men who were helping make these decisions and the answer that i gave them was no actually i never spoke specifically to men because i was interviewing the women that were at the clinic during the procedures but in the course of my interview with the women i did ask them about their partners and what i found out the vast majority did tell their partners that being pregnant or they were considering an abortion and in cases when that did not happen it was usually because of rape or incest or the man had left the scene and was not involved anymore, what i did find out even when men were particularly supportive, when they paid for half the abortion, they drove the woman to the clinic, went in for the procedure, the women felt very alone and isolated and even though they recognize that their partner was trying and trying to connect with them, the predominant thought in their head, you do not understand it is still happening to me and not you. Maybe i should not do this but all of the book that over i read ive tried to find the character that you identify with so i found all live, am i way off. Yes. [laughter] that is an interesting character, beth is in many ways what the future of america could be in a postroe v wade world, she is a young girl who ran out of options, she tried to get a judicial waiver to get abortion so she doesnt have to tell her parents and something happens with the judge, he cannot be there that day and when he can reschedule it 30 past the legal limit that she could get an abortion in the state of mississippi, so she took matters into her own hands and ordering online medication abortion which right now is illegal. And in many states where we have seen statutes come into play, one on the ballot coming up in alabama on tuesday, when we see that, if you try to facilitate your own abortion, you could be tried for murder and that is what will happen to beth, i dont necessarily see myself as beth but all of is a 70yearold woman and i dont know what that means. [laughter] olive is a woman is at the clinic obviously not to get an abortion because she 70 shes there for other healthcare and i wanted her there specifically to point out that the reason people go to the clinics is not just for abortion care, i love olive because she is smart and the beating heart of the book and ill take that as a compliment but i would say if i can be anyone it would be doctor louis ward who is a Abortion Provider. I want to show the cover ive been looking at this and asking people what they think of the cover. What do you think of the cover . I think it is beautiful and looks like an impressionist painting and the more you look i that you realize their faces of women caught among the colors, i thought it was a really beautiful and interesting interpretation of the material inside it, it does not bother me but its pastel colors which we would consider more feminine because ultimately about womens Reproductive Health. If i were walking past that an airport, i probably, unless i was familiar with you would not stop and pick that up. I would argue that is not always a function of the cover. There actually is and ive been quite outspoken about a huge gender biased and publishing, sometimes we see it in the marketing of cover but that cover would never ever be a chiclet book for example, that would have a cartoon cover or just somebody womans body part on its like a hand or something. We know there is intense gender discrimination and publishing, we know because of a group that has actually done the number count, they do it every year they crunch numbers and they see how many female authors are being reviewed by traditional review outlets and then they look and see how many women are reviewers of these outlets and theyve expanded since it began years ago and they also look at people of color and disabilities and nonbinary authors and they start to see how white and how male driven publishing actually is and their statistics have been remarkable and upheld what we knew all along, what is really interesting about publishing, 66 are women, we know women will read men and women authors and men tend to read only men and part of that is the marketing to you, pardoninpart isthe fact that wod women fiction authors and not a lot that write about with false stricturstrickland in that cated often someone who called women fiction author is has less to do than the cover then between the authors legs. And i offer as an example my book small great things which is about racism in america which does not have a single kiss in it in which best romance novel and poland. I have no idea it makes me fear for the future of romance in poland. You were quoted in the New York Times in 2013 saying i dont mind that term, i dont happen to write it so i think its funny when people assume i do just because i happen to have a vagina. It is totally true, if i write that im sorry that youre picking up that book for chiclet. That is supposed to be something with humor in it, when i write a book about the holocaust, that would not be my first choice for a book, i love light fiction, i read widely and i think theres a place for that and all kinds of genre, i think its reductive to say all women right womens fiction, that is silly and a point years ago, wikipedia decided they were going to break out womens authors from american novelist but there was a huge uproar because they took all the women out of the americaamerican novelist page, u want to have a subcategory, awesome, i am for that but keep the women with american novelist to. Was there a thought process, lets make sure they get featured as well nobody consulted me but the problem is when you excerpt the group and you make them a subset without making them a larger group. Do you have any idea how many of your readers are women. I do i was so tired of being called a womens fiction author, i checked my fan mail and i can tell you 50 comes from men and they often write and say im sure im the only man reading your book because you been condition as men to read mail authors and i say no, be secure of your masculinity, i hear from many, many men, i love when men read my stuff they take away Different Things than women do, i would urge men who are watching the program, go to your bookshelf and cd read a female author for every male author, i bet you will find that you dont and maybe that is something you should change wife references to astronomy and a spark of life. One of the coolest facts about astronomy, the one that stayed with me forever, when we see light from afar youre looking into the past and this is a book about time in many ways, it goes chronologically backward, its about what brings people to believe the things that they believe about controversial topics, is that something that we find that the needs of our parents, pastor, friends, our own personal experience england and her father hugh the Hostage Negotiator is a single dad and this is what they bond over, and going to look at stars, it felt like the perfect metaphor for this particular book. Where does the title come from. The title has a great story, is not the original title of the book, my publisher did not like the original title. That was called moment of conception, to me it was not necessarily about where life begins as much as where police begins, they thought that was too clinical so for a month we went back and forth and they tried to give me all these other titles and i hated all of them in one day my amazing fabulous editor called me, she had been on a flight and she read something and inflight magazine about a study that had been done by scientist in the midwest and it was about the moment that a worm fertilizes an egg under a highpowered microscope you can see a flash of light, it is the zinc in the side of the egg giving way to the sperm which causes the spark, what is great about it they have ascertained the bigger the spark the more healthy the embryo and you can imagine how that will have unbelievable ramification for people who do in vitro because you only have a certain number of embryos and who knows which ones going to stick, the healthiest ones are the biggest part of life, i was thinking about that and thinking about my fictional doctor who is modeled after in a devout christia chrin the universe of the beginning with life and light in reading this biological essay about the spark of light that happens at the fertilization moment between the sperm and an egg and i thought i can make this work, i can absolutely make this work. Are you taking a seller with you 25226 bestselling books that you can determine the title and what your cover looks like. I get cover input and they say when you think of it now tell them if i like it or dont like it, that was not the original cover, the original one looked like small great things and i love the cover of small great things but i did not want people confusing the two, our amazing art director came back with that and i say, my eye. Speaking of small great things, thats the next book we will talk about. What does that cover represents. When i look at that cover, i think of the color chips the artist to use and if you look at the cover there are spots where color is missing. Where there is something not quite right about the color, there is definitely an absence, small great things about racism in america and metaphorically to me, that was a beatable illustration of what i was trained to talk about. Again are you kidding . I think any white person is kennedy. That book is based off a reallife incident that happened in flint, michigan, an africanamerican nurse with 25 years of experience in a labor and delivery ward help deliver a baby in the aftermath the babys father said he did not want her or anyone to look like her to touch his kid, pushed up his sleeve to reveal a swastika tattoo, in the hospital they put a postit note in the babies file saying no africanamerican personnel to touch the baby. A bunch of personnel banded together sued, i hope you got a great payout, but it made me wonder what if that nurse was only one alone when something went wrong and what if as a result she wanted being brought up on charges of murder and what if she was defended by a white public defender like me and many of my friends would never consider herself to be racist and what if i could tell the story in her voice, and the voice of the white supremacist dad in the white public defender as they begin to unpack their own feelings about race, to me small great things is for white people, it is meant to say open your eyes a little wider, its easy for white people to point to white supremacist and say thats a racist, its harder for white people to point to themselves and say the same thing, race is about prejudice plus power and if you are white in america you hold all the power, although its easier for us to see the headwinds of racism and to know if your person of color your life might be harder, its difficult for white people to knowledge the tailwinds of racism and the fact that theres unearned benefits because we happen to be born like this, that is something that is on white people to learn and to fix, ultimately thats why wrote the book, thats audience i was hoping for. A quote from kennedy who became the lawyer in the book, i had wanted to look like ruth did just for an afternoon but not if it meant id be in danger. One of the things i get asked a lot, people will read the book and say this really rocked my world and i need to do better, i certainly needed to learn that when i wrote the book and i lived my life very differently as a result of writing the book. One thing i talk about is making herself an easy put yourself in a situation where this is the not the predominant color in the room most people have not had the experience and if they do it makes him feel on edge and thats okay. That actually means youre learning something if you feel uneasy. It is part of many things that you can do if you really want to be actively antiracist, another good thing is to learn the difference between equal and equitable, equal means the same equitable means fair, if you had a student and you are a teacher and she was blind, would you give her the same test as everyone else, of course not you would give her the real test with the same information, thats what i mean in life because of systemic and institutional racism, people are starting at different points, we have to make sure in whatever line of work that we are in the everyone has a fair chance to get to the finish line, thats what equitable means, things like that, talking to people around you, the role of the white ally is to talk to people who look like us and to be aware of the fact that you have privileges that families of color are not going to have, how are you going to take advantage of the privilege, if your mom and a second grader, go to child school and say what you teaching about africanamerican history, just slavery or learn about inventors or awesome role models who also happened to be black, even better if your white parent asking that stuff, no matter where you are in your life you can find a way to be actively antiracism. Was it tough of you jodi picoult, to give some semblance of sympathy to turk and britt . They are white supremacist, its hard to find anything likable about White Supremacists and turk is the only character ive ever written where the end of writing a section i would have to go downstairs and take a shower because i felt dirty, it felt too easy for me too be able to slip into his patterns of speech and i hated myself for that, it made me so uncomfortable. But ultimately its very rare as you find somebody a villain 100 evil, i dont think anyone is 100 good in anyone is 100 evil, i do have thoughts about that in politics but we will not go into that, in my fiction people are balanced and multishades of gray and i needed you to feel sympathy for turk and ultimately he is a dad who lost his baby, any parent would feel empathy for that. Any. Could understand how hard that is, no matter what do you think of his and his discussing belief, you understand he might be grieving the loss of a child and ive heard from many people who read the book and said it was so hard for them to realize that they felt sympathy for turk, theres another scene where he proposes and its a very cute romantic comedy moment and people said how dare he, how dare he have a romance as if people are reprehensible and they dont follow love, of course they do, that was really critical to me too recognize as a reader you will feel a tug and say i do have something in common with him, but thats also important because he has a seachange of belief by the end of the novel and you should be able to believe that someone who is morally reprehensible can find a way out into the light. All of your books or nearly all of them have a little at the end, is that to keep us interested maybe to keep me interested, i dont know why i started putting a twist at the end but i began i started to get no friend and then wait and see there may be no twist, i dont know i like doing it because it provides me the ability to lay a paper tra trail, i think anyone can throw it twist into the end of the book, its a sucker punch unless you started it through carefully and i like doing that, i think that makes me a better author. So turks character, izzy based on a real person . He is based on two former white supremacist that i met with as part of the research for this book, there was one man who grew up in Orange County california and he was in a privileged family and ran with a violent gang of White Supremacists and one night he and his friend beat up a gay man and left him bleeding on the curb expecting him to die, years later he got out of the movement and wound up working at the center in l. A. , he wrote the rabbi in apology note in the rabbi wrote him back and said why dont you come work for me, he did he started giving talks about leaving a life of hate. One day he was in the cafeteria and a tour guide came through any recognize the man and it was the guy he beat up and left for dead, their eyes met and they spent months in conversation, there was understanding and forgiveness another very good friends, the other man is a guy named frankie, he was the head of the White Supremacist Group in philly and he was sent to jail and he realized he had more in common with the black kids in jail than the white kids, they would talk about the food, the girls that they must hand he got out of jail and began working for a jewish man and he out all the worst misconceptions because he was White Supremacists, his boss called him the night before he signed the contract and he thought here comes hes going to cheat me out of my money and the man said youve done sons and exemplary in a job id like to pay you double. He began to wonder how many exceptions to the role before the roles have to change. So many of the characteristics that turk has came from the lives of both of these men. Liberal use of the, is not a decision you made early . You had to be it was turks voice and is the way white supremacist would talk and that was what would need me too shower. Good afternoon, and welcome to book tv on cspan2 and are monthly in that program, bestselling author jodi picoult is her death under guest this month, this is a year of fiction on indepth and were in month 11 no, if you would like to call in and talk with our guest, heres how to do it we will put the phone numbers up on the screen 202 7488200 for those of you on the east and central time zone, 202 7488201 if you live in the amount of pacific time zone, we will alsos scroll through our social media sites, booktv is a place to reach us on twitter, facebook, and instagram, if you have a question or comment, if your reader of jodi picoult or being introduced to her, he written 26 books i believe, everyone a bestseller . Not by any means, i was a slow growth girl, i did not have the overnight moment or anythi anything, i started off humbly my first book had 3500 copies and i think what happened, people who read my book told their friends you should read this and they told friends and it grew very organically and it was not really until, i think it was after my sisters keeper, definitely after my sisters keeper, with Second Glance it first got onto the bestseller list by itself without a push. How quickly was my sisters keeper auctioned for the movie . It was not auction quickly at all, it took a while. It was not a pleasant experience. Is the movie actor to the book. No it is not, when that book was auctioned i had said the only thing that was important that they keep the ending, it does have a monstrous twist at the end and ultimately i know that sold the book and people said i cannot tell you, read it so we can talk about it, that happened a lot and i was told by the producer had gotten and they went to hire nick and they asked me if i would talk to him and i said yes and i told him, the ending is really important and he read the book and he said im not going to change the ending and if anyone does all tell you white nulty myself and i said okay and i worked with him for a year end a half, he would call me up and asked me questions about characters and iso scripts that look like the book in one day i got an email from a friend who worked at a casting agency and she said did you know they change the ending of the movie and i called nick and he would not take my call, i went to the movie set and he threw me off the set, i went to the head of New Line Cinema in a city are gonna lose money, i have some pretty eager fans who are rock stars and theyre not going to want to see this movie and he said no we know what were doing, nick made them notebook for us, sure enough they lost money, my fans were very upset and ultimately great irony is wha my with speaks in hollywood, i was able to say youre going to lose money and they did and as a result ive had more Creative Control on future projects. Did you have any creed of control once you auctioned it . No, i dont think fans realize that most writers do not, if you have Creative Control thats the anomaly because usually hollywood will say what credo control, we dont need that they can very much will go to another author who will take the money and run, its like giving a baby up for adoption, you try to make an educated choice and hope you doing the best you can but youre not allowed to call every day and say did you feed her breakfast. Small great things it went to our. When i read Ruth Jefferson ici ola. Shes an incredibly talented actress. We will get into other books that jodi picoult has written, before we can enter first call, have your books gotten more topical overuse . I tried to look at the trajectory of my career, i think it spans where my branding is at any given time, if you look at the beginning of my career it was about mothers and daughters but i was closer in age to the daughter than the mother, then i had a baby and i got married right before my first book was published, i had my first child in my second book was about motherhood and how incredibly difficult it is because it really shocks me how hard it was and then i got into marriage and relationships and wherever its 50 50 and i had all my kids and i had a wide span of years you. You for children. Three. All the terrifying things that can happen to your kids from sexual abuse to kidnapping to suicide, all these things and then my kids grew up and they got to a point where they were selfsufficient and i began to take a step back and look at bigger issues that sort of made me sit up at night and worry, like the nature of good and evil and the storyteller, and racism in small great things, what it means to grieve and lose someone and leaving time, and reproductive rights and sparkled life. In my sisters keeper you have the mother of a child over ten surgeries,. Ellipsis. My sisters keeper grew out of two different places, i had written second class, the eugenics project in america which very few people know about, we actually in several states modeled the program that was used for the final solution. One thing i learned, one crazy throwaway fact was the original eugenics inside he was in new york and when they folded the group that took over was the human genome project, that seemed to close for comfort and i happen to read when i was researching new jetix a story of modern eugenics which was the nash family in colorado which was the first family to create a donor sibling to help their daughter molly who at the time had a disease, she was supposed to die by the age of two, she was hanging on by a thread at age three and they want up designing a sibling who can provide a stem cell on transplant umbilical cord. I knew that was a whole different topic, i started to think about that and always thinking of particular that molly and her brother when i met them when they were five and eight, they were little kids but what would happen to a donor sibling in the teenage years, when that is all about who am i, am i here just because of my sister, do i have any words of my own, i wanted to explore that and i wanted to explore that my sisters keeper, i was a child who had multiple surgeries, which were born with, a benign tumor that grows inside your ear toward your brain and if you hit your brain it will kill you, the traditional way to remove it to take down the ear canal wall and scrape up the tumor and leave the child death, my husband and i chose a different approach with more surgeries but my preserve hearing, he had in both ears in lesson nine kids in america who had that the time and we made the right choice because at the end of all of this he had marginal hearing in his right year end profoundly deatdefinite right year end he a very talented singer and it was like the best success story. I remember very well what it was like there all ten surgeries, ten surgeries and three reconstruction, how hard it was to keep the family balanced because one child clearly had to take precedence at that moment when we as parents like to say we love all of our children equally but the truth is sometimes circumstances arise that make you have to direct your attention towards one of your children, what we really mean is we are able to be there for all of her children when we needed the most. That is what i want up writing a point of view for sarah and my sisters keeper. A quote from my sisters keeper, we all have our scripts to unpack, kate plays the martyr, im a lost cause, you are the peacemaker. A lot of relationships. Yeah, that makes sense, i was watching my own kids grow up informant family, i find my sisters keeper fascinating on many levels, it is taught in ethics courses at reticle school in Nursing School and it really is something to consider because we tend to think parents can make the best decisions for their children medically but what if you have two children with competing medical interest and when it comes to medical ethics, we know that the patient and whats happening to a patient may wind up convening an Ethics Committee at a hospital, donor is not considered a patient so they would not necessarily convening an Ethics Committee. Finally it can be a weird and slippery slope, choosing an embryo that has six aletter proteins to help cure cancer is very different than choosing a child that has brown hair or a child that is female, you just begin to wonder, how do we monitor all that and keeping it from spiraling out of control, it was fun for me too write that book because its one example where science has almost out struck morality and ethics in every now and again, we get to a point where that happens. Lets begin with our callers lets begin with ron in new york, good afternoon youre on with author jodi pico. Good afternoon, wonderful hearing you jodi, thank you very much, youre such an oppressive personality and person, you giv, if you were running for office and you are in my district, i would vote for you. Period an unusual older white male who is done Different Things, i always grow breeding and i still have maintain that habit, i regret really have not read many of your books and i think i stumble in one or two along the way, i just seen this the other day, im going to seek out and try to correct that and i want to mention a couple of people ive been reading and lamont i always liked her stop for a long time, i just got done reading in perfect bird which i found great, jeanette who is my niece, we have a familiar nongender book Club Obviously we give books back and forth to each other, what an incredible, i read both of them, glass capsule and half rack horses, impressive stories, and in the midst of the me too movement in in the face of whats being faced, it is even more important for voices of reason and different points of view. The characters that are created. Ron, we are going to leave it there, thank you for calling in today, jodi pico any reaction. He pick some great female writers, all excellent books, jeanette is a phenomenal writer, first of all, ive also pleased he mentioned politics because i have been on a book tour for six straight weeks, i was in the uk and every single stop i was asked to run for office, i feel like im on streak now, if that happened on cspan2, honestly i think that he pointed out something important, he does have a nongender book club with his niece which is great and fantastic, it is not just a matter of reading women if your man, you should be broadening your bookshelf, no matter who you are, that is one of the things i challenge people to do a small great things, how many authors of color are you reading, theres so many incredible authors of color out there and if you are not reading voices from who you are, that is the beauty of reading, and people who are very different and live life very differently, i really have a problem for doing that. I was going to ask if he could take every challenge, look at your book its a lot of firstperson narrative to you, to kennedy to alan, is that a tough technique and now you can write about britt. I actually love it because i have no idea why i think of it this way, i always imagine a bunch of rubber boots lined up on the side of the river and the narrative is the river and he keeps flowing. When you are pulling a different firstperson voice, you are going to step into those boots, and they will go to the next. A boot and you will step into the river and fill it flowing around you, the narrative is going to keep going no matter whose boot youre putting on stepping forward. Some might pinch and some might have more room and some are soft and comfortable and others are very stiff, that to me is what its like to write in a different voice, as you pointed out one of the things i tried hard to do and i write for tickly about a controversial subject is to provide everybodys point of view, as a fiction writer, i have an opinion but i dont mind sharing an opinion. But on social media. In my novels, its not my job to tell you what to think, i have an opinion, it should be no better or worse than yours, what i will ask you to do is to listen to every point of view regarding a controversial situation and to decide why your opinion is what it is, you may have never of listen to what the other side has to say i will make sure in any book, i promise this to my readers, you will hear everyone, ultimately one of the beauties of the firstperson narrative is that you are able to give multiple points of view very easily, everyone who is speaking at the reader is speaking with great conviction trying to get their point acro across. Have you ever cried because a character has died. I cry all the time when i write, i hear from people who say their devastated when something happens in a book and i think you read a book in a week, im with these characters for nine months, you can imagine how attached i get but theyre very real to me. Next call is glenn in michigan, you are on book tv with jodi pico. Thank you a lot everyone, actually i was just reading on a book of eugenics on the early 20th centuries project to create the right angle of sex and population as opposed to all the other groups. Winston churchill is one of the components tangled with hitler as you might remember, that bleeds into what i want to ask you about, you made a statement in which i thought was incredible that white people have all the power in case you missed it, we just had a black president recently simply the most powerful man in the world for a while and again, Asian Americans have the highest education level et cetera in terms of raw numbers, there is more white People Living in poverty than any other group and i could go on and on and actually i remember that in the flynn event, they named the decision to stay with the power there in every major city, dont you think this kind of stuff is quite as simple as he made it out to be that power is really situational and relative in a little arrogant and condescending. I think we got your point, lets hear from jodi pico. My take on that very often we hear, were in a postracial world, theres no more racism, barack obama was president , there is a weird thing that happens when it comes to high levels of politics, more media or stardom like opera for example, theres a transcendent where someone who is much in the public eye might be a person of color almost loses that sense of color being what defines them, the White Community also grabs them of their own. , the bottom line is to say the Asian Americans have the highest education level, that is not actually necessarily true to say that poverty exist, that is 100 true, there is poverty in the White Community and is devastating, if you have a black homeless man in a white homeless man on the street, the white homeless man would get more donations than the black homeless man, thats been proven, the point is not situational and that we had one president , 0 but we had a media superstar who happens to be a black woman, 0 but we have my nextdoor neighbors Asian American and was able to get into Ten Ivy League colleges, those are situational, the overarching scheme of this country is still one of systemic and institutional racism and on the whole system an institution like education, like healthcare like even jobs and housing and prisons are still balanced in favor of white people and against people of color, there are so many studies that have been done to support this, it is stuff that you as white people, me as a white person we are conditioned to believe its hard work if we get into a great college, we worked really hard in school and did well on the sat, all of that is very, very true but its also true that probably you had a parent who stayed home and read you Nursery Rhymes at night and made to understand that reading was something you could do before you went to bed and you did not have parents necessarily that were working two or three jobs just to pay the rent, education when you back it up you begin to see those advantages that white people have and people of color often dont, there will always be exceptions to the rule but as a whole, white people are still definitely the ones in power in america. He studied creative writing at princeton and a masters in education from harvard, have you utilized that directly . I did, i taught eighth grade english in Public Schools for year. Concord math, i was living down there and i loved it and i love teaching eighth grade, i have two of my kids that are teachers, one teaches seventh and eighth grade math in california and once a fourthgrade teacher in massachusetts, i really enjoyed being in front of a class working with kids, i still work with kids in my hometown but iran for over a decade, i love that age, i do believe in a way im still a teacher, my classroom is really big. Next call from jodi pico, comes from scott and newark. Good afternoon, i have to say after glenns call, i would like to take a shower myself but i dont want to delay your program. Jodi pico, i love what you said, im a white male and i think men should read more letters, all my favorite writers are female and i would like to mention one who happens to be black and female and she is my favorite writer of the last ten years and im wondering if you heard of her she wrote the summer prints, alliance don johnson and shes an amazing writer, you should definitely check her out and i would like to say i love what you said about white people having to educate other white people and it seems like an ever more uphill battle especially with who we have in the white house now, i would love to know if you can have ultimate power for a day, what would you do to change things, i would like to suggest something myself, i think the only rate underway to balance what happened in the past is to let women and black people and American Indians have the vote to themselves for 300 years or so, thats only fair way to do it but i would love to know what do you think and ill get off the line and thank you so much and i cannot wait to read your new book. Thank you, that is a lot of power and one thin day i get a e the power. I have not heard of the author but i will check her out, i love finding authors i do not know so that is exciting. I think if i could have control for one day i would ask the anything that i do not be overturned, am i allowed to have that grace as well, honestly i do believe two ways that we can sweeping the overhaul systems into particulars systemic racism i think, two things that would have to be done, i would overturn Citizens United first of all because i think that would bring politics back to the Grassroots Level and i would make sure Voter Suppression is wiped out so we get rid of gerrymandering, we make sure theres not redistricting in a way that sees powers to one particular party, the other thing i would do is have mandatory free advanced education, it would not have to be a college education, you could get trade learning but i do believe that people sit in their own echo chambers and are told what to think, Critical Thinking usually happens at the collegiate level, thats where you learn that and thats where you take a variety of opinions and balance them with their own beliefs in your own world and life knowledge and move forward without amalgamation of information. And that is what we need a little more of, instead of being told what to think and told think that we know are blatant lies in believing them, we need people to sit back, draw their own conclusions and move forward progressively. With that said do you have any conservative friends . Politically conservative friends. Most of mine are not politically conservative, i do have politically conservative friends, fiscally conservative friends which i admire but i think most of my friends are socially progressive, i was immorally progressive. It is because of circumstances in my own life that would make it difficult to interact with someone who was opposed to gay marriage or Something Like that. In a spark of life you think hall and aaron mcgarrah. They are a prolife couple that i spoke with, they were great, i talked to them through a wonderful woman who lived across the street who i walked with miles in the mornings and it was her daughter who rooms with her daughter and she said i know a lovely couple who would be willing to talk to you and they are two people who happen to be prolife, they were phenomenal and we had terrific conversations and it was really interesting to hear their point of view, i remember having part of my conversation with paul, i would definitely push as hard as they could and i would say, what would happen if god for bid your daughter wound up 13 years old and pregnant, what would happen and he thought about it and very thoughtfully said, i hope she would talk to her parents and i hope she would talk to her priest and i hope she would make the right choice. And i said thats a really interesting word that you use, it was great to be able to have that respectful conversation, one of the coolest things i got to do on the book tour was be part of the podcast he was an evangelical woman from texas who is prolife and has a large following, what are the things i talked about, podcast, if you recognize that nobody wants to have an abortion, not even the woman who have them, reducing the abortion rate would make everyone happy, how do we do that if we dont talk about roe versus wade, the easiest ways dont get pregnant. So contraception, we know in america the teen birth rate is 13000 in france and sweden at seven per thousand, the only difference between our countries is free Birth Control and widely assessable sex egg courses in our schools. Yet people in america who are the most vocally prolife are anticontraception, that fascinates me because i may not agree with what you believe but if you tell me youre the voice of the unborn and giving this baby, you think the fetus is a baby and giving it a voice, and understand what you are coming from. Contraception there is no baby. Thats the whole point. Youre not really talking about the unborn if youre into contraception. Increased in this area in the United States abortion rates did not fall. I thought ive never seen a study like that so i looked at the study and read the entire thing and what ive learned is that the next two lines in that paragraph this was because at the time it was done, families were making decisions to have fewer children in the family so we saw numbers we didnt expect. After a few months we did see as we expected there was a decline in abortion rates. So i centered this study instead were you aware this was the rest of the study and she said no i never would have imagined and we had great conversations. I asked if it bothered her to have pleased men who were celibate about making decisions about her health care and she he said my husband and i decide together the natural planning is my choice and i said okay if you see as your choice i can get on board with that. Host where and how were you raised . Guest long island i lived a long one of the development of closed up in the 60s and 70s. It was called a storybook development so i think it was a selffulfilling prophecy. My dad was on wall street and my mom ran a Nursery School. I had a boring up singing. My parents are phenomenal and are still very happily married. I have a little brother and i like him. I didnt seem to have the anguish i needed to be a writer and i decided early on that instead of writing what i knew, which would have been boring, i was going to write what i wanted to learn. Host did you stay in long island or make your way up to New Hampshire . Guest when i went to college i went to princeton and that is the first time i left long island and never went back. I worked on wall street for three months until the stock market crashed, taught creative writing, got a masters in education anmasters ineducationd person in an ad agency. I got married, pregnant, taught english and kept writing after that. I was writing the whole time i founbuti found an agent during s twoyear period and when i left my teaching job because i was about to have a baby, the woman who was my age and then and still is now wound up selling my book and was per to be copublished after my son was born. Host we are going to take our fifth call and its another male. Caller thank you for taking my call and for booktv. I love it every weekend. In arizona half a century ago when there was still agriculture and a lot of exposure to the dairy industry and whenever i go to church and hear telling me how youre not supposed to have control o over conception and everything its like they are talking to a herd of cattle. I wonder what you have to say about that and i will turn the tv back on and listen. [laughter] guest thanks, larry. My basic feeling is that if we had free and acceptable contraception available in schools Sex Education we would see a decline in teen birth rate. We know that from multiple studies and we also know abstinence only education doesnt work so the administration to funnel money seems like a colossal waste of time and effort and money. Theres always going to be extenuating circumstances and women that i know were faithfully using Birth Control the right way but every now and then it just doesnt work, theres 2 of the 4 and that is a reason we also need to ensure that there are reproductive choices for women, but obviously if you are against abortion and want less of them, a good place to start would be making Birth Control widely acceptable. Host i dont know if you can see the screen behind us but we are going to begin with debbie in martinez california. Please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller thank you for having me on and having my favorite boss on your show and thank you for taking on controversial topics. With every book i read of yours, it is in front of my eyes but i didnthat ididnt even know exi. I would like to know how you came by such insightfulness and courtroom dramas and if you have time, id like to know if there is a topic you would not tackle. Host maybe we should get her to sit here. Guest i was raised in a household where education was valued and one of the things i loved about my appearance i tried to model when i had children as they were never the kind of parents who said you must get straight as. Instead of my brother and i really wanted them to be proud of us and so as long as we were trying our best, they were happy for us. But definitely education was valued in our household so i think education can take many different forms and you dont have to be in school to get an education or to continue your education. One of the things i loved about doing the research that i do is that i get to go back to school in a million different ways, and i think its the spark and love of learning that makes me want to continue to be a writer because im constantly finding out things i dont know. For me that its some of the best part of the writing process. Second question was about courtroom drama. Excellent question. I got a lawyer. I did manage to give birth to the child in his second year of law school but i knew things about the legal system that surprised me things like for example you can get a fair trial in america but only if you communicate a certain way. If you dont come in are in trouble and that was the genesis of households where a kid with aspergers syndrome who is very literal isnt going to behave the way you would expect him to in a courtroom or for example plain truth which is about the amish. Our system of justice in america is all about individuality and winning. We want to be the best, be the brightest. They all mesh or 180 degrees away from the way americans think. Its important to be part of the group than an individual. They will go to Great Lengths to not stand out in any way so for that reason might say the bishop comes up to you and says you have rubber wheels on your tractor you say yes of course but even if you dont and the bishop says you do, you say yes, of course, because that is better than admitting in any way or standing up to the crowd as someone that is too passionate about something so imagine that you are a normal american attorney within amish girl shes going to say anything just to confess because that is how our culture has shaped her. I remember thinking ive never been called to testify against my husband that i would be against my child. I would be much more likely to put only my husband and my kids. Often if i write something illegal is because i learned something so crazy that i feel the need to tell all of you about it. Host what would you heed to tackle . Guest i thought it would be racism because they tried and failed t to great advocate of racism for 25 years and it wasnt until i realized i wasnt writing a book to people of color. I have no right to do that to do that as a white woman. If i were to write a book about a black persons experience being black in america im taking a spot on the shelf a black author should have had. I was writing a book cover to ho white americans and that is a little different. I did have a character of color in there but it was they shared their hopes and fears and allowed me to take their existence and became a sensitivity reader to make sure that i got nothing wrong. Host next call is from me in denver. Caller im a huge fan and ive read every book youve written. Come to Denver Colorado soon, please. My questions were first what took you the longest to write and what was hardest for you to write ethically . Guest what took me the longest and what was the hardest i would have to say they are probably the same. Every day i would be up in my office typing in something that happened in the news that was a racially charged incident and i say ive got to get that in somewhere and i could have keptt it open forever but at some point i had to stop and say this is my cut off now. I have so much work to do but couldnt ask th their readers to unpack their biases. I went into this thinking im a nice person. Im not prejudicedi am not preji learned a lot about myself. I learned that i have talked about racism at the dinner table with my kids most of the time. A black family doesnt have that option. And i think to Racial Justice workshops and left in tears listening to the stories of people of color who were telling stories that were benign. Thinking eyeliner is a standard of beauty because it is on bike models but had trouble putting it on her own face and she was sobbing with the africanamerican woman whose every time she walks by the door she has to put on a mask so she can be the kind of like women other people can handle if you are a person of color you are constantly walking on a tightrope. That was the stuff i didnt realize until i began to hear all these stories and hear them viscerally. It completely changed by him, how i see the world and how i live my life. So thats both meant the most to me. Host make sure we got all the questions. Which one does, and i guess this one im going to build on her questions which was the most emotionally wrenching . Guest they are all the emotionally wrenching. Host you mentioned you cried a lot in writing your books and doing research. Guest yeah, it was hard because i was visiting parents with children who are dying. Thats where i did my research. I went to kettering, and i watched the kids having their prom where they danced with an iv pole between them. There is so much that is so heartbreaking. I just remember sitting in these rooms and having these kids who would be completely engaged in the moment and talking to me and the parents that had almost this look on their face and when they walked out where their child couldnt see them, they would break down. I remember this one story a woman that had a child with cancer who had seen another scan of her childs chest and fell to her knees because she said the tumor has come back into the doctor said no maam, thats your daughters heart. Host paper, atlanta. Good afternoon. Caller so glad to get through. It was a pleasure to meet up with you when you came to spelman to do research. If you recall what happened when you came down guest yes i do. Guest caller one of our internists youve got through the campus. You probably laughed at that story because New Hampshire versus georgia. [laughter] that was awesome. My question has to do with the Publishing Industry we are glad to hear you speaking about these spaces where black people have not been and what youve learned about all of that. Its also one of these spaces where black women have had a hard time breaking through. So what have you been doing to use your power as a bestselling white author to rectify this circumstance . My other question, who would you consider your comp guest and fight for justice and we dont want to lose you. Who would you consider [inaudible] host are comparable. We cant let you go if you dont tell us a little bit about yourself. Youre scheduled to meet jodi picoult spelman. How was it that youve got t yoe part of this group . Caller while, im a professor there in the English Department and they wanted some of us to come in i think it was a lunch they were having and then she was going to talk with some students in addition to the woman who was the president at the time. So when the email came out, i was on it because i am a fan and reader of your books. Was that one of those snowstorms that we here in the north roll our eyes about . Guest i still have ptsd about that. My husband was traveling with me and we had a car we pulled out of the airport and we were going i think 4 miles and in our fourth hour of being stuck on the highway, people just literally walked out of their cars. They just leave their cars on the highway in atlanta. We actually wound up reversing. My husband reversed it, went the wrong way of an exit ramp. We started going down the back streets where there were accidents everywhere. It was crazy for the next day we were like yeah we are going to get down to spelman college. Beverly daniel wound up pulling some kids who were on the campus to her home so i did get to go meet with at least a few students which was great including one whos become a good friend and also terrific writer herself who writes fiction now and is a wonderful africanamerican young woman writer doing some great stuff. So yes, actually im still having ptsd from that moment. But yes the question was put in mind doing now. One of the things i do all the time when i give a talk is first of all, i absolutely address the whitaddressedthe white people ie and instruct them not only on whats not to do because white people do make a lot of mistakes but also what they can do, the idea calling out your racist uncle at thanksgiving when he makes a racist joke instead of just pretending you didnt hear it and you know, educating yourself because it isnt up to pluck people to educate white people. Taking sure you dont say things like all wives matter because all cannot until black wives matter more. We know this from statistics. Dont say i have black friends. You wouldnt want to be a representative of your race anymore than someonanymore thana representative of tears. And so again to look at the shop and ask yourself argue reading offers of colors and when they dont know who to read i have a long list of people i could easily recommend. Many of them are on my website. Everyone from clinton might have to just and more to make stone, and she tom is common writers of different colors, celeste and Christina Henriquez and, you know, i could go on and on and on. I will decline, however, if trying to pick my comfortable because i tell you when i read a book like the mothers by brooke bennett, who is this amazing africanamerican female officer who blew me away with her book last year, shes younger than i am in i wouldnt even begin to say your first book was as good as that. I would never do that. I would be worried if i put myself in competition with white authors and authors of color. I just think im grateful there are so many incredible authors of color whose stories blow me away every time. I remember Colton Whitehead has been on social media talking about the fact he had a new book coming out because im so excited to read the next one and again i say all the time and they maintain if you look at your bookshelf and you are not reading authors of color, youre missing out on stories and youre not broadening your mind. Cisco i have to give a quick commercial and of course ive lost my paper, but youve mentioned several people whove appeared on the tv. You can watch them in our archives and booktv. Org. Colson whitehead, doctor Willie Parker who has a book out, beverly tatum. Theyve all appear on the tv. You can type their name in the search function at the top of the page and youll be able to watch the presentations online. As we continue our conversation, are they saying your last name correctly . Guest you are. Host ive heard several pronunciations and just want to make sure. Lafayette, indiana. Hello, kathy. Caller thanks for taking my call. I am a big fan, and im also excited are you there . Guest we are listening, kathy. Dont look at your tv, just listen on the telephone. Caller im a mother of three and also a teacher. The one thing that if i had a suggestion of a book, i had an experience where as a Child Protection caseworker, one of my young men that i was an advocate for later became a serial killer so i wondered do you have any books around that or would you be interested in the story at all . Guest so, thank you for that question. Actually can i jump back to something we didnt answer about paper that i think is important. She asked about the Publishing Industry and bias against writers of color, and i did want to say she is absolutely right and one of the problems is that the gatekeepers in the Publishing Industry are not agents of color and we are seeing more editors of color but thewe need to continue to grow back. What i think is even more important though, since i wrote a small great things, weve seen an explosion, lets say that with quotes around it, of breakers of color who are being successful. We have books like the hate you gave that was on the list for five weeks and is such an amazing book. But we need to see that at the adult level and at the other thing is we need to see it in a way that is not just the African American arm of the Publishing Industry. This service is assuming only people of color should be reading authors of color. It sounds a little bit like that woman thing when in reality why people should absolutely be reading about the experiences of black people in america and vice versa. So that is what i hope the future brings. Not only do we have gatekeepers at the start to see an integration and the fact that its a good story and that is what makes it something publishable and not the fact its going to be black in print in particular. Now on to kathy. I dont think ive written about a serial killer. I dont know that it would be the story that i would pick up necessarily. I dont know that it would be something i would dive into. I never say never, but i always do get a lot of mail and contact from people who say i have a story that i need you to write and especially because you were intimately involved in the case where of this young man. Hearing that from your point of view its going to be more resident than if i were to create a piece of fiction around it. Even if you dont see ourselves as a writer, sit down and try to write something about it and see what happens. You can always wind up hiring a ghost writer at some point. Host where does the term 19 minutes come from . Guest its a book i wrote about bullying and School Shootings in america. 19 minutes is how long it takes in this book to go through his school and systematically killed 20 people. Host do you identify more again, im putting you in the spokes and its completely not fair, but more with alex or lacey . Guest i think i would identify more with alex who is the mother of josie, peters lifelong best friend from when he was little and then as they got older, peter got to be a little more awkward and josie became more popular. Their lives diverged. We see is peters mom. The only reason i would say that im more like alex is because of one thing i remember writing about and havent done the research with because alex is a judge that this judge was telling me, female judge, when she went to the Grocery Store on sundays, like she had to make sure she wasnt wearing her sweat pants with holes in them or she wasnt a mess and couldnt you let her kid when they were throwing things out of the shopping cart as a toddler because people see you as that judge and you always have to be that judge. Ive seen plenty of times in my hometown with sweatpants with my holes in them and being pretty downtoearth. This is more make up an account on my face in like 6 feet, but on the other hand, that public persona and how it leads into your private persona is something i do identify on. Host and you write that in the book. Is senator Jeanne Shaheen a friend of yours because she has a cameo in the book. Guest i didnt know her when i wrote the book at all actually, and then we met together at a fundraiser in New Hampshire that was raising money for women who were homeless and having job interviews, it was to gather money so they could have interviews and she interviewed me on the stage and it was like a million years ago i cant even remember how long ago. Then my son that is in law school ended up interning at one point when she was in college, so our paths have crossed multiple times. I really respected her as a governor and now our senior senator from New Hampshire. I am well acquainted with the junior senator who i had the privilege of having as an interviewer when i was at. Host how much anonymity do you have . Guest i have none. I was in a small town and everyone kind of knows everyone anyway. If youve are known as thats the author, i will hear that a lot, if i want people to not note who i am i just have to pull my hair back because this is pretty recognizable. Host lets take another call. Dairy in new harbor. Caller i was fascinated. I love booktv and watch it at all opportunities on the weekend. Watching for a few minutes i was going to come out and do some errands until you started into some of the books and mentioned ethics, so i thought on the subject you may not have written about but i hope he will look into it as a routine neonatal circumcision. One book is called the elephant in the hospital which is excellent, its about 33 minutes. A more recent one is called american circumcision. And today as we speak, there is a group called the bloodstained man that are very active on facebook demonstrating in front of the American Academy of pediatrics conventions in orlando, florida. Those who are involved in the movement considered a violation of human rights, and theres a lot of older men who felt damaged their entire lives, and its a very difficult subject to get through to doctors with. We are the only country in the modern world that routinely circumcised is intense for nonreligious reasons. Australia, canada and the uk used to do it, but they looked at the facts and basically have stopped. Host this is an issue that you would like to see jodi picoult look into as an author . Guest caller i think she would be wellsuited to look into it host for both small furry things, there is guest s yes, as a matter of fact, and its in ther the air d its one of the things that sort of gets the plot rolling as a matter of fact, because it flags something that happened during and after that flags it as a sign of a bigger illness and this child, a genetic illness. Again its interesting, as authors i wonder if the others you have on get callers saying you should write about this. I get it all the time. People write to me with ideas and sometimes there have been times i might do would be an interesting idea or its something im already thinking about. I do find funny tweaks it a good idea is something that intersects with my life at a certain point where i am worried about something, thinking about something, obsessing about something, something thats really almost keeping me up at night. I cant say that its necessarily something ive given it a lot of thought to. Perhaps in the future it will be more prevalent in my thought process, but theres other things that might that are keeping me up at night. Host i think i read a quote that said once i finish a book, i start the next day on another one. Guest yes, yes. Want me to get you through the . Guest im at the end of a sixweesix week tour for spark e come and literally the day after i finish the last event, im headed to jail to work with them whos been helping me do my research for my next book. We are going to be talking about a middle kingdom paulson as the book of two ways, one is the text from the middle of the kingdom of egypt, on the bottom of it coming and we are going to Work Together so she can show me how she would go about translating it. Literally im doing on my way home from this book tour. Host help us with the theme of the book. After co guest its actually the book i will be working on next. Unlike my more recent books, its not i would say a big controversial issue. Its more for me and interior emotional book the way i would say leaving tim tim is an emotil book and it asks the question who would you be if you were not who you are right now, what if your wife had taken a a tiny fork in a different direction, what if the one who had gotten away havent gotten away and it also has to do with ancient egypt. The reason has to do with ancient egypt as many people have heard the bulk of th book d so that was a new kingdom tech is that grew out of prior texts like the pyramid text from way back in the kingdom and from the middle kingdom of egypt and one was something called the book of two ways. And in the book is two ways. Its actually painted on the bottom of not very many but certain coffins. Its very beautiful artistic representation of something that almost looks like a videogame, and its the first visual interpretation of behalf of an afterlife and it is a positive you can go one of two ways. You can go by air, sorry, by sea or land, and no matter which way you go, youll end up with the same place in the afterlife, so metaphorically that is tying into what im writing about. Host so youre going to meet with a yale professor. Some of the things youve done in research including watching sliced alone on a movie set, observed cardiac surgery, gone to jail for the day, towels on an amish farm, wrote spills into dna testing procedures, explored bone marrow transplants, have gone ghost hunting, spend more time in a jail and hardcore arizona jail guest dont forget [inaudible] [laughter] host early on in your career, was it a little more tough to get into these places . Guest i have not changed the way i approach Research Like the 25 years that ive been writing, i write the same letter i would say hello, my name is jodi picoult. I would love to shadow you, talk to you, then i say i will be talking with you hopefully we can find a mutually agreeable time. I keep going until someone picks up the phone. In all these years i have been doing this, only once have i had a problem connecting with somebody for research, and it was for keeping safe. Everybody else really liked to be an expert for the day is that i discovered. As long as youre willing to work on their schedule. Host the story of being kicked off a Television Set for my sisters keeper. Are you going in pretty hot, were you angry at the time guest i dont think that he wanted me around. I did get permission to go back eventually but its like mommy and daddy are fighting. Host heidi from Paradise Valley arizona. He wore on the bestselling author jodi picoult. Caller its a pleasure. Youve been a tremendous influence and inspiration. Many years in fact ive read at least ten books. We have a similar history but i have had several experiences living my life in la and having quite h. , occur but ive been a writer but ever at the level that i would love to be. I think to myself with you as an example your processes. Really truthfully not just a quick little one line answer how do you keep balancing. You are very well educated at princeton. How do you keep your balance in your life having the ability to do so anything and timeline is literally are you up at four in the morning, what are your writing hours. It isnt easy to be published. If it was, everybody would be published and of course things have changed since i started out because now anyone can go and publish online digitally if they want to. I think i personally do not do selfpublishing for a lot of reasons. I think its important to have the brick and mortar publisher behind you it is really believing in yourself because i think publishing is about to weed those that dont have faith in themselves. Youve got to stick with it and it can take years but if you keep thinking you have something to offer and you keep submitting it, someone may take a second look and that maybe all you need to need to learn how t to get yr selfcriticism and they are best critic and write on demand is a tool that they could to best gio best tools. Once you do that you dont need to take work shops anymore. For me, i am incredibly organized there is no way to get the question about it whether it is a promotion day or research day if it is a writing day i usually get up in the morning, exercise. I go back upstairs to my office and i usually stop at him for oclock and go downstairs and continue. I used to write in 15 minute stints when my kids were watching tv or Nursery School or napping and i would bring my computer just when practice and write anywhere i could because i didnt have a lot of time on my kidwhenmy kids were little and i learned that you can always edit a bad page but not a blank page. Now that they are all adults and out of the house i still function the same way, i sit down and write something. Host guest i can have a great day writing or writing 50 easy pages on the trial. It depends on what im writing. Some people ask what is your word count and i dont even know. Guest caller call host does dialogue come easy to you or is it one of the tougher areas . Guest it is hard for me to explain how to create character. I get paid to hear voices in my head and that is what it usually they beat people talking in my head. Research holds me know what they are saying. Their mannerisms, speech patterns, what is upsetting them, what they need to talk about, it just arrives in my head fully formed. Host jodi picoult has spent time with a bit of the department of Justice Division that tracks down nazi war criminals, spend time in botswana with elephant researchers, spend time with the psychic, shadowed an Abortion Provider, observed multiple procedures. I want to get your reaction to this review. We rarely encounter that appearance. Instead we need mothers and fathers that try to fail to meet the current standards of caring for children. Those that have absorbed the therapeutic language for talk shows and magazines but who are congenitally unable to implement the adequacy to produce altogether new orders. What does that mean . Guest one of the beauties of writing fiction is taking ordinary people and placing them in next with a nice consensus and then seeing what happens in the. I like doing that. I represent the review very much because i remember casting my backlight that parenting ficti fiction. Im sure you could do a deep dive and see certain books of mine that would fit the character, but there are many more that dont. Host speaking of which, handle with care came out in 2009. Is Charlotte Okeefe likable . Guest yes, she is. It is the story basically a legal tactic pretty much invented in the United States, and its when a parent has a child with a profound disability and goes to court and testify as if my ob gyn had told me that my child was going to have this disability, i would have terminated the pregnancy. Very often come as a result of that, juries pay out billions of dollars to families, so here is the interesting thing that i learned when writing this. Appearance who go to court and say these things, they love these kids so much, but because of our health care system, they do not have the funding necessary to make sure their child is going to look the best place possible. So, they go to court because it is a way to get money so that they can continue to take care of their kids in a way that is going to give them a terrific life which is a terrible statement. It may not even understand what the parent is saying that how interesting would it be if you got up to say that your child with a physical disability but eventualluntil he was 100 bett. I found myself looking for one in 10,000 its brittle bone syndrome there is dwarfism, they need multiple surgeries and will break hundreds of poems in a lifetime. They wind up with respiratory issues. It is a tough physical existence but mentally they are smarter than their peers by talking in court i can see why she might be offputting to you. I think she was lopes with low infield this is the only way she should take care of her i do not believe she goes about it the right way and charlotte learns the ultimate lesson. Who is samantha fox guest my daughter as a matter of fact i had the privilege of writing to young adult novels with her. When sammy was 13 she called me, i was on a book tour in california and she said i think i have a good idea for. I said lets hear it. Any time it was closed the characters inside and personality is different from the roles they played in the book and they were obsessed with the band and was attractive and what if one day he actually spoke to her and wanted out of the story as much as she wanted out. They already thought she was brilliant at that moment who hasnt had a literary crush . We sat next to each other shes the only person in my family that knows what that is like and shes bored she was never going to write a sequel between ten and midnight by speaker phone we went on to her for that thought as well and had the great pleasure over the past few years of working to turn that into and its being produced by darrell roth who has won many 20s and has been directed by jeff calhoun and they have an amazing songwriting team and weve had such a great time working as a family to turn this into the musical. Guest we want to show you a little bit of talking about working on their books. Our conversation will continue after this. Hello, i am jodi picoult. [laughter] hi, i am jodi picoult. We are the authors of of the age the story we began writing about prince oliver and we were on the outside to manage who could get out into theou real world. What happens when you get your wish and it comes true. Can you still create happilyaf ever after and more importantly, how you do it. I think i learned in the process thabut my mother is incredibly weird. There was a moment i wasas considering to throw her out the window. And vice versa. You were horrible, too. We did abou about heads a lot i think that meant we were producing our absolute best work, which was really kind of cool. There are characters new to this book. Off the page you get to hear the stories of different people at jewel and edgar hoover just kind of sideline characters and suddenly now are in the forefront. I think that produced a much better book. I love off the page so much. There are twists on every page. Its very entertaining. I think it came out beautifully. Host we are back live with jodi picoult. Weve got about an hour left in our program at her. With her. This is our special fiction edition of in depth. We are in month 11 and bestselling author, jodi picoult, new book spark of life appeared number one on the New York Times bestseller list. We will put the numbers up. In case you cant get through because they are a little jam and you can try, we do have social media sites and you can make a call made or ask questions that we as well. 202 7488200 in the east and central time zones, 202 7488201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones, and if you want to make a comment on facebook, twitter or instagram just remember at booktv. Guest i cant tell you how many efforts and wonder woman sends me because there is a bunch but when i started writing i was only the second woman since 1941. Host y. . Guest that is a good question to put to them, isnt it. I dont know why it took that long to get a female writer. I will tell you that i think its made a difference. I think wonder woman, whos been around since 1941, is a remarkable character. She is as strong as superman, 6 feet tall, shes intelligent and charismatic and can fly and has hurt less so of truth. Gogod knows we can use that thee days. Theres so many wonderful things about her. But i think its also important to say she was huge when she debuted because prior to her rival in 1941, the only women characters in comic books were either secretaries or betty and veronica fighting over a guy so she was a new role models and always struggled to find an audience in a way. In the male storylines that were written about her, they were great, but also involved in some way damaging her or hurting her or binding her, trapping her. Why would you give a woman all that power and then try to take it away from her. I think its because theres this weird yes, this belief that a woman should be strong but not too strong. If shes too strong, shes intimidating to men and isnt relatable to women so you have to find tha the fine line. It sounds like politics. When i went to write her i didnt want her vulnerability to come from something physical which is the way that it had been handled in the past by men. Instead, i thought about her origins and the fact unlike superman, she doesnt have a u. S. Kind of human family. Shes an amazon so she loves humans but isnt one of them. There is already a disconnect there. The other thing i thought about this this is a woma but this iss in disguise, working, trying to maintain that disguise and also cares about balancing herself, her work, family, her friendships. Who does that sound like . It sounds wicked lot of women. That was the way to make her relatable by making her emotionally vulnerable and so thats what i tried to write in the theory. She had some mommy issues to follow that and i loved writing it. It was a totally absolutely unique. I was approached by dc comics after id written the tenth circle that had a comic book embedded in it and i didnt have time to write it. I went downstairs to dinner and was asked to write wonder woman and i can do it. I could look at me and said mom, you totally have to write wonder woman. Im incredibly proud of that series. It was fun to collaborate, work with as an editor, pencil or, to create the visual image of the story we were creating and it was, you know, it was an experience unlike anything id ever done. I loved doing that. I love writing and contexts that are not novel writing. That was kind of my first. Writing a comic book was different. When i got to write novels with my daughter, that was different. I had the great honor of working with a cast, this Creative Team turning between the lines into a musical, so much so id like to doing it and decided i wanted to continue and we are in the process of turning it into a musical and it isnt even my book. Host who did the illustrations in wonder woman for you . Guest we had multiple people. Host a whole staff. Guest different artists. The book was taken from different issues put together and called love and murder. My favorite illustration comes from the fifth story where the amazons come to invade america and there is someone i directed who looks a lot like me. But shes a redhead and shes got pearls and shes kicking back mans got. A real cameo in the fifth one. [laughter] host lets go back to the calls in here from kathy in Santa Barbara california. Thanks for holding. You are on offer jodi picoult. Caller hello, i have a question about your finding that some prolife protesters themselves had abortions and in the wall there were a lot of doctors that had abortions secretly and took Cash Payments and a lot of them were conservatives. This was before the internet. Do you think this would happen again if the roll was reversed giverole was reversedgiven techo highlight and find out the Republican Voters are getting abortions for money . Guest i dont know if that would happen. I do believe that if roe v. Wade is overturned and because of the state level, there are certain things we will immediately see. Certain states have one surviving clinic. Many states in the bible belt and south will follow suit. Honestly, reproductive rights will be something that is at the mercy of your zip code if youre a woman. Which women will be able to travel across state lines and women of color will be predominantly affected, which i think is completely unfair. He was riding his bicycle up and down the driveway and he comes around the circle and said whose god . I would not say im agnostic or atheist and i said some people believe that god is someone who is up above us watching over everyone to keep them safe. He says like a babysitter. I said yes. Thats kind of what he is like and then he sells my babysitters are girls. And i thought what if there was a little girl who suddenly said she saw god and saw her as a female clerks so i decided i would write that book. Host did you hear a book in your head at that point . Yes. Yes. I remember my impetus was to offend all religions equally. [laughter] because i knew i would be chipping away at a lot of dogma interviewed priests, evangelical pastors , tenant revivals, i interviewed a priest and a town close to mine and said why is it catholics who only see the virgin mary . He said i dont know thats a good question. Everyone i spoke to was wonderful until i spoke to a rabbi i went to the interfaith chaplain at dartmouth. A rabbi a very nice guy i walked in and before i even send one word he said if you write this book you will perpetuate that dog judaism for 5000 years. I havent even said anything yet. Basically he didnt want to talk although he said that he would and i found out three days later he was leaving the university there is a big thing going on in his life. So i found a woman who was a catholic converted to judaism and also a lesbian so i thought she has to be openminded and she was wonderful. One of the facts she came up with is that one of the words for god in hebrew means the mountain god. So the Little Things like that i could use in the book she was so great i want back to her for other books as well if i needed something religious or based in judaism. Host after the book was published, with your team a priest and rabbis and evangelicals . They were very happy. Everybody got a copy and they all felt it was dealt with honestly and openly but it was the nature of belief. There is a character you mentioned earlier one of my alltime favorite character characters, the opposite of a televangelist but the television atheist and he winds up on the front line of this womans house her daughter faith who sees god and things happen she cannot explain. So now he questions his own beliefs and ultimately thats why wanted to write this. Sometimes religion goes from holier to holier than thou. Its amazing what 2018 looks like when the Founding Fathers created this country to be separate they meant for religion and politics to be sharply divided and i dont understand how they got into bed with each other so fiercely. Except for the Campaign Finance reform laws that i will change. I wanted to attack that and it took more than one book as a matter of fact. When i wrote change of heart one of the things they came back to was religion again. Thats the book thats also about the Death Penalty in america but a man on death row and decides that to redeem himself before he dies he needs to donate his heart to the sister of his victim who needs a heart transplant. That doesnt create good press for the present so they call a priest so he begins performing miracles on death row. People start to see him as the messiah except what he says does not come from any bible that you know but the gospel of thomas which is the agnostic gospel but was not chosen to be part of christianity. Host when you write these books you are pretty deep into theology. I have to be. Host you spend a lot of time researching. I do. Are there certified cases of stigma or people all of a sudden quoting the bible who have not been exposed . I remember talking to er physicians to say what wouldnt you see of an injury but would be missing . They obviously dont see injuries of certain tissue or muscle so we had to create that in reverse but there are examples of people who have apparently bled from places and that is considered to be. Host were your views ever challenged . Of any topic. I will say that i think i have become a more confirmed nonreligious person because of the research i have done and in particular with change of heart, learning about the agnostic gospels doing a oneonone and im learning the history behind christianity is so fascinating. When you live in a vacuum and you are told the word of god you miss all the history behind and to recognize in the years after literal historic death christianity was a hot mess people all over the place call themselves christians that believe very Different Things the agnostics believed in selfknowledge that in order to be close to god you had to find the part inside you that was divine the priest couldnt tell you be because you had to find it yourself. Its different for everyone. The only way is to ask 1 million questions that was unsettling to others and iranians were suspicious and said we have to do something. Basically he said matthew mark and john lookalike we will pick im sorry matthew mark and luke and then the gospel of john he knew the guy who knew the guy who wrote it so he picked him as the fourth gospel these will be the four pillars of christianity if you dont believe this you are not a christian. It was founded on the editorial decision. What if the gospel of thomas was included . What if you heard jesus say if you do not bring forth what is within you will destroy you . Then that is the sentiment Mary Magdalene is another agnostic gospel that was jettisoned and it says the reason why he died jesus died because he was teaching stuff that passed people off and that didnt make it into the final cut of the bible. Its important to think about that and if you talk about gay rights as proof of god being against homosexuality the word homosexuality was translated from the greek nobody knows what it really means and scholars think it doesnt mean homosexual that someone who paid for a prostitute so when you unpack the actual language that some people say is the word of god you can see its a little more complicated when you add in history and linguistic so when i turned back to that is because i am fascinated by how few people are willing to admit that. Host the next call from oregon. Caller hi. First and foremost i want to thank you so very much for your promotion of higher education. At 36 years old for everything that ive been through in my lifetime. That leads me to a question i have contemplated 32 years. When and do i tell them about tragic things in my life that will help them understand so that i cant hurt them . I have a hard time figuring out when and if to tell them about those things. Thats a really hard choice for me to make on your behalf not knowing your sons or your life. But what i will say is that sometimes the beauty of fiction or a media like film is that it allows you entrance into a topic that might be hard to talk about. I would encourage you if you got it was easier to find a book or movie that resonates with what you have experience and watch it with your kids and then start a conversation about it. And then to experience for real. I would like to believe your kids at this stage would gave you the benefit of the doubt as a mother who wanted to protect them to understand may be why you didnt tell them something earlier but they are old enough to support you at this point i would think. Host next call from new york. Caller hi. This is a fabulous show. Food for the brain. I love it. Thank you for hosting. Also i would like to say to jodi, i loved 19 minutes because it took the perspective not the victims but the perpetrator and what it did to his family. When i watch the news i think that poor family but what about his mother or father . Being a mother of four i know how deep that can go. Its brilliant that she did it from that perspective. I cannot tell you how much i love your books. They are from different perspectives. And that vocabulary can make or break a conversation and make or break a person. To explain yourself and get feelings across. Thats all i have to say. Its a pleasure. Host can you sympathize with lacey throughout 19 minutes . Yes. The ending of the book which i will not say to my was hysterical crying. Hysterical. It goes back to what we said before no one is all good or all bad. It is simplistic in my mind to say Parents Create dad kids is much more interesting to think what appearance of being good or engaged wind up with a kid who is so broken and hurt and one hurting takes a gun into school and starts shooting thats why i chose to tell the story from that perspective. I do think that book is one of the ones im most proud of it is taught as curriculum and a lot of schools. I have learned and i have spoken about gun violence and bullying. This year alone there have been 294 Mass Shootings and 64 were in school. We can do better as a country. I firmly believe then control is a big part of it and there are ways to have common sense gun reform like pro Second Amendment people what everyone says is not true but there is no reason for civilians to have the ar 15. There just isnt and theres no reason not to have background checks and longer waiting periods you have a longer waiting period to have an abortion dan a gun in mississippi. That is problematic for me. One of the stories i love about 19 minutes is a school visit that i made, one Book One Community thing all the kids read it. I gave a little presentation and talked about the research and talk about Columbine Police and working with the grief counselors who were told to tell every parent yours was the first to die and did not suffer. Imagine what all that parents learned they were lied to and then another parent a friend died that day when a 15 yearold walked in and started shooting and killed two kids. And what he experienced in the aftermath. When i was talking about that one boy stood up and says i just want to say i bought again to school in october i was going to kill some of you but i got this book that in english class and thats why they kill anyone. The principal didnt even know what to say another girl raises her hand and says and she was in a wheelchair and set i came home one day i was in tears in my mom said whats the matter . I said im invisible nobody notices or sees me. I told myself my my mom i wanted to kill myself and she was so upset she ran out of my room crying and i opened my backpack and 19 minutes was my english homework that night and why i am alive today. When you write fiction you dont think about changing the lives of real people but it happens. And more often than you think. It is absolutely humbling and the coolest thing about my career. Host our last color will not give away the ending we will not do that for any of your books because you do put a little zing into them. [laughter] but i wanted to open with this with the interview both producer said now. But i wanted to open the whole three hours to say jodi picoult does he know . No he doesnt and i dont think he will for many years. Now everyone has to read the book. Host im not giving it away. But i think it would have worked. [laughter] barbara from california. Caller hi. Actually i am from sonoma count county. I have a Lending Library in a make everybody read them. I am a mother of two girls one of them will be a writer god willing thank you for talking about suggestions but you said a lot of your creativity comes from what mothers worry about. One of the things i worry about is a grew up reading literally almost one book a day. I have an advanced degree just well read person because i love books. With my potential future with social media. And i feel we are losing humanity. Do you think about that how that affects our future generation and literacy . I am really concerned. I cant even go to lunch with someone without them picking up their phone. Do you think about that . Yes. Great questions and those are almost two different questions. What i would say as a former eighthgrade teacher, its important to teach kids how to love to read. Not what they should be reading but how to love to read every member actively doing to identify that for every kid. It might be a classic novel for one person were could be sports statistics. All of that is valid literature and enhances a child to pick up something to read. You have to get out and think i want my daughter to read and of green gables that may not be her thing but eventually she will come around. Thats one thing i think is important social media and bullying is a real concern. One thing i came across researching 19 minutes it has changed so much. If youre mad at someone you say i call you about and you meet outside on the baseball field and wrestle with them. Nobody does that anymore now its all through text and snapchat and social media. There was a website at one point set up to humiliate a bunch of girls with comments. With social media it divorces from responsibility. You dont have to look at your victim in the face but still affect them with words. I do think thats an issue and something i call kids out for when i talk about 19 minutes they say they would never treat anyone the way peter was treated would use it with him in the cafeteria if he was alone . Is important to recognize in action is an action and i have to make the choice to make the connection because all the social media and devices are intentionally keep us in our own little cubicles. My family will tell you i am wildly addicted to my own phone and i think about it all the time. But there has definitely been a cost to that and i remember talking to a friend of mine who is a psychology professor who me do research for several of my books and how kids today dont know how to knock on someones door to say do you want to go to the cafeteria and grab dinner . We set up their play dates with them when they were little. Now theyre all on social media waiting to see if people are on one in the cafeteria. I dont know the answer to that. But i do think its important to call people out on bullying through social media even if you wouldnt necessarily see it that way. I write everybody who writes me back. Everybody awaits me a fan letter on email gets a response. Even hate mail. I do it because i want them to know there is a human being at this end of the computer. I think thats really important. Host what do they say in their hate mail . Is there a common theme . No. It usually based specifically on whatever the book is about. When i wrote small great things i had lots of mostly white men telling me you are a race traitor how dare you say im a racist. I have black friends. That kind of thing again and i just think maybe you should we read the book. I dont know. But i always take the time to explain calmly and clearly understand what you are saying. Let me phrase it this way and try again to model the lessons i try to present in small great things. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. You cant which everyone all the time. Thats okay. My favorite piece of hate mail came from a man in cleveland. I woke up to this and he said i read risa Justice Kavanaugh should read your book because he will change his mind about abortion that wont happen because he is a devout catholic and this is none of your business see you should take your ridiculous pros and shut up. I laughed really hard when i got that email. So actually this is my business. And i laughed because it was a silly piece of mail. But on the other hand has the undercurrent that i talk about. And who in the audience has not had a man who wants to cut her down and make fun of her looks in some way . That is the easiest way for a man to chop a woman down it happens all the time. Host rhode island you are on book tv. Caller hi. I just want to say at the start i am a huge fan. And then she had a copy of my sisters keeper so i read it in two days almost cover to cover and fell in love and then i had to backtrack because and then with o henry every time i read that as you get that punch in the gut. [laughter] and then to get that holy cow moment. So do you have that in mind with your book . First of all thats a tremendous complement. Its very nice to be compared to go henry. I usually write with that in mind. For me my characters drive is much as the plot but i do try to keep the balance of both of them. But its fun for me to have a twist in the view a chase through the text so you can go back to the beginning to see what you have missed. Host of what you listed of what they are reading now gone with the wind, the life of pi, and the book thief very diverse in different books. Gone with the way and made me want to be a writer. Its funny because i come back to in recent years and there are some serious issues that i have with implicit racism in the boo book, but taken as and encapsulated story of its time i remember reading that book at 13 memorizing a huge swath of it i loved it. It was a girl from suburban new york i could absently smell atlanta burning and feel it around me. She did that with words and then i thought i could do that thats the first time i thought of myself being a writer in the longterm. So that book will always be really special to me. The life of pi is the best love letter book i can think of. When i read it i was absolutely blown away because it really isnt about about it kid and a raft with the bengal tiger but the power of story and to whom the story belongs. Does it belong to the writer or the reader and what does that look like i remember putting it down and said i wish i had written that. I was so jealous i hadnt thought of it. The book the that marcus is a poet in longform and the beauty of his language and the power of words to hurt and heal. To impact on a personal or political level and i love the book so much i wanted to turn into another which is why its a musical. Host does the story belong to you or to us as a reader . Its a little of both and thats the beauty of writing. How may times have you gone back to a book that you loved , and when you go back its like a whole new book because the moment who you are when you read it are different from the last time hoping that the characters are unique. And that is magical the text can sit on can stay the same that experience is different. It is phenomenal for a static artform. Because of that i feel i am contributing as a writer the were contributing equally as the reader theres one between the lines that says the writer makes the house but the reader makes it a home. Host there is a quotation from the Guardian Newspaper in london, i chose to be a commercial author because i knew i was going to write the same kind of book, the same quality of writing a matter what i wrote and i wanted to reach more people. The caveat . I will never win the nobel prize for literature, a National Book award, it never will be nominated. Its true. There is a weird artificial risk of literary and commercial fiction i think it is a marketing decision. It used to be way back 20 years ago it really was a decision did i want to be considered a literary author or commercial author the differences literary authors win prizes and write a book every ten years and commercial writers write frequently and have bigger pitch runs and to be honest i did make a deliberate decision to be considered a commercial author because i thought my book is my book i would love for people to read it. There is a believe if you write quickly and efficiently you can to be writing well. Clearly the people who are masters of the artform are taking a decade between books. Sometimes thats true. There are wonderful writers taking ten years but also some really wonderful writers who write frequently and are considered commercial fiction writers because of the frequency of their writing. I have seen National Book Award Finalist who write books where very little happens so much character and nothing else and it may work for a lot of people maybe the language is beautifu beautiful, but i also think there is great merit to someone who can tell a story and do it in a way that gets you to think compassionately and foster empathy and i think the gender gap plays in their with a man writes a book that includes marriage or family its a Great American novel if a woman does it is romance or women section. Host in fact you sent out a tweet a couple years ago. [laughter] the New York Times raved about the new book is anyone shocked . I would love to see if the New York Times raved about authors who are not white male literary darling. It was a slow news day that day. [laughter] because it wasnt just his first review and at times that week but the third. I thought that was a little excessive we only have so much space and theres a lot of great deserving authors out there who are not Jonathan Franzen and for some reason that was taken and expanded and Jennifer Weiner jumped on the bandwagon and said actually there is gender discrimination in publishing and the two of us are at the forefront of that for a while and we were told women should write Better Stories and write more compelling stories thats why they dont get book awards are not considered seriously and why are they bellyaching . They have readership. Those pejorative terms of course like i said and then arriving on the scene crunches the numbers to say yes now we have statistics there is gender discrimination in publishing. Not to say mr. Franzen is not a terrific writer. He is but there are women who are equally as great. Host how many languages have your books been put into . 35 or 40. Host heavy books have you sold . I know its a lot. Im in the millions maybe around 15 or 16 at this point but i will be totally honest i dont keep count. It is pretty incredible there was a time i thought the only person buying my books with my mother and her friends and she doesnt have that many friends. [laughter] host a spark of light the newest book coming out a couple weeks ago. 2016 small great things. Off the page 2015. Leaving time 2014. The storyteller 2013. Those are just her most recent she has 26 the first ever 1982 songs of the humpback whale. What is the theme of that book . It was a beast of a book. About a mother and daughter. And the relationship that they have. The mother is emotionally abusive relationship with her husband and winds up taking her daughter and going crosscountry tour her brother lives in california. For husband is a whale researcher studying the songs of humpback whales and what you learn is that the male whales seem to the women and whoever has the best song gets the girl. So the structure of that book was very complicated. We had the mother telling the story forward and rebecca telling it backward from intersecting in the middle of america in the middle of the book and then three parallel narratives of the three men in her life when this man sam at the Apple Orchard and her husband as they convince her to come back. Structurally it was a nightmare i had more brain cells at the time is closer in age to the daughter that i was the mom at the time. Host this was turned down . No. I really wrote a creative thesis in princeton like writing a novel with training wheels because i was under the tutelage of my mentor and taught me everything that i know as a writer. As a creative thesis i wrote my first novel, she help me with that into shape i had 100 rejections but i kept writing because thats what you do my agent sign me on the strength of that book that sold the book i was writing during that twoyear period. Nobody has read developments of my creative thesis but if you go to the Firestone Library you can probably find it buried in the bowels somewhere. [laughter] host michigan you are on with author jodi picoult. Caller thanks for taking my call. Hi jodi. I am so glad to have known that you were going to be on today and i am watching this show. I have read almost all of your books. But seeing and listening to you today, i just have to tell you i am so impressed with you and you are beautiful and incredibly bright. Not that i thought you are stupid before. [laughter] you are a real thinker, you are well spoken, and i just quickly have to tell you before i ask my question, one of my girlfriends and i each have a jodi section on our bookshelves that each of our houses. I love it. You are famous. Two quick questions. We have been mispronouncing your name for the last 25 years. Would it be too tacky if you were to put on the back of your book in parentheses how to pronounce your last name . [laughter] for 25 years we got on the phone together and we said oh my gosh we been saying her name your name wrong. If youre trying to save my name im happy. Host the pronunciation we use is like peekoh. Correct. Host what other authors on your bookshelf . Oh my lord people say just move into the library. Because i have so many books. Jonathan kellerman, steve martini, and a bunch of biographies. And memoirs because right now im into that. I cant think of all the others. There are so many. Host thank you for calling. I appreciate it. Very sweet. Its funny i have always said if you try to pronounce my name im happy i dont care how you butcher it as long as you try. Even my husband will say it wrong because he knows people can find me that way because thats how they expect it to sound. I dont know if i would do a pronunciation thing on the back although i remember many years ago there was a website that was created authors were invited to call in to speak their name and then a student could go to the website and click on it and how they pronounce the authors name it has to be out there still somewhere but i dont know what it is. Host we gave them a little bit of guidance. You signed off on how we pronounced it. This is a tweet from diane ive never read jodis books but i have been watching her speak in a very interested. Where do i start . We got that email again as wel well. Thats an interesting question because i think of my book substantially different from each other. I would encourage you to go to my website to look through the synopsis of the book and to find the ones that interest you the most they are moral and ethical dilemmas and maybe one that speaks to you more than another. I guess that is to suggest. There are so many different issues. And are there more than one opinion . That it is accurately represented even if its something i vehemently disagree with to be sure its in the book somehow. Talk about gay rights and gay parenting i had an interview focus on the family they are part of Exodus International very anti gay that jesus christ you can choose not to be gamble event conversion therapy. And my eldest son actually came out to me when all of a sudden i wasnt writing theoretical and now a mom on a mission. One of the things i talked about and said do you worry that some of the rhetoric that you use could inspire hate crimes against lgbtq people . She said thank goodness that has not happened. Have you heard of Matthew Shepard . She said who . Is that excuse me and i had to splash water on my face and call myself down because it was so hang on angry and that moment because my mom had went back on. For the book i had to finish the interview and create that point of view and its fair. I cannot even tell you how opposed to that point of view im but its in the book. I really wanted to get through 19 minutes but being a teenager during the rise of School Shootings this was hard. I will try again with no possibility of a current. My daughter who wrote the book with me part of her Masters Program learning what to do with an active school shooting. They gave every the teacher a deborah a rubber doorstop and told special needs students you have headphones and an ipad to distract a child into being quiet. The part that its a masters curriculum makes me sick america can do better than that. Good afternoon. I would like a suggestion from you i come from a family of readers. And have two younger grandchildren whose parents dont read and every time i try to get them they are not interested. What can i do . How old are they . 11 and 14. Girls. Give them a copy of between the lines. Start there. That is exactly the right age. Basically what i will hammer home whenever your kids are into is defined in the book and that always take the form of a classic novel that we could have been forcefed as younger. Something that picks them up it could be anything. And then that will but eventually. My mom in a Nursery School and my biggest fan to the very close to her. And one of the things shes to do go to the Public Library twice a week and come home with a stack of books like this and read them. I still remember the day i knew how to sign my name because that meant i could get my library card and then i can bring home a big stack of books just like my mom. And then i asked for a reading lamp by my bed and she model that behavior for me. So that is important. If her grandparents parents are not readers but if she is and thats a great thing to model when she is with them. That they are picking up and reading and tell her about. And that to be a big reader in the family was my mother and i wanted to be like her. Host from florida please go ahead. Caller oh my goodness. Im just enjoying the telephone stories. Now i get to hear the real want to finish up. What is your Favorite Book ever or that you are writing . Its hard for me to pick a Favorite Book because ive had so many Favorite Books. Ones that we talked about before. Including the life of pi even Alice Hoffman is my favorite author. She makes writing look easy and its never easy. Turtle noon is the first book i read that i became a devoted fan. I used to read the paperback princess to my daughter that turns a fairytale on its ear to create a Strong Female princess character who needs nobody. I like to think it made her into the girl she is today. My favorite current book i have written a small great things because of the effect it had on me as a human being but i do reserve the right to change my mind in case i write something else. Host you mentioned earlier it took you 25 years. I had a lot of false starts i cannot write about racism the way i wanted to. How not to be a savior or take up space and rather to walk up to a person who says open your eyes. That is a really Important Role to fill in literature about racism. Host you told us you are currently reading a book. I know im reading this right now because im angry enough watching the news to be honest and this is a dystopian world where women have the encounter and only allowed to speak 100 words per day so you have to be very careful what you say. Youre not allowed to read or do anything that has anything to do with the transmission of information. It feels like a slippery slope sometimes. Host you might be our last color on the tv linda. Caller. Host you know the really have to turn down the volume on your television are you ready to talk . Yes. Host dont listen to the television. Caller okay. Hi. Can you hear me . I started a new job and no friends at the time so we became friends. And we both love and she calls you jody like on a first name basis now. [laughter] but the question i went to ask what what you said about kevin on of course i was all for him and im curious if you wanted to comment on that. Host i apologize but we are out of time. We will have jodi picoult and the interview where we began with the opening question. You said Justice Kavanaugh should read your new book a spark of light. Why is that . I think it does a serviceable job the real women have to make a decision about Reproductive Health care to eliminate a pregnancy and the risks we will lose if roe v wade is overturned. All Reproductive Health care women use clinics for and need will disappear in the bible belt. But i would really like is for him to move beyond perhaps original views on abortion to open his mind and hear the voices of other women. Host talking with bestselling novelist jodi picoult of her 26 books the most recent was spark of light this is part of the book tv special fiction addition of indepth next month brad meltzer. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. There are way too many books out there that are sanitized that are constructed around hollywood there is a hero and the villain and a clear take away there is a crisis especially now the extremes on both sides are created and the cadence is so rapid and intense. And anything that would be weird of what the actual leaders went through. Everybodys minds are on the crisis. With organized oppression toward black and brown people and then to backpedal and that they witnessed that the black family has 16 times less wealth than the average white family and blacks are four times as likely to be charged with crimes. They are real but if we do with them that would require government but its not a government of dictatorships or to give in order and getting together so if we deal in minneapolis theres an article in the New York Times so to dismantle successfully the police force with a longstanding that will take at least a year with the contract but that will require government. Those who have taken of skin and to care about the ins and outs and then to take on a position to get something done. It is approximate if you fail somebody its right in your face at the Grocery Store. Or the bagel shop in the City Council Chambers and the book is very intense to write and pretty intends to read because there is open conflict but the devil is in the details. E of washington talks about her life and career and is interviewed by jim hines of connecticut. After words is a weekly Interview Program wit with relet guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. All after words programs are also available as podcasts. Host pramila, thank you for the conversation and for writing the book. I told you it was a pleasure reading