important today. in some cases it's very much like we do. they tended to stick to, you know, in the words of joe friday, just the facts, you know? they really believed that conveying, you know, the most important things were important, but it gives you a real idea of what things, what people, what events were important in their daily lives. and that kind of a window is very often a tough thing for historians in particular to get an idea of. and so that's one thing in particular that i think the postcard era really has been able to document in ways that you may not have been able to document eras prior or maybe even since. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to port huron and the many other

destinations on our cities tour, go to c-span.org/citiestour. >> host: dhonielle clayton, what is that button you're wearing? >> guest: we need diverse books. >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: it means we want the publishing industry to have books that actively reflect the children of america. >> host: is there an organization behind that button? >> guest: yes, it is. >> host: what is it? >> guest: it is a nonprofit organization, and we're working on about six programs in order to get at the issue from many different sides. from librarians, booksellers, publishers, editors. we want to try to see if we can create more diverse books so that every child can see themselves in the pages of stories and see themselves as a hero. >> host: and does that need to come from a pool of diverse authors? >> guest: yes. [laughter] so that's part of our mission. we have a mentorship program trying to help authors break into this business which can very much feel nebulous and feel

like a good old boys' club. so we're definitely working on trying to get more writers in, also diversifying publishing with having our internship program. making sure that people who can help consistently come to new york city and work in the trenches of publishing. >> host: what's the reaction from the publish beers? >> guest: they're excited -- publishers. they're excited. we can't get them enough applicants to come. and we're supplementing them, trying to help them be able to survive in new york and do an unpaid internship which is a luxury. so they're very much clamoring for more and more help. so we're trying to make sure we have the funding to do so. >> host: kwame alexander is the author of 21 books -- >> guest: he's busy. [laughter] >> host: and several awards. are you part of this program? >> guest: i'm not a part of the organization officially, but i support the mission. i'm all about creating an industry or recreating an

industry that values the fact that books are mirrors. so we have to sort of be able to see ourselves, understand our identity. and books are windows, and so we have to be able to see outside of ourselves and to become more empathetic and really understand what humanity means. >> host: you're a young adult author, and when you visit with students, when you visit with a book group, what do you hear from them? >> guest: i hear that children are much more advanced than we are as adults. [laughter] like the kids get it. they understand that, you know, they are of value, that they are worthy to each other and not because of labels or not because you look like this. they understand that they're all human. they get it. i have a 7-year-old daughter. she and her friends, they play together, they read together, they live, they breathe, they

laugh, and we as adults are ultimately responsible for whether they continue that into their young adult and adulthood or whether they begin to segregate themselves as we as adults have done. sadly. so, you know, i see that the children are far more advanced socially, culturally, you know, from a familial standpoint than we are. >> host: what are some of the books that you've written? what's -- is there a general theme to the books? >> guest: you know, i was talking to my dad about that, and i've written 21 books. the last six have been for children. from k-12. the last four have had sort of a similar theme and that is how words can be cool. how literature can ultimately transform children and how books are cool. and i write about those things because there was a time in my

life, that middle grade period, where books were uncool. like, i did not like words because my dad was forcing me to read ensilo medias and forced me to -- encyclopedias and forced me to read books. you know, i believe books are like amusement parks, and sometimes you've got to let kids choose the ride. i try to write books that are going to be the cool ride; entertaining but also educational. so i'm going to slide in messages. and in the last three books, the crossover and surf's up which is the new picture book, i'm talking about the joy and the power of reading and that books can be cool. >> host: what is the book of the day program? >> guest: so book of the day is a program that i started in 2006, and the goal was to teach young people how to write and publish be -- publish books. so it was a lofty goal, and so

it began as a high school program. i began teaching 9th-12th graders how to write and publish books in one day with a six-hour, intensive workshop. students were not only writing the poem be, they were coming up with the title, they were designing the cover, ordering the bar code, they were doing all the work under my guidance to publish the book, and 43 schools around the united states completed the program. so you had 43 books that were published by students. and then i had the opportunity to go into a middle school and an elementary school and, of course, i didn't think that was possible. come to find out it was, and over the course of nine years, 76 k-12 schools completed the program, and so you had 5 or 6,000 student authors who had published 76 books. the program has now migrated to a much larger, more accessible and less expensive program that scholastic published with me,

and it's called kwame alexander's page to stage writing workshop, which essentially, book in a day in a kit. >> host: dhonielle clayton, you're also an author. >> guest: yes, i am. >> host: what have you written? >> guest: i wrote a book could tiny, pretty things, and i have my second book in that series coming out in july called shiny be broken pieces, and i have my first fancy -- >> host: what genre is it? >> guest: it's a kind of contemporary thriller. it's like pretty little liars set in a valley boarding school, so lots of drama and intrigue which is, i think, what a lot of teens want to sink their teeth into. so -- >> host: how did we need diverse books start? >> guest: it started here -- >> host: at the publishers' convention. >> guest: publishers convention where it was released this poster and panel of luminaries in children's books.

and it was all white people and mostly white men. and i think there was a cat, fluffy cat. and ellen oh was p be issed -- pissed, and she said, wait a second, there are other people writing books that are equally as successful. and she started e-mailing writer friends and saying we've got to do something about this, we've got to talk about this because it's not okay that it's not equitable. and so she started a hashtag, we need diverse books, and it turned into three days. and then she started talking about, okay, how do we dissect and get at this problem from several different angles, and how do we build a community and a coalition of people to work together in order to change publishing and help publishers do what we need them to do? >> host: and what about the schools? what about the books that are brought to the schools? >> guest: that's a whole -- it's an even bigger process. so we're definitely here launching in the classrooms, trying to make sure every kid is able to get their hands on books

because there is a connection between literacy rates and books in the home and books that children own and have. so we're trying to also answer that call through our different initiatives. >> host: what about parents? >> guest: a lot of parents, that's where we have a lot of our support from. when the hashtag started and people were holding up the banners we need diverse books because, it was a lot of families. parents, kids. they were going to bookstores looking for protagonists that looked like their kids, and they couldn't find them. or they could find two and not a variety. they wanted to are their kid see a superhero, so a lot of parents were clamoring for these books just like libraries are as well. they want to able to give their children books that reflect their family, their traditions, background and also give them something to aspire to. >> host: now, before we started this interview, you were telling a story about kwame be alexander coming to visit a school. what was that story about?

>> guest: yes. he came to visit my school. i was a librarian for several years -- >> host: where? >> guest: in harlem at the harlem village academy. i just left that job, which is so sad. but he came to visit and worked with my eighth graders x he rocked their world, essentially. [laughter] they could not recover for the rest of the day of after mr. alexander left. so he came and visited with them, and they just were in awe of, first of all be, that he could recite so much poetry from, you know, on command. and they just fell in love with him because they loved his book. i mean, i was constantly, constantly putting his book into the hands of my students x. they would devour it in 4 hours and be -- in 24 hours and be like, where's the next one? they were thirsty. they wanted to see themselves, and they just wanted a good story. >> guest: thank you. >> guest: you're welcome. [laughter] >> host: kwame alexander, how did you become a writer? >> guest: how did i become a

writer? so it started with my parents. my parents were my first librarians and teachers. >> host: besides reading the encyclopedias, what else? >> guest: i can't believe that. >> guest: yeah. so that's the foundation. [laughter] but, ultimately, it was girls. [laughter] i don't know, can we talk about that on c-span? >> host: sure, we're c-span. you can talk about that. >> guest: wild. >> guest: it was. it was trying to be able to learn how to communicate with girls. and i wasn't very cool. [laughter] i didn't get cool til very recently. [laughter] and so in college it was literature. i was able to write poetry because i had been immersed in language and literature even though i loathed it as a child, as a middle and high school-aged child. and so i knew be it. and so writing poetry. and so then writing love poems second year at virginia tech,

who becomes a visiting professor but nicki giovanni. i end up taking her advanced poetry class, and i fashioned myself able to take advanced poetry because i had written these corny, cheesy love poems. i took her class for three years. in the classroom, i was able to see her as a model of someone who had accomplished this, this writerly existence, this writerly life as a poet, and i said this is something i think i can do, and here's how you do it because i'm seeing her do it every day. and that's really where it began in earnest, the decision to be a writer. >> host: what's one piece of advice nicki giovanni gave you about your writing? >> guest: say yes. >> guest: oh, wow. >> guest: you have to go through life saying yes. you have to -- we understand that the nos are a part of life. nos are going to happen. that's the way the universe works. but you've got to learn how to

say yes to yourself. you can't define yourself by the nos that happen. and so, for example, the crossover which was rejected by 22 different publishers, that's a lot of nos. well, how do you say yes to yourself in the midst of all that no? and more me it was, well -- for me, it was, well, i believed it was a good book. in fact, i believed it was the best thing i'd ever written. so i'm going to say yes to myself, and i'm going to publish the book myself. because i believe it's worthy. and in the midst of all these nos. and, of course, one week later i get an e-mail from houghton mifflin harcourt saying we loved your book, we want to publish it. but i think you've got to say yes to life. i try and teach that to young people when i go into the schools, and that's what i learned directly from nicki giovanni. to this day, she is the ultimate say yes person. she walks through the door,

figures out what's happening and makes it work. >> host: how well has the crossover sold? >> guest: well -- [laughter] that's a great question. it's sold pretty well. it's -- yeah. [laughter] you know, the -- >> host: did houghton get their investment back? >> guest: ing i think so. >> host: okay. [laughter] >> guest: i think so. they allowed, they ghei me the opportunity to publish be -- they gave me the opportunity to publish another book which came out in april. it's called book. so i guess it sold pretty well. we're still working together. and i was able to sort of purchase some more chuck taylors. [laughter] which are pretty expensive in size 15. [laughter] >> guest: 15? >> guest: 15. >> guest: oh, my goodness. >> guest: my father, you've got to talk to him. >> host: okay, i know he watches book tv, and you've mentioned him three times, so we got dad worked in here now. >> guest: three was the number.

[laughter] >> host: dhonielle clayton -- >> guest: yes. >> host: what turned you into a writer? >> guest: i got into the game late. i was a reader, a bookworm. so my dad took me to the bookstore every saturday morning. back when crown books existed, we went every saturday morning to that and to the comic bookstore. i was a big nerd. my dad was a big reader, and i just didn't like what i was reading in college. i was sick of reading old dead men. so i started -- >> host: was it old dead white men? >> guest: yes, it was. >> host: okay. you can say that. >> guest: i got really tired of that, so i returned to when i was reading the most which was my middle grade years. i started reading harriet the spy and wrinkle in time and virginia hamilton, the things that really made me fall in love with reading. and then i wanted to get my master's in children's literature. i thought i was just going to be a scholar, that i was just going to teach about this and write

about these things. and then i studied the canon, and i realized it was missing and i never got to see myself, a young kid in the suburbs riding horses, playing golf, going down south to mississippi every summer -- >> host: who happened to be african-american. >> guest: exactly. and i never saw that. so then i started writing because i was forced the take a graduate class in writing as part of my requirements. and my first writing teacher, she said you need to be a writer. you need to be writing, it's more important. and she turned me into a writer. she forced me to keep writing over and over again. so then i moved to new york because that's what you're told to do, and i got another degree. i got a master's in fine arts writing for children at the new school or and really tried to learn the business and realized, oh, this is a lot of rewriting, and there's a lot of, you know, trying to figure out that game is based on relationships too and how you're perceived. to then i really started

writing -- so then i really started writing a lot and launched a packaging company because i realized i wasn't going to be able to write all the stories that i felt like students, my students -- i was working as a librarian in the time -- needed to see. the ones they came into the library asking for. they wanted ten of kwame's books. if i could have begin them ten of them back to back, just right there, even twenty, they would have just devoured them and wanted more and more and more. so i became a writer out of -- because i was told to, essentially. [laughter] and because i didn't see myself as a kid. >> host: do you enjoy it? >> guest: it's painful, but i love it. [laughter] it is painful. >> host: do you write every day. >> >> guest: i wish. i wish i did. my creative muscle doesn't work that way. sometimes i'm a week on and a week off -- >> host: morning, evening? >> guest: usually the morning. intensive writing a week on x then i take a week off to, you know, consume media. [laughter] and to revive. so i have to kind of go back and

forth. >> host: what's your pattern, kwame alexander? >> guest: i write -- i travel a lot, so i don't have the luxury that i have when i wrote the crossover to write five hours a day for five years. so i write on airplanes and in hotels. >> guest: wow. >> guest: but i spend a great deal of my time writing in my head. so i'm coming up with beginnings and middles and ends and plot twists and characters and titles in my head. and that can be -- i can do a couple weeks, couple months and in some instances a year of that before i actually put pen to paper. >> host: do you enjoy the process? >> guest: i absolutely love it. i love my job. >> host: can your 7-year-old daughter see herself in your work? >> guest: great question. >> guest: can she see herself in what? >> host: in your work. >> guest: sure, sure. as can seventh graders at

granger middle school in aurora, illinois, as can the kids at harlem village academy, as can the kids in singapore that i visited this summer. the ideas that are experiences -- and the kids get it, again. if they're authentic, honest and real, the kids are cool with it. it's them. they get it. i think the more exciting question for me is, or the more exciting answer is my daughter sees herself in her work. and so encouraging and empowering kids to not wait on someone else to define you for you, define yourself for yourself. that's why the writing is so important, because it allows you to find your voice, and that empowers you. >> host: kwame alexander, author, founder of book in a day program. dhonielle clayton, author and chief operating officer of we need diverse books. thanks more being on booktv. >> guest: thank you for having me. >> guest: thank you.

>> booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. here are some featured programs this weekend. tonight at 10 p.m. eastern on "after words," "wall street journal" political columnist kimberly strassel argues that the left is utilizing tactics to usurp the political process in her book, "the intimidation game: how the left is silencing free speech." she's joined in conversation by jenny thomas, contributor to the daily caller news foundation. >> government abuse is largely one-sided. and i think there's a couple of reasons for that. look, when i started this, i care about free speech and the first amendment. i'm a bit of a libertarian when it comes to this. i don't think, you know, i have no allegiance to one party or the other. and i went into this, i'd written a lot about abuses on the left for my column in the "wall street journal," but i assumed going in that i was going to find a whole wunsch of stuff -- bunch of tough on right too. i didn't want. >> host: on sunday, in depth

with jeffrey toobin. we'll take your calls, texts and e-mail questions. he'll be discussing his latest book, "american heiress: the wild saga of kid napping, crimes and fall of patty hearst." mr. toobin is also the author of several other books including "the run of his life," and "opening arguments, a young lawyer's first case." join in the conversation with your phone calls and betweens beginning at noon eastern on c-span2. then at seven eastern, dinesh d'souza looks at the impact a hillary clinton presidency would have on america in his book, "hillary's america: the secret history of the democratic

party." go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. >> so science, as i said a moment ago, is really the great equalizer. it is the one thing that stands between, say, two brothers with as much power as these two brothers have, charles and david koch, and two brothers that have as much as these two have, my nephews in chicago. now, in theory, these two sets of brothers in the united states should have the same access to justice, the same access to, potentially, to education or to employment. at least to voting. and science is the one equalizer that neutralizes the vast size of the megaphone of brothers on the left side of the screen and provides an opportunity to the brothers on the right.

this is based in some core ideas that really date back to the very, very founding of the united states. thomas jefferson said wherever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government. and there is really the crux of some of the problem that we're running into. you have ever been down to the library of congress, you will have seen probably thomas jefferson's library that's recreated there. nice round space, round bookcases which contained virtually the entirety of human knowledge at the time. and he had read all of those books and contained that in his mind. he was a scientist and an attorney, sort of like francis bacon was. and that was a possible idea back then, the well-informed voter. but what happens now nearly a quarter century -- nearly a quarter millennia later when science has continued to advance, and it's not at all possible for one person to know

even a fraction of all that there is to know? how do we have well-informed voters that are able to govern themselves successfully in the in a democracy in the age dominated by complex science and technology? that's the rub that we're bumping up against. well, in order to come up with this idea for democracy, to caron convince other enlightenment nations to not intercede in the revolutionary war, jefferson reached for the greatest thinking of what he called his trinity of three greatest men to come up with an argument that would convince them to stay out. he went to the thinking of isaac newton, inventer at the time of physics, who said a man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true. and this is part of where we're getting into trouble today. becauseif you take out your cell phone and turn it over and unscrew the phillips screws that are -- wait a minute, there are no phillips screws on back.

it's hard to have know-how, it's hard to understand things that are true when science and technology have become so complex that it's difficult for the average person to break them down. a generation ago you could sit down at your kitchen table, and you could buy a kit, and you could make a radio. that's no longer true with cell phones. so at the moment that cell phones -- which like flying brooms are made by people cloistered away wearing long robes and uttering strange incantations, right? -- at the moment science becomes indistinguishable from magic, we become vulnerable to disinformation be campaigns. was science by its very nature must become, in a way, a function of belief x. it's what to you believe this. scientists choose to believe in journals and the peer review process. but even to those are vulnerable as we've seen lately from

certain for-profit journals and journals for hire. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here is a look at some authors recently featured on booktv's "after words." erin fehr discussed his time in -- eric fehr discussed his time in iraq working as an interrogator for a private military contractor. karen greenberg took a critical look at the legal ramifications of the steps taken by the justice department to combat terrorism since september 11th. and republican congressman darrell issa discussed his time as chair of the oversight and government reform committee. in the coming weeks on "after words," syndicated radio host dana lash will contend that the united states is dividing itself into two countries, coastal america and flyover america. blitzer or prize-winning author seymour hirsh will discuss covert operations that have

taken place during the obama administration. also coming up, ann coulter will make her case for supporting donald trump for president x. this weekend "wall street journal" columnist kimberly strassel argues that the political left is using scare tactics to silence conservative peach. >> but what you have are these bureaucracies, and they are preprogrammed to dislike republicans. you know, they kind of come to government all coming out of sometimes the same universities with the same viewpoints on things. and so when they hear the dog whistle, when they hear the president of the united states say these nonprofits are scary things or when they're up in wisconsin and they see a prosecutor working on a case against a campaign finance violation supposedly by conservatives, they're primed to act. they're already ready and inclined to do it. and i think that's how you end up with only of these abuses. they're not always out and out intentional, but