You can purchase copies directly from our official bookseller a cappella books, theres a link in the chat so you can do that, we provided a link on our website, as jessica and heather are talking, submit your questions for heather or jessica if jessica will entertain questions as well. I will. We have a q a feature at the bottom of your screen, we will get to as many of those as time will allow, heather has contributed essays in new york times, and National Geographic traveler, among other newspapers and magazines, she is the author of the bestselling book find the good, take good care of the garden in the god and if you lived here, i would know your name, tonight she will discuss her latest book of the alaskan adventure in small town politics, heather will be interviewed by jessica, she is the author of the novel the magnetic girls, the 2027 book price, and a nominee for the townsend price invisible sisters his name one of the books all georgians should read an aircraft guide a guide to writing about craved by vanity fair magazine among others, she teaches creative writing interacts at university of atlanta, she has International Writing and we are so delighted she is joining us tonight, heather and jessica welcome and i will let jessica take it from here. Thank you, heather i am so glad to talk to you, if you like you are a friend even though we just met on the internet in the past few weeks, i love this book so much and while i personally do not have the temperament to run for office and you do apparently, you and i share deep beliefs in the importance of community and the importance of democracy and its a real honor to spend some time with you. I want to know if you would read for us the very beginning, if you would read some the beginning that my life is an open book, the first three paragraphs. Sure, election day, there are two polling places, one is in the lobby on the hill above the harbor and the cruise ship dock and the other one is in the fire home, settlement 26 miles out of town, i voted at the art center and said hi to everyone since i walked in, but i did not say wish me luck or anything close to it. The public Radio Station on the Street Corner reminded residents that no campaigning was allowed at or near polling places, one neighbor who lives in the old house was asked by the clerk to remove Campaign Signs since his home was too close to the polls, i did notice it was their voting, friends and foes and which side of the right left would be victorious, either way a little more than half of us would be happy and a little less would be disappointed, it is predictable, by assuming it would be close, it look that more conservative voters than my supporters were at the art center that morning, i hope my years in town and Community Service in the library board, the hospice board and Planning Commission by volunteer hosting of the local Country Music show, Coaching High School runners for 17 years, by five good children, and five grandchildren, and 11 because of a combined family, my family grew longer which my husband ship runs in all obituaries of inviting for the valley news since 1997, which gives me crossover support. How much further did you want me too keep going. You can stop there. I was not sure i was a little nervous being in your presence. Dont say that, we can stop there because what i wanted to do with the voice in this book is so present and so warm and i also was really stopped by the fact that there is a street called silicon valley, there is a map in the front piece of this book on the subject that gives the reader a sense of charm and the smallness in your loving commitment to this place where you been a long time. I loved having a map there, my first book was a map and people ask me, i asked my friend who is on the Borough Assembly whitney. Its fantastic it reminds me of a Childrens Book in a way, you write in the book that you read for local office to help set an example, im curious in what ways did you set an example in for him. What is the example your setting. I was running around thinking grandchildren will talk about the grandmother involved in local government, i was thinking in my life how influential my women and grandmothers were in the things that they did that i did not even realize at the time had become part of the way that i live in the things that i respected people. I thought i want to show them that they need to be involved in their community and government and i want to talk about their grandmother who is on the assembly and remember me typing my notes for meetings and it did not work out that way, i did not become the local start of the assembly or anything but what i did do, because i was thinking that of all the time, i realized halfway in or maybe doing that that what i was going to bring to that it was going to be civility, kindness that i wasnt going to do anything that i wouldnt want them to be proud of me for, even if i might not be winning particular battles are being revered by certain people by my politics, it was different than that, im going to show them how to behave in the public eye when the chips are down a little. The chips were down for a few. And how you talk to your neighbors even the ones you disagree with, especially publicly, im not a saint or anything but i might rant or rave or yellow little bit in my talks but publicly i always try if i cant Say Something nice, dont say anything at all, and try to find something in either my fellow assembly movers, the mayor, the staff or the people who were giving us a hard time to appreciate in them and that helped. I want to ask you about the hard time you refer to which is the recall. I also want to talk about that we will circle how much kindness or respect and listen in the text and you talk about the hard time and how kindness and respect and listening even to people you dont disagree with contributes to democracy. The recall in which in which you so clearly put, i read your book before i wrote about it, we have a lot of stuff about the recall. It was really great for the town that i thought i lived in, during that time it felt personal like going through divorce, like my town had cheated on me. What happened was, right after myself and the editorial, on basically we were more progressive perhaps than the other people running, there were six people running and tom and i were the top gogetters and we joined in assembly that was already leaning more progressive in the right left, if that is the right word, its hard in a small town it doesnt line up the way does nationally and it certainly doesnt mean the same things, it was an issue about the harbor and expansion and we had run on the idea that the community should have a referendum and get to vote on the design, that is why we were elected and we thought just before we got in we would do better and get that happening and that created a lot of anger from the people who supported that particular design and right away it did not happen, the rest of the assembly with the mayor breaking the tie of three 4, there is good to be no referendum and even though similar to National Politics in a way, they won, they were so mad that we had even wanted to do that and pretty much the next day we would recall you and then it just became something that hung over so every meeting how that works, there is a somebody that is unhappy with the decision then they can get their signature on the petition and it snowballed like that for pretty much the first nine months that i was in office, my second election was in august in my first one was the previous october. You came out on the other side, the recall was stopped. Yes it was myself into other Assembly Members, tom was recently elected in a local artist was also the third one in the really good news about it, the town did not go for, they recognized my community recognized it was pretty swirly so it was a 60 40 and the other really nice thing it was not personal, they did not choose which one of the three that were targeted, it was straight across and we all pretty much got the same number of votes and it was a resounding no to that politics and that was good. Which goes to the next part of the question, you emphasize in this book, kindness and respect in listening to people regardless if they agree with you or dont agree with you, how did that contribute to a functioning community in your mind . Would they listen and be kind, i think its only way youre going to have a functioning community, it is human nature, if somebody is standing there calling your name saying that you are stupid and say bad things about your family, youre probably not want to listen to them, the next time they stand up and talk about why they needed sewer line expansion to the neighborhood, it is human nature that you backup from people that are not communicating with you and if you can at least find some way to be lack of a better word polite, it helps, it helps a lot, i noticed that watching people when they came to Assembly Meetings and talking, i could listen to a longtime to somebody that i completely disagree with if they spoke to me in a calm way, if they were just going like this and yelling, i had a friend who was a mayor in another small alaskan town and she told me, think the Public Service this way, every time you shove somebody, they shove you back, if you are leaning against them, eventually they might lean this way or come toward you, and easier way to move somebody then as lamb in the shoulder. That make sense, it makes a hard lesson to learn, the section of the book, i love the whole book, theres not just a section that i love because there were other ones but when you go to the Community Bath in a rural community, can you talk about that section, i love reading that section. That was at the very beginning of the book, i needed a Campaign Manager, it was small but big, you will have a campaign and my friend teresa said ill be your Campaign Manager and teresa is a gogetter, retired Elementary School teacher, everybody loved her and she has a cabin in a tiny town and the town has a public bath, warm springs with a bathhouse on top and thats where you go to bathe, ive always wanted to go there and travel in alaska is challenging and even southeast alaska, even though teresa had a place for years and ive never been out there, and i went just before i declared my candidacy because she had a book club there i was going to go talk to. And i thought maybe that the bath was not as public as it was until we get down there and its time to go bathe and it was mens hours and womens hours and it was a little oldfashioned nafta and then theres a sign that says no bathing suits, nude bathing only and im thinking well maybe itll be dark in there so we go down and then youre there in your birthday suit another women and so the town there was so under different size and shape, and then i did a talk about obituary writing and then it was completely different having been in the bath with people, you realize how the scars, the things, our bodies, what we put on top of each other all the time is so different and that made me think if we all had to be together, it would probably be a lot nicer to each other. That is lovely in a metaphor for the common good and many that listening but looking as a version of listening and seeing people as people. There is a lot of stuff in this book about democracy that is also about the community and your life in your parenting a imprinting in your faith in your upbringing, can you talk a little bit about what drives you to think this way and why you decided to run for office and why you understand to listen to people who disagree with me, where does that come from. I dont know, i voice had a lot of empathy but i think a lot of it when i look back comes from my mother in the school, i love going to a Quaker School and so it was very much that, quaker teach you that there is that of god in every man and thats why their passiveness in every woman and thats why theres a little spark in there that is holy in all of us, that runs through a lot of things tradition and im a regular practicing, i go to church on sunday and it might sound gross to people, i have to call it the fill in the blank church because every sunday things done and you have to care for people, the even the idea of forgiving people only god will forgive you as much as you forgive others, that has been ingrained in me as part of my value system and while again i fall short a lot especially when im in public, i feel like thats what you have to do, your best foot goes forward, thats what all these lessons are for in a leadership role in how you get there please comes from the background. In terms of being innocently person. I dont even understand the order, i know what it is but its a procedural, was it hard to learn that, this is a hard job of what youre doing just on a daytoday basis. It was, anybody has been on board and you know you make a motion in the second but robert can get very complicated and the people who are holding you to them, if youre not sure what to do the Second Amendment or removing an amendment or how this all happened, you can get stuck at the beginning sometimes it felt as if they were using a lack of knowledge against you and we wanted to make sure that we cannot have something happen, they say theres a motion and they did not get to talk about it, then i said this is it just about there is a certain builtin decorum, madam mayor, we called each other assemblyman or assembly member, the manager, people in a small town that we all know by her first name, alaska is a very informal place, my children call their schoolteachers by their first name outside of school and we call the doctors, her priest and churches all first name basis being assembly is odd and people would speak to the assembly they stand up and have to give their full name, this is don jr. And im saying this now, even though we dont know who it is, that as part of the protocol. You written obituaries for their families, they shop at your Hardware Store and lumberyard, its like two aspects in the same community. Really on the assembly the people like the mayors husband and her nephews, other members of her family, i wrote his parents, i went around the room at any given time, there is for five people that involve in a very intimate time in their li life. In the book you chat with a section where youre chatting with the native author ernestine and shes visiting your house and shes hung over because of weather, you end up having a really deep conversation about physical topics with racism and privilege in collective memory and this idea comes up again later in the book when theres a Community Tragedy that has been covered up over a generation, you talk about collectivist and im wondering, i dont know that politics is the right word but how being a member of the community or being a representative of the community as you are, how does that help guide to community out of collective silence and grow in a positive way, when asking, how does talking about difficult subjects or confronting a difficult past and the Community Help the Community Grow . I think what it does, this is why i had the conversation with my friend, i think a lot of times, annoy speak for myself, you dont want to bring up these things that might be an issue of race and justice, abuse that is happened and thus someone brings up, first if you like thats not my place, the gossip and mib nosy, and a small town you are trained to keep privacy for Different Things too, we have this interesting balance where we might know what everybody is up to but we do not say so to give them avail of privacy i guess. But in talking with ernestine and shining light on that, and the privacy of my living room we talked about things that she had grown up with, alaska native woman who had an incredible story who is homeless and a College Professor by the time she is 70 and shes written a beautiful book. In public ernestine and i, it might be awkward to have a conversation like you and i are having because neither one of us would want to say the wrong thing or interpret the wrong way, there is so much of that involved, the same with the other Situation Community where the horrible path of crime was uncovered and it turned out that people kind of had an idea about that but nobody ever said anything. And now i think community leaders, this is come through loud and clear with a black lives matter especially those of us that are privileged and were supposed to say stuff, were supposed to say this is not right. About very hard things in a way thats almost like angelas ashes and the way you said it in your books, the way sorrow and tragedy lift up a love for your family the way you have a love for yours and its challenging the she then goes on in her speeches and she puts her foot down and smashes the patriarchy and she does this with governors and you wantto stand up and cheer. To me thats the same as people who go to church but dont hold their hands up. Its a different experience and i cant do the waitingbut i love it when people do. Im so moved and he does it in such a way that is coming from love, not hate which is what i want to do and she says that at the end of every time she speaks thats a way that a leader, here she was native woman and to heck with her, im going to do this every time and she did nobody got mad at herabout it or maybe they did but they didnt say so. We all worry all those things sometimes will play out in public and she did that and i love her for it i think youre doing it in of bears and ballots as well in a way because youre talking about, in the book youre writing about community disagreements or your writing about difficult spots in a communitys history and how people in the community, you specifically this is a memoir take a stand and speak up and encourage people to look at their community,look at themselves and make change. One of my favorite characters in the book is ray whitaker who was a longtime newspaper editor and came to characters in the book in my life but ray came in 1955 and 80 veteran, columbia grad, jewish new york to alaska in 1955, a logging town and in 1955 really in the middle of nowhere. That was preanything, not even a Radio Station or tv and ray brought this idea of culture and irving this and then he started to a Student Newspaper that became our local paper is still in existence. He and his students darted publishing the regular news. He helped found a public Radio Station and he was a local Conservation Group that is responsible for a lot of preserved land around here and he also served on the Borough Assembly for seven times. As a socialist. And so at one point, he was called red ray. Names in red ray so the powers that be and he went right to the source of that rumor and explain the difference between socialism and communism showed that he wasnt a communist. I just see the legacy that you have in one small town and thats here. For we still have a Radio Station, we still have the loader local prayers and a strong conservation. We still have a newspaper and thats ray. One person in a small town that is exactly what you think of as your stereotypical alaskan very much so. Hes a great character, i love reading about him and i wish i could meet him somehow coming about the people in this book makes me want to read into the pages and go , come have coffee with me, tell me more about this. Ellis about some of the other characters in the book and i realize there real people but there also characters. My, one of my favorites is stephanie who is a former mayor and retired special ed teacher and she has a flower farm now. And she grows hours and delivers themeverywhere , around town to this motel rooms, whereverpeople want. But stephanie is you know, diminutive person with a great big dog and she is a buddhist but was raised as a quaker. She really helped me when i was first on the assembly i would go out to see her and say one of my doing, their yelling and screaming and she gave me this book from choosing civility. You write about that. By ian 40, great book. Anybody thinking about running for office who is thinking about living in the world a little betterthis is a wonderful book. It 25 rules of considerate conduct and hes the cofounder of the Johns Hopkins civilityproject. And it really helped to me and stephanie had all this stuff in here underlined and circled from when she was the mayor and then what happened was we ended up people quit so it was all kind of controversy and we ended up avoiding stephanie to receive during a reallyserious illness. So that was overshadowing us but i think the fact that she was there during that time made us all realize what we were doing wasnt life and death. There we had somebody that is obviously, just is in a headscarf and cancer and a service dog with her and yet she wanted to be on the assembly inhouse and yet that changed for me, i could feel the room changed when she came in because of the course we all know that we are all terminal in a way to have that someone saying im here to do this for the community and i know that i might not have as much time as the restof you , that was a real gamechanger. She sent an example theway you intend to set an example in a different way but she also set an example for you. In a way and getting next to her help me because she put her hand on my knee and sayheather, just dont say anything. Just vote, you can vote. And that was just very helpful. I cant do it anymore, im going to quit and she said, she popped up and said dont be silly. Just dontgo to the next meeting. I said you can do that . And she said sure you can, if you mystery they can get you off. Just knowing i had a back door, i never used it but i felt like then okay, if it just looks like its going to be too much for me i can just not go and then knowing that empowered me. In a way. Another great one and then, of the chilkat values tilting at windmills and fighting the man and he reported on it for years and he had lots of issues about kind of the inertia of government and the wellness and the bureaucracy of the police, all these things and he was just rail artists, theres many and im sure they are everywhere i just happened to adore the ones im around all the time and even though im i disagree with. It comes through so beautifully. Ive got two or three more questions and then i want to go to the audience and see if i can see a little numbers come if you have questions. Of women in politics and leadership because theres a real topic in this book to, you write what is this expectation that we should be making everything okay. What is this expectation so what is that expectation and what do we doabout it . Do you have any thoughts about that . I dont know, i dont know if its generational, if its my family. I hate this broad brush and say women, this is how we all are because we are all different and that stuff is diminishing. But the way i was raised with if youre the person in the room thats a good hostess. Everybody has to eat, is your chair wonderful, can we open a window, illput the dog out. Golden retriever but i wondered about that but by the time i got done i felt like i had more courage to be okay if people were comfortable with it as long as i was comfortable with myself and thats just an ongoing issue. Of how to be public and not bring your private expectations, how to separate. One of the best pieces of advice i got was from one of the managers who said to me, sat me down sometime and said heather, you got children. And all concerning dozens and good people. And she said could you give them everything they wanted all the time customer didnt sometimes they get madat you and not like your rules . You bet i did and she says okay, when you go here your mother brain on you can love them but tell them youre not going to get those shoes know you have to go to bed now and guess you have to get up and were going to the firewood today. Those kinds of things and that helped me i could still like everybody but i could be instead of the hostess, i could be the mother as my kids used to say the boss of this place. And that helped me to tremendously area when i put that because some of these people i didnt likeand i was worried about they were. Is a good way to put on a different brain or look at it through a different lens and give yourself, i dont know if the word is more power but maybe a differentway to navigate challenge. I know that i can love someone and not trust them for instance which sometimes happens withteenagers. And im, i adore them fearful, theres things that they may not tell youthe truth about where they went last night. So you know, with all kinds of family members that happened so i just started really thinking of the Assembly Members as well as the audience more or the residents who were in the room listening to our meetings more as family. On the subject of love im going to ask you one last formal question and then well go to the assembly. You have a great love for alaska its so clear and you write about the wilderness physically the arcticnational wildlife refuge. And you are reading on that trip, her name is marty. Marty dory and you quote her asking in the 1920s was is the most precious thing in her life so im serious what did you think as a person who has contributed to the politics, the democracy of the community, a person who writes obituaries in the committee and a person who contributes think a lot about the health of their committee andwellbeing of their community, what makes a good life. For me i think its all about relationships and i think thats why politics was the most challenging in a small town and i think its about you love well, have you been love. How do you takecare of the people around you. I asked anthony county and he says i dont understand how to tell you to take care of everybody i wearing a mass. I understand how to explain why you should love your neighbor. And thats i think thats is it. The place that youre in i think you should do everything you can to leave it at least as good as when you got there and hopefully a little better your little patch of ground that youre on your community, your family, your friends. Just the way those relationships people are different with all kinds of people doesnt have to belike mine. But its, i have another friend, my dear friend that. Never had any children and has his whole family around her shes created these relationships for years and years. for people, by doing good, by being generous in your community and it doesnt mean , you can write checks but its more than that. Its volunteering and being partof things. I still feel inspired, youve inspired me should we go to questions, ibelieve that . I think what we do is wego to q a. I think i do it. And we got one person who says Many Americans are focused onNational Politics , particularly the residential elegant instead of how local officials have an impact on their daily lives. How have you indicated your community on those rules and participation in the process and how can we convince more women to run for local office doubleheader there. I dont think i verywell , they educated me. In terms of i think haines is a place where everyones highly aware of local issues and not so much National Area national, sure, people might argue about that in the coffee shop or bar but in general dont argue more about whats on the Assembly Agenda and they tend to line up in camps that could match the national but all the time i emphasize the local and more and more people and were seeing that now clearly. Issues of public health, issues of social justice. They come right down to decisions that are made every meeting by small groups of people and small towns, medium towns, towns but just issues about hiring policies, issues about the women who work at the library get paid less than the men who work for public works . Im ashamed to say i didnt look at that when i worked on the assembly and all the news in the last few months has brought that right across the center. Even to the idea that are Assembly Meetings and many Public Meetings in small towns require you to be present to speak and now we are all doing zoom but guess what, even in haines my kids have been attending Assembly Meetings and theyve never gone before because there home with little children 6 30. Theyre working, theyre not going to go sit down in the lowly Assembly Chambers and wait to speak but now they can do it on zoom. So maybe we need to change the process to get more people participating and that decision can be made at a local level. So i think its critical that police, local people hired police department. They set the policies,they put the budget and those things are how we live. Is that a way to convince as this questioner asked more women to run for local office . I think so, it might beand the other thing i would tell them is women are sobusy. We have to do everything. We got to raise the kids, cook meals and nowwe have to run the place. Come on but we can maybe change how its done. We can change the times of the meetings and i thought about that again when i was on the assembly it was only the pain but i thought this is what i have to do. I have to leave before i have dinner with my husband those nights so he doesnt get overworked. Make the meeting later, would it on zoom andhave an 8 to 9 instead of 5 to 730 or something which is about the worst time in the world for most mothers. Its impossible. Youre getting home and you have allthose things to do and then its politics . So i think frankly and no offense to the men but i think women are good at this because they see the things that matter to people. I think in general women tend to be less, i dont want to be to whatever i thought regularly the womenspoke more for family, community , towards things that schools and parks and with men it was all about business all the time. It was all about the money and not that the economy isnt important but and women certainly contribute to it in a big way and have a lot to say about it but why is daycare still such an issue . Get more women in there and make it normal. Why do we have to go back to work like six weeks after having a baby if youre lucky. If you have that kind of insurance where every other country in the world they give you some time and then they tell you the most important thing is to be with your kids. How are you supposed to do thatif you cant take off work . Thats why women need to get there because those children are our children and theyre going to be the leaders next and we just need to get this right. I feel like this with ernestine, yes. Do you think alaska might become more progressive . I do. I think very interesting things are happening in alaska because we have a serious challenger, a republican incumbent dan sullivan and doctor al gross good doctor and has operated on a lot of peoples needs and systems. Hes also a commercial fisherman so that helps. Its not super liberal but hes a democrat and he has a different sense and especially now with all thats going on, hes right there and we also have alicia galton who is neck and neck with sonia and so i think it is possible and mister murkowski is always kind of a little more medium than you would think and alaskans tend to support her pretty well. So it could happen, it very well could happen. We have a question here from galen neil who said what did writing obituaries teach you about treading on sensitive terrain with grieving families and then she wants to know if those lessons informed the way you approach third railpolitics . May be. I guess my focus in writing obituaries, what i did all the time was to find the good. I wrote a book called when someone dies and here we all know everybody, the first thing i ask the family is tell me what you loved about them and be as specific as you can everybody has Different Things and thenwhen they start doing that the personality comes through. So do that and then things like in terms ofdifficult topics. Say if somebody died of alcohol or took their ownlife , these things happen as you know. Im usually ask them how would you like us to handle this . You want to mention it, it is important to you as a family to Say Something in the obituary or not . Things like if theres been several marriages and they dont want to necessarily acknowledge themunlike how can we do that . Youve got children from them so we will put their last names in we dont need to mention that if you dont want to read i try and i also thinkthe other thing and this helped in politics , certainly finding the best in people, trying to find something in people thats okay the other one is when youre writing an obituary you really want to think about what needs to be said and what doesnt need to be said and if there is say, but you also want to capture their personalities so for instance if theressomebody that was in a running feud with their neighbor , you dont quote the neighbor saying you know, she went over my head everytime i went to check on my chicken. Instead, you quote the best friendsaying oh gosh , she was just in that restaurant and you should have seen her, she fire that done right over that guys head every dayand then its a compliment. When a friend that. So much of it is the messenger and thats true in politics you and ive watched it i dont know if i necessarily modeled it but when a basketball coach stands up and speaks up for clean water, the environmentalists in the room , everybodys been hearing from them for weeks but when the coach says Everybody Knows you got your water clean, bingo. The mine people or the Development People will listen to them. Because its a different one thattrust. Its how you deliver the message. It sometimes comes down to saying it. Youve been talking about touring digitally and i know that theres stuff i havent hit on. What havent i asked youthat you want us to know . I dont know. The one thing i guess i would say is the importance in my life that i learned through this book is your changing all the time. Ideas change and towns change and the ways of being change and a lot of the book the way i look at it and what happened and whats happening in the country has to do with peoplewho want to go back to some kind of good old days and people who want to go forward. And really there the same thing. The good old days work for us and everybody wants the same thing. They want health and stability and enough to eat and to be safe. And to have a job. To go out in the park and i think finding that somehow and trying to govern ourselves with that moving forward , that might help. Especially as things roll into the fall and the election and the winter and understanding that you know, i think were always going to have the good old days and were always going to have a bowl that want change and understanding that its okay read one of the elders that was one of my dear friends whos passed away who came here, to me it was very romantic. There were steamships and everybody went to dances every friday night and they brought food to potlucks and i said you missed that, were sitting in more modern days now. Oh no she said, are you kidding mark it was so hard and all that snow and we didnt have a tv and i couldnt listen to my operaon the radio. Look at all these well appointed homes. She said youve got to like change. If you dontlike change or die. Its like cs lewis said, you can go on being a good egg forever. You either rock or you get eaten. Like, we can hatch, we can keep going and i learned even as a grandma on the assembly that i changed a lot. Id be better at it now and ive got a lot of courage from it. You talk in the past about how youre looking in the past, present andfuture at the same time. One of my friends, a fine alaskan rider if youre looking to learn about the rural is seth kantner, he wrote a book called ordinary rules and he writes a lot for orion and anyway, terrific writer and he observed in rural alaska were living in the past present and future all at once because of Climate Change and the scope of development and the internet. The world is coming in so fast to these places that were so remote that no wonder we are stressed and then i realized that tell the cold whole country is right now. It seems like how the world is. Everythings zooming faster and faster. We justdont have any control. A lot of this is about leadership even at a local level, statelevel and saying what is it that we all want and how can we get there . Thats what government does. All government is is this collective agreement on the rules to live by. Its not some big thing, its this is what we need to do to live together in communities and states in the country and these are thethings that we collectively agree our values. Last question, whats next for you . Im sure ill write another book, i dont know. Right now im kind of treading water like we all are with the pandemic area i have a granddaughter in juneau that i last saw on march 16 and i cut the umbilical cord and then the state went intolockdown and i went home. I literally offer in the hospital the next day we were on to haynes and i havent seen her and i have to somehow figure out to see my daughters eventually and juneau, i have a son that lives in australia but i also got to see just ahead of the pandemic i was there in january but my dad, these are the things, im worried about the samethings every buddy is. I have a dad in new york and im worried about himliving home alone and my sisters and i are. Were not there so these are pretty much imtaking it day by day. And im sure i will write about it all when i get sorted out. Its again a thoughtabout families and communities. We dont, we go to questions and im going to look at the chat and somebody said the good old days work so good area i want to thank you. This has been wonderful and your voice is an important voice and its just a pleasure totalk to you. Do you make the the purchasing of of bears and ballots and other books can be found inthe chat. So go there and buy the book and i dont know how were doing that now that these do, i cant recommend this book enough especially now and heather, i just want to thank you so much. This has been a delight. Thank you, its been nice to meet you after reading your book and im going to pass your book about grief on to my local hospice. I think it will really help people right now. Its a wonderful resource. Are you still writing obituaries or the chilkat valley . I didnt do the two last week that i didnt do because i was doing all this book stuff that im going to do one for next weeks paper. This is the thing about you, its not so much a formal book talk which is i hang out andheathers book is that way aswell so thank you so much. I appreciate it. Its been nice to be in georgia. This afternoon President Trump will deliver remarks in yuma arizona on immigration, border security. Live coverage at 5 15 here on cspan2 and online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2 area tonight at 8 pm Eastern University of california berkeley law professor and former Deputy Assistant attorney general in the George Bush Administration john yu weighs in on president ial powers and the u. S. Constitution and the princeton professor Julian Salazar explores the ascendancy of former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich and argues his congressional leadership was the beginning of americas hyper partisan divide and later newtgingrich offers his thoughts on why President Trump should be elected in 2020. Enjoybook tv on cspan2. Monday lewis dejoy testifies on Postal Service operations and the upcoming president ial election. Watch live at 10 am eastern on cspan2, online at cspan. Org orlisten live on the free cspan radio app. Senator Martha Mcsally is a republican from arizona and she is the author of this new book , dare to fly simple lessons in never giving up