>> i will quote tolstoy the all happy families are like in each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. are you maria? which i think that means if you're going to write the book that one was an interesting challenge to go with it and both of these authors to they have written fabulous books very different books about their families when i was thinking about this i teach at university of texas in a make students make films and they show them about people's families with they

have all sorts of secrets and afterwards i would ask the students had the feel about doing this with their own family? so i admire the fact that has written such fabulous books about their families so i would like you do is to start off by letting each author read from their book can describe the book for you will ask you questions and yesterday and was noticing a lot of the moderators were not having as many questions or any. so think about the books and think about your questions and begin lining up with questions i will introduce reimbursed. maria venegas born in mexico emigrated to united states for years old bulletproof vest was in "the guardian" her short stories appeared

many places she taught creative writing in works as a mentor at stillwater's a reading and writing sanctuary in lives in new york city and has written an incredible book. >> thank you. i am really sorry i was late by got lost and i have been wandering around the streets all morning. but the good thing is that i am here now. so the book i have written is called "bulletproof vest" the genesis of the book is that i did not have a relationship with my father for 14 years. people heard you you never talk about them or you talk about them all the time and i never used to talk about my father because growing up in the chicago suburbs he

shot and killed our neighbor. he was an outlaw. so after he shot and killed our neighbor he buttons up the bulletproof vest he goes back to mexico and never comes back so i never used to talk about him but eventually i reconnected with him and at that point i was already living in new york city and he was living on the old hacienda where i was born in he had a 200-acre ranch we would herd cattle together he would salep the horses together in the morning is through that time he started to share stories with me like we would ride past the creek or the tree and say that as were my brother got into a

shootout then tell me the story so i think i never understood what made him tick the saying you can take the cowboy out of the mountains or you can take the mountains out of the cowboy so living in the chicago suburbs he would come home from the night out before going to bet he would unload his gun in the front lawn so when we first moved to the suburb the neighbors used to call the police saying they heard gunshots but then eventually they got used to it. [laughter] o it is just pose a turning in for the night in the to not bother calling the police anymore.

what i think double-a-2 is read from a chapter halfway from the book called shooting guns like shooting stars but this scene that takes place after i have reconnected with my father when we have established a bond taking place in mexico it takes place at the hacienda he was living at at the time. >> scatters stars begin to appear like against the cobalt sky eliminating the darkness beyond the courtyard on the dirt road into a ball tearing through the night one dog breaks

from the pack and runs two's the church under the light post a cloud of dust rises as they jumped on the one that broke from them and try to get away. in naming though with the growing and evanish. should we do something? about what? leaning back in his white plastic chair his legs extended in front of him one over the other the dog. won't they kill each other? no. they will work it out taking a swig of the rum and coke the battle continues to rage welland the distance flights from other riches come into focus for a pair of eyes

could be watching the fire dance across our faces but normally we don't sell past dark -- dark but going into the eucalyptus trees the sun goes down we go inside and locked the doors and tell morning. and rubber band holding my ponytail in place my father is down on one knee maybe it is a fire. may be. desperate to take in a few morsels before the year and is. says these centers it at least until the new year and it is great what i top to

myself it does not burn down as fast as the others and followed my gaze but i think one of those dogs went to each. in taking a sip from the rum and coke have felt good on my arms. see those stars? i'll look past the clothesline and those wires in a saving over there? i cannot find the right word in spanish for hesitate. it is like a big spoon? see how the stars are in a row and form a handle?

and to have a sideways glance and thousands of them waiting for the new year to arrive. and a few days ago one broken ankle it had to be put down and hung it on the clothesline to be dried by the sun. and it hung in the courtyard for today's. and then throws it into the fire i made that when i was in prison he says it is yellow rope tied to an extension cord then tied to the water well they teach you how to make rope in jail?

he says they teach you how to do lots of things if you pay attention you come down space more than when you went in. and then to deposit money in two's the account and then working their way around the corral maybe we should coincide. we will fall asleep. it is my turn to buy a fire. looking at my arms and jeans >> guest: the package? know i am fine. do you really want to go inside? yes. may be.

we sit in silence for a while passenger road and pass the house we were both born and feel like we are being watched. what if someone shoots staten island ask? his whole body turns toward me. no. don't think like that. he reaches into the fire and grabs a log to flip it. nobody will bother us year. nobody would come near here. besides. it is the holidays to visit -- people are too busy celebrating. celebrating and drinking. of the long. men were knocking them back at the horse races and the sun beating on their eyelids with old conflicts rising to the surface. during the holidays tragedy

seems to happen and on christmas eve 22 years ago my brother was shot based in the river and drowned. my father setback i finished my drink and stand up. is there any more left? he asked grinning at me? yes i say. taking his cup. i will make us to more. i think i will stop there. [applause] >> our other author today is chris tomlinson who has written a book about an important subject that is central to our country and not dealt with very well as a conflict of race. "new york times" best selling author and a journalist living in austin,

texas he writes the twice weekly column with the associated press and responsible for political and state government reporting and a producer of tomlinson hill are the equal yet to look at race still shapes the community where the slave plantations was located and is located at the stroke center for law and chris? [applause] >> when i was about eight years old my grandfather said to me my family used to own slaves. event they love us so much they took tomlinson as a last name. at that moment it was early '70s dallas texas still trying to figure out how to

desegregate the schools with race riots in boston race was everywhere. as a little kid i heard about fights in school. my father well being very supportive designed to develop racial understanding my grandfather wanted to make sure and frankly the school district wanted to make sure that i took pride in my family's confederate past. it was to be like rhett butler with the aristocracy of the south. i believe it. it was about the slave

plantations and tomlinson hill. to be much more educated after i become a foreign correspondent with the end of apartheid and genocide in rwanda i began to think about how this bigotry in ethnic violence i was witnessing with the struggle to overcome apartheid the system of segregation and humiliation and subjugation that maybe my family story was not as wonderful as my grandfather would have me to believe. so i will show you from the beginning of my book the beginning of the journey that would lead me to discover my

great-grandfather lynched black man and was a klansman and my ancestors were key to imposing and reenforcing jim crow. my great-grandfather served in the legislature is though is hanging on the wall outside the house chamber. and perhaps a had a culpability and was not aware of. on my first trip by try to understand how we could recover from the mass slaughter by several million members of the majority. looking at the majority going through reconciliation

program learn about the ethnic difference in their culture but to simply to be from rwanda. takes a year explained how he killed friends with a machete with in the overcrowded prison with a chance to kill again and eventually came to except responsibility with the hopes of a preacher during the day we spent together a savior top the something and never thought about that when you confess and ask for forgiveness you're asking that person for something he told me. to forgive is to give something that is much more difficult to take from the victim again.

in with the other genocide did survivors in defining made impossible to reconcile and to learn about many different forms of justice from sharia law to blood cries one thing they all share is to establish truth about what happened desmond tutu said he and understood the futility of training people for decades against crimes of humanity but understood the honest accounting of the past only once the truth is known can there be true reconciliation my heritage and identity as a tomlinson determines who can become and what

opportunities i can enjoy. i had borne injustice to know that accident of one gender race or nationality is more than one motivation i left africa feeling a responsibility to discover what happened on my family's land to confront the possible crimes of my ancestors to examine if a benefit from them. with this book i did not intend to ask for forgiveness but make an honest accounting migrates great grandfather owned slaves and there's no such thing as a good slaveholder. but what crimes they commit to maintain power and privilege? do they know what they did was wrong? as an american a one to two understand the sins of our fathers.

[applause] >> i am listening to the two of you read and think about your background as a short story writer and a passage that you wrote with a description of the short story the way you write the book is very similar but i am curious of the transition to something that is a nonfiction book and also chris your veteran reporter the reports over the world with this is a different type of nonfiction writing. sova writers conference can you talk about the process of that transition? >> i don't think it was the transition for me because when i did the back to reconnect with my father and

he started to share stories of his own upbringing and childhood it was these experiences i had never been aware of that he had been through. so the book itself started to flash up the stories he was sharing with me so it started off as a collection of short stories than one i sold that i remembered i had a meeting with my editor and he said you need to be a part of the book because an american reader will not relate to your father but they will relate to you and he was very much a criminal as he killed seven or eight men. i am not sure. but it was a collection of short stories then i feel i got rankled into it.

i never set out to write seven more but was pulled into it. the way the story has unfolded i remember the first time i started writing stories from first-person so they get it through the dialogue then i was killing the urgency of the story but not until i wrote them in third person from my father's perspective that i could remove myself and let him tell his own story. that was exciting than i could play with it and do that. so the way here reads now jumps from one chapter in third person from my father's perspective then it is my perspective and it weaves back and forth and tell their narrative comes together

and it is a combined a narrative to the and. >> working for the associated press vibrate in 700 bird increments in a kabuki form there's no room for style or almost no room at all for first-person. since i was working on this for -- book while working for the ap was exciting to try new things. but yet the principles i learned as a journalist stayed with mia was committed to treating everyone the same and i realize the danger of the slaveholder writing the story of a black family

because the black tomlinson's are in equal part to this as the white tomlinson's. / was telling these other people's stories i decided to let them speak for themselves as much as possible so i would use the large block quotes from diaries or oral history that i only take on the first person with a need to make an observation such as about the horribly racist history books used and falls county in the first half of the 20th century or when i needed to explain something to "the reader" i don't come into the story until i am bored frankly. going from 1849 through 2007 of 160 years of two families. it was exciting as a writer to take on this creative style to create a narrative

with a stronger point of view. that is why i don't work for the ap anymore got used to having a point of view and now i cannot give that up. [laughter] >> i have been given a directive we should have questions and answers soon. if you want to begin though lineup by the microphone i will be happy to take your questions. when i read your book seven think of the author says the personal detectives digging into family histories and i'm curious if that is the way you felt? and even more importantly to excite the audience what is though hardest discovery that you had two's think twice have your own relationship to your families to put in the book? the whole process of history detective and the thought --

the stuff you thought had to go no matter what? >> i think for me probably the hardest that i discovered was that discovering my father lived in mexico it is the same house i was born in but what i never knew as a kid because when i was two years old by kids left mexico to go to the chicago suburbs. then they will drop me off of my grandfather's house and sent for us a few months later but then two years went by before they sent for us from tears sold until four years old and was separated from my parents and i have no memory of that. they left me with my grandmother so spending time with my father every once in

awhile leavitt's spend time with my grandmother. so she told me a story that after my parents left not a day went by did not ask about them every morning and wanted her to take me back home that two months later she finally took me back and it was empty but she took me so i could see there were not there then she said i never asked again. i completely stopped talking i'm bitterly lost my sense of language can stop talking for one month it was a hugely dramatic experience and i have no memory of it when my grandmother shared that story it was heartbreaking but i opening

maybe that is why i have been distant from my parents in a weird way that i never understood and it pertains to me and not so much my father. >> the most difficult was my parents' divorce my goal was to talk about race in america from that perspective of these two families with the only real difference was the race coming from the same place my family was bankrupted by the end of the civil war so weber about equal in 1965 sarah talked-about what the color of your skin and tax the life you will live and to bring it to the present day what that meant the

black families divorce, my family's to force the reason for that and how society influences that. with dysfunction. i had a very famous football player on my side of the family his mother is not too happy of the things revealed about her marriage but it had so much to do with america in the '60s and '70s the sexual revolution with men and women and mothers and fathers i felt compelled to tell the complete story. but it was the most difficult thing to write about.

>> one more thing briefly that it is all about race in america and i spent quite a bit of time making films about this it is hard to deal with in reality but you took a personal route with a family's history. hata do feel that book places in the discussion of america? garett we talk a lot but not the history. to talk about jim-crow once we passed the civil rights act we don't have to do anything anymore is somehow this was a long time ago and

at one point interviewing lily who was 85 years old and had known her grandfather born into slavery and told me about him in the stories he said. would it is not that long ago i know someone who knew a slave. my father went to this bugles' -- pitiful school in 1950 were there was i sharecroppers' shacks at the same time. but we don't talk about the history to understand where they are today without knowing the past that is what i try to contribute. >> maria i woke up early two's some through your book again to read the last 20 or 30 pages but what i was struck by the changes in the last decade was the alliance

won the of the cartel to destroy the fabric they did not set out to make a book that the changes have does it fit into that discussion at all? >> it is interesting that you set out because i didn't i set out to write a book about my father. it is a personal journey. was retreating as a way to understand why he lived such a violent and self constricted life. that i did not set out to write about the cartel's i was already writing the book my father died in a very

unexpected and violent way not to give away but so nine months before that happened he was kidnapped by the drug cartel in that kind into his community but i feel very fortunate to spend time in the area with just the community before the cartel and after. it was heartbreaking to see and it silenced the community with a closed shop before the sun went down they would go home and stay put. so many locals started to

join the cartel also was difficult to know who you could trust and it was a tight knit community going back generations. it was sad to see half of the cartel's it was like the mob to come in to eat at the fibers and that was heartbreaking to witness. >> just a reminder these authors will be in the book tent 15 minutes after every book sale that you make part of the proceeds goes to the texas book festival and helps to keep the festival going. >> chris asking about the truth and reconciliation commission i had the privilege to attend three sessions with an auditorium

filled with people who were overflow people standing outside. people who were witnesses to these horrific crimes and i whizzed listening through americanized and years with the american justice system expecting the people to rush the stage and people were so engrossed with what was said and all they wanted at the end of the session was for the leader of the group is to come forward and confess also. that is all they needed with i cannot imagine that happening in the united states. why did it work there and

cut it in other places? >> i am not sure. i think it can work anywhere because what people fundamentally want is the truth and want their stories told. when we made a film to go with a book with the end of the film of would save ancestors are rapists and murderers and tortures in the black gentleman said i waited my entire life to hear a white man and admit that and that is all the justice he needed just to be acknowledged. every time we keep telling someone get over it is in the past and not want to talk about you deny their history. in rwanda with the court and

another justice system's you confess and hands over a couple of cows and get on but the acknowledgement of why it happened is so much more valuable than to put someone in prison and throw away the key. i think that is universal. >> thanks for sharing your stories i'm a professor of english at university of texas in the rio grande valley. with the genre or the distinctions to elaborate further of memoir or the journalism review had any misgivings about revealing family secrets? >> when i was writing i was

not really thinking about revealing family secrets. lot of the crimes my father committed were very public and i don't think i could have written that would shock my siblings or my mother so that was a relief. but i worried once the book was published people may start to bother him or ask questions. but he died six months after i sold the book so it was no longer an issue. but for me when i was recreating the stories that my father shared i was more concerned to get them to the truth as possible because they told me that same story from that same event in because my focus was a wanted to get as close as possible so i was not so

concerned with other people's opinions and what they might be. >> my book was about revealing secrets. just to put it out there. dispelling the myth and telling secrets. the experience for you? was it for your family? >> one. [laughter] i got my fingers crossed we will get there. [laughter] but i spent 14 years going to other people's countries and cultures pointing my finger two's they were committing genocide or crimes against humanity that is a violation. i realize i need to do that to my own culture.

one and that was my mentality i needed to expose the truth. >> thanks very much. >> chris, it is easy, by telling your story we force people to look back at that time to whitewash the also by ignoring the true story to look back for those who have a one-dimensional view without knowing the story. sova having done your research how did that become more complex than that black or white history of slavery? >> the tomlinson's remained on the plantation who's

still live side-by-side with the black sharecroppers were not nearly as gracious - - racist and vicious as my grandfather was a civil engineer and moved to dallas and broke ties with african-americans. i think having that distance allowed him, i was surprised by that. were as i think if you live side-by-side and worked with someone as part of the sharecropping operation, it is complex. they're complex relationships. stories. you know, one of the things they

kept saying mr. ancestors didn't go any better night in their research and they did. they did know better. there was a huge debate over racism and slavery. and there's some real heroes here. there are white heroes in like heroes, white balance and like villains in the book. it would make a lousy reality tv show because there's no contrast. it is just real people struggling with real problems. and frankly, i think by looking at how my ancestors struggled with those problems, we can learn about how to be better people in dealing with our problems and that is the beauty of knowing the truth. in laying bare the facts that instead of mindlessly honoring our ancestors, we can actually learn from them. >> hi, i have a question. i've been writing for the past two or three years, just starting for the aged 12