weekly best selling list is big agenda; president trump's plan to save america. that is a look at the current best selling non-fiction books. some of the authors have or will be appearing on booktv. you can watch them on our website booktv.org. ....

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while she's been on campus for the last few days, lisa has been meeting with students and faculty and sharing her perspective of the executive director of the national book foundation and the former editor of the magaze. i'm re that her conversation with argus script community will inform tonight discussion. i want to tell you that she tweeted today that claremont has been an exceedingly pleasant place [joining her on stage is poet, robin lewis was voyage of the voyage won the national book award in 2015. she has taught at hunter and hampshire college and a provost fellow in poetry and visual studies at the university of southern california. joining them is rachel kushner who was novel the flamethrowers from cuba were both finalists for the national book award. her fiction has a peer to note

harbor in paris review. she was the recipient of the 2015 award of arts and letters. finally, moderating the session tonight is carolyn kellogg. carolyn is the book editor for the los angeles times and the vice president of the board of national book critics circle. if you are a twitter fan you will enjoy your statement : i can make a mean martini at and skateboard but not at the same time. [laughter] i know tonight will be an opportunity to reflect on each of these amazing women think about leadership and the responsibility of art, artists, editors and art administered as to their committees. please welcome them. [applause] good evening. lisa i would like to start with you. you have said that you are in a basket four books. what does that mean.

>> i've never lled myself that but when i started about a year ago immediately there was a lot of visibility around the job and the fact that i was black, that that i was woman, that i was younger than my predecessor had been when they took the job. i think that it was energizing for everyone to sort of see that there was an opening up and change in the national book foundation. i think that because there was so much energy it felt like there was a good opportunity to use the platform that we were receiving. to change the conversation about books. what we do, the primary function of the national book foundation is present the national book award. it's about excellence, excellence, the best books that are published in america. that's not about all books, it's about a specific specific set of books but in order to get people to care about that night in the

middle of november about the 20 bucks that we honor in the four books that when, there has to be a strong and robust and excited generation or population of people who care about books at large. so we have to start by saying you're invited. books are amazing and i think that because i love books and their huge part of my life, and always have been, i'm just blown away by every author that i get to spend time with in this role trying to share some of that enthusiasm remind people that i'm not special but i dislike books. we can all be that person and that it makes my life better and it will make other people's lives better, happier, harder and bigger. it was a good opportunity to say come join me. that turns into ambassador for books. i just believe in them. i don't think they're dying. i think it's actually a

wonderful thriving world full of writers and readers and booksellers and librarians and were doing just fine. i think saying that. >> can you give me a sense -- it's february, what does your look like year look like so far >> i've been traveling around a lot and one of the things is that where the national book foundation. early on i made a jokes that were not the baseball foundation. it means we actually have to show up in mississippi or anyplace that readers are. there's been a lot of travel. the beginning of the year is when i try to convince a lot of very fancy writers too, for very little money and almost no thanks, to read hundreds of books and decide what the national book award is. i'm picking judges. harold goggin braum who is my predecessor called me the other day and asked said this is why i'm a tough person and people

look at me and tell me hell know when i asked them to be a judge for the national book award. [laughter] i'm not done yet. i still have four or five spots to go. that's what is happening now. i'm also thinking about the word and we also do other stuff besides the national book award. we just announced a program were going to be giving away, thanks to very several large publishers, 300,000 books. were getting ready to make a project happen and getting ready for the year. there's all kind of buildup. our audit -- that's my favorite part, every year nonprofits get audited. someone comes to their office and we pay them a lot of money to harass us for a week. they ask for tiny pieces of paper that were surely lost and that's been a part of my 2017. [laughter] let's move on toore fun things for a second. robin and rachel could you tell me what it's like being named a

finalist for the national book award is mark. >> but you won two separate times. can we celebrate our finalist just as much we do our winners my nine -year-old is very unimpressed. he just thanks i lost twice. [laughter] this is a lucky thing. there are a lot of great books that come out every year. i thought it was neat to be in this sudden, small community with four other writers. the first time i read all their books and felt close to them when we got close to where the event i felt like whatever happens this is an unusual moment for me to get this kind of attention and be in a circle with these other writers going

through this thing together and then the second time i was nominated -- i was really happy about it. partly, because because i knew already what it was like. i knew the emphasis was not going to be on whether i won this thing or not but just the luck and good fortune to go and have this experience. i was sitting at the -- they put you at a table with your publisher and then the announce the winner and the bigwigs of the publishing company that i don't know so it's very alien to me but for them it would be important if i won because they can sell a lot of books. when the announce the winner desmet now i'm forgetting, i'm sorry. i'm forgetting who one when i was nominated instead of the frame store. i feel like i should know this. but i don't. >> he's a really great writer.

it was before lisa's time. >> yes, i'm still memorizing all of the finalists. >> i was so happier for him that everyone is looking at me and asking if something's wrong with me. did she have a lobotomy smart i was very happy. i was. it wasn't about winning the thing, it was about going through this pre-rarefied experience and i got got to work twice with harold organ braum who preceded lisa in the job and as i said to her backstage, clearly wanted her to flourish and wants the national book foundation to grow in exactly the kind of ways that it needs to and maybe is ready to, as well. he is the guy who cares deeply about literature, translated poetry and was always ready to have a deep very mindful conversation about literature no

matter where you were. to have those meaningful interactions with people is wonderful. >> what was the question again chris mark. >> since we know a little bit about what the process is, what is it like when you won #. >> in that moment, it was surreal. i love that you just talked about the community that gets formed within the finalist. i was madly in love with everyone that was nominated. terrance hayes, patrick patrick phillips, ross gaye are all friends of mine and even the people in the long list were friends of mine. we were ecstatic. it is nouns in september all the way through to the awards we were just partying on facebook,

twitter, i love you, i love you too, i'm happy, it happy, it was weird. we were being crazy. my book was my debut so they'd do in poetry that he debne. the last time s wasn't winning. i was just happy to be there. i was happy for all my friends. we were just having a big laugh fest. when they call my name -- also, tim was a judge and i've never met him but everyone thought i knew tim because i iran up and hugged him so hard. i was saying this is videotaped and i couldn't say what i wanted to. i was holding him and screaming him what the in his ear over and over again but so, those are sweet anecdotes but truly i'm very much taken by it. shaken in the best possible way.

i understand what it means historically. i have another life as a scholar in the kind of historical moment desmet i was born in compton.to people who came to los angeles for the great migration from new orleans. there is a poem in my book that there was no library in my town when we grew up. it was a book desert. lisa is doing this amazing project with book desert. i loved books and thank god my family were the kind of parents who would within my means you can have anything you want and i wanted books. i always wanted a book and i read a book a day for years. wanda coleman, octavia butler all ose people who are los angeles writers, la was a book desert. in many ways, in some places it still is. winning for me was like winning for those people.

that's what it felt like. before that i was just deeply honored and i still am. i feel incredible amount of love and generosity, and i just want to be of service. can i say one more thing chris mark the question i wanted to answer was the thing that was most shocking to me though and i've been on tour for about a year and a half is how many people are working behind the scenes for love of literature. i had no idea because my first book, right. if i had gone through this i would have. to find out that there are how many people working as editors, publishers, copy editors, fact checkers, just whatever, tens of thousands of them. they blow my mind. i don't even care about writing that much. i do it because i have to, i'm weird that way. i much more impressed with what

is going on behind the scenes in terms of who's getting books out into the world than the actual writing because all that interesting but that's been profound and real life how good people are. >> you are sharing something backstage and i don't know if you want to talk about that smart. >> what was it? >> about needing some big publishing organization. >> yeah, the diversity in the publishing. >> they were discussing how to increase diversity. >> there are a lot of people working on behalf of literature to talk to tie together what you're talking about. to expand the audience for ledger and making sure were stronger and bigger. to back up stay with me, someone was complaining to me that awards keep focusing on the same book and they were focusing on ashley book everybody's reviewing it, everyone is talking about it, what's what's the.of all this attention on one book. how many copies of the

underground railroad have sold? they didn't know. i don't know the number desmet. >> it was nowhere near 1 million bucks. >> there are 368 million americans. we need more people, we need more advocates. when you look at the publishing houses and the fact that they're not really -- while there are tens of thousands of people working on behalf of literature, what if we had black and brown folks, lb gt q folks, more folks rural fark invited into that.so that we could do more for places. we've done a lot with a relatively small amount of passionate advocates and writers. if we could build that network, we would really change the way that reading happens in america.

that starts with inclusivity at the publishing houses. we focus on the writer and the writer doesn't seem exciting.but writers are everything. without them we wouldn't have the books. i don't know that change starts with saying two young people, you should write more. it starts with you should be an editor, layers from all different backgrounds and nurture these writers and you to be a safe harbor at home for all different kinds of writers. when there are a net like that that more people are drawn to being writers. that will change the fabric of what all of it looks like. >> may i jump in and say to that end and i keep arguing, suggesting that when i been on tour for speaking up about diversity and one other way that we don't speak of enough is geographically. i'm so grateful that you're here on the west coast. so grateful for this program. thank you for all of you who put it together.

there's a way that california and the west coast and particularly often the work is set on the west coast. the work is particular to the west coast or different communities within the west coast. the work gets left over quite a bit. it means so much to me, i'm on a mission right now to make the publishing industry more aware of where the work on the west coast. that diversity is important to me to. >> i'm not going to name the publication but there was a magazine from new york that was out in la recently and i went to a party that they threw in one of the publishers spoke to spoke to the audience as if writers that live in la are all screenwriters and work in the film industry. i don't know anyone who works in the film industry.

i thought deep into my acquaintance layer of my reality, i could come up with a name or two but nobody anywhere near the center of my desk and they gave this talk that like you guys out here and every day since then i do this neurotic thing where i open this draft of an email that i have, that i'm writing to the editor of the magazine with statistics like guess what, 40% come from the port of la. guess what chris mark we are the largest manufacturing center in the united states. guess what ? 20 million live in the metropolitan area of los angeles and moreover, we have the highest poverty rate of any big city in america. there are people all over the world here and it's fascinatingly a noble place, very complicated economy and i'm so mad about it. i wrote this draft and then i just save it in the draft.

[laughter] there something in my anger about it. i'm not trying to be self-righteous or moral but there something in my anger that may be symptomatic of the misunderstanding that i see in a broader sense in terms of publishing who is american people are and where the left. i'm dedicated to living in los angeles because i think that desmet i think there are the brutalities speak to me. that's contrasted with the fantasy of it by people in new york. lisa is not among them who think that la is just kind of shallow, glamorous, wealthy white hollywood types. that's all i have to say about that. >> that's extraordinarily arrogant. when we think about the foundation we think about how do

you -- that's where i'm in new york. i love new york. everybody is allowed to love home. but how do you recognize support, uplift and acknowledge literary communities around the country. to make sure the stories of reality of what is happening in those given places is actually told. i think we think about the future of the foundation and part of that is how do we augment the work that all these literary communities are doing. how do we make sure that they have visibility how do we make sure that they have access. i go to libraries all the time desmet i was in i have this gorgeous library and i have all this resources why can i get these authors to come here. how do you encourage national book award that don't live in the west coast to come to the library and talk to the eager and wonderful community that they are to buy their books. and to read their works.

i think that's a lot of new york writers and then there's arrogance they are and we just have to think about how these huge this country is and just like i look at the work that i can do in my budget is us but if i raise money and tell a different story than i can be this much bigger and do work. it's the same with readership. if you assume a bigger audience you are finding more readers. a friend of mine was just scheduling her to her and she's going to kansas city into someplace in texas that wasn't often. [laughter] and all these places. it's really cool. wow, i just said yes when they asked me. all those people are going to buy all those books and those bookstore owners that are doing these events with you are going to be so excited that you're showing up that they're going to promote the hell out of your event and you'll have tons of sell a lot of books and those people will be grateful that you showed up. people want to connect. they want to connect all over the country.

they want to connect in la and appalachia and to new jersey and i never met a single author. it's just important to the work and stop being so snobby. we need to be taught to, homebase and that's a dumb way to frame it because it doesn't make sense. it doesn't make good financial sense for an artist or an organization or a for a publisher. >> or a president. sorry i'm not going there yet. >> i want to ask you about book deserts and this project that you mentioned. i was so excited when i saw this. this is the 300,000 books. when do we get libraries and public housing ? how do we make this happen? >> we've been talking free books. we've been talking a lot about

how do we build new audiences, and how do we reach new readers or potential readers that have not been reached out to. i don't do literacy work. the foundation does not do literacy work. we don't how to teach kids how to read. what we can teach kids is how exciting books are and how fun it is. i got a phone call in the summer from this day of action called read where you are. it's encouraging kids to read in the summer from the former secretary of education, john king. he mentioned that there was a project in the works with hud and with the campaign for reading to think about book desert. all of these areas that don't have bookstores or people aren't using the library and there isn't culture of thinking about books and homewnership of books. he said we have all these organizations that are participating and they been

engaged in the work and doing literacy work in communities but we want something else. we said we are pretty tight relationship with all the publishers. i can try to get some books donated. penguin random house gave us 200,000 books and mcmillan also contributed. i then realize how i have to figure out how to pay to ship these books which i'm still trying to figure out. were going to be distributing these books to 33 different public housing authorities and leave them in the libraries and hopefully kids will pick up library cards at the same time there picking up their books. we have pushed the beginning of the project up because of the election. everyone including the people at hud included that we would continue on with the same staff and secretaries. we pushed it up and were hoping to bring authors into each of the communities, were hoping to enhance all of the programming that happened. will do three invents at the

different sites over the course is of the next year. we'll go back to the publishers and get another round of donations and keep doing it the best of our ability. it's a trifecta or program. lack of equity, poverty, you really need philanthropy, you need glatt government nonprofit and corporate support. it was really interesting model to me and i think that this will make a big change. 300,000 books is books is actually not a joke. some of the libraries that we spoke to said we can't handle as many books as you're trying to send us. this is great because we can add new sites but i do think there hasn't been any scaled book joy work done in public housing. that's really important. we would have jackie woodson,

when we are passing out her book and making that book come alive and make a young person who might look at that book and say why would this be for me why with that gold medallion mean anything to me on the front of the book and actually make it pop and make it feel like jackie grew up in brooklyn and she grew up in a situation that wasn't totally different from mine and she talks to kids all the time and it makes a connection that changes the way a young person encounters a book. then you get to have it and have it in your house and owning a book and having something really nice, not a junk book, we told the publishers that please don't send us your junk books. we actually got less and said a lot of the books back saying were not these to the students. send different titles. this makes a difference. i grew up thinking that books were valuable. when i got a present, it was a book. when when i got a treat it was to go to the bookstore. on some level i responded to that. i love the books.

there was all this input from the other kids that was saying this is valuable. when you get something nice, this is what you get and then you get all these time to sit and read and be alone and live in a different world and it's a good thing. if we can give that to children and families that are not in or whatever reason, location, circumstance, economics that are not easily accessible to the families. it could start to change the game. i don't know that will move the needle alone but the visibility around it -- and we do press about people carrying the book and putting a sticker on the book and if i can make a towards doing something like giving 300,000 books, i can and how people feel about reading and i can do it really big so that everybody sees that this is a valuable effort and put your

time and effort into your community and if everybody does it than these thousands of people who are engaged but make sure the written words is alive then we can really do something. there's a lot of money out there there's a lot of effort, there's a a lot of intelligence and there a lot of need. if i could do anything at the foundation it'll be to lead by example and do what i can do and make the larger.that i need partners.

>> when i was really young and i just loved it. i don't know why i love these particular books so much when i remember the first time that like i felt like the minute i finished one i had to be taken to the bookstore to get another one. i was not happy unless i read through the books. the first time i was an obsessive reader and the first time i felt a deep, deep hunger for the books. and there were others when i liked the fan tam, and the

first time i thought i felt i had a private thing that was my thing and i got to desire these boo books. so, i think that-- >> what was the question. >> do you recall getting a book where, like making an entrance into being a reader rather than a writer to a specific book? >> i don't know. i'm-- i just love listening to lisa. this woman has so much vision and energy, but well, i was just thinking of this book by john steinbeck, "the red pony", anybody read that book in i read a lot of steinbeck when i was young. i thought you were supposed to be a hobo derelict to become an author and i thought-- i read cantory road and thought

that was my literary future. "the red pony", i remember vaguely and read it again this year with my son who was nine and we were in bed together side by side reading and we got to the part-- i'm laughing, but it's not funny, where the ranch hand, billy buck, has made a promise to the little boy jody that he will safely deliver the foal and he's previously broke and promise by allowing the red pony to get caught in a rain storm and sickens and dies and the little boy's next chance to have a pony. and billy buck promises to deliver the foal. and he had a chance to besides

but the foal is breach. a or he could smash the mother and deliver the foal. and had i told my son this was a book i read when i was younger and it was a moral ambiguous situation, i can't remember what he said about it, but it definitely provoked conversation about difficult choices. [laughte [laughter] >> okay. we're all going, oh, we're laughing about the pony. >> let's see, there's three books that stand out for me developmentally, of course, "the black stallion" and 13 books after them. the black stallion and the

black stallion mare and i read all of them and i was convinced i would move to an island and be a horse woman and i'm still trying to get there. let's see, oh, junior high, that was elementary school. junior high, i distinctly remember reading a collection of already rain hemsbury's plays and biography, it was called then to be young, gifted and a title hideous for that book. that book i still have and i just-- that book was so important to me because it was the first time i read a book by a black woman who was unapologetically smart. she didn't hide. i mean, this woman is a genius, was a genius, period. i'm going to give you an anecdote about lorraine, they had an exhibit at brooklyn museum of art and they have her papers.

there was a yellow pad she had and sheet wrote two columns, things i'm bored by and things that excite me and just to let know you, raisin in the son, the play, she wrote things i'm bored by, raisin in the sun. things i'm excited by raisin in the sun. and there's a way in which your own work becomes laborious for you. and what i loved to be "do be young, gifted and black", and the plays she was writing towards the end of her life were brilliant, use of the flowers, and we need to redirect now, and children, it's very-- the children are in a cave and we've blown up the world and they're eating bugs and weeds and that was really impactful for me to read a book like that when i was 13, i don't know how old junior high is anymore and also to watch her, she, you know, she has this line in

raisin in the sun and she talks about it in the book where, if you're going to measure somebody, measure them right, now? you've got to take into account every hill and valley, she says, that you've come through-- they've come through to be where they arrived in front of you. it's a complete manifesto against being judgmental. later in the book she's talking about how, of course, you know, irish, african-americans have basically their saying everybody does, and it's the first time, she goes through the whole thing, jews have the same and goes through the whole thing, for every ethnicity you can think of and in the first time in my reading practice, that i heard somebody turn away from propaganda and waving the flag, you know, for a particular kind of performance in literature, of a particular kind of nationality, and say, no, no, and we're going to go to the vulnerable place and that was--

it's still in my psyche when i write, don't do that, resist the propaganda kind of stand, but the real novel i think changed my life and i was very certain i was going to be a writer, i knew i wanted to write, but in that moment i was like i'm going to write, i ready tony morrison's "tar baby", when i was in high school and read it in one sitting. i'm going to try to tell it quickly, i was at a club, i was 16, all right, my sister had given me her driver's license so i could get into the club bus it was 21 and dancing with this woman and she said are you going to see tony mar son at ucla on friday? and i said, who is he? okay? and she says i'm taking you, i was like okay, and i went with a woman inappropriately ditched school to hear tony morrison at ucla and tony morrison walks in the room and i'll never forget it, whoa, who is she and then

she read and i still advocate that "tar baby" is one of her best novels still. me and cornell are in ka hoots about this, it's an amazing novel and then she read and i was like what is happening, what is happening, speaking writers never could many to your neighborhood, books never came to my neighborhood. can you imagine? and during the q & a, she said-- you guys know "tar baby "s, no, yes, i don't want to be a spoiler. i don't want a spoiler alert. i won't say the end. the ending-- and it, it leaves you in a certain place. and someone asked her how could you do that? and she dps, i wish to write the kind of book you wish to throw against the wall when you're finished. and that reminds me of that. i don't want to leave you like that, it's a closure in the way

that a lot of narrative practices leave you all bundled and perfect and happy and that's the first time i saw an alternative to kind of, you know, abc or whatever, subject, verb, object, a habit that we have in american literature. >> throwing a book against the wall at my house is great love. >> exactly, exactly. >> do it often. >> yeah. >> really good. okay, i want to switch gears. i want to ask about, i follow you on twitter, and you took some really pretty pictures of california, right on. and campus, but you're really political. you have been engaging very much in the discourse around our new president, the women's march, lots of other stuff. >> yeah. >> so, how do you see, is there

for you, it was a very political magazine, what do you see the connection between politics and literature and currently engaging, engaging in 2017? >> i probably shouldn't engage as much as i do on twitter with my personal politics, because there is absolutely 100% a division between the national book foundation and lisa lucas, right? it's an independent, nonprofit organization that i happen to be in charge of. but you know, the person, i mean, i don't know how to separate myself from my work. right? so, a lot of people are readers ap they're paying attention to what i tweet. it feels like, if i weren't saying anything, it would feel completely inauthentic. i don't know what everybody's politics are in the room, but i'm devastated in the place that we're living in so i speak my mind, and i came from a place that was very political.

there's a magazine of art and politics so it's designed to be political. and sort of used to being, sort of pushy about what i was thinking, but i do think that actually, the work that we specifically do at the national book foundation is hugely important. i think. ron: first off, it just seems really clear, like we don't know much about government and how it works. and that makes me want to like give people books so that we know how our government works, because there's so much misinformation. forget about fake news, there's just so much that we don't know and i think when we talk about literature, we also forget to talk about our history books and our artful stories of people's lives. the presidential brieography, i'm a huge fan of, i'm an in presidential biography club and we're reading through chronologically all the president, it's super fun and i totally recommend it. not everyone's cup of tea though, i get.

but, no, i think we have that learn more. i think that there is a real problem about information and i think that arming yourself with a book is really, really important and secondly, i think that having a prolonged engagement with a piece of text is different from watching a film, different from listening to a song, different from listening to somebody from alabama talk about voting r trump on npr. i think a perspective for ten hours, eight hours, however long it takes you to read a novel, you're going to of more empathy for that person's circumstances in life and i think i need to do a better job of reading books about people that are not recognizable to me and i think a lot of other people need to read more book about people like me. one of the things i'm offended by all the time is that there's no such thing as the black middle class. i grew up in teaneck, new jersey, in a cute little house and had a super middle class life and i hope more people have that life, but the fact

that i don't exist exempt for on the cosby show which we can never talk about anymore because he shamed himself, but, you know, it's offensive to me, but there are books that actually illustrate what my childhood might have looked like and i hope that everybody who is sort of listening to donald trump talk about the sad, sad life, might have a life like mine and there is a wide variety of experiences that anyone that is black or brown might experience in this country. and i just think that we get so in our own bubble that we have to find a way out. and i don't think that a movie or a documentary or you know, article is going to do, but i do think that books do it. when you think about, like a novel that you love, that you stayed up all night reading even if it was 20 years ago, you remember the character's name and you remember the teenie details like you do your friends, like you do your

family and that's because you spent a huge amount of time with that story. and so, i that that's the thing that books do. the books allow you to spend a huge amount of time and a huge level of detail, at a huge level of detail with someone who is not you which is why i always tell, and everybody says this, if you're a man, read more women, if you're from the country, read more city books, read something that's different from your life because that's how we learn. we cannot fly everywhere, we cannot be everywhere, we cannot know everyone, we cannot be everything, but books give you this incredible magical opportunity to be of a different community for a few hours. and we are in a moment politically where we can really use spending some time in other people's shoes, and i think the foundation can't really be political, because it's like readers are everywhere and they are everything and they vote for everyone, but what you can do is say here is some information we think might be good for you. here are stories of immigrants.

here are some stories about, you know, people who live in a rural community. here are some history books, artfully done. i'm reading "sex and the constitution, sex wasn't a part of the constitution, parsing how we live our lives in bed was not the intention of the document and it goes through hundreds and hundreds of years of of laws and makes the case, i wonder if somebody who has a totally different perspective might look at the different arguments and even if they don't come out on the other side might think i'm less, less scummy for feeling the way that i feel. and i think that's helpful so i think that's some of the work over the course of the next couple of years that i hope with he can do. i keep shouting on the internet and hope i don't get fired. . >> so, robin, when you write, is politics part of your process? how much is politics embedded

into your poetry? >> i don't think that i really understand what you mean by politics in that context. do you mean am i trying to change the world what i'm writing, thinking out that or am i trying to engage a particular political agenda? >> i guess i mean that i think sometimes people think of writing as a purely creative project that exists in like this very rarified little area the outside world doesn't touch, but your work is engaging with the race agenda. >> come on. well, i guess i don't believe that myth, first of all. i think that all work is political, all art is political, i'm in that camp where even if i'm going to write about that lamp over there, that takes place in a particular historical time and context and the air has a particular history and story

that it possesses at all times. if i'm going to do my job well, i have to write about the historical moment that lamp is on. it doesn't matter what i do, i'm always thinking that way. it's not a conscious thing like i think i have to write about, i just don't. but i think that politics are always with us, while we're brushing our teeth and when we look in the mirror. we've been indoctrinated by historical conte. we're brushing our feet in the moment, it is a political moment, it always is for me. i'm not saying consciously, i'm saying we're alive at the same time together and i forget-- and i forget what haimoud, something happened here ten minutes ago and i was thinking, oh, we don't know how our government runs, i was thinking because they gutted civics in the '80s, right?

and so, you know, i am a teacher and when i remember profounding i was reaching that novel, we were talking, i can't remember right now, he-- a brilliant novel, but i remember looking at my students, going, oh, my god, it's reagan. there was a complete moment where we were just having a conversation, south asian novel class, right? and somehow-- oh, we were talking about the difference between voting in the united states and voting in india where there are so many parties and i don't know, the voting population something like 78% at the time it was and ours is abysmal and so just thinking about that and the students didn't know what in god's name i was talking about in terms of just the structure of voting. and i was like, oh, they didn't have civics and then you have to redo the civic class. you see what i mean, it comes

up for me in these very quiet ways. i guess i should add when lisa was talking about you should read people who are rural should read cities, things like that. partly what i try to do and i have two poems in my book, that book, it's-- and both deal with my family is from louisiana and my family owned slaves, the black side of my family owned slaves and it was a shameful thing to hold in my mind most of my life. now i'm not ashamed and i'm very interested in the ways in which that can be-- all the things that can teach us, but i purposely put those poems at the beginning and end of my book because i wanted to invite us to stop saying not me, not me, not me, not me, and say, yes, me. yes, me, too. and i hope that by modeling that in those poems, say if i can say this, bus it was at the time that confederate flag,

debate, debacle-- not debate, debacle. look, if i can say my black family owned slaves, certainly you can say your white family, did, too. it became an interesting way to have conversations with readers, like this and in events like this, but also through, you know, interviews and what not. so, in that way, my work can be political, but i always say that i'm a poet that's stuck in post colonial body. i would really, really, really like to write about flowers and birds, i would really like to do that. that's why there's so much pastoral on my work, but completely ruptured by the literal and historical, the same as when he went to wall don and he ran into a lot of run away slaves. right? so i don't feel like my work is political necessarily. i feel like the world is

political, and it ruptures my life. >> i feel privileged to be consider yourself not to be political, to be able to forget. i mean, i'm not a writer, but like i got my job-- i'm just a person who works and i got a job and all of a sudden, she's the first african-american woman in the national book foundation. that's not whether i'm political or not, i didn't have a choice. i can either lean into it and use that as a way to further affect change, but i didn't have a choice. if i didn't want to be described that way, i had no option. >> exactly. >> so, that's an interesting question, when you think of it, sometimes you can't avoid it, it's a privilege to say and i think, that women are often boxed in, people of color are often boxed know and it's really hard-- >> rachel, in what way does your work engage politics? >> well, yeah, when robin asked you what you meant by politics,

i was thinking there's a way in ich i don'really separate the two spheres. there's the world of art and the world of politics and too many things to say. i mean, i feel like one of the weird inheritances of like the neo liberal and the 20th century was a thing called humanism where people came to believe that under one umbrella all people shared the same forms of common decency. on a very complicated sort of judeo-christian level it may be true and i'm interested in it, but a more ideological level, i don't think it's true at all that people have common cause and feel the same way and i think maybe there have been like moments and things i've read where the writer sort of wants to believe that like a slave in mississippi feels the

same way when her fabric brushes across her shoulders on a-- whatever on a humid summer night as a white woman in darian, connecticut or something like that. but i don't believe that they feel the same way and i'm sometimes offended by that kind of thing when i read it. i don't want to sound morally righteous which is something i'm also not interested in, i'm someone who is interested in examining herself, and getting up in the morning and asking how i can be a good person, when i go to write i want to and hopefully do consider the sort of warp and weft of my character's class and race and history that they move tloo you and i don't do it as a polemical burden. it seems natural to me that that's what peoplere built of are these conditions that

pressure their lives. so, maybe that does result in something that some people would call political, but i'm also interested in larger political movements which have ended up in both of the novels that i wrote just 'cause it's-- those are like big stories of history, though, you know, if i wanted to like dip in and write a book about the 1970's i was going to write about something bigger than a few people's lives and had more the logic of crowds or mass movements about it. but, yeah, i don't separate the two, i don't think these are political novels so only read them if you're interested in politics. it's more like one thing to me. >> so then, do you think that in this moment that there is a place for novelists, say, to bring some of that knowledge and that-- and this richness of how you describe what the creative work

is that you do, into the public sphere and represent-- oh, because of donald trump and the presidency and all that? is that what you're asking about? >> yeah. >> well, i have very mixed feelings about all that and they change really from moment to moment. but i don't -- like i've been getting these e-mails again, my e-mail, pen america is trying to get writers to speak in unison and others say we have 0 come out as a group and writers resist and all of this stuff and i'm personally ambivalent about it. it's fine for other people, as a method and a tool, but for me i don't speak as a chorus for other people. i seldom agree with them about politics. you know, i hate donald trump, but you know, obama deported 2.5 million people. i don't know, like at what

point do you get up and say something publicly? i just don't know. like i do certain things in my own life to remediate anxious and guilt, i'm involved with prison abolition, a huge component of my life that has nothing to do with writing and maybe that's where i enact that kind of old-fashioned activism urge. maybe at some point i would write like an op hadden ed if the new york times would publish it saying that capitalism implode, for extremes, maybe use my platform for good, i'm not joking. but in the meantime i'm not on social media and i'm kind of shy and don't like, from day-to-day, know what i specifically have to offer other people to like use the publ platform a novelist to say something, so i'm hesitant to do that.

>> lisa and robin, do you guys want to jump in. because i want to know what you think. >> it's funny, the pen e-mails are interesting. i'm not a writer so i don't need to sign my name as a writer. it does seem like, i don't know if writers banding together or literature banding together, making some sort of anti-trump statement is so useful. it seems like a little too fuzzy and there's not an explicit goal of what we want, other than we don't want trump. i think that pen is a free expression organization and so when there are direct challenges to free expression, i think that that is time to activateme activatement, but i-- i think that, you know, like we were talking about earlier, that writing is political, i think that the job right now is to make sure that we're telling the stories that need to be told. that we're supporting the work of the writers who are not making it out into the world. and to make sure that there's

an equitiable environment, you know? and i was joking earlier like people not knowing that a black middle class girl could exist, i think that, you know, people can be very hateful when they don't recognize the humanity of another person, when they're so unfamiliar that they don't need to acknowledge you. mes baldn in a film-- and you talked about a film out right now called "i am not your negro" a documentary using text published by james baldwin. one of the archival videos talking about racism doesn't exist, i don't know you. it's not racism, it's an unfamili unfamiliarity of what i am. and i think the role for me or what i hope from writers is to continue to make everyone that they write about familiar to others so that we have less, less of a-- less of a--

least ease with denying people their basic humanity. and less awareness-- and more awareness of the things truly happening in the world. so, but like standing up together at a march, i get really finicky about marches. and what's the outcome strategy here. if not i'm not marching anywhere for youment i want to know what the desired outcome is on-- . you get stuff done. >> i was yelling at a friend, what are you marching for. >> just the ladies. >> the direct action at the airport, it works. >> it's suddenly-- i was out of town for that and that's something i could march for and i thought the woman's march was amazing because it was an act of solidarity, it was nonpartisan, it was about numbers and it actually achieved a really specific thing. but there's, you know, i think

the protest component of the creative community has yet to come in place, but nea may well come under threat at any minute now, national endowment for the arts and what people don't often know is that some years ago, it's always under threat. neh and nea, when they were making cuts maybe 20 or so years ago, there was a group called lit-net. literature network that banded together for the fellowship in place and that's going to go down when they propose the 2018 budget. so, then there's a moment for writers to band together to preserve the only fellowship that exists for art in america federally funded and then i think the creative, i don't mean to "we" with writers because i'm not a writer, but then i think there's a reason to have direct political conversation. >> i also think it would help

if we could band together for trump's against -- and the first amendment and i want to support journalists and i'm very aware that kind of writing i , if iivedn another country and in a rticular cntryi would be in a lot of trouble, if not in jail. and so, i'm always an advocate for the first amendment and i think it's time right now with regard to writers to really support journalists. at the same time i'm really pissed at journalists right now and have been for a year and a half because i just can't believe the way they did not, so many in the corporate media, did not exercise completely the

rights given to them by the first amendment in the last election, and so, now to be, you know, trying to backpedal and say that these abuses took place, and et cetera, feels way too late for my taste. i'm glad it's finally happening, but even when i watch press conferences, you know, i still think that you know, we tell our students all the time, you're such a privilege position to be a student, now is the time. you know, and i feel that way, too, about journalists, you're completely protected. sure you might lose your job temporarily, but the first amendment, they can't touch you, you know? so i feel like i want to put in terms of writers, and what's happening right now in our country is to support journalists until the nea comes down i'm very aware of that and i've been writing different organizations that i give money to or volunteer work to. i believe in volunteerism very strongly, and so reiterating

that you probably will lose your budget, but if i can help in any way, police call on me. >> you saved it last time. >> huh. >> you saved it last time. >> yeah. >> we are going to take questions from the audience, there's a microphone right here and just come on down and stand at the mic. we'd love to hear from you. >> yes? anybody? . person to come on up. he first yes, sir. >> i would like your viewsn amazon, which in my opinion, probably destroyed the bookstore, but through its kindle, may well have induced more people to read. what are your views on that, if you have any. >> what do you all think about amazon? >> i'll bite. so being a person who does not

sell books, i don't make money from a direct sale of a book, i'm sort of neutral on how people access work. you read a book and you purchase it on amazon, barnes & noble or indy bookstore, a library, i want you to read a book. that's my general professional stance. i do think that amazon puts enormous pressure on the publishers and that, in turn, puts enormous pressure on the authors who are deriving their income from the sales of their books. and if they are not getting good deals, they are not making a living. and i think that when you look at, you know, over the 50 years what it looks like economically to be a writer, it's bleak, the number of people who are able to make their money just from ing work that they do from their vocation.

and so, for whatever role the economy of internet book buying plays in that, i think that, you know, it's a shame. it's a shame. anything that makes it such that authors can't make a living i think is really, really, really hard. i don't know that the kindle has changed the way that we read. i think there have been reports over the past couple of years that remind us that the paper book is alive and well. and that the bookstore, in fact, is not dead. so, more people are reading in paper than they are reading digitally. book stores for the second yooer in a row after a six-year plummet, have had increased returns. they are a $12 billion indust industry. they rose 2.5% this past year. they rose the year before, more people are opening book stores. so, i think, you know, amazon is its own thing and i don't hate amazon, you know, and i

don't hate their bookstore, i went to their bookstore and it was actually lovely, but i believe in the indy and i believe in barnes & noble and people carrying about paper. so i don't think it's as bleak and that's part of what i've spent a lot of time the last year, book stores aren't dead, people are reading, we like paper. we have physical books in our libraries at home. so, i think that the narrative is we got so much bad news and i think, my dad used to say to me like well before, you know, kindles were a thing and everybody telling me you know there's going to be no such thing as a paper back anymore, he's a computer person all the time and i was like no, they're never going to go away and never not going to have books and i was upset because i was a kid and i got the really delightful of experience of showing my dad this article, na, na, boo, boo, you're so wrong! and i think we have to try and

sing the praises of what's happening and i read the stuff from publisher's weekly and publisher's lunch and sort of trade publications that people don't generally see, but one of the things i've tried to do is take a lot of what i know and that you know, and that you guys probably see all the time, and as communique tiff and talking to a reporter who is a the new york times, well, you do a great job, but a lot of other publications do a really poor job of talking about books in an appropriate way and so if i'm talking to one those of those outlets i try to make the case, no, well, let me send you several of the articles i've been reading in the trades actually reporting what's happening with books. i think that amazon presents a channel -- challenge for a lot of different types of businesses and professionals, but again, that idea if we rise and if we sell more books and we cultivate a bigger, more diverse audience, then i think that-- and think about new tax incentives in different cities

and states for opening up a bookstore, bringing down taxes on books, like we don't pay taxes on clothing underneath $100 in new york city. we don't pay taxes on clothing in new jersey at all. what if we provide these economic incentives around books. does that change the way we stop and encourage people to open a bookstore in queens or a remote area they never would have thought because thef' been given, as we're encouraged to buy hud homes for $1 where there's abandoned houses or encouraged as women to open minority businesses, if might change the game. i don't think it's the end of the story, i don't think that amazon is the end of the story. >> i just want it aabout your question, i don't know what the answer is, but i'm realizing part of winning the national book award, what it taught me i did go on tour everywhere and it was an amazing experience to be on tour, while the election was ramping up and to go into

the places where i saw utter depression, economic depression, i mean, talk about book desert. it's like everything desert. i mean, it was really-- that's why i kept saying yes when they'd ask me to go to places i'd never been. so that was really amazing and i learned about the publishing industry and the country. and now that my tour is slowing down and i'm thinking about my work, i realize it's not my job as a writer to think about amazon or a kindle or not. it's not my job. i will do the worst writing ever if i think about the business of writing. my job right now, is to try to forget that you exist, that i exist, that amazon exists, that paper exists, that ink exists. my job is to forget the whole world right now. otherwise i will never find th place that i once lived in when irote my first book. i'll never find it again. and it's been something i've

been trying to figure out and talk to other writers about, how did you get back inside? you know, so i just wanted to offer that because i think it's a conversation we need to have about what writers actually do and need and someone i was at a reading last night, actually, and this guy came up to me afterwards, he was like all the questions were political, i said, yeah, that's okay. he said, no, what about craft? and i was like, thank you. you know? yeah, i'm a big formalist ap that's wonderful so i appreciate your question very much, but as a writer, i don't think it's my-- wrong it would be helpful to my doing work that you might want to read in the future if i thought about the answer too much. >> i also think with the amazon conversation, let's not go down so easy. a little competition. capitalism aside, a little competition never hurt anybody.

any business or industry just can't lay down. no, no, i didn't mean new york, this is a conversation that's had a lot so i'm respondenting and reacting to much of the conversation that's happening, not even just the questions. >> and just one more thing, i have a lot of former lives, one i used to be a theologian of ancient languages and so for me, history is much broader than a lot of people. and so when i think about these kinds of things, i tend to get weird and oh, 1,000 years from now it won't matter. i do, it's serious and i'm sure it's something psychological the pain of my life. aughter] but having said that the book has been a long, long time. let me put it this way, paper and ink have been around a long time and i think what's true about human beings for some

reasons we must create. we don't know why. they're trying to figure it out. in your gol-- neurologists and they're looking at paintings, the earliest we could find. i have faith that human beings will figure is out no matter what. >> we have time for one more question, do we have another question in the audience? >>. >> hi, thank you guys so much for talking today. i had the privilege of hearing lisa lucas talk yesterday, two times, yay! but it's been great to hear the rest of you guys talk and so, as a very ambitious and naive 20-something year old you aspired to one day maybe sit in those seats. my question is, how can i get

there? there? [laughte [laughter] >> she's walking forward. >> i cut her off, and i feel so bad, too. >> i was going to answer the easy question. >> i think she should answer the easy question. >> no, i was only going to share just -- if you look over kind of the pattern of, you know, spikes in modernization over the last, let's say 150 years, like the thing that's changed life the most pour for people has been the advent of the washing machine, women used to spend on hour-- average, excuse me, six hours a day washing clothes for men and children. and that's -- so people who theorize these things and even these kind of crackpot futurists, they do acknowledge that the internet has not

really changed daily life all that much. even though we live in side this narrative. everything is different different and soon we'll be living on-line. it hasn't objectively changed life that much. i don't know anything about the publishing industry or amazon or any of that kind of stuff, but i think that the washing machine changed lives significantly i don't know what kindle is, but maybe it will change someone's life somewhere, but i doubt it will be that kind of magnificent shift in terms of what people do with their time each day. their labor hours. >> and with the extra six hours to sit on the stage, i would suggest read and read and read, and write and write and write. >> i have a quick amazon thing, i don't know anything about that thing and my publisher sent me there once, i felt like i was going to a super max

pris. they don't tell you where they're going or who they ar and or the purpose of meeting. and i said in the elevator, can you turn around they didn't want me to see what floor we were building off at inside the building and they don't have any windows and people don't tell their names and it was a weird experience. but let's go to the question, how do you get there? do you want it take this? >> i was going to say something else. but it's like-- how do you get to be a writer. oh, i know what i was going to say, the other thing about amazon, sorry, then i'll go, no, no, no, it's important-- no, you should have, it's a great question, you should have always, always ask these questions, you can't make a living off poetry, you can say that and i love that about poetry. i love it. because it's just going to-- where is the person who asked the question how do you get there. i love it about poetry because

i hope that i'm never really thinking well, this is going to sell, right? because i'm not. so, it's a really interesting place to be. how do you get there, i think the version is right, you write and write and write and write and you read, more importantly, you read and read and read and read and read and at some point you'll start sending your work out. it's so easy to submit and do it on-line and get your rejections back faster, too. one thing that i try to do, and as i try to get as many rejections as possible. right? you've got to get used to the rejection thing. i have friends, and a fellow i i applied for five years until i get in and i have friends that applied once and said i'll never an n i afly.

it's as normal as air, get rejected and get used to it, but reading is the best, best, best thing, it really is, you can learn everything, i think, about writing if you read very carefully. when i sairead tony morrison's novel "tar baby", when i was in high school, the thing that shook hee in terms of being a writer and i knew i wanted to write all my life since i was your age, your age, is when i read "tar baby", i was paying attention to the language, i wasn't just paying attention to the story, which is profound, speaking about black middle class girls and i felt so validated, but i was paying attention to how she was telling the story. you know, i tell my students all the time, we're going to read the commas in the story, or we're just going to revise the semi colons or just look at the line breaks in this poem, nothing else, rights? and that kind of meticulous, meticulous attention when you're reading will teach you

everything you need to know and then you can start experimenting on your own, fun. it's a fun life, but i don't think you should do it for money, even though for some people, there's good money in writing, you know, but for most of us there isn't any money in wriel writing. you've got to figure tut why you're doing it and it keeps me from striking a match and burning down a building. [laughter] >> seriously. >> so i'm not a writer, but i can talk about just sort of like listening to you guys and a lot of the writers that have been around in my own professional career. one thing you're talking about being a theologian and you're talking prison abolition. living a full life is one of the best things that you can do to be go at anhing that you do. it's being a whole person, i think, makes you better at any kind of creative or cultural life. that's one thing. i think also discipline. it's like some people don't

want to talk about it, it's not just sitting dowrite for three hours, but pay the bill on time or show up at the place you're supposed to be at at 2:15 p.m. it's about being uncomfortable and doing the i think so this you have to do over and over and over again and also, i think, i suspect from, you know, the time that i've spent with both of you, you don't often do things that you don't think feel right. i think in a sense of what feels good for you and making those choices. i've turned down jobs that made ever bit of sense and everybody pressured me to do didn't make sense for me to do. and making those choices based on what i thought was good for me and good for my development and happiness led me to do things only that i cared about and the only way to get myself to do something really well and living and learning and having

experiences. whether you're a writer or you're a cook or an arts administrator, i think that a lot of those things are important in guiding ways to deal with your life. >> also, my goal was never to be sitting in this chair. my goal is to write a good poem, you know? maybe your goal is to write a novel in some way or-- >> i am not sure, i knew i wanted to be a writer, but i didn't know i was capable of writing a novell. and that seemed to be on the other side of a rubicon to me. it wasn't until much later that i'd gone to a writing program and on occasion i would meet a writer, a published author and it seemed they existed in a different world for me, so i don't teach, but when i interact with students i always want to communicate to them i'm

not on the other side, i'm a published author, some of it is luck, i don't know what it is. i wish i would have had more confidence when i was younger to do what i wanted to do and not think that the other people who were getting to do it were getting to do it by virtue of the fact that they were not me, if that makes sense. so, i eventually came upon a subject that i sort of saw as something that would be worthy of a novel and for various reasons, i was the person to write it and so, i just went ahead and got started. at that point i had a couple of people encouraging me which was hopeful, but i didn't always think i'm going to go write big books. now i've written three, only two published and just finished

thnext one i know that this is something i could do because i won't quite. i never think, oh, the problem is the subject i chose or the shape or structure of this book, no, the problem is me if i don't finish it. i'll stay and change myself or find some way through the door to make sure i can finish a book now. so, i guess, that's my narrative about novels, but i just sort of, one thing about being young and wanting to be a writer, maybe i'm out of touch and it doesn't apply. sometimes i worry about younger people think that having an opinion is an achievement. and maybe like-- i'm not on social media, but i look at it once in a while and i know sort of what happens there. and i worry about people thinking that they can sort of define themselves, even if it's just a passing thing for a day, by saying, oh, i'm the kind of person that hates this.

and i would just say, move toward what you love. and try not to define yourself through that kind of negative affect of things that you don't like. because it's-- doesn't, it's not productive, i guess. that's really obvious, but-- >> i think our time is up. and i thank you so much for coming and please join me in thanking robin, rachel and lisa. [applause] three brilliant ladies. thank you. [applause]