>> brad meltzer talks by a series of biographies for children. the latest release of their biographies of amelia earhart and abraham lincoln. mcafee said rosa parks and albert einstein will be out later this year. this is about 40 minutes. [applause] >> you know what i love is that before i got out here, they made all the little kids sit in the back. and finally cooler heads prevailed and simple for you guys up front. you have better seats now? no way to your parents and say i have better seats than you do.

>> that's right. what get you some stuff here. i like to teach my kid that. they say the most important thing of all that is complete to say thank you. thank you for coming out tonight. one special thank you because i need to embarrass him. when i started my career in d.c., when you do your first is that camino is going to be there. her mom, dad, sister and i for one of my many friends and strangers to come. one of the first is a guy named elliott vehicle. elliot in the morning. let's hear it for elliot. [applause] we haven't told a story. we are going to tell it now. everything's better on television. i can tell you that for next variance. elliot is an amazing -- has an amazing radio show called elliott in the morning.

thank you for ruining my whole joke. ng. your phone is on national thank you for ruining my whole joke. now your phone is on national tv. i hope you're happy. we've got presents, too for everyone. so here's the story. elliot was a great radio show, elliot in the morning. all of a sudden one morning on the way to work the u.s. capitol. i'm in california and i get a phone call 6:00 -- 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning california time. i pick up the phone and they say elliott is breaking into your house. apparently what they're doing is they send one of the comic guys on the show. anyone out there know brad meltzer? i like is the period i want to find out where he lives. and of course washington is filled with ethical people. every contractor who ever worked on our house called the radio show and just on our address. [roll

.. [applause] >> this is elliot. everyone is here for elliot. so, you know what? you never get -- the nice part about elliot, he dressed up for the occasion. [laughter] this is a tie for him, and i just want to thank you for what

>> is this really on cnbc? >> c-span, thank you very much. i bet we could say things that have never been said on c-span before, right? is. [laughter] so i love you, thank you. and without him, truthfully, i really think many of you would not be here. show of hands, how many people are here because of him, right? i owe you. the other ones i don't owe you anything for. [laughter] that's the kid who said, sucker. >> enjoy the rest of the night, thanks. [applause] >> and the best part is elliot's now sindhuated in -- syndicated in jersey and new york because that means he gets twice the annoying people because,erjerse. [laughter] my whole family lives inier jersey, i only say it because i love them. i'll tell you about these books and where they came from. i'm known for thrillers, i write political thrillers, and now

suddenly i'm doing children's books. we all know this is washington, d.c., we're in virginia right now so close to d.c. that there is no difference between politicians and children, right? there's none. [laughter] children are just more honest. that's it, that's all the difference that there is. so there's no difference in writing a thriller or a children's book. but with i will tell you that these books, for we, the reason i started them is because my own kids, i was looking at them, and i was just tired of watching my kids look at reality tv show people and loud mouth athletes and think that's a hero. that is not a hero. i tell my kids all the time, that is fame, and being famous is very different than being a hero. and i have so many better heroes than that on the history channel, we have so many better heros. and my novels, we have abraham lincoln, rosa parks, and i said i'm going to write books for them, illustrated children's books to show them the stories of these heroes. but what we wanted to do in the books is not just tell you the story that you do know about

amilya earhart and abraham lincoln, we want to show you their lives when they were kids. abraham lincoln when he's a little boy, iowa amelia when shs a little girl. they realize the power and potential in all of us because you see what they're accomplishing when they're little kids. and if i tell my daughter amelia earhart flew across the atlantic and isn't that amazing, she looks at me and says everyone does that these days, what else you got? she's just not impressed. but if i tell my daughter that amelia earhart when she was 7 years old, this is a true story, that she built a homemade roller coaster in her backyard, she took a wooden crate with roller skate wheels, she pushed it up to the roof of her tool shed and then had two giant wooden planks and runs them down to the ground, she takes the cart, she goes all the way to the top of the roof on the cart and she says i'm going first, and her

sister looks up and goes, yeah, genius, you go first. [laughter] and then she comes careening down the side, feels her stomach bottom out. the wind is on her face. this is true. this is the very first time amelia air harass flies. and when she lands and gets up and says that was awesome, my daughter reads that and goes, amelia earhart's just like me, dad. she's brave and she's fun and she's daring and, again, most important, she's alive. the spirit of amelia earhart in that moment is alive again. and that is the goal of these children's books, is to wring these here -- bring these heroes alive. i don't want amelia earhart to be some black and white figure in some history textbook. i want her to be as amazing as she is to all of us. we do abraham lincoln as well, and the stories are all real. even though i write fiction, the stories are all real. we found a great story from a group that studies lincoln in

illinois at this amazing knox college which was just an incredible resource for us. a true story that abraham lincoln when he was 10 years old to, he goes and finds a group of boys who were playing with turtles. now, he sees, he loves turtles. lincoln loved animals when he was little. he sees all these turtles, what they're doing is putting hot coals on the backs of the turtles. they're torturing the turtles, and he feels terrible about this. he sees the this great injustice, they're torturing and hurting these turtles, and abraham lincoln at that moment has to decide what to do. and it is hard to do the right thing sometimes, but somebody has to. and abraham lincoln in that moment says take the coal off the turtles, right? saves the turtles, gets those turtles away from the boys and rescues them, does the right thing, stands up to the bullies. and i love when i tell my kids that story, my little one is like he's just like me, dad k he loves animals. he's so nice. and the spirit of him comes back

to life, and now abraham lincoln is amazing as you and i all think he is, and our kids have something they can relate to. and that's what these books are really about for me. it's not just about telling you their stories and telling you one book or two books, what we're doing is we want to build a library for you. we have i am amelia earhart now, i am abraham lincoln, in june we do i am rosa parks, and we do i am albert einstein that comes out in september, and our goal is to build a library to present your kids and grandkids with these book of values. it's about an important thing you should teach and share with your kids. auction hamlin con, i will always speak my mind and speak for others. and amelia earhart on the back of the book says i know no bounds. and rosa parks says i will always stand up for myself. and when you see albert einstein, his is always about asking the question why. we must teach our kids to ask the question why, a vital

question. and to me, that's what these book withs are. because whether you like it or not, your kids are going to pick heroes. you might as well have some say this it. and what we all do as a culture is we tend to complain about it. this is my solution, and i appreciate you taking the time in coming here tonight and sharing this with me because this is, obviously, these books are my heart in book too many. and that's our goal is to put these out into the world and let people have this library that a they can share and this love of history they can share with their kids. two things, yesterday the new york daily news took i am amelia earhart, and they said we're taking into it a class -- i'm reading the article, i had no idea about it. and to put meltzer's theory to the test, we're taking it into a classroom. i'm realizing this going, oh, this is certain death. [laughter] this is going to be awful. and the kids loved it and responded to it, and they loved all those same scenes which is

when these heroes are kids themselves. and for me, the best part came a couple days ago. my wife told me just as i left for book tour, my son a couple days ago was bullied. it was a kid in the calf tier yahoo! that wanted to tell him where to sit. and he was telling my 12-year-old about it. and my oldest son read i am rosa parks, i test all my books out on my kids, and my older son says to my younger son, you know what? you need to be like rosa parks. you have to stand up and don't let anyone tell you where you can sit or can't sit. my younger son is like, i'm going to be like rosa parks. my wife is telling me the story, she's crying, i'm in tears, it's working, it's working. [laughter] no one will every tell my son he can't be an elderly black woman! [laughter] no way, this is the greatest moment of my life, and no one can. so i just love, though, that rosa parks to him has so much meaning and gives him so much

power. and as much to -- and to me, makes her as important as she ever was and as vital as she ever was. so those are the books, and that's what the series is really about. and what i love about, you know, the funny part is when you research these books, there's so many things you can't even put in the books. so we found all these stories about lincoln. lincoln, i will tell you, lives up to the hype always. not everyone does. abraham lincoln lives up to the hype. we found stories that they told me the lincoln books were almost gone already because we're in virginia. in kansas they're like, screw lincoln, i want the amelia earhart one. but what's amazing is abraham lincoln, there's a great story i found i couldn't use in the book. abraham lincoln's riding on husband horse one day with another guy. and he sees this, a nest of birds that's fallen out, and the birds are out, and the nest has fallen from the tree. he stops the horse, puts them back in and puts them back in

place, and the guy riding with him is like why'd you stop for a bunch of birds? lincoln says if i didn't stop, i wouldn't be able to to stop thinking about them. you have to stop and help things. and i'm just like that is abraham lincoln to me. that is a great -- that's greatness. and you find story after story like that. it was a blackhawk war in years ago, he's in his 20s, he's in the army, and it's a war against the indians. and abraham lincoln, they were supposed to all hate the indians. america's fighting the indians, and we want to kill the indians, that's the rule. and this old indian comes into camp, and he has a letter that says he's a fine and honorable man and he should be trusted, he's protected. he has a letter from someone who can be trusted. and all the people around him say to abraham lincoln, you know what a? he's going to kill us, we've got to do it right now, and abraham lincoln says, no, he's protected by me. anyone who wants to hurt this man, you have to go through me.

he was a big manages over six feet tall and they said, sir, you're bigger than all of us, if you want us to go through, that's not really a fair fight. he says you choose your weapon then. that is bad a-s-s, right? [laughter] abraham lincoln, i mean, just killing it. he could be like an american fighting champion today, right? put him in a cage match, you'd think the vampire hunter was real. that's the real stuff. right? that is the real abraham lincoln. so these stories you'll see, obviously, we put the best ones in the book. and in every book you'll see these real stories. then, of course, the stories of what they accomplished when they're older. so with that said, that's the introduction to it. it's called finish the series is, each book has a title, but the whole series is ordinary people change the world, why? because that's my core belief. i believe ordinary people change the world. i don't care where you went to school, how much money you make. that is nonsense to me. i believe this regular people and their ability to affect change in this world, and it's

why i believe in amelia earhart and abraham lincoln and by english teacher who once helped me and told me i could write for the first time. and i love that i get to show that power of an ordinary person. the other ordinary person i do want to thank, just a couple of them, one of them is my wife, who's here. she's in the back. she left the seat for the kids, see, she's nice. other wifes in -- wives in other cities are like they sit in the front. [laughter] my washington, d.c. wife stays in the back and lets the kids stay in the front. and also i want to thank a teacher from college named cawr lin. and when i was in college at the university of michigan, i took this class called writing children's books. i loved the title of the class alone. i take the class, and we write a children's book, that's the semester. at the end of the semester i say to this, i'm, you know, 19 years old. i had a full head of hair, i think a lion's mesne, right? a little kid laughed at that joke.

you had a lion's mane. you're bald. [laughter] and so i take this class, i love the case. i say to her, can i take the class again? i go back next semester, and she says, yeah. i take it again. my friend, judd, he was an artist, and i used to write the stories, he would illustrate them. and that's what we did, we'd just create children's book after children's book. now here i am today with our very first illustrated children's book, so i called a couple weeks ago my professor from michigan, and i said you're never going to believe what we did. and she said i'm not surprised. and so thank you to her because without -- to every teacher who is here today, you have no idea of the impact you have on your students. you have 30 students, i know, we have one teacher. so every teacher here and out there and listening now, thank you for what you do. you won't believe what you unleash on the world. this is really a harder book in a strange way, although she gets no royalties from me. [laughter] none.

screw her over for that. but with that said, let me open this to questions because they're far more interesting than hearing me talk and talk and talk. you can ask newing you want. you can ask about the thrillers, you can ask about tv, you can ask about the kids' books. what have you got? >> you write a book about -- [inaudible] >> yes, can you write a book about you and give it to you free? [laughter] i am brad meltzer, i am going to give it to you free, and if i don't, will you buy it? look at that. that is the longest pause in the world. [laughter] people say do you believe in god, and there's a shorter pause. that's a jerry seinfeld book. it's a solid joke i just gave you. you use that joke. don't let anyone stop you from using it. [laughter] but, yeah. if i write a book that's called i am brad meltzer, you leave your name here, and it's yours for free. none of you other kids in the

front, just him. [laughter] what's your name jason? grayson. i'll remember that name. do you know who dick grayson is? who do you think he is? who's dick grayson? >> >> robin. >> now you get no free book. [laughter] no, you get a free book. other questions. yes? >> brad -- [inaudible] did you choose the artist or did the company concern. >> yes. a man who has shown me abraham's bullet, the bullet that killed lincoln asks did i choose the artist for this book? this is worth the visual here. here's what the book looks like, and you can see from amelia earhart, you want to hear -- [inaudible] hold -- stand up and hold it up. here's the front of the book, and the question is did i choose the artist. and, of course, i did. because, one, i'm a control freak and, two, i love chris' work. and what happened was -- and this is the crazy part of the story. i i was on twitter, of all

things. i don't know what that is, that noise is, like -- that's good. okay. in washington, d.c. when there's a strange noise, we all know, right, you don't like that. [laughter] so i was on twitter, and when dakota came on the air, i met him on twitter. literally, i'm that last guy in the universe who trusts meeting people on the internet. i knew his work, he'd done comic books from spider-man to "batman," and i knew his work, and i loved his work. what i love about his work when you look at it is that what chris does, it's like a mix of, to me, he does kind of peanuts and charlie brown mixed with calvin and hobbs. and that's what you see. and the fun of his work is heart, that's what he draws, heart. that's what this is. and i remember there was a -- grayson, can i have your book one sec? i want to show them a picture. this is where i knew how great he was. he had a scene i wrote, and i

said it has to be the lincoln memorial, and i want abraham lincoln standing on the spot where martin luther king jr. stood when he gave his speech, and we're going to see the crowd, and the sun is in the sky, and it has to be breathtaking, and we have to fall in on love with it, and this better be the best picture you've drawn in your whole life. that's all it has to be. and he drew this in a moment. and it's worth really looking at. i know it's hard to see for some. hopefully, you guys can pull in on it. but when he handed this in, i was like it's alive. the books are alive. so i picked him out. i think usually when you do children's books, the publisher usually picks out the person for you. i came to them with this fully-formed and ghei them the art and said -- gave them the art and says this is the guy i want to work with because i want it to be this lovable. the best part of it is we definitely chose to make them kids, right? abraham lincoln's a little boy. the best question that i've been

asked in all interviews, i promise this is true. yesterday someone asked me did abraham lincoln really have a beard when he was 7 years old? [laughter] i was, like, yes, he did. [laughter] he was the most hormonal little boy ever. what i love about chris is he actually drew little lines so it looks like a fake beard, but i loved the reporter that asked me that with a straight face ask had no idea. when the editor first looked at it, they said shall we make him bigger as he gets older, make iowa heel ya earhart older, i said you're going to rob the magic. trust me. can you just draw them older one time? and chris drew her awninged, amelia earhart, and we all looked at it, and to the editor's credit, she's a genius, she was like, no, it's right. keep them young. the reason we keep them young so all you guys in the front row, all the kids out there, they can relate to him, he's always lovable to them, and that's why they reantibiotic to him. to me, that's why those kids in

new york reacted, my kids -- to be clear, my kids hate everything that i work on. they're so not impressed by my writing. my daughter said why does anyone want your autograph? i said, thank you, dear, my name is on the cover. my name is too, she said, meltzer. [laughter] that's a fair point. can't argue with it. and to me, this is the first thing they've ever reacted to. and my son said to me the other day, can i read the albert einstein book early? and i was like, who are you and what have you done with my son? because they never want to see anything i'm working on. you're never supposed to be impressed by your parents, and that's okay because it's what keeps you humble. okay, what have you got? >> george washington was president too, and abraham lincoln was a -- >> that is a good question. what's your name? >> scarlet. >> scarlet just said george washington was a president too

and abraham lincoln. that's an awesome question. let's hear it from scarlet. i love it. no, take a bow. take a walk. i love it. are you related to my daughter? [laughter] other questions, yes. yes. that's awesome. >> regarding the -- [inaudible] >> yes. >> with where'd you get the inspiration for that? by the way -- but you are awesome. >> anyone who holds up the green lantern ring they're wearing is awesome. love you, brothers. the question is where do you get the inspiration when you write these stories. i also do comic books and, to me, comic books are as important to me as abraham lincoln is and as amelia earhart is. batman and superman and captain america are as important, and do you know why? that's the american mythology. they're all part of the american mythology. and i know two of them are real and two of them are imaginary,

and two of them wear the underwear on the outside of my pants, right? [laughter] and when i write "batman," i wrote that a last week with my underwear on the outside of my pants. [laughter] dc comics asks me up -- calls me up and asks me to write "batman," that's the best day of work for me. the inspiration for those characters like any story, you look at the character, you tell the best story. and to me, they're some of the most well developed characters in history. you know exactly what batman does. and i say batman goes and gets ice cream. not yea, no, not grayson. [laughter] that's not what robin would say. but that was a good yea. but, you know, everyone knows that's not what batman does k right? maybe superman gets someone ice cream, but you know what batman does, and to me, the characters that are so well defined, they actually make the storytelling

much harder and easier as you write them because they're so perfectly defined. and the reasons that these stories persist from batman and superman to even amelia earhart and abraham lincoln is because those characters -- and i use that word on purpose -- those aren't just the stories about them, they're the stories of us and what we aspire to. and they are what we all aspire to as people. and to me, that's why they're vital. that's where the inspiration comes from, just telling the best story i can with them. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. sneak peeks. this is good with. i love having a crowd that we can vote, this is democracy. who do you like better, we're looking at sacajawea or lucille ball for the next one. okay, so a show of hands. sacajawea, raise your hand. >> i don't even know who that is. >> you're going to learn, grayson. if your parents don't buy you lots of books, they don't love

you. [laughter] lucille ball? wow. crust the artist really wants to draw neil armstrong, but we also wanted to draw jackie robinson, so i want to see a vote. how many people want to see neil armstrong. jackie robinson? so those are basically where we're looking. we're under contract for six, our goal is to do 600 of them. for heroes for my son and heroes for my daughter, we did 110 heroes, and we didn't even scratch the surface. i didn't even do ben franklin that i want to do, and the goal is just to keep telling them. i also would like to tell the stories about people you don't know. so there's a girl who's named alex scott, alexandra scott. and alex scott when she was barely a year old was diagnosed with cancer. it was the only life she knew, chemotherapy and surgery and sickness. and when she's 4 or 5 years old, she says she wants to open up a lemonade stand in her front

yard. and she doesn't want to use the money for herself, she wants to give the money to doctors to help other kids with cancer. within a single day, alex's lemonade stand raises over $2,000. suddenly other lemonade stands start popping up. and eventually she sets a new goal, let's raise a million dollars. on june 12, 2004, hundreds of lemonade stands opened up in every state in the country, ordinary people to help kids with cancer. a couple months after that alexandra scott die cans. she's barely 8 years old. and before she dies she says next year's goal should be $5 million. to this day, alex's lemonade stand has raised over $50 million, and it is still going strong. that's one girl, one idea, one big dream. that's a hero that i want to do, right? and one that we don't even know of. to me, that's the ordinary people who change this world. the goal is to start with amelia earhart, but i want to to tell everyone's story that's worth

telling. that's the goal we have for the future. [inaudible] did i bring my kids? do you want a date? [laughter] i didn't. my kids are actually in florida. they will be, they -- lucky. that is lucky, because it's cold here. trust me. [laughter] and by the way, i'm going to travel with little kids everywhere i go, because it's like the perfect peanut gallery. whatever you say they're like -- [laughter] bald. you guys aren't hearing all the stuff, and this is gold. it's like comic gold coming right at me at all moments. like i say ice cream, they're like, yeah, whoo. i want people to follow me around and just go whoo when i say ice cream. that is the best. do you want to know what else i do? i'm going tell you a whoo because when i used to work in an ice cream store and snapped your fingers to get my attention, i would take my pinky and break bottom of your corporation and i'd give it to you with a smile, and when you were 500 yards away, it would be all over your shirt, and i'd be

like, have a nice day. one of my biggest rules, if you are nice to me and you're a jerk to the waiter, you're a jerk, okay? be there's a lesson, right? take that one. you too, grayson. [laughter] okay, what have you got? >> can i have a week about "iron man" for free? >> you going to pay the lawyer? if i write a book for free, marvel will sue me. as long as your mom or dad's a lawyer, we're okay. and in d.c., the odds are pretty good. [laughter] yes, go ahead. >> your kids, are they avid readers, and if they are, whysome. >> yeah. the question is about my own kids, are they avid readers, and if so, why? the truth is half and half. my oldest son is kind of a reluctant reader but you know they have really good taste. and e think they see me being really demanding about books, and as a result of that they're pretty demanding. but when they find something that's good, you know, they know it. my son when he read "the hunger

games," he was like, this is good, dad. he was right. hunger games one is better than two, and i'm like, you're right, it is. and we all know it is. i love that. i will tell you that when i was at the d.c. book festival the first year i did it, i had this huge crowd that was, like, blasting out in all directions, and i was so proud of myself because it was like massive crowd. and then i found out that susanne kohl hundreds wrote the hunger games was the speaker after me, and it was all people camped out to see her. and i was like, screw you, susanne collins. [laughter] i love her, i love her books. you had a question there, yes. ucla. >> how long does it usually take you to write a book? >> yeah. the question is how long does it take to write a book? it depends on what kind of book. for me one of my thrillers like the fifth assassin -- also good for kids, totally appropriate, i

think, grayson especially -- [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> it's called a running gag. i'm going to teach you that too. ing but to me, to write a book like that, a thriller, takes me two years. because it takes research in the national archives, it takes research with people who take me to their offices. that takes two years. to write one of these books will take, you know, up to at least, you know, it can take a month by the time you're looking at all the pages. to write a children's book, everything you see on the page i've written about. so even you'll see amelia earhart at one point she's pointing up to the sky, and i'll find the page so i can show you what i'm talking about. but there's this moment where you'll see her here, and she's pointing up at the sky. and you see her, and i'll say to chris as we're drawing, i'll say i want the camera here on the ground, worm's eye view so we can see that scale of amelia earhart looking up.

and he's just amazing at kind of recreating what's in my brain. and then sometimes he'll change it. he'll say, you know what? i've got a better shot. and of course i'll say, no, my way is better, and he'll say look at mine, and i'll say, you're right. the angle should be here, the camera should be here, here's what the picture looks like, here's what we need you to draw, and that's the fun of doing children's books. so it just depends on what kind of book you write. okay, yes, sir. >> every year you take the kids in your carpool to disneyland. do they expect it, and can i go with you next time? >> yes. that's the question. okay, what's your name? >> c.w.. >> okay, did you change your name -- did they pay you to change your name -- >> no, i'm still suing them. >> you should totally sue them, because there's a lot of lawyers here in d.c. i take my kids one year every day in car poole on the way to school, i live in florida in miami, and on the way to school one day every year just as we're

about to turn into school, we turn the other way, and we drive straight to disney world p. be they never know what day it's going to be. and the rule is, for me, it's i want my kids to know that there can still always be surprise in life. life can always surprise you with something amazing. >> lucky. >> lucky is right, rights? so what i do, the best part is when i have my youngest one, my older ones are -- tech kind of try and figure. you know, there's a half day here, and it's presidents day or maybe this'll be the day. my young nephew thinks every day we go to school we're going to disney world. like every day. he sits in the car seat in the back, and he's like we're going to disney world. and he's like, we can still turn around, we can still turn around. i open the door at school, he can still close the door. finally i'm ooh like, get outings you've got to go to school. we're not going to disney world today. next day -- every day. [laughter] i love that about him. so i will tell you that we went last week.

and c.w.'s going to come with us next year for sure. you'll tell me when. like, i i want to make an annual thing. what we did this year is we just went last week. i put on twitter, i said i hid a copy of i am abe amylin con somewhere in -- abraham lincoln in disney world, come find it. wanted to see if you could find it. and so, of course, thousands of people started tweeting back on facebook and on twitter, you know, or where it is, where do you guys think i put it? hall of presidents. that was, like, i host a show called decoded. do i look that obvious that i'm going to put it in the hall of presidents? my wife was like put it in the hall of presidents. and so i hid -- i said it's not the hall of presidents, and i said think of of my other book. and then someone concern it's amazing what you see when the universe uses its collective information, and your book the millionaires, the last hundred pages were in the underground

tunnels under disney world. and someone in virginia, that guy right there started getting on to whatever he was going on, it was like in the bat cave, he basically goes and finds where the tunnel entrances are, and he puts that out there, and i tweet his tweet, and slowly people are honing in on it. they're getting to the back of cinderella's castle. and sure enough, i put out there clue after clue. we yet to clue number seven, and i want to see if it's still there. it's like four hours later i found it. all these people are searching for it. there's a family that's going in a gift shop, tearing it apart. and disney's really happen with me, by the way. [laughter] the lawsuit there, you don't even want to know. and be just as we get there, there's a woman who found it, and she found it. i got there with my kids, and she found it. and another family came racing up at the same time, and they were like, oh, my gosh, we didn't find it. but i'm not stupid, i brought two. [laughter] and so i gave them an early copy

of i am rosa parks. and it was amazing. and i love that we do that every year. i highly encourage you to do something with your kids that wrings surprise -- brings surprise and awe back into their lives on a regular basis, even if it's just once a year, give them something big and fun. i'll do two more questions so we can sign some books. >> how was dealing with the illustrator for this book different -- >> the question was -- you know, it's exactly the same. i use the same word document that i format with. and the truth is with a good artist, eventually when you start working with them, they start knowing you and knowing what you like. as the books have gone on and even an identity crisis as the scripters went on, i start -- scripts went on, i started writing less and less description because i could use the shorthand that we know about each other. wait until you see the art. you can see on the back cover of

i am rosa parks, and to me, it's the best cover chris does because he knows exactly what we're looking for at that moment. it's just, again, heart in art form. okay, last question back here. of yes. the kid in the back. i can't -- go ahead. >> i was just wondering, do you enjoy doing the -- [inaudible] >> yeah. the question is do you like doing more television i guess compared to books. it's fun to do tv and it's fun to impress your family and with on tv where they can say things like your teeth are so white. here i am pouring mousse out, and all even cares about is if my teeth are white or not. and i like doing it, but to me, the books and the novels and these books are the houses that i built with my own hands. and i love, you know, it's fun to, obviously, you know, be this an airport and people recognize you and that sort of stuff, but again, that's fame. and that doesn't mean anything. that doesn't make me any nicer, any better, any smarter of a person. that just means, you know, you

can put a watermelon on tv and it'll be famous, and that's silly. and that's, to me, what's wrong with the culture. what is right is when he look at people's actions, and to me, the west action i can -- to me, the best action i can put out there is telling a story. and be whether it's a fictional novel or a kids' book or a comic book or a nonfiction book, to me a good story is a good story. and, in fact, there was a study done last week that said when you hear a story, your brain works differently than when you hear a fact. if i say this is a fact, your brain hears it and is throws it away with. if i tell you a story about running, the part of your brain that works when you're running starts firing. the sigh happens ins start firing because it starts living that moment of the story. so when you hear a story, your brain works in amazing ways you don't realize. that's the power of an amazing story. it lights up your whole brain, and i think it's why it gets the reaction it does. to me, great stories are not

what did happen, they're what could happen. and i love that power. so, yes, the man in the tie in the back, the young man. last question for you. >> [inaudible] >> okay, good. so you're going to be a writer, right? you want to write a book? i'm serious, when you write the book, i'm buying the the first copy. very fair question. after you write the book, how long does it take to get published? and it takes almost eight months to do it because they have to send the books out, do early copies, get reviewers, and in these books you have to get the art. so each one is very different. the sequel that i'm working on now to the fifth assassin, that'll twaik at least eight months lead time, and i'm still trying to finish it so you'll have it next january, a year from now. and that's the process. so, obviously, each time i tend to take a break when i feel like i'm stuck on one thing, and i'll go back to the children's books, then i jump back to the fictional books.

but you do have to be done in about eight months' time so the publisher can put it out. with that said, we have a couple gifts, right? how many do we have of these? >> >> we have a box. >> we have a box of them. >> okay. so you come tonight, in new york -- we totally crew is screwed new york over. here many virginia you get a bag with our favorite be heroes on it. so thank you for coming tonight. [applause] and i will also say the most important thing i can say tonight is thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting this. i think, you know, the fact that you support the novels is the reason i get to do this. and this is what i waited my whole life to do, is share amelia earhart and rosa parks and abraham lincoln and all the great people that have lived throughout this world that prove the greatness that's within all of us. these aren't the stories of great people, this is what we're all capable of on our very best days. so thank you for letting me do i am ameal ya earhart and i am

abraham lincoln. thank you to everyone at barnes & noble that makes this possible and to c-span was booktv is the best tv. if you watch it as relusciously as i do, you are a nerd like i am. god bless you, it makes america smarter on a dilly basis. -- daily basis. so thank you all very much. appreciate i. [applause] >> what we would like to do to honor the children who came before is we will have a children's book signing first that are right here with us. >> yep. >> and then we will begin with number 311 to 331. so that will be our first group following the children. please, let's make a very neat line and that way everyone will get a special time. [inaudible conversations]

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's our prime time lineup for tonight. beginning at 6:45 eastern, portions of a few past booktv programs on the central budget. then at 7:45 a look at the hidden white house about the construction of the white house during harry truman's presidency. at 9 eastern, "after words" with george nash, "editor of the crusade years." and then at 10, john judas talks about his book, "genesis." and we wrap up at 11 eastern with stephen watts. he describes the life and lasting impact of dale carnegie, author of "how to win friends and influence people." that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> iraq war veteran kayla

williams is next on booktv. she talks about her and her husband's return from iraq and the major problems they faced reintegrating into american society. kayla williams' husband returned home after receiving a serious head injury, and both suffered from ptsd. this is about 50 minutes. [applause] >> first, allow me to express my most profound regrets for being late. i had an interview run late and then had the fun experience of traveling on the beltway which i think may be sometimes more stressful than driving in iraq because i'm not allowed to carry a weapon on the beltway. [laughter] so as my introducer mentioned, i am also a veteran, and before i get started, i want to take a brief moment to thank all of you for coming. i really appreciate you taking the time to get out before we are inundated with snow, have a

little bit of fun before we get started. and to all the troops and veterans in the room, i want to say welcome home. and to all the military families, i want to say thank you for your service as well. so i enlisted this the army in 2000 -- in the army in 2000, and although i knew that -- can i read the fine print, i understand that armies went to war, it really didn't seem like a very big possibility back then. and i was new to the army, random chance assigned arabic and was studying it at the defense language institute in monterey, california, on 9/11. so it was immediately apparent that my military career was going to be profoundly different than i might otherwise have expected. it was no longer a question of whether or not i would go to war, simply when and where. i took part of the initial invasion of iraq as part of the 101st airborne division air assault. and after spending some time in baghdad going out on combat foot patrols with infantry without plates because as a woman

soldier i surely wouldn't have needed them, we pushed farther north to mosul and beyond, and i was eventually designed to a listening post/observation post on the side of a mountain and was the only female soldier with about seven male soldiers. we moved to the other side of the mountain later, and there were maybe 0 or 30 men -- 20 or 0 men there. again, i was the only female soldier for several more months of relative isolation. while i was out there, i met this tall, handsome nco. he was in charge of the observation post side of things. a group of -- they were so proud to call themselves fisters, the fire support team. and i thought he was funny and handsome, witty, sarcastic, smart, but iraq is not romantic. we couldn't exactly start dating, couldn't go clubbing or anything like that. so any sort of flirtation that a we had was very gruff and not at

all the type of gentle, romantic flirtation that you might imagine here at home. one night on the side of the mountain i confessed to him that i really wanted to get to know him better, and he said, don't worry, there's plenty of time for that when we get home. and it wasn't too long after that that his convoy was hit in one of the first really coordinated attacks of what later came to be known as the unurgency, but -- insurgency. we just wondered what was going on. shrapnel entered his skull below his kevlar on the back of the right side of his head, traveled forward and exited near his right eye. for three days we were all told not to expect him to survive. he was medically evacuated, luckily, down to baghdad where he had neurosurgery by, as

chance would have it, the same neurosurgeon who later operated on bob woodruff. from there he was evacuated to germany and from there back to walter reed army medical center. i stayed in iraq and completed my mission, heard from brian a few months later in an e-mail that was full of type of typos and punctuation and spelling errors that i think a lot of people slip into in e-mail, so i just let that go. i thought, oh, he's just being lazy like people are in e-mail and didn't have any really any sense of what it meant to to have a traumatic brain injury. and when he said looks like i'm going to be okay, i just took that at face value. these were the early days of the war, and wouldn't have thought then would be the early days of the war, but they were. and the systems and services that returning wounded warriors needed were really not in place. so when he had recovered to a point at which the doctors told

him he could walk and talk and wipe his own ass, he was released from walter reed and sent back to fort campbell, kentucky, where the 101st is based. he got there about two weeks before the rest of the division got back from the middle east, and we started dating the day that my plane landed, february 8, 2004. so just over a decade ago. and i'm sure there were signs then of his cognitive and psychological problems, but i was pretty distracted by my own reintegration and did not necessarily notice them. and we were busy partying and getting drunk and staying up all night because we had a month of block leave. so in that heady, early time when we were just thrilled to be alive and getting drunk a lot didn't notice what was coming. we were or very quickly deeply emotionally involved. then i started going back to

work, and i had to get up bright and early every morning to go and do pt, and i had to do my job and train soldiers and get ready to redeploy, get our unit ready to go back overseas, and brian's unit told him to stay home. he was still newly, early enough in his recovery that he wasn't allowed to wear head gear because the wound was so fresh where the shrapnel had entered. he still had to get his hair shaved at the hospital. he couldn't carry a weapon. he actually had a profile, you get a special piece of paper in the military if you can't run for a while, so on his profile it said he could not carry a weapon. and so his leadership said, well, you can't wear head gear, you can't carry a weapon, you're too screwed up to do your job, and you're freaking out all the new guys, so why don't you just stay home.

this was not the army that i knew where you had to show up every morning for accountability formation, and people made sure you were where you were supposed to be, so i was really surprised that nobody was checking up on him. but they told him to stay home. and as he lost his identity as a leader of soldiers, he lost his job, he lost his place, and he was questioning his ability to have a future. he spiraled deeper and deeper into depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and everything just fell l apart. he was not cognitively able to pay his bills or take care of himself, manage his own life. and he was trying to self-medicate the profound psychological pain that he was feeling with jamison, jack daniel's, jim beam, really whatever was handy. that doesn't work, but it took quite a long time for him to figure that out. and somehow i is stuck with him through this. people ask me all the time how,

and i have to be honest looking back sometimes i'm still not sure. but with a lot of patience and commitment and love, we stayed together, we got married. he did heal, and we've been able to forge a new life together. i tell that story this this book. and a lot of the early reviews focus on the fact that i'm very honest about the worst parts of that recovery. some of the terms are making me a little freaked out that people are not going to want to buy it pause they're focused on my honesty about -- because they're focused on my honesty about those really bad stages. but for me, this is a story of hope, healing, recovery and love. this is a love story, and this is a story about how my husband came back from profound injury,

profound institutional neglect and really deep physiological cognitive and psychological wounds to be the man that he is today; a loving husband and father who just started using his g.i. bill benefits to go back to college this semester which is an exciting new adventure for us to embark upon. the messages that i really want to get out and that i'm convinced that anyone who reads this book will absorb is that vets aren't broken. i see this kind of talking root in the popular media maretive, that veterans -- narrative, that veterans are unemployed, suicidal, homicidal, homeless, that we're just really screwed up. and for many veterans though certainly not all, the process of reintegration, of coming home, of healing can be a

difficult one. but with proper services and support, it can happen. and there is a new normal in which we can still be contributing members of society, valuable additions to our communities, fantastic employees. you should hire us because we are fantastic. the other message that i wanted to share is that caregivers are not saints. i've gotten this kind of sense that people believe that those of us who choose to stand by wounded warriors, that we are perfect, that we do no wrong, that we stand lovingly by our men or women as the case may be, and that's not true. i didn't always do a good job. i got angry. and you're not supposed to get angry at a hero, right? you're not supposed to lose your temper at somebody who got blown up serving his country. but when things are horrible,

i'm a human being, and i had a lot of those, a lot of feelings that i'm not always proud of, and i didn't always handle things well. one time when i was really, really angry at how badly he was managing our lives together, how he was missing appointments and couldn't keep track of anything and things were just awful, and i didn't have the ability to say any of that to him, to say to him i'm afraid that i can never have children because you're so screwed up, i couldn't tell him any of those things i was really angry about. so so one day he's standing there holding our refrigerator open trying to pick what he wanted to eat, holding it open and open and open, and and i lost it. and started kicking him in the shin asking him why he hated the environment. because that makes sense. [laughter] i wasn't even pregnant, by the way. so i try to be very honest about

the fact that i am a person and that although i did stick with my husband through some really difficult times, i'm not a saint. i did not nail a cross to myself and drag it around with me. i'm a human being and have my own foibles. and i also want to make sure that people know that there are resources out there to help. if you or a loved one are struggling, you can call the veterans crisis line at 800-273-talk and press 1 for immediate assistance, 24 hours a day. if your spouse is struggling with ptsd and becoming violent, you should call the domestic violence help line. you should not suffer in silence or alone. and if you're looking for a way to serve veterans or looking for resources in your local community, you can use the national resources directory which is online and has a vast compilation of resources that are available. if you're a military family

member, you can look up blue star families online and see all the wonderful resources they have available to help military families. i was told that i'm not supposed to talk for too long, i'm supposed to give you guys the opportunity to ask questions, so i will tell you, first, that i've tried to make a lot of ways available that you can connect with me, with the book, with my story and some kind of fun ways, so you can follow me on twitter, you can find me or the book on facebook, you can go to my web site, kaylamaureenwilliams.com, and you can look me up on spotify and hear the playlists that i developed to go with this book so you can hear the music that i was listening to when this was going on, if that might be kind of a different way for you to connect. i'm happy to open it up for questions, but let me warn you if you do not ask questions, my book club can tell you i'm very blood at talking -- good at talking, so i will continue to run off the mouth at the things that interest me. [laughter] thank you again for coming.

please come up and ask questions. if you don't do that, i'm going to talk about what i think is interesting or start reading you sections of the book with. no takers. all right, i'm going to grab my copy -- okay, somebody's coming. [laughter] he's like, please, no, make her stop. i don't even know how long i talked. trying to squeeze 30 minutes into i showed up late, so let me make it really fast. that was great. [laughter] yes, sir. >> hi. i'm a reader of doonesbury come kick strip by gary trudeau, and i'm wondering if he ever contacted you, because be i keep thinking about it while you were talking, and, you know, it's about characters that kind of did what you did.

>> yeah. i love his strips as well. i think he's done a great job bringing attention to military sexual trauma as well, sexual assault in the military which is a topic a lot of people don't want to talk about. and, yeah, he has a character that sustained a traumatic brain injury as well. we were in touch when my first book came out, and because of that, i sent him a copy of the new one just last week, so i'm hoping that he enjoyed it. >> okay. >> thank you. yes, ma'am. >> hi. hi, i just wanted to say, first of all, that i loved your first book. i read it at a really important time if my life, and it kind of just motivated me to get off my butt and do things with the world, so thank you for that. you also said something really that i just would love to hear you talk more about, about the idea of military and veterans being broken. and i will confess as a civilian i know that there is a civilian/military divide, and i want to bridge it in a way, but i don't want to do it in a

patronizing way, however accidentally patronizing. you say you talk a lot, so i'll give you free rein. what should we know, how should we talk about this? how should we bridge this divide. >> >> it's a tough question i think a lot of people are struggling with. i read a really great piece online the other day that really spoke to me where the author said to civilians quit saying you can't understand, because we go to movies, and we read books about things that are totally outsided of our current understanding all the time. we read books about ancient history, we see movies about space aliens, right? we try to put our minds into situations that we can't connect with on a regular basis. so when you talk to a veteran and you say i just can't imagine what you must have been through, that increases the divide. try to imagine. try to put yourself there. read books -- mine, of course, or others --

[laughter] read blogs. go online. there are a lot of voices out there, a growing number of voices, and try to connect with what people are saying. there's some exciting fiction being written now as well. and when you have friends who are in the military, who are veterans, be willing to listen. don't ask them if they've ever killed anyone. that's kind of frowned upon, considered a little tacky in the military community. but just let them know that you're there and you're willing to listen. and one of the things that i really encourage people to do in those situations, a lot of vets struggling with ptsd -- at least my husband and my friends' family -- they have a hard time with eye eye contact. but go do something. sitting around and drinking, really bad coping mechanisms. ..

of the military not doing a good enough job giving mental health treatment to people who needed it. sergeant out bar, for instance, was one of the worst case of the 101st. i'm wondering if that's changed at all. i'm thinking the fort bragg domestic violence or people came back at were free to seek help

because they might be blacklisted. just under it all these years later success change. >> i think a lot of progress has been eight. my husband was injured earlier to work from october 2003. from what i've heard i tracked down his throat surgeon and his neuropsychiatrist -- neuropsychologist, one of his other providers and asked them about it. when i tracked down his neuropsychologist and sad what happened, how did this happen? how did he slip through the crack and he said yeah, fort campbell was one of the worst places for people with tbi is to go in those early days. so for me and for brianne, one of the things that was really helpful as part of a recovery was to call attention to the gap in services we saw and to tell our stories in an attempt to make things better for troops continued to come home after a

sender that that a spurious larger community, part of organizations about their veterans working together for positive change. things have changed. brian's artillery battery for reasons completely beyond my comprehension. they have medical holding companies at the time. later on bma developed warrior transition unit that were specifically designed to help wounded warriors and provide them with squad leaders, platoon sergeants and case managers who knew how to help them better navigate the systems and go through the medical evaluation board, physical evaluation board nor smoothly. whether his plan still remains to be seen. this made a lot of faster is to improve things. it's an ongoing struggle to convince that it's okay to seek

out. when you grow up in a culture when you up and drive it on, it's really hard to put all of that side if they can't do this by myself and i need help. the institutional military is trying to send the message that people should seek help. but it doesn't always get through at every level. the impression i get as an outsider is some groups face bigger challenges than others. i came from military intelligence and out of concerns that people would not seek help because they didn't want to lose their clearances, now you don't have to report seeking psychological help for combat related trauma on the security clearance paperwork. i redid mine, checked it. you don't have to report. i have been led to believe that pilots, if they are seeking mental health care can't fly

that is a huge barrier for them in terms of seeking help. it's not my career field. i can't say that for sure. that's what i thought anecdotally. student groups may have bigger challenges to overcome when it comes to seeking help. i think we are going to need more senior leaders who are willing to stand up and say i sought help. those are fantastic. we need more veterans and troops who are willing to say here is what i did to help make it better. part of the reason i told our story and i have other friends who have been part of campaign, getting out there and seeing here is how i was struggling. here's what i did and here is how i'm doing better. to help encourage people to know that there are multiple avenues. that's the other message i want to get out. you know, if you buy toothpaste and you really hated the flavor, you wouldn't give up on brushing your teeth forever. you would buy a new flavor, a new brand. so if you tried a repeat and you

don't click with your therapist, don't give up on mental health care. try a new therapist. it can take a while to find someone you click with. it can be challenging to find a good environment. you may have to try more than once. at the va medical center is at work and tried the center. if that isn't working try another. one of them down the road will work for you. you can find a new normal where you experience not just a dramatic stress disorder, but first dramatic growth. i firmly believe it is solely because i saw horrible things and experienced real preservation that i am able to appreciate how privileged we are in america as fully as i do. i believe that i am more connected to my fellow humans because i have seen them at

their worst. it's given me a better capacity to appreciate them at their best. you're staring at me because you have a question i wanted to stop talking? [laughter] >> i'll tell you to stop talking when i'm over there. i'm here with a question. you talk about the price i sit writing this book? you described so vividly and with a lot of dialogue clearly painful over a decade. was it a photographic memory? >> i've always been a journal or. i interview people. i interviewed five people a

little spotty at that event. i interviewed some of our other friends and family members that were there by festering mess because based on what i've read comic human memory is pretty fallible. eyewitness testimony for example is sketchy. so rather than assuming that i had the perfect memory of the past decade, i went out and interviewed other people who were there to get their perception of what happened and check it against many of panchayati is the combination of my own memory, things i wrote at the time and interviews of other people to make sure i had as accurate a picture as possible. >> thank you. >> hi, brandon. welcome back from yemen. >> i've a question. if you could compare entrance as that condition from your experience.

you had two different experiences, your transition in healing i imagine some things were the same and some completely different. i'm curious where this gelatine mashed together in completely different for you able to provide support for things that maybe he could not provide support to you for because there's effectively to payroll processes. >> that's a very good question. would need to have him here to answer it accurately. i struggled with being being seated and experience. for example being a disability woman veteran. when i came home, people asked me if i was allowed to carry a gun because i'm just a girl. people asked me if i'm an infantry which is not authorized under current regulations still. they're the process of changing that. what would go grab a, people would give the guys a free round. there is literally the men would get free someday i'll look like

that's what the haircut in the posture. but winning, we don't make the stereotypical image of what it better and looks like, so i didn't get my free drinks, but i think that sense of being invisible and not having my own experience has recognized made it harder for me even when it came at the other vets. i was often the only woman in the room and people would assume that it's just a spouse as the spouses don't go through plenty on their own. via a german shepherd who got hit by a car. was it an ied? he said what? did she lose her leg from one of those ieds in iraq? i said ied. now, she's not a retired military working dog. i realized where people have assumed my dog is a combat that

they need. there is something really messed up about that. so brian didn't have to deal with that. he didn't have to -- it is easier for him to come home. when he keeps his hair cut short to note that he so wondered veteran. in the very beginning, he had purple heart license plates and people ask if he dresses dance card. people really didn't know we were still at war. pretty quickly he was visible as a veteran, visible as a wounded warrior if he kept his hair cut shorter. so he didn't experience that invisibility. but for me, my symptoms of posttraumatic stss hated within about six months, which is really normal. when you're in a combat zone being hypervigilant and alert to possible danger and ready to

respond with immediate violence if you are threatened, this is a hopeful that an adaptive response. it keeps you alive. it's a good way to be. it's no longer adapt to to be ready to kill somebody who cuts you off in traffic. it becomes maladaptive. adaptive in maladaptive. so if you're able to dial that god, dialback hyper response back down to normal levels within about six months, it's actually totally normal. totally normal to take time to come back to a more even keel that not happening for me. i saw some symptoms. for brian it did. he had the addition of having experienced a much higher level

of trauma both physically and psychological and he did develop posttraumatic stress disorder. he also had to struggle with losing his career, losing cognitive function, questioning who he was if he would ever be able to succeed in the world again and he turned to alcohol a lot as a coping mechanism and the alcohol abuse was definitely very, very negative aspect of his recovery. the way that i was able to see it later was that every bad day for him will come every other bad thing and make it a downward spiral. so the ptsd couldn't sleep. not sleeping hurts your cognitive function. having a worse than cognitive function may get more depressed, which made him drink more, which made us fight more. if i wrote down worse and worse and worse and we had to find

ways to turn not back the other direction later. for brian, a turk clunker physical, psychological. six years after he was injured before he could read a book cover to cover again. when he was at walter reid, one of case managers said you'll never see further gains. he would be told he can't get any better. but he did. it just took a lot longer. the factory or both that's allowed us to help each other more. so if we went to wal-mart and i had a complete meltdown from the awfulness of it, why can't you make it through the checkout line coming of the full cart of

stuff. he never belittled me or made me feel like there was something wrong with me for not being able to handle it. that was great because he was a fellow combat that he just understood, he got a and we didn't have to talk about it. i didn't have to explain it. he just understood. i could do that with him to an extent, though not obviously i couldn't understand the injury. the downside -- the flipside is that we both had the injunction against seeking health. i wonder if we had been a civilian if they might've cracked earlier instead no, no, we have to go ask her how can't do this. in the book i lay out our parallel roads and paths to recovery. it would be interesting to play

out a timeline and see how that works. that would be a thing to do because the other kind of weird part of it that one of my coping mechanisms came to be hyper controlling. i will manage every aspect of our lives another candidates will face out in everything perfectly organized at every point in time. that was my way of handling the fact that things were a total crisis. and when he got better to the point that he could start doing things again, it was really hard for me to let go in to let him get better, to let him take over responsibilities, to let him grow and for me to step back. i had this feeling like i was holding a cab cradle and if i let go of one thread everything would fall apart. it was really, really difficult for me to slowly let go and realize in fact the world will not burn down if i'm not personally responsible for it.

i don't know if that was helpful. >> first, thanks for your service. i just want to go back to the process and the challenges, writing this book about ptsd in reliving those experiences in writing about reliving experiences while also having to leave it as you write and what are the challenges of writing this book and having to again face a lot of the same memories and experiences. >> yeah, so i had a really good outline before i got started. that probably sounds appropriate place to begin. i had a really solid outline and i actually knew what chapters i wanted. i just put it aside and work on a different chapter in circle back to it. very definitely things that were

so hard that i couldn't engage with them right away. in circle back at a later time. that's how i did it. my first book came out so soon after us in the military that i hadn't processed anything. i had no empathy for the really squad leader i had. i was just mad at her. i had no added fee for where she was as a leader in that situation. and with this i waited a lot longer. i waited until brian was furthering his recovery and i had developed this space and emotional depth to look at the arc of his recovery. if i try to do it in the middle of it would've been a disaster. i would have been mad for not

able to see it. i needed to have this distance in time and emotional and mental space to be able to see the whole arc of our journey together and to really decide into therapy and help with things a lot more before engaging with it. i'm really glad that i waited before trying to write this one. hi, rachel. >> how did having kids change or impact the whole recovery process individually and together? >> there a lot of years because his ptsd symptoms could be really bad. there's no way i could in good conscience being a newborn into the house where somebody has fits of rage like this. we waited until he was doing really well and finally click

okay now things are good. now we can try this. having kids ended up being more challenging than i thought it would be since i waited until i was no longer young. but i sometimes actually one or if i were really wealthy i would fund a study on this because i think it would be a really cool thing for somebody to research. everybody pretty much knows when women are pregnant and when they give birth and are nursing their brains kick out tons of oxytocin dysthymic chemical that makes them like their babies and not drown them very often. but apparently when men live with their partners and are exposed to the newborns come at their brains do too. reduces the amount of testosterone in the brain and kicks at the amount of oxytocin in their brain. for me, he had always had a

flattened a fact come a tendency to have kind of a cold look on his face a lot. once we had kids, that changed. when he would look at his son, you know, his face would light up and he was warm and interactive. i don't know if that's brain chemistry are partly just that newborns don't judge you. humans, we judge each other. even if we love one another, it is not a pure love the way it is for children. it felt like being around our kids as babies let him feel soft again, let him feel nurturing and loving in a way that had been closed off to him in a lot of ways. he had a daughter from his first marriage, but that was older. i would love to see oxytocin

treatment for ptsd. unnecessarily exposing people with ptsd to newborns, but some other way. nasal spray or some thing. i don't know. it helped his recovery. it helped me reconnect with feeling tender because i'd worked really hard to feel tough and having children they connected me to those feelings into feelings of a greater degree than d. it also made me feel more empathetic to other military families. when i was an active-duty soldier, and no empathy for army wives. some of them have a sticker on the card says army wife, toughest job in the army. i wanted to keep their car. nobody shoots at you. and once i had kids, my husband goes out of town overnight i was lake that really would be hard to do that for a whole year for 15 months or 18 months. and also for like ryan's

parents. i developed a lot for empathy for brian's mom, what it must've been like for her to have her son go to war and get winded. i can imagine what it's like to see your child that way. thank you. i commented back for coming. >> be an active-duty and serving in iraq myself i want to first let thank you for giving a voice to a minority segment of the population. i wanted to ask, do you have any advice for any would the writers, veterans, military females that want to start getting into this type of topic? >> the best topic is to write all the time. carrier in the book and write when you have an opportunity because there aren't enough to sit down and have -- like division of having a writers retriever you can do it all the time, that may not have been. so just read all the time. if you could get involved with

other writers. there's an organization called the veterans writing project and depending where you are, they sent people out to teach sessions are help facilitate and can help you get a group of other writers, other veteran writers and teach you how to share your writing with each other and evaluate and you can form a community where you can share your writing in a safe space and help develop your craft that way. if there's anything i wished i'd done it is to do something like that dinner. >> thank you gave >> thank you. good luck. >> your manicure looks awesome by the way. >> thank you. >> what comes across the book is brains injury and his eventual recovery is somewhat unheard of. for the doctors it seemed like he should not survive. he shouldn't be making the games. look at this cat scan. can you believe this guy is walking and talking? you also say the book you don't really know what the future

holds for your family and i was just wondering, what your thoughts are unaware of writing might be in a decade. >> so it's true, when the neurosurgeon thought that brian would never be functionally independent, that he would never be able to take care of himself, thought that he might never walk again, might be confined to a wheelchair, believed he would have a walker. you never want to be an interesting patient. whenever he would go for follow-up appointments, doctors are calling other talk others and be like look at him. he walks and talks. but a ct scan. can you believe this? so that's a little freakish and weird. it made it tougher in some ways because when brian seeks help, when he says are there any services to get further

cognitive gain, you should just be happy. you're lucky to be alive and you're lucky to be able to do anything. so why do you want to do even better? just be happy with what you are. there's a lot of rehabilitative services for people who are very high functioning. that is a gap that i don't know how anybody can bridge yet. there should've sunny been a lot of research on it. as for what the future holds, but now things are good. i have very high hopes that the next two decades will be good. if he can keep his ptsd well-managed, if he cannot drink too much, i think the next two decades are probably going to be great. beyond that, i don't know. the prognosis is not great for people with germanic brain injuries.

the chances of people who have experienced tbi developing early onset dementia are very high, so that if something will always have to be concerned about, be aware of. we don't know if the ptsd could return. i've talked to vietnam vets whose symptoms either recurred or developed with the iraq war kicked off. exposure to a new trigger could bring his ptsd symptoms back in full raging force at any point. they're still shrapnel in his brain. it could shift. we don't know. they didn't close the hole in his school. he still has a hole in a school. pretty well protected by musso, but you know, that is still a literal weak spot. long-term future, 30, 40 years. i have no idea. might not be the best prognosis, but i'm going to stay hopeful

and hope that with all of the unfortunately high numbers of people that have come up with germanic brain injuries that there'll be more research and we can learn more and maybe the dod or va will develop treatments that can help stave off things like dementia. >> thank you. >> thank you. other questions? shall we wrap up? we have time for at least one hour. i don't know what time it is. we have time for one more if anybody has any other questions. yes, sir. [inaudible] -- women have in the military. they seem to have been pretty well in the collected over period of time from what i've read in the newspaper. could you elaborate on any of your experiences or whatever you know along that line?

>> said the gentleman had a question about the specific challenges women face in the military. so a lot of the challenges that i face when we first invaded iraq like they're not being good good race for women to jeremy with any amount of privacy on convoys. some of those challenges have been overcome. there's now something called a fad because the army les acronyms. the female device, which is like part of the army logistics chain that allows women to peace standing up with a device they can stick in. so little things like that i think is actually great because there were women who are modest enough that they would not drink enough water and get tract infections. so the fact that noticed the supply chain that women can get this which anybody who has done a lot of camp in a similar ways. some of those problems has been

addressed. the military saw gaps and has worked to address them. when women are integrated into the close combat arms unit, the supply personnel need additional training on the fact these types of things exist. and yeah, those out there. a lot of the problems women face in the military are not exclusive to women, but disproportionately affect women. so do most probably well known example of sexual assault in the military. women experience sexual assault in the military at much higher rates than that but because women are such a small minority in the military, the broad numbers of those who ask aaron sexual-harassment may be roughly equivalent between men and women. again, that is a problem at disproportionally but not exclusively affects women. the military is struggling as hard as college campuses are right now to figure out what to do about that and how to make a dent in it, how to encourage

reporting come increased rates of successful prosecution and drive down obviously the initial and finance a sexual assault and sexual harassment as well. it is kind of the $64 million question. the military draws its members from society and we see with the steubenville cases is not exclusive to the military, but i do find it concerning if you compare rates of non-sexual assault, murder and other crimes of the military to those in a comparable civilian population, rates of other crimes in the military are much lower. just a very small fraction. so if the rate of assault is the same as in civilian society, is still show something is wrong. something is not working at the

rate of that particular type of assault has not been driven down the same amount other types of assault had been driven down within the military community. if i knew how to solve that, trust me, i would. i don't. i hope that in the long run, open and close combat arms jobs to women will drive down rates of sexual harassment and assault because women will no longer buy institutional definition be lesser troops. when they are able to do all forms of military surveys, nobody will be able to say some of things i heard when i was in, which is why would you report harassment? what did you expect when you chose a man's army? how did you ruin his career? when troops are fully old, that will improve. research from other countries in

other environments showed us women equality creases there could be temporary short-term spike in sexual assault. it is something we need to be aware of and just kind of be forewarned about. not just saying it's okay, but pulled the plug, sometimes you have to work through a difficult process. i am confident that the army is working very hard to set the stage for smith and successful integration into close jobs in unit and that they are working very hard. they can learn from each other because unfortunately it is a problem we see more widely than within the military. thank you. [applause] thank you are once again for

coming. remember when you get to some of the worst part is that this is a story of hope, healing, recovery and loves. on that note, happy almost valentine's day. [applause] >> kayla will be after signing copies of her book. if you don't have one -- [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> next, stephen jimenez argues the killing of matthew shepard in laramie can a wyoming in 1990 it was not anti-hate crime but a drug-related robbery gone wrong. this is a little over two hours. >> them to tell you how we came

to be here tonight. most of you are aware -- sorry about that. i've got a little cold here. i was an assistant principal at a junior high school in the laramie school system for 30 years. so i saw a lot of stuff from my position. q. in november, a friend of mine, we would howl around and he said have you seen the new book out on matthew shepard works as i am sure that a number of you are, that's old news. why do we want to drag that up? and she said no, they say think is worthy of your reading it. so, let me have the boat and i

didn't put it down for two days because i lifted. this is the way i saw it as i was going through the rules and working with these young people. you know, i don't want to change anything. i don't want you to look at this in any other way. it was a tragedy that took place back then and in no way am i trying to change that. but i think if we have the opportunity to look at it, you know, through another person's eyes, i have told stephen, you know, if given the opportunity i would've liked to have read this book. because one of the nice things about my job is probably 99% of the kids that went to junior high school came back and we

are -- i don't want to say we've got, but they'll tell me anything at this point i'm a laugh about it. you remember this? to remember that? i had a number of them come back and really talk about drugs, alcohol abuse of the junior high school and high school and in communities. i had a number of them that i knew that were involved in the drugs and drug cultures that came back today and said wow, you know, that was not what it seemed to be. there were drugs involved in that situation. it is one of those things when i was born and raised here, i went to school. my seventh grade year i was in this building. we have seventh grade through 12th grade year. 1959. i'm teaching myself. 1959, seven through 12.

they were not to high school and the first graduating class was the 1961 class. so the next year we ended up having this to ourselves. so laramie born and raised. when i read this book, a you know, it just started kind of a burning that i need to do more about this. i actually am trying to find the right property to buy here in laramie to get back. so i was sent here working, you know, with one of my friends here and we were looking at some property that we are working on. i got a call from my wife saying hey, stephen jimenez who is writing the book is going to be due to begin in fort collins.

i said goodbye real quick witted and time for steve to come out and do his reading. and as i sat there, you know, in that audience, just reliving it again. by the way, i don't know if your member diane smith who is the principal -- where was diane a principal? i'm not sure. lunsford. thank you. i stand corrected. anyway, diane was there and afterwards we talked a little bit and i went up and introduced myself and say hey, you know, i would really like to spend some more time with with you and talking about this. i said why are you doing this at laramie? he says i've not been aided. he said hey, consider yourself invited. i will try my darndest to get us together. i guess where i am with this as

i am not wanting you -- i'm not telling you what to think. i'm asking you to read the book and wants to read the book, make up your own mind. see what the reason as. and by no means are we trying to, you know, these young people -- i don't change anything there. i mean, that was a tragedy. but don't know what to do with the truth? does kind of the way i was looking at it. so over the course of, you know, the last two, three months we have put this together and there's a number of us doing this. not just me. so here we are tonight and i want this to be educational number one. i wanted to be informative because i think, you know,

there's a lot to be learned here. if you have some questions like ideas, please, we have to make here. we welcome. in fact, we want your input. so no further ado here i will turn this survey hagerman. again as i said was a radio announcer doing a lot of stuff in there. he was right in the middle of this. i give it to you from a perspective of what he saw. >> i remember the morning after the attack and how this was going to be, you know, looks like another crime. i wouldn't want to see a series of killings at laramie, but at that time there have been a couple other people who had been murdered so you're kind of getting used to go when i'm visiting tyler group and the folks at the albany county courthouse. so what struck me as kind of

insane really is within a very short time there such a notebook called wildfire that steve talks about about how the narrative of this incident quickly went while in the way the national media descended upon this town and i thought unfairly cared erased its citizens, there was a lot of stories and i think people who lived here when they read them in the papers they thought they had been on television just shook their head and said this is not the account. just an anecdote from that. we were sitting in the courthouse between the court proceedings early on in all of this. i was sitting next to a couple of network reporters and they

knew each other. they were talking back and forth and basically just speculating on what the next thing in the process was going to be. what do you think's going to happen? this phenom back and forth. an hour or so later i'm back to to the radio station, put together a newscast and we had a television on their and i was watching the television and one of the reporters was doing a live standout. he said inside the albany county courthouse or speculate in the next move in the process and then he started relating the story that he was talking with the other fellow. and technically the story was correct. there is a source inside the albany county courthouse. in the age of 24 hour news gattuso time.

that is essentially what they were doing. a couple questions i'd like to ask you about why the media refuses to let go of a narrative once they've established it. and so, it was an interesting for receipt i guess if you go, to see how this process works. so i'm going to read from the book jacket here about steve. and when this book came out, i had the two initial press reports on the internet and then i went to bard and noble to look into that it's still not yet unpacked it out of the boxes. the lady didn't recognize the book. i asked her to look at a church he founded. i said just the second is that in the back room. she went on to for me. i ended up getting at. stephen jimenez is an

award-winning writer and producer. 2012 norman mailer nonfiction fellow and has written and produced programs for abc news, 2020, dan rather reports, nova, fox, court tv and others. his accolades include the western guild of america reward, i'm sorry -- as bishop of bible is the here. monger said the word for us to caitiff reporting and ambient fellowships of view across the nation in wyoming. a graduate of georgetown university just a screenwriting at new york university's tisch school of the arts and other colleges. he lives in new york and santa fe. steve, thanks for putting on a park and coming out visiting us deepening. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you, good evening. it's really a pleasure to be here in laramie again because i just went on a very long and wild journey but i never expected, you know, what happened. i would like to do first, and wintry day couple excerpts from the book, the first i would like to sell you a little bit about how i came to this story. obviously when this crime happened i was as horrified by everyone around the country about the brutality, the horrible violence that was committed. but it really wasn't that the time of the crime that i decided to come to laramie. it was a little more than a year later. it was at the time aaron mckinney, principal perpetrator here was convict did.

i was back east and i read -- i read this statement but dennis shepard, matthew's father made in court at the time aaron mckinney was convicted. it was such a heartfelt statement in which he really bared his soul. and you know, the albany county courthouse, satellite trucks outside media everywhere. at that moment, dennis shepard really proved his soul and set things like, you know, why wasn't i a better father and friend to matt? web was a nightmare when he needed me most and how will i ever get an answer to this commission now? when i read that statement, there was something about it tonight he spoke to fathers and sons everywhere, fathers and daughters everywhere. i think i spoke to families of all kinds who have gone through

tragedy. so it was really that, you know, kind of a story about the family had been through because there was so clear that it was something that would be with his family for after that i decided to come to laramie. i came to laramie the first time. it will be 14 years ago this month in february of 2000. and i came here to research the screenplay for made for television film because i really felt that the story deserved a full-length treatment, a two hour treatment television. but i came to educate myself. the entire record in the case had recently been unsealed as many of you here who live in laramie know, the record was under seal at the core for a year. witnesses had been under a tab order. not just with a system of the principals involved in the case. people who worked in the

courthouse. people that work with defense lawyers, one for smith. so is very interested in going through the public record. but i came here to write the story of the anti-gay hate crime as it happened resented by the national media. i have a gay man. i've been absent the 1970s and it seemed to me this is an import story to look at any full-length for a period so i know those of you who live here. earlier this week but that narrative was at the time. i can just say that eventually i went through some changes in my thinking about the case. but i just want to refresh our collective memory here about how this was reported initially. from the very first reports of

the sober -- of the october 6, 1998 attack, major new circumcisions provided a general uniform account of the crime and motives behind it. a sampling of newspaper and magazine stories painted a harrowing picture. this is first from "the boston globe." shepard, 22, a first-year student at the university of wyoming paid dearly allegedly for trusting to strangers and math at the fireside lounge to tell them he is gay. what followed was an atrocity that forced the stunt community of laramie to painfully confront the festering evil of anti-gay patriot as the nation lawmakers watched. this is the denver post. police investigators turned up the following sequence of alleged events. sometime tuesday night shepherd

that henderson and mckinney while at the fireside and lounge. sheppard told them he was gay. they invited him to leave with them. all three got into mckinney's father's pickup in the attack began. hungry for cash, perhaps brought the shepherds dressed in nation that he was gay, they drove to the edge of town police say, pistol whipped him until a school collapsed and then left him a tie like a fallen scarecrow for a savior to the bottom of it crosshatched fence. that was "newsweek." albany county sheriff -- this is the "washington post." albany county sheriff suggested that the beating was being investigated as a hate crime said the investigation is aggressively continuing to laramie police commander dave o'malley told "the associated

press" that while robbery was the main motive, sheppard was targeted because he was gay. this is "time" magazine. what people mean when they say matthew shepard motiveless lynching is that he was killed to make a point. so he was stretched along a wyoming fence, not just as a dying young man, but as a signpost. push comes to shove, it says this is what we have been timed. and finally, "the new york times." while some gay peters out crucifixion imagery in mr. shepard's death, others got a different symbolism. the old west pratt is a nail in a dead coyote eat to a ranch fence as a warning to future intruders. so that was kind of begin the book there and that i think is

pretty true to the way the case was presented in the national media. this crime happened on tuesday, october 6 within just a few days i think he was pretty widely believed that this was an anti-gay hate crime. matthew was taken to a hospital in fort collins and died in the early morning hours of the over 12. by the time matthew had died, the president of the united states, bill clinton had made statements urging passage of a hate crime will stall in congress. let me say a tiny bit about the context. the attack on matthew shepard hapgood just four months after the dragging death of ames byrd junior in jasper, texas. so there was a hate crime bill that was solid congress at the time this attack on matthew happened here in laramie. i'll go back to my arrival here.

i arrived at the courthouse and asked to look at documents in reams of paper in x-files came out and i started to go through those records and take notes during this first true. i was fortunate that day, the girl was walking around up in the county attorneys office. i recognized them because i had seen him in news stories and i just approached him and said would you talk with me for a few minutes about the case? he agreed. i wanted to his office. we spoke a day for 45 minutes. it was very clear that he was sizing up attention not just that, but in the months that followed. he told me he wanted nothing to do with anything that would inflict any further pain on matthew shepard family. i basically said to him, would you help educate me about the

case? you know, i was a character in the trials and the many court proceeding. would you steer me in the right direction as far as some of the documents? he agreed to that. it took a lot of notes that first-rate. i returned he soon began a series of interviews with him by phone and then i returned to laramie and continue to do interviews not just the caliber of the, but i began to talk with other people in law enforcement, other people in laramie. although caloric a say this, i kept hearing from other one town there is more to this case. it's not as it appeared to be. one person in line for smith to me the homicide had nothing to do with his preference. so my curiosity was aroused eight months into my research is finished a first draft of the screenplay that was largely based on the official record. i came back to laramie.

i want to caliber pitcher be described, but i wanted to get any documents they had copied to take with me. but i thought he was going to be my final research trip. -underscore it through some folders at the courthouse and i came upon a letter. it was an anonymous letter, but he was there at the courthouse. essentially what the letter said was that aaron kinney's gay panic defense was false and that aaron mckinney was familiar with gay guys, gay bars, and that he was comfortable being around gay guys ended applied to some of us had to do with receiving money and other fevers for, you know, aaron received money and other favors for his contact with gay guys. it means someone here in laramie. as one of aaron mckinney's

friends. after eight months of work and on the screenplay, i was in a quandary that ultimately decided to put the screen play aside and to begin to look at the case as a journalist. while my experience was and is a journalist, as a documentary filmmaker who attend longform stories in several stories to crime and law and justice. so briefly, i put the screenplay aside and i began doing some investigation of my own. i would say, you know, quite a bit of that for about a year. when i had gathered enough information, took the story to "the new york times" magazine and pitched it to them. they send what i brought to come at the commissioned me to write an article for "the sunday times" magazine. i worked on that story on and off. i was doing a couple other things, but i worked on it over a period of two years. this was from 2002 until early

2004. and in 2004, the story was killed at "the new york times" magazine. they did not criticize the reporting. that should set the reporting is really good, we would like to work with you and something else, but the suggestion was they really didn't want to go into some of the darker aspects of the story. ..