>> later that day, laurie was driving around town in her green jaguar sovereign when she got a call from her stable boy that things were getting a little bit weird out at the horse farm. there were cars parked along the country roads, said the boy, and then with binoculars turned on the place. that night, laurie says, the fed sent in an army, atf, fbi, you name it. by morning, she was in the local jail telling jokes to the agents who stood guard.

after all, she says, if you don't have a sense of humor, what do you have? six months later, laurie arnold's crank empire fell down of one count of continuing a criminal enterprise, two counts of money laundering, one count of carrying and using a firearm in conjunction with drug trafficking and multiple counts of distribution and carrying of methamphetamine. floyd was tried separately and sentenced to 15 years in lev leavenworth prison where he died of a heart attack before he would have paroled. laurie got ten years in the federal penitentiary and was released after serving eight in july of 1999. her son and only child was 15 years old. laurie had been gone for half of

his life. by then, the meth business in the midwest had mutated into something that laurie couldn't believe. though she was quick to comprehend that it was a new, much more fully developed phenomenon than that which she had created. and along with laurie identified a spot for herself in the new order, she did the thing that she'd been doing all of her life. she went right back into business. [applause] >> thank you. >> okay. it's question and answer time. >> okay. >> i see a hand over there. >> yeah. >> i didn't have a chance to read the whole book but i was wondering have you had a chance to talk to these parents of

these addicts? >> yeah. in fact, there's a character -- [inaudible] >> oh, yeah, the question is, did i have a chance to talk to any parents of addicts. and the answer is that there's -- one of the principal characters in the last part of the book is a recovering meth addict who had at the time that the book was written, he had a 2-year-old boy based on the hair follow condition content of the meth had the highest content of any child in iowa. and his stepsister who was also at one time under the control of this man, had the second highest hair follicle count ever. and the part of the book that is about him is also not just him

as a parent but it's about his parents as well. and they live up in independence, iowa. >> but laurie arnold's parents -- >> no, i didn't speak with laurie's parents, no. >> anybody else? how about somebody from -- >> there's got to be a question? >> i've been down here for 16 years now. i wondered why i centered on roland. i haven't read it. i'm going to tonight and read it. why was he chosen as a main character versus maybe some of the other meth addicts that you talked to? >> that's a good question.

the question was, why did i center the character of the addict in the book on roland jarvis as opposed to any other addict? and the answer to that is that because he would talk to me. [laughter] >> and he was willing to let me into his life for 3 1/2 years. and one of the reasons that he would talk to me is that at one point his doctor had been the man who was sort of within of two principal characters in the book, clay hallburg, you know, i was looking for people to write about and clay put me in touch with him, and he said it would be okay. so that's why. i mean, i certainly met many others but, you know -- i don't

know, it's like when you're fishing, you know, you don't leave fish to go find fish. [laughter] >> just tell us how you entered this community and got people with people? and what that experience was like? >> okay. the question is, how did i get involved with the people of the area -- >> get them to trust to you and talk to you. >> and get them to trust me and talk to me. and what was that experience like? you know, the number one strategy, i think, is hang around. in fact, i was in olweine over

the course of several years and it got to the point where i would just show up and the fellow at the super 8 would just say 211 is waiting for you 'cause i always stayed in the same room. you know, really it's just -- some of it, i think, predicated largely on, you know, relationships that i was able to have with people who i really liked. and roland was one of those people and clay hallburg was one of those people and the prosecutor who i write about and the mayor. leading up to getting to olweine i probably -- i spent about three months searching through newspaper archives and -- for

anybody who said anything interesting about methamphetamine, and i would call them, this included -- i mean, you name it from former dea agents to other town doctors, to other mayors, whatever -- and when i got on the phone with clay, who's one of the principal characters in this book, we just hit it off. and i've only done this twice now. but the thing that is clear to me is that, you know -- to me, you have to like and respect the people about whom you wish to write. and once that happens, it's really not that hard. yeah. >> now, after the book was published then, what feedback did you get from the community and those that you wrote about? >> the question is, now that the

book has been published, what kind of feedback have i had in olweine? i was up there on monday night at the town library. the librarian had set up -- she wanted to have like a town hall meeting. [laughter] >> and there were about 400 people that showed up. [laughter] >> and the memory -- i wish this was whisky. [laughter] >> sell many books? >> i'll tell you a frustrating fact. there were 400 people there and there were only 12 books for sale. which is fine 'cause the point was not to sell books it was -- the point was -- the town of

olweine is really the principal character in this book and they are depending on what census number you believe either 6100 or 6700 people in that town, all of whom certainly have an opinion. and all of whom i thought deserved the right to tell me to my face what they thought about this. and what i came away with was that, you know, there are plenty of people that do not like the fact that their town is in a book. and i understand that completely. you know, at one point at this town hall meeting there was a lady who stood up and said something to the affect, you know, this is -- this is true and this has happened and if you haven't read it, then you have to read it before you can criticize it. and that seemed to me about what

the two separate constituencies were, which is either we just don't like it or it's true and you need to read it. so that's about as close of an answer as i can give. >> did you expect a negative response? >> oh, yeah, i think so. i mean, you know, put into context, i think my first book sold -- i don't know, maybe 2800 copies in four years and then went out of print. so i certainly expected for people in olweine to have a little bit of an allergic reaction. but what i didn't expect was there to be quite so much

attention on the book, and i think that, you know -- a lot of the attention has focused on, you know, the role in jarvis-ification of this thing. the more sensationalized part of it when, in fact, i consider it to be a book not of a town with a meth problem but a town that overcomes or begins to overcomes its meth problem and its sort of economic difficulties. that so i knew -- you know, anybody who get written about singularly or collectively i don't think can be prepared for that. and so i did expect for there to be trouble. what i didn't expect for me to be as deeply unprepared for the attention that it's garnered,

but, you know, what are you going to do, you know? [laughter] >> you were working on this book for four years? >> yeah. >> so you probably started late '04, early '05. >> uh-huh. >> i was working for the national media at that point in time. methamphetamine was basically swelling the nation and everybody had their eyes on it. so about '06 when the only bcp came out and said, you know, the meth wars are effectively over, how much of it -- did you freak out? did you think the story was, you know -- you had a book on your hands that you'd be able to sell because the media left it behind, incorrectly at that. did you freak out? i'm curious. >> the question -- well, at that point -- the question is, was it troublesome to me when the meth epidemic was declared to be over in 2006.

and, you know, to say that i did four years of reporting on this is a little bit of a mischaracterization because i actually did about ten years on it or nine years. and one of the reasons that the reporting moved from a small town in idaho to olweine, iowa, 'cause i couldn't sell the book. once i had sold the book and i had gotten deep in the reporting, the notion that nobody would buy it was not a source of fear for me 'cause i was already getting paid for something that had taken me a long time, you know? so that wasn't as worrisome. the other thing, too, by then i think it was clear that the combat methamphetamine act was destined to fail.

whether or not the media coverage had ended was not as important as the fact that my conviction that this was a bad law and a silly law, it gave me much more to write about. i think there's another woman from -- yeah. >> yes. i would to have concur that kind of the consensus that i felt reading the book and talking to olweine people as well is that the ones that have not read it are the ones are the ones that are most against it. the interesting part about it is growing up in olweine and being in this community and being close to olweine are the events -- the recall of the events the funeral ceremony that you talk about in the book -- i mean, all of those are issues that i'm aware of. so, you know, being able to read that, being able to figure out the aliases in some of the situations was very fascinating for me. one of the things that i think was very well done and i

applaud, obviously, is the part about looking at olweine which after getting over the initial shock that it's about your hometown and being able to move forward with that, but looking at what was happening across the nation with meth and everything that was happening as well as laurie arnold and i guess the part that i was most fascinating is here's this person that graduated from tenth grade and how that empire just went crazy and then knowing people that linked with her in that olweine community and how that expanded. tutalk about laurie, how she had the means -- obviously, money was a huge factor. were there other individuals or other issues that came out in interviewing her that really supported them in ottumwa being able to explode in this arena? >> and so let me try to

paraphrase the question. is it something like how did laurie do it, kind of? [laughter] >> and i think -- i mean, first of all laurie -- we probably wrote, i don't know, five or 600 pages back and forth to each other. when i say she's in prison, this part of this book takes place in 2005. laurie is a very smart woman and a really quite a charming woman, i have to say. you know, in my telling, i'm not sure if it was -- if it was completely conscious that she was able to put together the

pieces in terms of their sociology. meaning, that as people are moving away and there's this vacuum that's opening sort of culturally and emotionally in some ways, but laurie just knew a good way to make money when she saw it. and it's too bad, i guess, that it didn't turn out that she could do it in a legal way 'cause she's just of a hell of a businesswoman is what it comes down to. you know, there was an fbi agent who i was kind of sounding board for me for four years, and he said to me a number of times, people get in trouble understanding the drug business when they treat it as anything

other than what it is, which is just a business. and, you know, i think until laurie's actual addiction caught up with her she treated it as a as actual businesswoman. and so that's, i think, the answer. . >> yeah, i'm i'm just curious the main characters how you felt personally about seeing that self-destructive drug abuse continue in and what kind of discussions you might have had about, you know, desires to quit and so forth. >> the question is, is how i felt about sort of watching some of this self? watching the pathology of drug abuse and how did that make me feel. i would say that it was -- it was not a period in my life when

i could have been counted on to quit smoking cigarettes because it was a little depressing. it was not -- it just -- it wasn't easy to watch, but, you know, again, i think going back to a former question, why did i pick roland jarvis and a subsequent question might be why did i pick the guy down in independence? and the reason i picked him is because he was a recovering addict. and whether there was -- whether that was indicative of my own sort of emotional state in all of this, i think it probably was. because, you know, i kind of needed something to -- i wanted something to feel good about and, you know, this guy, in

fact, gave me that and also, you know -- you know, meth addiction is not just people who never beat it. it's a lot about people who do. for the sake of a good story but also for the sake of the truth, you have to have that in there. yeah, there's a woman in the shadows there. >> do you think your book relating to the answer you just gave, do you think your book could make some of the drug addicts help during recovery? >> do i think the book might be used by using drug addicts as a means -- as a help for recovery? >> helpful -- if you think that the drug addicts reading this book that could be helpful for them for the recovery knowing it

is too difficult to recover? >> yeah. i do hope that this book will be helpful to people who are trying to overcome believe. -- this. you know, one of the things -- it's become this sort of scientific colloquialism if you will, or this piece of knowledge, you know, that meth is harder to overcome than everything else. and one of the things that was certainly my pleasure to put in here is there is no -- there is no long-term research that says that meth is harder than alcohol or anything else. i think that's a piece of information that if you are addicted to meth you need to know. because it's not something that is often talked about.

so this from that standpoint alone, i would hope that people would have derived some hope from what they read in here and not just the addicts but the people involved with them because it's foolishness to say, well, you're never going to get over this. well, hell, then why ever stop, you know? >> i'm from who will i grew up two houses away from clay. >> god, you're all over. [laughter] >> what's your t-shirt? >> positively olweine is my t-shirt. i guess i have a two-part question. one is how did you research the personal information that was given you by clay? i also -- my husband and i one summer lived next door to roland when he was a small boy. so we know a lot about the family. >> uh-huh. >> how did you research the information they gave you or did you? and i noticed that you've changed some names and not others. changed the names some of

places. how did -- was that their choice or how did you decide that? >> so the question is, with regard particularly to the town -- to clay hallburg, a doctor in olweine, who was her -- who she knows and also roland jarvis -- how did i do my reporting on their lives, particularly, the personal details? and the second part of the question is, why are some names changed and other ones aren't? and you might to have remind me about part two if i get too deep in part one. the principal means by which did this kind of first-hand reporting was to spend a lot of

time with clay. i mean, i went to the office with him. and i went home with him and ate dinner with him. did the things that clay does. and that's true of nathan and of roland. so -- i mean, it's really -- and, you know, my means of recording what people say is to basically say i've got to go to the bathroom a lot and go in and write down a lot of notes, you know? and then come back out and keep doing whatever we're doing. i would say it was very helpful in the case of clay and nathan and also mayor murphy that we got to be pretty good friends throughout this. that's a double-edged sword

because it feels weird to write about people who you consider your friends, but there was never -- i don't think anybody was ever under the allusion that i still wasn't -- i mean, they figured out, you know, it's not just that i have a bladder problem that i go write down things a lot, you know? [laughter] >> and in terms of why i changed names. that was not my choice. that was not the choice of the few people in the book whose names were changed. that was because, you know, when your book is about to be done, then you get appointed a publicist and you get appointed a lawyer. without going too deeply into

it, i was compelled over the course of a week of very uncomfortable phone calls to change some of these names, which i was very unhappy with. because to me, that completely undermines the integrity of what a guy like roland jarvis -- you know, the trust that he's kind of placed in me to then go change his name at the end of it. i don't think that's fair and i don't think it's right. but, you know, when the choice is presented either this book will be published or it won't, then there's not a whole lot of wiggle room, you know? yes, sir, in the back. >> first of all, thank you. i've lived in iowa all my life and i wondered who was going to

write about the land so i wanted you to talk about -- you wrote about myth but you also hinted about what big agriculture is doing to iowa. i don't know who mayor murphy is. for that context. and i wondered if you had any vision for how we can restore hope for the farmer? >> the question is from a man who lived here all his life, how can we restore hope for the farmer in iowa given some of -- this is my word and maybe not yours, but what i would call the deadgrations of big agriculture. you know, i think that number one people have to talk honestly

about what happens when, for instance, a town is financially vulnerable and they have a meat packing plant and the people who buy that meat packing plant come to town and hold a town hall meeting and there's plenty of evidence of this and say, we will buy your packing plant. but if we do, the union will be dissolved immediately. and if it isn't, then we won't your packing meat? what are you going to say? no. in the case of olweine they lost 2,000 jobs that were part of -- it was part of their meat packing industry. 2,000 jobs out of 7500 people at that point. i mean, the revenue source of that is incredible. right? and, unfortunately, the fact that so many people had good jobs in a singular industry is what made them vulnerable.

but -- so i think that number one people have to talk about things like that and at the same time -- and part and parcel of that is the farming component, which, you know, is essentially that it gets harder and harder to hold on to what you have if you are essentially disallowed from selling your product to multiple buyers. you know, i mean, there is political precedent for combating this in the form of theodore roosevelt who was, you know, famous, you know, for what's colloquially referred to as busting up the trusts, you know, and sort of pushing the rewind button a little bit on capitalism away from vertical

monopoly back to, frankly, a more natural state. and it's not coincidence that these companies that he broke up was the meat packing companies and that's one part of the farmi farming conone drum of what you're talking about. you have to start talking about it first, and that's number one. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> thank you. he'll be happy to sign books.

>> what's the key to writing a children's book? >> gosh, i would say respecting children as readers and not talking down to them. if anything, it's basically about trusting their judgment and their intelligence and hopefully speaking to what interests them and what they're passionate about. >> what are children interested in? >> well, just about everything that adults are interested in for the most part, their world around them, growing up, learning new things, music, arts, sports, you name it. all the same things we're interested in. >> how many children's books have you written? >> i've written -- well, just now about to release the 17th

children's book that i actually cowrite with my mother, believe it or not. >> what's it like working with your mother as a co-author? >> well, it's a great pleasure. we weren't sure it would be a great pleasure to begin with. we're both very bossy and opinionated ladies and we thought, mother/daughter working together this could be tricky but happily we played to each other's strengths and we have a great time working together and it's turned out very well. >> and your mother is julie andrews. julie andrews, what part of the book do you write? >> what part of the -- >> book do you write? >> emma is the structure as much of everything. i think -- tell me if i'm wrong, i think i'm more the flights of fancy. i do the -- certainly, the image-making the openings, the closings. >> the big picture. >> i do the big picture and emma says we must have a first act

and she makes me focus on the shape of the book but the actual sort of images and that sort of things is the shape and emma is the structure as much as anything. we seem to compliment each other, at least i think we do too. >> why did you start writing children's books? >> i started as a complete surprise. i started as it was an answer to a game that i was playing with my children. and i had to play a forfeit. i was the first to lose the game. i said what will my forfeit be? and my eldest daughter, jennifer, said, write a story. write us is story because i used to love to scribble and write things. and i really honestly thought, oh, that's going to be simple. i can just write a small thing like an asop's fable or something very short. and i thought no this is my stepdaughter and it might be a wonderful way to help us bond. and i came up with a little idea

and kind of kept fleshing it out and if it wasn't for my husband, blake edwards, i don't think i would have ever finished it. i didn't have confidence and i didn't know what i was doing. julie, it's a sweet idea -- >> and you've been hooked ever since. >> and that was 40 years ago, just about. so i've been writing ever since. >> and so how many children's books have you authored? >> emma, we've done 17 together. >> and then you've done four on your own. >> four on my own. plus a memoir. so we go back and forth really and we have more coming -- >> emma walton hamilton, do you live close to each other, do you email each other? >> unfortunately, we live most of the year on opposite coasts. we always work best when we're together and love to be together whenever we can be but we've become very reliant on modern

technology, and we use webcam for a lot of our work sessions. we log on together at the same time -- >> and with the time change is killing because poor mom has to get up in three hours. in l.a. she says 10:00 is halfway through my morning. can you get up at 7:00 and i'm saying, well, i think i can. >> she does very well. >> and i do my best and i'm not as literate on my computer as she is but i do my best. >> is there a certain link -- >> say that again. >> is there a certain length? >> the age of the child. >> what age do you write for? >> we write for all ages. >> with tremendous audacity. we write picture books and we write young adult novels. we write middle grade readers and our latest book is an anthology for all ages, a poetry anthology called the julie andrews collection of poems, songs and lulla byes -- is quite

thick >> it's very thick. >> and our publisher little brown they actually came to us and said would you consider doing an anthology for us and we said -- >> we had so much fun we're doing another one after this. >> yes, we are. it was enormous fun to compile. we obviously it's our favorite poems. we've been fond of them all our lives. my father instill in me a love in poetry. i hopefully instill to my kids. we give poems as gifts to each other all our lives we've done. and suddenly here we are asked to put down our favorites. and the first choices which were about 20 were really easy. >> uh-huh. >> and then after that we had the most wonderful journey of discovery finding what we really loved. we challenged -- >> digging back into our memories and family anthologies. >> we eventually came down to

nine separate themes and before each theme there is a piece that we wrote explaining why we love this theme. it's optimism of the countryside or nature. >> and why each choice of poem or song lyric within that theme resonates for us. what memory it associates for us. >> and we've always, as a family, exchanged poems for fun and as gifts at birthdays for special holidays so we challenged each other to write a poem and we lift up our encourage and there's more in there. >> you've got some of your children, grandchildren. are they your focus group for children's books. >> they have been. they absolutely have been. actually, you were when i was writing on my own. >> right. >> and, of course, all the begin are a tremendous help. >> they let us know what's

working and what's not working and they provide a tremendous source of ideas for us. >> such as. >> for example, the dumpy the dump truck series which is the first series we collaborated was inspired by my son, sam, who was a passionate truck lover and would only read books about trucks and we were having trouble finding those that had a little bit more than just nonfiction, you know, the bulldozer goes crunch kind of books so we wrote that series for him and we're working on a new series now with little girls in mind inspired by my daughter. >> and miss andrews, you've also written a memoir. >> yes. >> the first half of your life. >> it goes to my coming out to the west coast of america for the very first time and my first movie. but it's about the first third of my life, you know, and it was -- it took a long time to

do. i would never have done it if she hadn't been so generous with her time to push me and to make me do it and help me with it and so on. >> is there the second half or the second third coming out? >> a lot of people are asking that. to be really honest with you i don't know at this point. it took a long, long time to write the first part, so maybe one day. >> emma walton hamilton, what's your favorite children's book that i've written? >> that i've written or that i've read? >> either one. >> the book that was for me that was the formative book growing up was norton gesture the phantom toll booth. go back to book on rainy days and people often ask us which is our favorite of the books that we've written and it's so hard to answer. it's like saying which is your favorite chocolate in a box of chocolates or your favorite child, you know, because you love them all for different reasons. but i would say that i'm

particularly proud and excited about the one we've just finished, the poetry anthology, which is a real labor of love and so beautifully produced. >> it's given us an enormous amount of pleasure to full together. i love the music in poetry. and find that a lot of the songs that i've been associated with or even songs that i love and i haven't actually sung have sometimes the most beautiful lyrics and i usually choose songs for lyrics first and foremost and then the melody -- if it's a beautiful melody, just everything comes together. and so i always felt lyrics to songs are sometimes poems in themselves. so i've included a lot in the book. i'm hoping that children will discover for themselves or adults, wow, that's beautiful poem. who wrote it and then realize that it's a song. >> and you want to go and listen to the music. >> as mothers finally, is it

important to teach young children to read or be exposed to reading? does that make a difference? >> we're passionate advocates of literacy and for literacy. we do everything we can in that respect. >> and i would say that it's not so much incumbent upon parents to teach their children to read. they may well learn that at school. what's incumbent upon us is to love reading and to read with them as much as possible. >> i have to boast a little bit. she's written the most wonderful book and self-published it. it's called "raising book worms" and it's just about that. raising children to love and find the joy in reading and keep it constant as school years go by and how difficult it becomes when assignments are handed to you and sometimes they're very boring. how do you keep a child's love of reading alive and sparkling and her book is just wonderful. >> thanks, mom. >> if people are interested in

finding that book or other children's books that y'all have written and this newest one, where can they go? where should they go. >> thank you for asking. they can go to our website at julieandrewscollection.com for any of the books in the collection and also raising book worms.com is the site for the book. >> emma andrews hamilton and julie andrews, thank you very much. >> thank you. ♪ >> this summer, book tv is asking, what are you reading? >> hi, i'm nick gillespie i'm the editor and chief of reason.tv. the web supplement to "reason" magazine, the nation's only monthly magazine of free minds and free markets. we've been around since 1968 and we're a small l libertarian magazine that's interested in things like free minds and free markets.

open borders. drug legalization. economic deregulation. basically, letting it rip. laissez-faire bon temps across-the-board. i read a lot. this summer my favorite book so far this is hitting bookstores this august is peter bagge everybody is stupid except for me. peter's is reason's cartoonest and he does comic essays for about the 10 years and everybody is stupid except for me has already gotten rave reviews from places like esquire. it's a great read. other books that i've read recently include r.u. sirius everybody must get stoned which i reviewed for "the new york post" and it's a list of compellations about rock stars and their mostly misadventures with drugs. it's a fascinating read. it's sobering book as well as a

hell of a lot of fun at the same time. i also recently finished clinton heylin babylon's burning talking about popular music, late '70s in england and the u.s. and how the punk movement slowly spread and transformed itself spoke a commercial enterprise in grunge in the very late '80s and early 90s most a fascinating read. i recently read joe scarborough scald the last best hope. i'm a big fan of joe scarborough on tv which i was disappointed in the book which was superficial in its stated goal in trying to offer a true alternative to a kind of big government program that's coming out of washington from both republicans and democrats. there's a few books in