In a front yard . No, what we did is this building was built in the 20s for karl it is very old. Historic building. And the book shop runs around the courtyard cafe, and as you can see particular plenty of people who come and partake of this and we have in music on the weekends but we just think that flows beautifully with books. How many book event dos you do on a regular basis . On a yearly basis we do about 600 book epghts year. About 600 events often kids and adults and other kinds of things. But were a very, very active school. When did you open . I opened books about 35 years ago. Why . Because, you know, the story is basically i was a failed law student english major in college an i didnt want to give up u the dream of being part of a literary culture so one quick way of doing that was getting into the Book Business into book stores and i always loved book stores. When i was a kid i find myself in a bookstore more than i was in college. In law school. So just seemed unnatural. Like cable originally from miami beach believe it or not, and so you know when i moved back from where i was going to school, karl gave us didnt know very well but i explored it and a it was right before an independent book shop. Seems to be a booming town it is surrounded by miami. Yeah about five mile front seat airport. About 26 different little cities, miami beach, miami, hilia, miami itself so karl is one of those little cities and one of the most historic of all of the cities as well. Founded by a man named George Merrick and in the teens, in fact, more of a book that was published on his life by the university of florida. And or it is a gorgeous little city that has become a cultural sham within the miami community. Who is your audience . Or audience is just about everybody actually because of the uniqueness of the store we get people coming from all over. But the local audience is an audience just a couple of blocks away with is ridge area where in a Business District across the street is a wonderful art cinema as well. But what we like to think we draw them from everywhere actually. Youre actually involved in the book fair. What is jr. Involvement . One of the founders along with eduardo, i was a young kid, and had no idea of what had the future would bring and eduardo and other book sellers together and lets put on a book fair and he said greats. And we did, and miami at the time was in the early 80s. In the magazine had a store that says miement paradise law in a big question mark. I think what ed war with doe wanted to do was bring rights to miami in the book fair, and ive been to new york, book country and others, put together a whole Community Came together, it was a very Diverse Community at the time. Still is and we decided to kateer to diverseness. What is it today . A very is entry brant interesting city with so many different communities that are so different more than others yet tied together by its diversity. It revel it is in its diversity. What is happening Cultural Community is becoming really much more sophisticated. We have incredible writers here. Top men and women, and movie moonlight was a miami original more or less. So theres a lot happen hadding here. That wasnt happen hadding when i was a kid growing up in miami beach back in the 70s to early 60s. The festival started out with two day. Back almost 34 years ago and it fell a full week, and we have now probably close to 600 offers that have come over the week period of the book fair. And it really is something that miami is not really proud of is, big tent under which all of miami sits, and so its been something that i take a lot of pride in so does miami why has miami developed such a writers village . Weprobably spent two tore or the programs on that. You know miami started probably if you ask people about miami they would have told you about the mystery writers like charles throughout miami blues, even orlando hung out here, and you know [inaudible conversations] all of those guys, and then that all happened because miami was so strange. You know all of the strange murders that took place here. You know the cocaine cowboys. Couldnt make up something that didnt appear in the news a few days or few months later. But since that early, early plus of miami you then begin to find miami as a community becoming more rich allowing to live here. We have some like who won the kingsly prize, and he lives here in wright. You have a wonderful fiction writer living here. You have an incredible diverse Latin American Community people writing in spanish. And portuguese, so you do have the diversity of miami is what you made it to interesting. Couple of authors one of the authors we talk to on mendez from cuba, talked to one from haiti, all of those writers are so important to what makes up miami now. Well welcome to miami. This is booktv on cspan2, and for the next two hours were going to have a discussion about book and writing, what youre reading, what some of our guests are reading as well. Mitchell kaplan is poundser, owner of books and bookstore. Pef this location in gable. They have a location at the miami airport as well and where else . Were in lincoln road on south beach. Were in the beautiful [inaudible conversations] and then also in the performing arts center. Adrian and performing arts. We have a store there as well. And then weve opened up a new store, books and box and bikes a bookstore, bike shop. That is in lynwood which is our version of a little bit of brooklyn with, you know, incredible it is, it is. Well, were going to be having that interactive discussion on cspan live programs your chance to participate. Well put the phone numbers up a little bit later after we meet or ore guests so why dont we go on inside and well join our other guests as well. Let tom go in first because hes got the camera. So mimple el kaplan can an independent bookstore thrive and survive today . I think most definitely. Right now independent bookstores are come intog their own once again. I think last year there was Something Like 60, to 70 new book shops that have opened, and theres something for real spaces and what people do on internet. Theres certainly internet shopping that goes on but a sense of community thats created with with a real space like a book shop. Is this a Community Space go ahead and sit down. Oh, most definitely it is i think we are really about spaces. See folks that have joined us are that familiar spaces in some ways . Yes. Regular mirrors . Lets introduce you to mmfa program at Florida International university and author on its rights and mendez a an author, former journalist. Autumn menendez you have a book called in cuba i was a German Shepherd how do you come up with a title like that, and what does that mean . Not autobiographical. It was punch line to a joke that i heard when i was a reporter used to cover little havana, my first time at the harold. And it was a joke that a wonderful sculptor and i didnt know how to do it but it stayed with me and when i left journalism and began to write fiction i was going to write a story revolving around this joke 2378 lets stand before what is master of fine arts and how do you get into your program at fiu. Master of fine arts is degree that i would he hesitate to tell parents to send their daughter and sons to come to because the the parents probably want them to learn how to sell bonds. [laughter] do thing they can make sure can sell their children a lot of money and you dont become a writer to become rich and famous. What we do is offer the opportunity to those people who cant do anything else to take that talent. Thank you. To take that talent and bring it to the max to shape it into a into a way that will find that audience that that the person is looking for. And its a like all of the arts, many, many, many are called and very few are chosen, but the reason were there i think is to give those applicants and students that are admitted professional tools so that when they go out into that cold, cruel world, they really know whats required that is not a guarantee of success as we know, the arts are terribly competitive. But ours are very practical minded program not theoretical at all. You want to reach your audience. Let talk about what your audience is, lets talk about how you can take that talent that is already there and hone it to the professional level. I often liken it to a bunch of young men who have shown up have been drafted by the nfl, they show up at summer training kmp, an the coach says you know youre tremendously talented. Now lets talk about what it takes to operate at the professional level. Day one, all of those fresh faces looking at you, what do you tell them . What do they learn day one . That youve got a lot of talent or you wouldnt be. Lets talk about how to shape that talent in a way that makes a connection . You know, everybody who come miss is very good at expression but i say you know babies are too. They just nobody wants to hear what they have to say. Youre very good at expressing yourself what were talking about is making that connection with the audience. How does that happen . What does it take . Autumn menendez when you sit town to write a book, whats the most difficult part for you . Well let me just say before that is you wouldnt know it by his use of the word but mys professor many, many year ago hes not to blame for anything. [laughter] but he was the only class that i took and it was undergraduate all needed encompass everything from soim very grateful to him, of course, for that. And then i have a book that i still carry which was a book that he used and i think still uses by anyways whats the hard est thing when i sit down to write . These days it is sitting down to write because i have a small child, and time has just gotten away from me unfortunately. Were showing this book. What is it about this book that works for you . Well, i have i brought three books and theyre all of poetry that have been very important to me throughout my life, and the first one was karl samburg well wind i think was first one and then early moon which my uncle Joni Martinez who is a poet mitch gave me as i was a child. I was i think i was six or seven when he gave me had the first one. This one dedicated in 1979 so i was nine, and it was a very it was just a beautiful i remember the fog comes in and it just a beautiful book and i think that what it did for me was that it demystified poetry were so afraid of poetry, and it just made it, you know, part of my language. And then there was this book that they introduced to me almost 30 years ago i suppose it is now. And [laughter] all of us here, and then another bosks one that i picked up here at books of books. When i was a columnist in miami harold and kind of having a rough ride i used to hang out here a lot, and i especially among poetry books for some reason and i picked up i think of it yeah youll see it heavily. The odes which were these are new translation by contemporary poets edited and theyre fantastic, and it is a nice, piece of comfort. And you know why do you wear infinite question request your fie finite midnight. Obvious question i have thoughinging your love of poetry but youre not a poet. I know how hard it is. How do you incorporate it into writing and influence your writing . Im not sure it has. Although some people will say that my writing is lyrical. But i think its just the love of the word and the sentence, with and a sense of the rhythm of the section but also what had poetry strives for kind of capturing of the inevitable in very words i think is such a wonderful calling for the writer. So youve written both nonfiction and fiction books, on the series. But youre not a poet either. Why do you teach or bring poetry into a writing class . Well the fact is when i was in graduate school in ffa program in utah even more than 30 years ago [laughter] we were forced even if we thought of ourselves as fiction writers to take a class in the realm of poetry and i remember walking across the campus that january morning to take a class with henry taylor who went on to win the National Book award in poetry, and thinking well, this is it. The jig is up. After this class im out of here because my idea of poetry was by the shores of gichy gloomy and no idea what modern poetry was but i went there and discovered a whole new world and first three or four years after the graduated only thing i could publish were poems so i was for many years practicing poet and enjoyed it, and came to understand i think that poets are after the same central moment that fiction writers are at the end of a story or at the end of the novel. All of we we writers want to have the read or put down the piece regardless of how long it is and say yeah. That is exactly right. That is what i was looking for. We want that moment, and what i envy poets is like popular songwriters, they can get that in a page. Theythey can get that in such a short period of time a and gees im working 2, 300 pages two or three years to get that hopefully that they havent of a book. But were all in it together and other thing i learned that the words are so important to me that language of every sentence even nonfiction or fiction is just as important to me as was a line of poetry. Recent nonfiction by less [inaudible conversations] last train to pair dice who was harry and his role in florida . I was going to call the book the man who invented florida thats who he is. [laughter] because before Henry Flagler there wasnt much to florida. The largest city in the state was jacksonville with about 4,000 people who were couple of thousand people in tampa and a few if you drew a line from jacksonville up to the top of the state west, southwest to tampa, about in the middle of the state that was as far as you could go. There was no palm beach. There was no book, there was no miami. And there was a key west. The most important city in the state flying away with 20,000 people in an inimportant naval station but you can only there by bet and after flagler came into the state in the early 1880s it remained that way. But he did an amazing thing after extending his rare road down eastern seaboard of florida creating palm beach make changing a creating miami who called fort dallas and then someone came to him with notion expanding that railroad over 153 large miles to key west, and time he was 72 years old had all of the money he ever needed and still he said im going to do it. I think he was motivated by the fact that people said it is impossible. But he proved that the impossible could be done and in doing so he stitched together to the continent that little island, the last part of the main really close american frontier in 1912. Hes responsible for that traffic jam on 95. No matter how many lanes to key webcast there will never be enough. Because people are just fascinated with going to the ends of the american road, and as he was Mitchell Kaplan what are you reading today . Ive been reading a book that many people know there are two books that ive been reading. One is book by atool called being mortal and if you havent read you ought to read it is really kind of amazing im dealing with sickness in my own family and has been very, very helpful in terms of understanding how one deals with an elderly parents and kinds of things to look out for and kind of conversations to have and that sort of thing so being immortal has been really good and will as always so kind of remarkable in its collections and essays about different books and you know a book called books for living. And it is a series of books that have been fired at him over the years and so ive been reading this to get a little bit of sustenance to face challenging tiles over the last couple of weeks actually. Autumn menendez the same question. Well, i just finished secondhand time [inaudible conversations] its just ive been rarely recommend books just because i feel its so personal and i dont to impose my taste on people. But it is a really beautiful book and i love everything it be. Its a course of voices about the end of the soviet union. It covers gulac big picture of the war, and she is talks to ordinary people about their struggles with the end the soviet union. And i love it so much because the voices she collects are astonishing with the source they are astonishing and fact that theyre ordinary people is something that i think we aspire to a fiction writer, this is book of nonfiction. But this is what we aspire to is so illuminate lives of ordinary people until extraordinary circumstances and how they rise to those occasions. And this is a collection of, you know, maybe hundreds of these voices. Im really, i really love this book. Im reading right now im not it shalled with it, in fact, im only at number nine a small book its a small book more like a long essay on 20 lessons on 20 9 century by timny snyder just came out, and you were talking about the things you can get at bookstores that you cant get on internet and number nine which i ended today is be kind to our language boy pronouncing phases everyone else does. Think of your own way of speaking, and then on and on make an effort to separate yourself from the internet read book. [laughter] i thought ill tend there. And then i just finished reading its kind of a obscure for most American Writer called bahomio a czech writer and i just finished reading too loud a solitude which is about about what books give you and the its a quirky book. Its not not anything that i thk will be established here because theres no real plot but a very short book about a man who collects waste paper and when sees books hts and builds a big collapse on him. So in it, theres no real plot pulling you through. Itit is just this love of books and its a beautiful lings book and i just finished reading it. Once gun again authors name [inaudible conversations] and book name too loud of solitude. Professor what is on your reading list . Preface but second on third the idea of browsing in a bookstore, with the delight theres no such thing white the interpret is wonderful and it gets books out there and allows people to reach things that they might not have otherwise on and on but no such thing as a pile of books on a table on the interpret. You come into nonfiction of books and may be youre looking for something and you keand find it while youre looking for it you see a dozen other books you see covers you pick them up an maybe your honor learn how to do this on the internet but i never have. It is wonderful the kind of browsing that we warrant. The second thing i want to say is about being asked of what youre reading reading my students manuscript. Thousands of pages they multiply like a mudslide in california during the rainy season. [laughter] some of them thank god, because have graduate students too and undergraduates are good, and i also read many of the books of the people who have come to k