Its people. This was recorded in tempe, arizona in 2015. It is just under one hour. Susan southard is one of this community and thats what makes this event very special. She holds an msa in creative writing from Antioch University in los angeles and was a non she lives and works in tempe, where she is the founder and artistic director of essential theater. She has taught nonfiction classes at Arizona State universities piper studio, and she has directed creative writing programs for incarcerated youth and at a federal prison for women outside of phoenix. She has also raised her family here. As a matter of fact, her daughter was once a junior staffer in our kids section. Let me tell you, she was the darling of the kids book department, not only for her love of books but also for her , personal winning smile much like her mothers. So you can see susan and her family have been one of our regular patrons and readers for many years now and one of our dearest friends. So for many years we have known about the book she has been working on diligently, quietly. The topic is so big and important, yet sensitive and heavy hearted enough that it had not been properly dealt with until now upon the 70th Year Anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on nagasaki. The story had been untold. In nagasaki, life after nuclear war Susan Southard takes readers from the bombing to today five to today, telling the firsthand experience five survivors all of whom were teenagers at the time of the bombing. The book was a finalist for the award fostered by Nieman Foundation and the Columbia University school of journalism. Book,ib, very important is now out with reviewers rightly recognizing its tremendous importance and merit. We are so very moved by the publication at last of this tremendous work and by its reception. Take a look at the reviews. We have just quoted a few of them on the table of books and , we are so very fortunate and happy to welcome our dear friend, Susan Southard to this stage. [applause] i dont know if those of you who dont know me well heard giggles in the audience when she mentioned the people i dont know exactly how you worded it, but people have been waiting for the book to come out. A 12 year process and im very grateful for anyone i know who did not doubt me or didnt say out loud that they doubted me. So first of all, claudia, thank you so much for that beautiful introduction and for allowing me to have the book launch here at changing hands which has been an integral part of my life for the last 25 years. Its an honor. And good evening to all of you. I see many friends, colleagues and my family here tonight, and there are many of you i dont know and i look forward to getting to know you as well if we have time. Before i began begin, there are a few people here tonight that i would like to acknowledge. First, my family who have come across the country to commemorate this day with me, my parents gary and Susan Southard, my brother. Where are you . My brother and his partner will bowen. Ner wendy my younger brother Jonathan Southard who surprised me two hours ago by showing up at my house from l. A. , yes, and my absolutely beautiful daughter, forgive me for being, for saying , she cameoud, eva with me during my first trip to nagasaki in 2003 when she was 10 years old and grew up with this book. Over the past 12 years i hired a Wonderful Team of seven native japanese speakers to help me translate historical documents. Correspondence and hours and hours of survivor interviews. Three of the leaders are sure tonight. I would also like to express my thanks. Lets give them a hand. [applause] there are others who couldnt be here tonight and in particular i would like to express my deep gratitude to the late who worked side eyesight with me for eight years helping me translate the survivors words into the most nuanced english we could find. Excellent administrative support for the book was provided by, and you have to tell me where you are charlene brown, jeannie , callahan, lorraine who is not here tonight and my daughter eva. Ken blackburn, where are you . Thank you for reading the manuscript at various stages of development and providing valuable feedback. Finally, robin, this is robin lavoie, everyone, an extraordinary historical researcher thinker colleague and friend whose deep intelligence and dedication helped me create and shape this book into its final form. [applause] im going to read several excerpts from my book to give you a glimpse of the complex story of postnuclear survival and after the reading there will be time for questions. The first segment i will read, can everyone here may, first of all . The first segment i will read begins with the exact moment of the bomb was dropped over nagasaki from a specially modified b29 bomber six miles from the city. By this time in the story, readers have been introduced already to the five survivors whose stories are woven throughout the book. All of them were teenagers at the time of the bombing. The material here is important and also difficult. I hope you will be able to bear it. It is about eight minutes long. The fiveton plutonium bomb toward the city at 614 miles per hour. 47 seconds later, a powerful implosion forced the plutonium core to compress from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a tennis ball generating a nearly , instantaneous Chain Reaction of Nuclear Fission with colossal force and energy the bomb detonated a third of a mile above the valley and its 30,000 residents and workers. At 11 02 a. M. , a super brilliant flash lit up the sky visible from as far away as the Naval Hospital more than 10 miles over the mountains followed by a , thunderous explosion equal to the power of 21,000 tons of tnt. The entire city convulsed. At its first point, the center of the explosion reached temperatures higher than at the center of the sun and the velocity of its shockwave exceeded the speed up sound. A tenth of a millisecond later all of materials that made up , the bomb converted into an ionized gas and electromagnetic waves were released into the air. The thermal heat of the bomb ignited a fireball with an internal temperature of over 500 540,000 degrees fahrenheit. Within one second the blazing fireball expanded from 52 feet to its maximum size of 750 feet in diameter. Within three seconds, the ground below reached an estimated 5400 to 7200 degrees fahrenheit. Directly beneath the bomb, infrared heat rays instantly carbonized human and animal flesh and vaporized internal organs. As the atomic cloud billowed two miles overhead and eclipsed the sun the vertical blast pressure , crashed much of the valley. Wins tour blast through the region at two and a half times times the speed up of hurricane five pulverizing buildings, trees, plants, animals and thousands of men women and children. In every direction people were , blown out of their shelters, houses, factories, schools, and hospital beds, catapulted against the walls are flattened beneath collapsed buildings. Those working in the fields waiting in line at city resting stations were blown off their feet are hit by plummeting degree. An iron bridge moved 28 inches downstream. As the buildings began to implode patients and staff , jumped out of windows of the nagasaki medical college. In mobilized High School Girls leaping from the third story of the school half mile from the blast. The blazing heat melted iron and other metals, scorched bricks, and concrete. Buildings ignited clothing, disintegrated vegetation and cause severe and fatal flash burned some peoples expose faces and bodies. A mile from the detonation the blast forced nineinch brick walls to crack and glass fragment looked at into peoples arms, legs, back, and faces, often puncturing their muscles and organs. Two miles away thousands of people suffering flesh burns from the heat lay trapped in partially demolished buildings. Distances up to five miles wood and glass windows. Ripped intothing their flash. Window shattered as far as 11 miles away. Larger doses of radiation and any human had ever received penetrated deeply into the bodies of people and animals. The ascending fireball suctioned massive amounts of dust and debris into its turning stem. A deafening roar erupted as buildings throughout the city shattered and crashed to the ground. It all happened in an instant, a 13yearold remembered. He had barely seen the blinding light half a mile away before a powerful force hit him on his right side and hurled him into the air. The heat was so intense i curled up like dried grilled squid, he said. In what felt like dream like slowmotion he was blown , backwards 130 feet across a field of roads and irrigation channel then plunge to the , ground landing on his back in a rice paddy flooded with shallow water. Inside the mitsubishi weapons factory, she had been wiping perspiration from her face and concentrating on her work when an enormous blue white flash of light burst into the building followed by an earsplitting explosion. Thinking a torpedo had detonated inside the plant she threw , herself onto the ground and covered her head with her arms just as the factory came crashing down on top of her. In his shortsleeve shirt, trousers gators and cap he had , been riding his bicycle through the hills in the northwest corner of the valley when a sudden burning wind rushed toward him from behind propelling him into the air , and slamming him face down on the road. The earth was shaking so hard, he said that i hung on as hard get i could so i would not blown away again. A 15yearold was standing inside an airplane parts factory protected to some degree type distance of the wooded mountains that stood between her and the bomb. A light flash, she remembered. She thought a bomb had hit her building. She fell to the ground covering her ears and eyes with her thumbs and fingers according to her training as windows crashed in around her. She could hear pieces of 10 and broken roof tiles swirling and colliding in the air outside areas to miles southeast of the blast. The young streetcar driver was sitting in the lounge talking with his friends. The train cable flashed. Nagasaki, the of light was undescribable, he said. An unbelievably massive white lit up the whole city. A violent explosion rocked the station. He and his friend died for cover under tables and furniture. In an instant he felt like he , was floating in the air before being slapped down to the floor. Something heavy landed on his back and he fell unconscious. Beneath the still rising mushroom cloud, a huge portion of nagasaki had vanished. Tens of thousands throughout the city were dead or injured. On the floor of the terminal she lay beneath a fallen team. Beam. She was curled up on the floor of the airplane parts factory, her mouth filled with glass and dust. Playing injured in the collapse me to be she factory and gulped and smoke. He that was lying in a muddy e paddy barely conscious, his body and face brutally scorched. 60 seconds have passed. Most americans know little about the acute and longterm effects of radiation on the survivors bodies. The details are graphic but since it is such a critical part of their post bomb lives, and america has averted its gaze for 70 years, i selected a short excerpt to give you a sense of what happened early on. Youll hear the name of a young physician whos a secondary character in the book. Within a week of the bombing, thousands of men, women and children across nagasaki and the surrounding region began to experience excuse me, im just going to bring this a little closer. Thank you. Within a week of the bombing, thousands of men, women and children across nagasaki and the surrounding region began to experience inexplicable combinations of symptoms. High fever, dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea, headaches, diarrhea, bloody stools, nosebleeds, whole body weakness and fatigue. Their hair fell out in large clumps, their burns and wounds secreted extreme amounts of pus , and their gums swelled, became infected and bled. Purple spots appeared on their bodies. At fist about the size of a pinprick, one doctor recalled, but growing within a few days to the size of a grain or excuse me, a grain of rice or a pea. Spots were signs of hemorrhaging beneath the skin. Infections throughout the body were rampant, including the large intestine, esophagus, bronchial passages, lungs and uterus. Within a few days of the appearance of initial symptoms, many people lost consciousness, mumbled deliriously and died in extreme pain. Others languished for weeks before either dying or slowly recovering. Even those who had suffered no external injuries fell sick and died. Some relief workers and victim families who had come into the area after the bombing also suffered serious illness. Fear gripped the city. As the pattern of symptoms, illness and death became clear, some people pulled on their hair every morning to see if their time had come. Believing the illness was contagious, many families turned away relatives and guests who were staying with them after the bombing, and some farmers outside nagasaki refused food to hungry refugees from the city. At first, the doctor and other physicians suspected dysentery, cholera or possibly some form of liver disease. Others thought the illness was due to poisonous gas released by the bomb. By august 15th, however, when japanese scientists confirmed that an atomic bomb had been dropped on nagasaki, physicians deduced that what appeared to be an epidemic was somehow related to radiation contamination. This discovery was helpful in ruling out contagious diseases and other conditions, but it did nothing to minimize the mystifying, confusing and terrifying truth about the invisible power of the bomb. People died one after another. The doctor likened the situation to black, the black death pandemic that devastated europe in the 1300s. Observing the cremations taking place in his hospital yard, he wondered if his body, too, might soon be burned. Life or death was a matter of chance, of fate, he said, and the dividing line between the man being cremated and the doctor cremating him was slight. A second wave of radiation illnesses and deaths swept through the city in late august and Early September and continued through early october. The doctor and his whole staff came down with nausea, diarrhea and fatigue which, he remembered, made me feel as be i had been beaten all over my body. From the doctors perspective from his burned out hospital atop the hill, death carved a clear geographical path. The first people who suffered and died from radiationrelated illness were living inside an air raid shelter at the bottom of the hill. The illness then climbed the hill, killing people in relative order according to their distance from the atomic blast. When the next tier of people grew sick, they were carried to the hospital grounds by their neighbors who lived farther up the hill, and the distance between the homes of the sick and his hospital became shorter and shorter. One family, another and then the yamaguchis were attacked by radiation sickness, the doctor remembered. I remember this widening excuse me, i named this widening advance of the disease the concentric circles of death. He watched as his neighbor, mr. Yamaguchi, lost 13 family members from atomic bomb sickness. After each death, mr. Yamaguchi carried the body to the cemetery dug a grave, and called for the priest. After each ceremony, he returned home to care for the remaining family members, all of whom had fallen ill. They are dying one by one, he told the doctor. Who will send for the priest when i am dying . Who will dig my grave when i am gone . This is just a short note about what was going on in the United States at the same time. Highlevel officials in the United States adamantly and publicly refuted the news reports out of hiroshima and nagasaki that large numbers of people were suffering and dying from radiation exposure. In late august and Early September, for example, general leslie grove, director of the Manhattan Project where the atomic bombs were developed, tried to deflect public discussion about the bombs radiation effects by insisting on the lawfulness of the bombs use and their decisive role in ending the war. The atomic bomb is not an inhuman weapon, he stated in the new york times. I think our best answer to anyone who doubts this is that we did not start the war, and if they dont like the way we ended it, to remember who started it. Later that year general groves , testified before the u. S. Senate that deaths from highdose radiation exposure is, without undue suffering, and a very pleasant way to die. Okay. Im going to skip ahead ten years now, take you to a new place. Im going to tell you a story, oh, my goodness. The first time i met do, mrs. Do, was in august sake. It was in 2003 nagasaki, and i was in a Conference Room waiting for her at one end of a very long table, and she entered from the far end. And when i first set eyes on her, she took my breath away. She stood there so tall and erect with a presence unlike anyone id ever met before. I learned later that as a child she was athletic and strongwilled, and she sometimes broke the rules. The photo in my book of do as a child shows her in street clothes on a day that she should have been wearing her school uniform. She liked to look nice. You will hear the word in this segment. It means atomic bombaffected person a word created to , identify the victims and survivors of the atomic bombs. Do was 15 at the time of the bomb. She was the one inside the mitsubishi weapons factory that imploded on top of her and thousands of men, women and student workers. To catch you up on her story, she barely escaped the factory ruins before she fell unconscious on an embankment. She waited for someone to find her. She had a big, wide gash on the back of her head, running from one ear to the other. In the first few months after the bombing, purple spots appeared on her body, she ran a high fever, her gums were inflamed, and she lost all of her hair. Her doctor told her parents that she was dying, and it was time to let her go. But do made it. Eventually, most of her radiation related symptoms disappeared, and her injuries, for the most part, healed. But year after year her hair would not grow back. Do hid inside her house, staring at herself in the mirror. Instead of hair, soft, raggedly fuzz grew on her scalp, so thin and transparent that she looked almost bald, but even that would fall out, then grow in and fall out again. Why me, she fumed, why do i have to stay so ugly . I didnt do anything. She asked herself over and over again what she should do with the life she had been given. Eight years after the