Transcripts For CSPAN2 Roger Rosenblatt The Story I Am 20240712

Public library. Im pleased to be hosting the first book festival event. I am thrilled to be kicking off this festival. Its my honor to introduce three people to you. The first is roger rosenblatts work has been polished in 14 languages. The author of five New York Times books of the year end three times bestseller the boy detective and making toast which was originally an essay in the new yorker. The story i am, a collection i am writing that came out in april, life, love and response ability will be out in october. Rogers also written seven, notably the one person speech in america that he performed at the American Theater which was named one of times and best of 1991. Last spring in santa barbara, he performed in the basement, he does nothing which will go to the centers for the arts at stony brook new york next year. He also wrote the screenplay for his bestselling novel, the uprising which will start doctor channing and bobby and his currently in production. Margaret is of rider at stony brook, he held the bricks appointment and creative writing at harvard he earned his phd among many others, to george words in the enemy for his essays at Time Magazine and on pbs. He played on the Irish International basketball team, seven honorary doctorates, canyon revealed award for lifetime literary achievement in the president s battle with the institution for his body of work. We are incredibly pleased to have roger with us. Next, we have erica works with libraries to create Community Led change. As the engagement consultant at the Library System, she works 34 member libraries including the sarah code Saratoga Springs Public Library. Help people with their best, most recently, erica at the Saratoga Springs library. Colleague, jack scott has been coordinating leaving our fingerprint, documenting covid19 to collect firsthand accounts of life during the coronavirus in real time to create a peoples history of covid19. The library and the Library System working in tandem with our communities to document historical pandemic. Everyone is welcome to participate in this collaborative effort to capture the impact of the virus in our region. Finally, certainly not least, the founder and president of the saratoga book festival. Ellen is a former International Book editor and publishing executive National Geographic books publishing and writing press where she managed multilingual publishing project while serving as a volunteer reading coach, she became deeply introduced in promoting literacy and encouraging reading and shes the driving force behind the saratoga book festival and altered it over to you. Thank you very much. I am thrilled launch this. Our First Virtual event, we are sad we are not launching our first in person book festival this year but we are working on plans for 2021 and during this because we are going through, we wanted to find ways to stay connected and also make sure we are helping others get the message out to all of you and readers with each other. We are thrilled to partner with Saratoga Springs Public Library who have been so important to us in launching the book festival and we are thrilled to present to you roger and erica. Any of you would like to volunteer would like to suggest ideas for mutual Virtual Event for authors for next year, visit us at saratoga festival. Org and we are on facebook as well. Enjoy our authors in the enjoy. Your most recent book, a collection about your love, obsession, i would take with writing some of these are new, some are previously published and its getting ready to revi review. Warmhearted testimony of gratitude and humility in Jericho Brown who recently won the pulitzer for poetry, the book that will inspire anyone to take the next step. Share a little bit of it with us. I share my gratitude for both of those comments. Begins with what i think most writers can identify with. Lost control of themselves, to like a dog traveled solo, laying bluegrass on the banjo. The gatekeeper has become a beekeeper. He tries to open and close the gate. Spreading in 100 directions, as for the villains, are so many by now, its better to put them under a single name. This is what happens when you do not Pay Attention to the novelty right. The character is shown this. The transfusion, its a bad idea, dont you think . To give the transfusion to them . Sometimes wish i instead wrote anything but books. People come to my shop to get what they want and i would give them what they want. The trouble with writing is that you give people what they dont want. By the time they realize they need for you give them, they got the book. Never notice them in the first place. Your intent on your work which consists of left. I covered the book the other day, cover to cover. Reading allows you to do impossible things. Sure, most of the time blasting, every so often, theres a moment where everything is still there, something invades your room like a bird in the window. Your filled with as much joy and then you think, i can do anything. Thank you for that. So i believe the topic of tonights conversation was inspired by the conversation you had with your students about the 1665 london epidemic. This little bit of a dispute about whether this should be considered fiction or nonfiction, i think most would agree it is a novel rather than history or reportage and that certainly worth we, librarians classify it. I guess the basic question of what exactly is a journal, if you have thoughts on the. Youre asking me . Yes, roger. Its a wonderful question because it would i guess say if it were fiction, it might not be a journal because it would be a journal using a form. He based it on his uncles note and they were real. Im not sure the distinction makes much difference when youre reading, there are some events as well as the wonderful audience for this book festival. Some of funds are so big and unbelievable they seemed like fiction so when somebody a journal of the pandemic, no doubt people think youre making it up but of course youre not making it up. It does kind of feel like something we read a lot about and the post apocalyptic fiction. Absolutely. So erica, much of rogers wo work, correct me if im wrong, involves providing prompts to your students. In many ways, i think it feels like the mother of all prompts. You want to tell us a bit about that product and origin . If its okay with you, and going to take over the screen and share some pictures because i love stories that i also love the pictures so. That. See so let me go back. Ive always loved stories, but shouldnt be present for somebody who is a library and journalists. Courts have always been my comfort zone. The collection of the screen here and they will be absorbed by growth. To become a journalist and a growing, and really enjoy the written word but when it comes to a pandemic, was off my radar until about february traveling home from nashville. When i was in the airport, airlines began making a lot of changes there asking people instead of putting the phone on the counter, hold it above or they were trying to get people to do this and it just struck me as we are in something serious. His a simpler time in our world before. By the time i was working from home midmarch, the pandemic had pretty much taken over my life. One night as i was scrolling through twitter as i shouldnt do because i was procrastinating writing a story, read a post that recommended keeping a journal to document what we were expanding during this pandemic and even the in the latest diarist on the planet, this idea stuck with me. Covid was affecting lovers across the country and i could only equate trying to do that to wrestling water. Each time i began to piece together a narrative, there is no way to get my arms around it. As the pandemic continued moved from deep concern to utter catastrophe, the interviews people were taking out of artist quality, it became more personal and even though people are strangers, we start by inquiring people about health and Employment Status anxiety leve levels. Instead of making me think about more about the initial twitter post. We were holding meetings, weekly meetings with the directors of 34 libraries to keep in touch with everyone and figure out what was going on in and its my job to think about how we can work with our communities and i was struggling to do that when our buildings were closed people socially distance moving away from everybody and i thought about the power of stories and how transformative it can be in the importance of story and start times and we are looking for a light or a way forward started thinking about what it would be like if we could people tell their story of what it was like to be in a pandemic. When i mentioned the idea at one of our weekly meetings, had an epiphany, or i thought was a epiphany, it was not unique. Everyone was thinking that. Including the association of public historians who, i went to the website. One of our directors said you know about this . They were talking about all the great journals that were kept during the spanish flu in 1918 and formed the work of scientists and epidemiologists historians gave us a lens through which to think about what we were doing. Thats when a number of our Amazing Library directors kathy from randall they were all thinking about doing similar projects. This is about pulling it together but there was a lot of talent to tap into. We formed this band, the local District Library at Saratoga Springs, michelle from schuylerville and my wonderful colleague, jack scott is a tech with talking about how to capture very personal, unfiltered history of friends and neighbors in real time and in their own words or images. Michelle, who has a teenage daughter said her daughter and friends didnt communicate as well through writing through other means or things like tik tok videos so we were thinking, how do we capture this new way of communicating . We created this Simple Survey 20 questions and this is our revealed tonight and ill put the link in, go there and fill out the information. You dont have to do all 20 questions, you can pick and choose what you respond to what we are trying to create a robust resource for communities to have a chance to sit back and reflect on our collective experience while also preserving peoples history for future generations. All responses are anonymous, we ask for first name and last initial and people to identify where they live. Thats so we can share the information with local historians as well might want to archive some of this so im going to stop sharing my screen and out of this. Maybe. Maybe not. You can take it back. Ill put the link to the project into the checkbox. Thanks. Youre welcome. You might agree here, best books are memoirs. I wonder if you have any thoughts on the distinction between journals and memoirs. Everett my last books, they were written as if they are journals. I played in the band and i like the idea of movements of the sections of the book mount into one song, 12. So there is no distinction writing a memoir writing fiction. The book thats coming out, my wonderful publishers life, love and responsibility. Just place the tomb, i make no claims for the book, its just something i feel is wonderful lyricist wrote about what we know. Alan said to me once he hears the word and the music and thats where the lyrics come from. I realized when he said that i hear the music and the words so when i write, thats what comes out. To answer your question, one reason the memoir feels to me is that memories an act of faith. Its come as close to fiction as telling the truth. Thank you. I dont believe that one of you are therapists but it does seem from your description of this project, it reminded me of this. People often journals therapeutically. In addition to this documentary evidence. A lot of your writing is there. Thats a Fair Assessment . Yes. [laughter] it is revelatory. I suppose that is what memoirs are. Im wondering if either one of you have thoughts about journaling in a time like this, as therapy for recordkeeping. Or an act of generosity. It means you want to think about you want to do some good. Im not doing it but the potential for this even if you just like the facts, great believer in writing the facts. The these horrendous magazines on beaches for people are in this frenzy was not caring if they live or die. Then you compare that to people who work in hospitals. I busted out my shoulder recently so i was in the hospital was foolish. Im looking around at all these people in these amazing nurses and doctors, one byproduct of this time nurses realize this immense gift to give to society. Your people on one hand the journal there keeping a journal and they are on the beach and alabama where people say come and get it. Its interesting you mention the therapeutic quality because we just posted, we just with today, the party had 11 people respond and start filling out the forms and weve had people from, i think the youngest is 16 and the oldest is 77 but at least three of them had remarked on how therapeutic it was. I think its we are living in, although we are socially distance, we are still living in this incredibly chaotic univer universe. To stop for a minute and be still and quiet and reflect on whats going on in our lives is i think very powerful. For people to start to think, to give them the time and space to think about the grief in and anxiety and Everything Else going on but also the tremendous beauty like roger is talking about. Different things emerge from this. It is both horrible things but also extraordinary moments of kindness and beauty that come out of these unimaginable situations. Thats what i think is interesting. We are all stunned in our grief and we get a glimpse of the other side of the. Its been a joy for me to see everyday people. You mentioned nurses, roger. Elevated to this, they are putting their lives on the line for us, for society. Along that line, how adaptable we are. Two or three months ago, we were strolling along the street, bring about your boyfriend, girlfriend, your dog or whoever it is. Everything turned on a dime to try to survive ourselves and help our neighbors survive. I hope we do but in my long life, this is the most impressive moment. That was a commonality we seen so far and the responses is that people talking about in this generosity of friends and neighbors, people who maybe didnt know each other that well before and now we are checking in with people to see if they need anything especially if they are concerned about people going out for whatever reason and sense of community that is coming out of this extraordinary situation. Keeping a journal, watch the things ellen is talking about and write what you can to make the readers see. But the readers see every detail of homes and hospitals, beaches and so forth. So that nothing lost on the senses that will tell future generations whats going on here. Erika, are you journaling . Well, i had plans. [laughter] i had the best of plans. I am a journalist so unless i have a hard deadline, im going to procrastinate. [laughter] i did try, i looked at my journal, i had two entries. [laughter] it was interesting to see the progression and how moving from the stage of life panic buying, how do we source everything we need to have in the house to moving forward to like okay, going to spend some time in the garden. Put my hands in dirt and feel okay is about things. One of the things i was thinking about thats been extraordinary this has done is because we moved to this virtual world, you were talking about earlier, this kind of authenticity vulnerability we see in people because we are seeing people in their homes and kids, youre at a work meeting and is an animal and kid and all this other stuff so the idea of being professional or expertise or whatever that is, to drift away you see the full humanity of people you know in a different way to think that is a real gi gift. Ive gotten a kick out of watching television, things that are made up but they are not made up now. Erika and i were talking yesterday about in a profession that attracts introverts, i think there is something to what youre saying because working this way now, i normally work in my office in the library, but my house looks pretty much like this. I never had that many people into it so it does force you to open up and away and make yourself more vulnerable and you might have been. In multiple ways, not just letting people in but letting people in here as well i wonder if there are questions over here in the chat with the q and a someone wants to say hello to you, roger. We are in a world in which we did not have much of a choice in terms of getting work done. You can procrastinate just so long and you may remember how that was. I never paid attention to the news. I do now but one thing about liability. I was walking in the morning, i just decided to look at the ne news. Someone asked me something that i didnt know what he is referring to. It is so animal. I would run to find out what he is talking about. At the end of the day, you have to show up. Someone here is sharing this, where did it go . Julie is sharing a great number of you, roger the Public Association library in boston having a blast, handing out copies of your book. Handing out my own book . I think many of us wish we could do that. As a question about this is a question we traditionally ask at the beginning of the book group lead at the library where before discussing the book, we are about to discuss, we go around the room and introduced ourselves and talk about a different book. People want to know what folks are reading. In are you reading anything noteworthy . I am ashamed but ellen is going to come up. I havent read for pleasure in a very long time. I sometimes accidentally i reviewed the book for the New York Times book review just now and it was very good. I had to concentrate but most of the time, i read and see something that gives me an idea, i can use it and i do. Im the worst person to ask about social experience. In the last i dont know how many years, i am a disgrace. How about you, erica . Not far from that. I have not been a super reader during this time that i have been reading when i started, vanilla meadows, whole system thinking which turns out to be perfect for this time because its what happens when you dont consider an entire ecosystem youre only considering parts of it. It ended up being the perfect book right now. For the book group im reading, if you like nobody has access to the physical library. From online collections, things that are freely available online. Weve had distinct discussions. Theres a nice diversion. [laughter] is a great book you could write, emma and the great journals thats one thing for now. [laughter] have you seen these books, pride and prejudice and zombies . [laughter] next month, there discussing that is a great novel. Here are some more books, people who disagree you, roger, they say your charming and ever selfaggrandizing. [laughter] thats okay. A couple of questions about leaving our fingerprint, people want to know what response is going to be put up. Address that little bit. Speculator, part of the library association, how appropriate it is in quarantine if youre one of them. Especially after the Holiday Weekend where everybody came in. Its making people nervous through. She works at a small Public Library and southwestern pennsylvania. State Library System to do this. In encouraging people to share their thoughts and expenses during this time. Its part of the challenge currently, people are growing weary of the situations. I think it is true. The first thing i would say, find an online book festival and get your way in. [laughter] promote your project. I was really surprised, we were hoping to launch week or two ago but we had some tech issues, Power Outages so as like im supposed to talk about this in the dont have anything. Im happy its gone so quickly but i think, i do a lot of work with communities, helping people figure out what they want to see happen in the world and i think a lot of times depends on the questions youre asking and how it resonates with people. We did spend time thinking about sort of questions we are asking and its a mix of these tell us whats going on in your heart along with hey, how are your pets handling this . This kind of mix it up, it gives people a chance to share what they are doing. I think people are growing weary of the situation but they still have a story to tell. Im also hoping were going to get a big, we are fortunate in this years Summer Reading program for people in the library world, imagine your story. Hoping we can push this out and get to participate in this program. I want to hear what the kids think. Are talking about how times like this can bring out the best imagination and i loved hearing childrens hospital, like a therapy dog but just going around in talking with the kids and hearing their stories. Childrens hospital is all over the country, their parents come to see them and then the parents have to stay which means they dont work. I have three colleagues doing this. Then another won this award and just this week, recording videos for the childrens hospital. If i get a chance, i will let you know how the project went. Id love to see it caps on in these kids literally, youre not alone. I love that. The magic of kids, their so unfiltered. Theyre going to tell you exactly what is and they have these great ways of expressing things that they havent been told what not to say or how not to express themselves yet so they can be free with that. Id love to see what comes out of that, it sounds fantastic. Last summer i did a project, the addict can for my granddaughter. When our daughter died, talked about this. One afternoon, my granddaughter, jessica introduces me to this. This is my granddaughter, its sitting in the basement does nothing. [laughter] this week, there was a picture posted to the librarys facebook page, Library Story time. [laughter] [laughter] over here, jennifer, are library from pennsylvania says shes worked with her local High School English teacher probably about 50 or so over High School Seniors to prepare essays. Thats great for the library archives. She has not seen the submissions yet but it sounds pretty terrific. Steve shared for everyone a link to purchase the story i am so the founder of the saratoga book festival and their terrific library partners. Just a terrific organization, we are super proud to be associated with. Kristin shared people should check out your video, roger at the gaithersburg festival. Thank you. I just did that the other day. I was glad to do it. Glad you liked it. Roger, one thing you shared with me recently was video of the commencement you gave your students at stony brook. Do you want to talk about that . Thought it was a fascinating parallel between, here we are having this conversation in a way that six weeks ago, we never would have imagined we would have done. Absolutely. The three of us are likeminded on this issue. It just dropped in my left that virtuality, we do this. Literally have a virtual world. Now suddenly, in this perilous time which allows us to come into our own, traffic and cultural crime, we make the best of something thats not real. You go back to any of the great heroes and heroism, its all virtual. Then we do something with virtuality and say it can be imagined and that is our business in the world. It is part of that deal. It is to make the world better. They get smarter, make it feel more, happier whenever it is, whatever thought is that the disposal of the writers duty is to make the world a better pla place. This is a wonderful time for that responsibility. That sounds like almost the Perfect Place to end our conversation. But that i dont wish you could go on but that sounds like a perfect summary and i appreciate your being here and participating in this, both of you. Thank you so much. Thank you, ike. Does ellen want to come back and say anything . I dont know if she has sou sound. [laughter] the driving force behind all of this so i appreciate the work you put into this to bring the Community Together and i hope we will be able to do this in real life sometime. Thank you, everyone. Ive had a terrific evening. Thank you, erica. Thank you, roger so much. Thank you. Youre watching the tv on cspan2. Every weekend the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2. Created by americas Cable Television company is a Public Service brought to you today by your television provider. Weeknights we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, book tv features several programs with author and columnist, william lee junior. Enjoy book tv on cspan2. When you read the things that were said about Thomas Jeffers jefferson, is an infidel and part of the french government, it sounds a little reminiscent, doesnt it . The things said about abraham lincoln, and fdr that he wanted to be a dictator, it does kind of come with the territory but i think in trumps case, at least in the modern political era, postworld war ii, ive never seen anything like it. Sunday noon eastern on indepth, live to our conversation with author and faith and Freedom Coalition founder, ralph reed was books include lakin, act of faith and his most recent, forgotten country. Joined in the conversation with your phone call, facebook comments, texts and tweets. Watch book tvs indepth sunday noon eastern on cspan2. Will come to book tv. Indepth program, this is our special year fiction on indepth. Well see authors such as david,