war. during the war very consumed with taking care of henry's mother. mother. one of the sisters was built. she was pretty much consumed with that. amazing. why is the more on the years. i think family issues in the carnival -- it kind of overwhelmed her. anymore? yes? less question. >> i'm struck. click risha get so much attention but spoke extemporaneously. she

had her discourses on women in 1850 some letters 1850, some letters, but very little written of what lucretia actually said. but lucretia mott is a star in history. lucy stone, although i am clear with her history, but to other surnames lost. >> you're. >> you're wondering why. >> a comment rather than a question quakes also if you look in the history of woman suffrage lucretia mott plays large role. she remained friends with stand and anthony. two of the five women who started the seneca falls convention. lucretia was an amazingly fair-minded woman. she was also friends with lucy, but i think that long-standing time with stanton kept her in the limelight and she is very much a part of those volumes on talking about. but you know, lucy also was responsible for mission. she mission. she did not want to contribute, but i think she had reasons why she is not in those volumes. it is amazing how much historians have depended on those volumes to write about 19th century limits

movement. so i hope to my hope she will get back front and center in nation's history. thank nation's history. thank you for being a great audience. [applauding] quakes thank you so much professor. that was a wonderful talk. on that score hopefully lucy stone will remain in your consciousness. we have books for sale at a discount. there at the front desk. hope you will pick one up on the way out. if you want more information on the program in women's history or anything else we do please look for us online. thank you again for supporting this great institution have a great night. see you soon. thank you. [applauding] ♪ in primetime continues friday with books on science

and technology.

and than in my agent ask a question that changed my life. which book would you prefer to actually read a book written by an i get like you for a book about ray charles written and raise voice. i told him i would much prefer to read the book written and raise voice. he said then then you should write the book you want to read not the wanted you believe you should write. that kind of changed everything. then when i got with him and discovered that there was a kind a kind of musicality in his voice because as you know we learn to speak before we learn to sing. then it occurred to me if

there is a musicality in his voice and when i kind of create his voice on the page, and i pretend i'm him when the height of me becomes the i have him i have him will be sort of making music. there isn't anything i would rather do than make music. and then then in doing his voice i discovered i had a gift of four. and i'm not sure what the gift is but it is something about the approximation of the voice. as you know if you just do the transcription, in other words, the words am telling you now, if they are just transcribed and you read the transcription in the context of the book that is not a good representation of my voice because one thing i learned early on is that the i years much differently than the year. so when you try to create a

literary voice it is an artistic act and active artifice. you are creating the impression that this person talking to his talking to you in a conference session away. in order to do that you have to move from the literal transcription to a kind of scoping, a kind of -- i don't know exactly what to call it but it but you are giving the person a literary voice and that as i said, his art. it is not a clerical function. as i before i began to do it vision that was. >> did you have any

connection to ray charles, any connection to writing? clicks yeah. i had written in high school and college and had written advertising and academic essays and journalism. i had a lot of writing. i mean, i was comfortable with the act not this active being a ghost. it was entirely new. i went i went to college and measured in english went to graduate school got an ma in english. all that collegiate training did not prepare me for being a ghost writer. i had never contemplated or taken a course in it. the only two books that i really had in my consciousness one was the autobiography of billie holiday, billie holiday, the lady who sings the the blues which i loved his young boy. i knew that that was was written by a ghostwriter you a ghostwriter you i remember

i read the book where i was 12 or 13. it had on the cover as told to william dusty. dusty. i remember asking my father who is this guy. my father said his pole with a guy who actually wrote the book. i said no the book was written but holiday. he goes, it's in her voice and she is talking to you. i remember my father saying well, that saying, well that is what he sort of does for her. she is giving you the idea that she is writing the book. and i remember asking how does he get to go over to her house. my father house. my father said, i presume he does. then i remember i i said that the job i want in the job i have. so when we look at some of the books that you ghost written, it is a long story, story, my life will really nelson. >> just about to hit stores.

>> that i am on the cover the bottom. >> if to do appear on the cover of the ray charles? >> have always appeared i think of every book other than one. and you know, in the beginning when i began out and did ray charles both in the did a number of books it was important for me that it you know my name was a certain size because i still haven't gotten over the idea that ghostwriters are looked at as something of a subcategory. and it took me a long time to be comfortable with that. clicks another book with just your name on it. >> a whole different story and the only time this is ever happened to me. in 1995 i met aretha franklin after chasing her for years. i had done this book with

ray charles and the next book i wanted to do was aretha because i loved her. i love your music as passionately as i love the music of ray charles. she was not interested. typical, i will chase after artists and melvin postcards and called until i can i can get a meeting and hopefully terms and hiring me. in re this case i did in the mid-1950s in the mid-1990s she mid- 19 '90s she hired me to ghostwriter autobiography. this was an instance where i did not -- it is the only instance where i didn't deliver the kind of book really want to. i had a hard time gaining any emotional intimate -- intimacy with her and did

not get her to reveal very much about her and her life. the the book came out and i wasn't happy with the book. i put out my own biography i didn't feel i had i had honored her art or the complexities of her story is enough in doing her autobiography, autobiography, but i don't expect to do that again anytime soon. in other words, the book that i i have done on ray charles or bb king robinson or marvin gaye i am pleased. i don't mean mean they are perfect books, but i feel as though from a a historical.of view if you want to get to know these people and hear them talking

to you and you them telling you their stories and the books i have done with them are accurate and good and filled with funk and soul and heart. but in the case of everything i just didn't feel that way. i i felt as iota to her to history to do my own version >> david ritz, when you make an arrangement such as with willie nelson the smokey robinson first of all is there a nondisclosure agreement? can you be censored by the main author? quakes yes. and that is defined glad you asked because that is one of the most interesting things about my work. i i give away all control. i remember once i was on a

conference in austin on a panel biographers joined this biographer attacked me and said you should not be here because he's a ghostwriter. that is not a biographer. one of one of the reasons i can't trust his book is because he has no editorial control of the content. i had to agree with him. i didn't agree with him that i i shouldn't be on the panel and had to.out to him the holy bible of a a ghostwritten book and we don't know who the author is there are other excellent ghostwritten books the autobiography of malcolm x by alex haley is looked at as -- is looked at as a classic but going back to the.of control one of the topics was the when you give control away when it is an issue you get more control.

control is normal table. it's that it was a.of contention. they can relax and you are able to gain more intimacy that way. usually at the end of the process i i gained enough of the trust of the star that i i could pretty much control the content of the book. there are times when they don't want this or that in there. but generally i kind i kind of think our biggest additional balls control. an enzyme a can give away

control i am happier person and think that i work i work with greater integrity and greater empathy. what what ghostwriting is about his empathy and compassion. in order to get get people to open of the hearts and tell you what has happened in the lives of conflict have to feel as though you not judging them and that you love them on a certain level. it is set was this kind report. you know, in a certain way i am a surrogate for the person who reads the book, a surrogate for the reader.

many, many, many people who like to be in my position and get to hang out with ray charles or willie nelson for days and weeks inside and hang out at the kitchen table and hear them tell stories. i am there not just for me but for all those untold numbers of people who want to gain access to these people. >> is a profitable? >> it is. i mean, one of the other challenges -- i mean, you know, it is interesting. i was just a was just a conference over the weekend, music conference in seattle and the person asked me what you think the purpose -- what she has? of what is your purpose as a writer. i said, i have to. one is to avoid a nervous breakdown and the other one is to sort of make a living. in the two tied together. if you have a nervous

breakdown you can't make a living. and if you are making a living you can have a nervous breakdown. so for me as a freelance writer the last 47 years it has been really important to make a living and not go nuts. and ghostwriting has been a great way for me to keep my head above water from a financial.of view. because there is a built-in market for stars. stars. they have an audience. also the company with a story. now,. now, you know that i have written biographies and novels and essays. i have written lots of stuff

but my concentration on ghostwriting, ghostwriting is where art and commerce sort of need for me. and i am a commercial writer at heart. i mean,, i want people to read my books and i want them i want them to have a large audience. i have learned to write at an advertising agency, linda wright at copy. once a copywriter always a copywriter in a certain sense. as i said before the surprise for me i gave up i gave up advertising because it became too easy and the creative challenge was is gone. been ghostwriting now for 41

years. i am still challenged because it's hard and you don't ever sort of get it right. the idea for you to ask me to go straight your book you know i would have to get to know you i i would have to try to enter into your heart and your head and get a good kind of feeling for how you use words kamal you tell stories. and i might pull it off or might not. and then even beyond the sort of mechanics of the father is also what will i be they good enough psychologist to get you to open up the law ask your questions may give you no space which i have not been able to do in this interview because i have been sort of talking all-time. >> what if you agreed to write that book and i set

out a way name on it? >> i will be i will be hard. that has happened to me a couple times. it is interesting you asked me that because i think i would like to be a person who could answer you until you i wouldn't care. i think i think that will be a more chilled out version of me. however, my ego. now, ego, i mean, one mean one of the reasons i'm happy to be a ghostwriter is because i think had i sort i sort of made it big as a non- ghostwriter has a david baldacci or stephen king james joyce i would be incorrigible. my mega menu would go nuts and it would not be able to talk to me. and because ghostwriting, in order to be a good ghostwriter and get lots of

gigs you have to deal with your ego and you have to submerge and suppress and tends to the hunger of your ego. you ego. you just can't have what it was because what it was is what i told you in the original story and wants to win a nobel prize. that is going to happen in autobiography. so i think -- i thank god for that. i thank god that being the ghost writer because i wanted to earn money and get more gigs i have trained myself to tends to be sort of annoying ego. so i am sort of relatively

chilled out but not completely. to go back to your question if you said to me do my book but i want your name on it my answer to you might be well good but give me another $80,000 to keep off my name. >> is it a set fee? >> no. every book is a different sort of negotiation. there are no rules. you you have an agent. your agent usually negotiates with the stars manager. but every book is different. >> somebody else you have written with is to have a smiley clicks yeah. clicks you have written a couple of books with him quakes yes this is number three, and we are working on

number four. how did i how did i meet him? yes, the publisher of doubleday the time man named steve rubin had tablets under contract for autobiography, and i had just written a book for steve about walter you have a cough who was a big mobile in the music business. he was president of columbia records during the michael jackson days. in any event, rubin, rubin thought that tablets and i would be a good combination. he put us together and i wrote with elvis his autobiography. and then last year he and i indicted about to give up about martin luther king jr. the last years of his life. and recently we have worked

together on this book on my angelo about his relationship to my angelo. tablets is sort of the ideal collaborator. he appreciates what i do and showed me great respect. also, i love how he speaks and i love i love his voice command he is intrinsically a good storyteller. it has been a great combination. >> is the ghostwriting business a a pretty big business that we don't necessarily know about? clicks yeah. the one area we have not talked about his deep ghosts, which means that you don't have your name on it. you testified earlier but a deep ghost is a person who

has ghost written a book for typically politicians will use a deep ghost because they want to give the idea that they actually wrote the book. i don't know. i haven't done a survey on it, but i think i don't know whether a majority of books written by politicians are ghostwritten, but a large number of books written by politicians are ghostwritten. so yeah and i tell you what interesting story i i was once on an airplane going to a conference command i was next to a guy who is a well-known novelists who i won't name because i don't want to hurt his feelings. he asked me what i i did for a living and i told. he said well, that is interesting. he asked me he asked me which books i had done i told. he said the only problem i have with that is, i don't

have a lot of respect for a person who wants to write his life story and doesn't do it by himself. and i turned them and i said, why? you can have a great story but not have the chops to be able to tell it. just because you don't have the chops to write it doesn't mean that the world should and enjoy it. i mean, not everyone knows how to write a 400 page book cohesively and authentically. i mean,, it's hard. and so i think there will always be a need for ghosts. i'm glad. there will always be people with compelling stories to tell who just don't have the training to do it.

it -- i hope to do it until i can't do it anymore. >> what is your connection to marvin gaye? >> well, i loved him a lot. he was another guy i chased after because i wanted to do his autobiography. and i just adored him and had been listening to him ever since i was a kid. and in 1979 he put out -- 1978 he put out and out an album called hear my year which is autobiographical treatment, autobiographical musical treatment of the acrimonious divorce he was going through with his wife and the critics absolutely dependent and i loved it and

i wrote a letter to the new york times praising and arguing with the critics attacking him hoping he would read the letter. he didn't call me. me. we got together and began working on his book. now, at the time he was not ingratiate wound up in austin belgium wound up in europe, belgium. i went to belgium to continue to work on his autobiography. that is where we wrote sexual healing together a song which was my way of trying to help understand just what he was going through. wwor

>> >> he was sweet and gentle

and aristocratic and troubled and charismatic. and it was like she was of prince with the elevated consciousness but also a wicket its drug problem. >> host: when you wrote that you were on a cocaine also? >> i now think that was never with him but the main thing was pot i was a smoker with cocaine but yes. >> host: have you made a lot of money off of that? do you still make money today? >> yes. it has been an incredible

international hit to help put my kid to college and it is amazing how popular that song has spent. in one of the proudest accomplishments for me that i could work with marvin gaye to put it into a song and he was also a wonderful collaborator that he appreciated me. when he saw little talent with the bible and the caribbean -- career and he was encouraging and.

>> host: this seems like you worked with a lot of african-american artist. >> guest: i have. i just love that has a culture and the music and it is what i listen to all day long and eight years old. part of a flight -- part of my motivation is that i am drawn to the music but then to the musicians so i can try to a understand what drives them in their head or in their heart enables them to create this amazing music for gulf so my life would move to the groove.

>> host: your background? train wreck i am jewish. and for your to 1943. i became a christian 2005 and it's interesting because you ask me about african-american music. plant in that it seemed important but i always had my nose pressed against the glass. would i of the old man.

and then to get that kind of nurturing it does to read into the church but not the theology but it is the love their of of positive energy of the others with the excitement and the others cheering that i hear is holy and interesting with the

book that i wrote, respect one reason she is as great as she is to have a father that is a well-known preacher and one thing he taught her is that he went against the tradition of the times she has no conflicts about that. like hopkins for monday waters and to listen to jackson or ward. >> host: nondisclosure agreements?

are there things you would like to put it into the willie dulcimer book you signed an agreement that no you cannot and you cannot talk about it? >> no. i didn't have any nondisclosure agreements they have editorial control so they can cut out so maybe that = nondisclosure but but i did not sign a piece of paper to say that now i cannot tell the world what he told me not to tell. but in the case of willie nelson he basically did tell everything. but he is a generous guy and a gentleman he did not throw anyone under the bus to easily. by yes with the censorship

has never been an impediment to my work other than the case of aretha franklin and wanted to tell where i felt there is more to the story. >> host: is your stutter and impediment? >> funny that you mention that. the music critic recently did a review of the read the franklin book. in it he did it over my career and in it he said he thought that my stutter helped me gave the sympathy and empathy from the people that i talk to because as a

starter i am more empathetic and vulnerable planned perhaps i am. that in his view it has helped me and i think he might be right. i know i have struggled with it my whole life. someone said a few to escape tell it would make it go away, would you? >> i probably wide. i still think i fantasize about completes fluency but it is meet. and the great thing about

stuttering is that you do have to overcome is a degree to have an interview on national tv to say what the hell. it doesn't look or sound too good but it is me. but it is the emotional obstacle. it is an honest representation of may. with you in this interview i have stuttered much less than i normally do because you have made me comfortable with your five i had another that was more harsh or impatient so i felt you were

comfortable with it so it has not been crazy. were your different person it would have been much more and that would be honest. does that make sense? so in that regard it is a good barometer of what is going on with may. >> host: david ritz if a politician approach gerald to write a policy book or a history book would you take the assignment or what would go into that? >> guest: interesting that you that you mention that one of my fantasies of a ghost writer to be a

political ghostwriter i would love to write presidential speeches. i take have the chops to do it. i the guy could get the obama rhythm down no one has ever offered me a the gig but in answer to your question if i like the politician, i would not do it with a politician that the politics were way off my but if i felt with the point of view and he was up to a good guy would positively to wit. one analogy about the ghost writer is your kind i'd like the attorney in court arguing for your client. what you are arguing for, is

two words. believe me. i will do it and in other words, i worked with musical stars were i have not quite be believed them and it did not work out. the idea to do of book with a politician would be great for cry have done books with sports stars gary sheffield was a baseball player mohammad ali's daughter, she is a boxer. i would love to do a book with a politician. >> host: does your name

get out there once your name is on a book? to somebody see that or how does that snowball? >> i am still hustling i believe in the assault. i will tell you a quick story. when i did my first book for ray charles, i thought i would get a call from eric clapton and paul mccartney i would be set the rest of my life because ray charles was such a mega star. nobody called. nobody called. i learned is i cannot count on the books that i have done to generate more work i have to go out. now i have an agent that i love that is also proactive