Of trustees and i am delighted to welcome to an evening that highlights so many amazing women who contribute to our literary and Cultural Community and most especially, lisa lucas. [applause] if you havent heard, lisa is the roxanne and shes been on campus in various groups today and so we welcome her. Tonights program is also part of this semesters script present theories, script present seeks to bring scripts to the world and the world to scripps by finding the intersection between and are caching and scholarship and society and culture. Presenters often linked to issues that are vital to student and faculty such as, race, gender, class, literature and the arts. Programs provide a form for Community Engagement and the exchange of ideas beyond the classroom and their environment for inquiry, ideas and intellectual exchange. While shes been on campus she has been meeting with students and faculty and sharing her perspective on the executive director of the National Book foundation and the former evident them on. Im sure her conversations will inform tonight session and i want to tell you that she tweeted today that claremont is an exceedingly pleasant place. [laughmac] joining her on stage is poet robert louis whose voyage in 2015. Cost lewis has taught at hunter and Hampshire College is among other and shes a poetry studies at the university of southern california. Joining them is rachel kushners novel the flamethrower from cuba is a finalist for a National Book award. Her fiction has appeared in the new yorker, harper, and paris review pierce review and she was the recipient of the 2016 howard t purcell award from the academy of arts and letters. Finally, moderated discussion tonight is carolyn kellogg. She is the book editor for the Los Angeles Times and the Vice President of the board of National Critics circle. If you are a fan you will enjoy her statement, i can mix a mean martini and skateboard but not at the same time. [laughmac] i know tonight will be an opportunity to reflect on how each of these amazing women think about leadership and the responsibility as artists, editors and art administrators to their community. Please welcome lisa, robin, rachel, carolyn. [applause] good evening. Id like to start with you lisa. Youve said youre an ambassador for books. What does that mean to select i dont know that ive ever called myself that but when i started just about a year ago immediately, there was a lot of visibility around the job and the fact that i was black, a woman, younger than my predecessor had been when they to the job and i think that, it was really energizing for everyone to see that there was an opening up and a change of the National Book foundation. Because there is so much energy and felt like a really Good Opportunity to use the platform that we were receiving to change the conversation about books. What we do, the primary function, is to present the National Book award which is about excellence. The best books that are published in america and thats not about all books but a specific set of books but in order to get people to care about that night in the middle of november of and about 20 books that we honor in the four books that win there has to be a strong and robust and excited generation, or population of people who care about books at large. We had to start by saying youre invited. Books are amazing. And because i love books there are huge part of my life and im blown away by every author that i get to spend time with in this role, trying to share this enthusiasm and remind people that im not special but that im a person who likes books. We can all be that person and then it makes my life better and itll make other peoples life life better and happier and smarter and bigger. It was a Good Opportunity to say, come on. Come join me. And that turns into an ambassador for books. I dont believe them. I think were not dying. Its a thriving world full of readers and writers and librarians and were doing just fine. Can you give me a sense, what has your year looked like so far. Ive been traveling around a lot. One of the things is that the National Book foundation, early on i made a joke about were not the found Baseball Foundation and thats actually showing up in california, mississippi, minnesota, or any other place readers are. Theres been a lot of travel but the beginning of the year is when i try to convince fancy writers for very little money and almost no thanks to read hundreds of books and decide what the National Book award is. Harold auger from with predecessor called me the other day and asked said this is one of my top people. People when i asked him to be a judge for the National Book award. Im not done yet. I still have four or five slots to go. That is happening now. Im also thinking about the award and we do other stuff besides National Book awards. We just a program were going to be giving away, thanks to several large publishers, 300,000 books. Were just getting ready to make that project happen and getting ready for the year. Theres just all kinds of buildup. And the audio. Thats been my favorite part. Every year nonprofits get audited and someone comes your office and you pay them a lot of money to harass you for a week and asks you for a tiny paper that were surely lost. Thats been a part of my 2017. [laughmac] neck lets move on to more fun things. Robin and rachel if you could tell me what its like being named a finalist for the National Book awards . She actually won the award. [laughmac] but you were a finalist to separate times. We celebrate our finalist is as much as we do our winners. My nine yearold is very unimpressed, he just thanks i lost twice. [laughmac] but in fact i dont feel that way at all. This is in a lucky thing. Theres a lot of great books to come out every year and i thought it was neat to just be in this sudden Small Community with four other writers for the first time. I read all their books and then i felt somewhat close to them when we got toward the event and i just felt like, what happens this is an unusual moment for me to get his attention and to be in a circle with these other writers going through this thing together and then the second time i was nominated, i was really happy about it partly because i knew already what it was like. I knew the emphasis was not on whether i won the thing or not but the lock in the good fortune to get to go and have this experience and sitting they said to at with the publisher and the announced the winner and the bigwigs of a Publishing Company that i dont know but the whole thing is very alien to me for them it would be important if i won because they can sell a lot of books but when the announced the winner and now im forgetting why we won last time that i was nominated instead of the flamethrower but i feel like i should know this. I dont know that. Does someone want to google that . It was before lisas time. Im still memorizing all finalists. [laughmac] i was so happy for him that i was beaming and everyone was looking at me like is there something wrong with her. Did she have a lobotomy . I was so happy. But i really was and it wasnt about winning the thing but it was hot being there and going through this rarefied experience and i got to work twice with carol organ from the seated lisa in the job and i was saying to her i wanted her to flourish and i wanted the National Book foundation to grow in the ways that it needs to and maybe its ready to as well. Hes a guy who cares about literature and is always ready to have a deep mindful conversation about literature no matter where you are. And so to have those kind of meaningful interactions with people is wonderful. What was the question again . Since we know what the process is like, what was was it like when you want . In that moment, it was surreal. I love that you talked about the community that gets formed within the finalists because i was just madly in love with everyone that was nominated everyone that was a finalist. Patrick, ross they were all friends of mine and even the people in the long risk for friends of mine. We were a static from from september all the way through to the awards we were just partying on facebook and twitter, like i love you. I love you too. Im so happy. Its just so weird. My book is my debut so they be one in the third time the poetry one, last time was in 1974. I was just happy to be there and i was happy for all my friends and we were just having a big laugh fest. When they call my name, i was just i had never met tim but everyone thought i knew tim because i iran up and hugged him so hard and i was saying i cant say what i was saying in his ear but i was screaming what the in his ear over and over again. That was a state anecdote but truly, im still very much shaken by it. Its taken in best possible way. I will understand what it means historically and this kind of historical moment i was born in compton to people who came to los angeles for the great migration from new orleans, theres a poem in my book there was no library in my town when i grow up. Hes doing this amazing project with book deserts. I loved books and thank god my family and my parents were the kind of parents who within our means you can have anything you want. I always wanted books. I read a book a day. Four years and wanda coleman, octavia butler, all these all these los angeles writers, la was a book desert. In many ways it still is. Winning for me was like winning for those people. Thats what it felt like. Or that i was just deeply honored and i still am and i feel incredible amount of love and generosity and i want to just be of service. Can i say one more thing . The question i wanted to answer was the thing that was most shocking for me is how many people are working behind the scenes for the love of literature. I had no idea. Again, it was my first book. As ive gone through it i have learned that there are so many people working as editors, publishers, copy editors, fact checkers, whatever. Thousands, tens of thousands of them they blow my mind. I dont even even care about writing that much anymore, i care because they have to but im much more impressed with whats going behind the scenes in terms of whos working to get books out into the world than the actual writing of it. Thats been profound in real life. You are sharing something backstage with us and i dont know if you want to talk about that. About the meaning of some big publishing organizations. Yes. They were talking about how to increase diversity. Reporter yes. There are a lot of people working on behalf of literature to tie together what people are saying. As you think about the expanding the audience for literature. To back up and stay with me, someone was complaining to me that awards keep focusing on the same book and they were focusing on the book that everyone is for viewing and whats the. Of having all this attention on one book. How many copies of the underground railroad have sold . They didnt know. I dont know the number. It was like 250,000. I promise you it is nowhere near a million bucks. And there like 368 million americans. We need more people, we need more advocates and when you look at the publishing houses and that the fact that theyre not diverse and while there are tens of thousands of people working on behalf of literature what if we add black and brown folks, what if we had more folks more rural forks invited into that, into the fold that we could do more for books and more more places. I would make a difference. Weve done a lot with a relatively small amount of passionate advocates and writers. But if we could build that network we could really change the way reading in america happens. I think that starts with inclusivity at the publishing houses. We sometimes focus on the work of the writer and the writer doesnt seem as exciting, writers are everything to me without them we wouldnt have the books but i dont know that change starts with saying to write people under we need to court writers and we need to nurture these writers and we need to be a safe harbor at home for all different kinds of writers. When there is a net like that that more people are drawn to actually being writers and that will change the fabric of what it all looks like. May i jump in . I keep arguing, suggesting when ive been on tour about diversity and one other way that we dont speak of enough. And thats geographically. Im grateful that youre here on the west coast thankful for this program that and the people have put it together. Theres a way in which california and the west coast particularly, are often the work is set on the. The work is particular to the west coast or the different communities within the west coast it gets looked over. It would mean so much to me, im on a mission right now to make the Publishing Industry more aware of the work on the west coast and what that means. Can i Say Something also . Im not going to name the publication but there was a magazine from new york that was out in la recently and i went to a party that they threw and one of the publishers spoke to the audience and said writers who live in la are all screenwriters or work in this Film Industry and i dont know anyone who works in the Film Industry. I thought deep into my acquaintance layer of my reality and i could come up with a name or two but nobody anywhere near. They gave this talk like you guys out here and so every day since then i do this neurotic thing where i open this draft of an email that i have that im writing to the editor of this magazine with statistics like guess what, 40 of the good the comedy United States come to the port of la. Guess what, we are the largest Manufacturing Center in the United States. Guess what, 20 Million People live in the greater metropolitan area of los angeles and moreover we have the highest poverty rate of any big city in america. There are people here from all over the world and its fascinating and noble place, very compensated complicated economy. Im lecturing you guys as i talk. I was so mad about it. I just save it in the draft file every day ive never sent it. I think theres something in my anger about it, im not trying to be selfrighteous or moral but theres something in my anger that may be symptomatic of misunderstanding in a broader sense and publishing. In terms of who American People are and where they live and im very dedicated to living in los angeles. I think that there are, they love brutalities here and life is very hard for people in la. Thats contrasted with the sanity of people in new york. Lisa is not among them. Who under thats all i have say about that. Thats extraordinarily arrogant and one of the things that as we think about the foundation of the future is that were in new york, thats where i live i was born born in york and i love new york. Everybodys allow two of of home but how do you recognize support, on lift and acknowledge literary around the country. And to make sure that the stories of the reality of whats happening in those given places is actually told and were thinking about the future of the foundation and part of that is how do we amass the work of these communities and what theyre doing how do we make sure they have visibility . How do we make really have access postmark i go i go to libraries all the time in sacramento right before the holidays and the librarians have this gorgeous library, i have all this resources, how come i can get these authors to come here. How do you encourage National Board winners and finalists that dont live on the west coast go to Sacramento Library and talk to the eager and Wonderful Community that there to buy their books . And to read their work . I think theres a lot of new york writers and theres arrogance they are that we have to think about how huge this country is. I look at the work i can do and say my budget is this but if i raise money and tell a different story than i can be this much bigger and do this much more work. Same with readership. If i assume this whole country rather than just new york but im a bigger and organization. If you can find more readers, a friend of mine was just scheduling her to her and she is going to kansas city and to someplace in texas that was in austin. [laughmac] and all these places and it was really cool. I just said yes and they asked me. All those people are going to buy those books in those books are owners that are doing this events with you are going to be so excited that youre showing up that theyre going to promote the hell out of your event and youll have tons of books sold and those people are going to be grateful that you showed up. People want to connect. And they want to connect all over the country, they want to collect and aptly appalachia they want to connect in la, they want to connect in new jersey and i never saw a single author there. It is important to do the work and sopping snobby. So where do we talk . Thats a dumb way to frame it doesnt make sense but its not good Financial Sense for artists, organization or a publisher. Or a president. [laughmac] i would like to ask you about book deserts and the project you have to address i was so excited when i saw this. The 300,000 books so when do we get libraries and Public Housing, how do we make this happen . This is an interesting project. Weve been talking a lot about how do we build new audiences, how do we reach new readers, potential readers that have not been reached out to. I dont do literacy work. Thats not our job. We dont teach kids how to read but we can teach kids how exciting books are and how fun it is. I got a phone call in the summer about this day of action to read where you are. It would increase encourage young people to read where they are. He mentioned there was a project in the works with hud and with the campaign for capable reading to think about book desert and all of these areas that dont have