book tvs podcast about books. with current nonfiction book releases plus bestseller lists as well as industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find about books on c-span2 or wherever you get your podcasts. >> welcome everybody. we are here for the j anthony lukas ceremony hiring excellence in nonfiction book writing with four awards. on x demon, now faculty member here at columbia journalism school and i'm especially happy to be here because i was back in 1997 i think it was 25 years ago part of the founding crew that set up this program. tony lucas was wonderful

nonfiction writer and reporter. who was not only great at what he did but also cared a lot about the field. this kind of work is not part of mass culture shall we say. but it's a distinct community of people who really care about it and are devoted to it and help and support each other and it was very important to tony to be part of that community. he puts on with me as is sort of deputy a big conference on nonfiction writing. the new york state writers institute in albany back in 91 or 92 telling the truth. at the time of his death he was the president of the authors guild.

he just did as much as he could possibly do, not just for his own work but for other people who do his work. and i think he would be really pleased to see what this program named after him has become. we never got to know mark linton because he had died by the time we started this program. i got to know hiswidow and his children who were here very well . and i gather he was an equally remarkable man but i can't tell you about it from experience and he had a passion for historical writing especially historical writing that was done for people who are historians and people who aren't historians to. and it was just a wonderful l coming together to have the morning lucas family and the

morning linton family find each other in a moment in the late 1990s and fill this program together. it's really been a wonderful experience and produced a bunch of great events. and winners. our partner in this is the nieman foundation at harvard. this event is held alternate years n. it's here on odd-numbered years in cambridge. our partner in running this couldn't be here tonight but i want to thank her and everyone there for the role they have in this program. so i want to just set up the awarding of the awards and then have a discussion.

i should say two other things about this particular price program . one, we are somewhat distinctive among journalism awards and that we're not just operating after the fact . it was very important to tony and to all of us who work on this. to understand, i mean, this would apply to anybody in this room but sometimes you run out of money. and so a little cash and validation and community can be a big help and that this describes our work in progress toward. which is particularly a distinctive feature of the lucas prizes and the other thing is as seen in the event we put on back in 91, tony really liked to have a conversation among nonfiction writers.

in where all nonfiction writers so we can let our hair down a little bit and i don't think i'm the only one we sometimes feels like fiction writers get to be real writers with a w and nonfiction writers are subject matter experts . what should be our policy? that's not how we think of ourselves and so it was important to tony to create a space where we could talk about what it's really like to do this work and do that after we first get awards. first i want to thank the judges of these awards. they do as my kids would say a shift, work. they're not always short books. and it's wonderful that they spent the time to do this out of devotion to nonfiction. the judges who are here i believe and forgive me if

i've left you out are rachel luis snyder, anthony depalma and julia pastore. can you stand up and take about ? [applause] thanks to the board, the lucas prizes and again these are the ones i think are here and if i've let you out i'm sorry to ask you selectively to sit up and take about also. jonathan alter, shake your heart and paul. [applause] we have last years mark linton history prizewinner here with us. ian thomas, can you stand up? [applause] and we have mark linton, i'm sorry, mike linton and lily linton here. they're gone. they were here and we applaud them in their very recent

absence. and the whole family for their ongoing and general support in making these awards possible. we are grateful for their support of the awards and the research grants they give to students and sam friedman's book writing class every year. i think we have students here this year i'm not sure or sure. if so, welcome. now we'll get out the awards. abby, come on out. abby runs most of the prizes here at school and she'll give me a hand presenting the awards.. okay. the j anthony lukas book prize resented to a book length work of oonarrative nonfiction on the topic of american postal or political concern that exemplifies the literary grace to serious research that characterized

the distinguished work of the awards namesake. the prize carries a ar$10,000 honorarium this year's judges , bruce tracy the chair, julia pastore and thomas chatterton williams. this year's winner is author and stjournalist andrea elliott for her book invisible child. i andrea is an investigative reporter for the new york times and recipient of a pulitzer prize. the george award and other honors. most importantly she's a graduate of columbia journalism school. the judges citation reads invisible child is tour de force of reporting and meticulous and unflinching deflection of intergenerational american poverty. andrea elliott's espent eight years following her subject, 11-year-old dasani and her parents and seven siblings. in and out of new york city homelessshelters , welfare

offices and ultimately the pennsylvania boarding school that offers the first fichance of hope. exemplifying the best of the lucas tradition elliott exposes the granular texture of daily life and deep empathy. >> still marked by prejudices and injustices set in motion in the past. as the number of homeless americans continues to rise this is both the demands and deserves our attention. congratulations andrea. [applause]

>> others will join you in a minute. >> this years finalist for the j anthony lucas prizes awarded to for empire of pain. the secret history of the sackler dynasty. she is an author and staff writer at the new yorker. the judges right in their citation empire of pain is a revelatory look inside the rise of one of the most powerful and ruthless dynasties in america . indifference for the consequences of their actions is enabled by the astronomical wealth of purpose she opens which reporting and research and impressive depth, patrick writing weaves a wealth of facts and firsthand interviews and original documents into a harrowing and heartbreaking reading series. empire of pain is a searing

portrait of a massivepublic health crisis . one of the most devastating in recent memory. as well as the ambition greed and insularity of the family at the center patrick be here with us tonight. [applause] mark linton history prizes awarded wannually to a work of history on any subject that best combined intellectual distinction with felicity of expression and carries $10,000 honorary grant. this year's judges were julia keller, anthony depalma and kerry greenridge. this year's winner is author jane requested for surviving katya. stallings alyssa massacre and athe search for truth. jane is a british author and filmmaker of polish origin and is also the author of detail, inventing robert with particular interest in utterly and.

on the cold war in europe. the judge is right in their citation. it is so chilly and brutal abstraction of the phrase masquerade surviving button provides an eloquent and crucial clarification for individuals, those 22,000 a prisoners of war secretly murdered during world war ii and buried in the polish forest. for decades the crime was laying on the nazis. as she traces a quietly masterful breath evidence now proves that stalin personally ordered the massacre. thus her book is part detective story , part historical narrative, part biography of the victims and part moral reckoning a. with urgent relevance to contemporary conflict. congratulations jane. [applause] >>.

>> this years finalist for the mark linton history prize is katie booth the invention of mere miracles, alexander graham bell's quest. katie teaches writing at the university of is for and was raised in that mix and death family. this is her first book. the judges citation reads a complex and profoundly moving historical saga, the invention of miracles is an insightful portrait of the historic extraordinary life of alexander graham bell as well as a retelling of his decades long crusade to teach you with their lips and not hands from relying on bells on paper as well as diving deeply into the archives of the deaf community she focuses on the cultural

impact of bells work with without shying away from the more controversial aspects. bypassing sign language, interpreting deaf genealogy and flirting with the now discredited science of eugenics for distancing himself rifrom his most radical ideas. superbly written and decidedly subjective the invention of miracles provides a challenging portrait of an imperfect genius. he could not be with us tonight. finally, the two anthony lucas work in progress awards and the amount of $25,000 given annually to aid the completion of significant works of nonfiction on the topic of american political or social concern. this year's judges were rachel luis snyder the chair, hall, and david troyer. roxana astoria wins the first awardfor we were once a family .

the murder suicide and system failure of our kids. she's an independent investigative journalist focused on the child protection and criminal legal systems and and a native of las vegas the judges citation reads tracing the devastating story about hard families shocking murder suicide after the children's adoptive mother's wrote the entire family off astoria and moving portrait of lost lives and failed systems but with an ever present lens on pop poverty and racism the investigation eliminates the innumerable ways child welfare agencies fafailed the six young black children and indicts the ways the most vulnerable among us are in peril. binary systems created to protect them congratulations . [applause]

>> okay. the second work in progress award goes to mae young for the life: sex work and love in america.t she is a reporter at vanity fair.her reporting has received the south asian journalists award. judges citations. carefully piecing together the vast mosaic of forces often compel such work in america today y poverty and neglect, races and addiction, discrimination john assesses the ways in which women are punished. her tireless reporting on the chaotic and haphazard world of sex trafficking travels with the very idea of how we

think about sex workers today including not only the stigma around them but also the very idea of what it means culturally, criminally and sociologically to rescue someone. congratulations may. [applause] >> now it's time for our panel discussion which will be led pamela paul was a member of the lucas for. i'm going to leave the space and she's like, read pamela until recently like about a week ago was the editor of the new york times book review which she done for nine years. and she oversaw all the coverage. former arts correspondent for

the economists pamela joined the economists as the children's book editor and is the author of eight books. and now she's just starting a career as an opinion columnists. she's off to a flying start and come on up. idon't go here, go there. thanks everybody. [applause] >> two quick things before we start. one, we're kinot actually going to be talking on my phone but i'm being texted your questions on my phone so that is why i'm not distracted. the second thing i want to say now that i'm allowed to have public opinion that it is my opinion that it yis really good and right that we take a moment to notethat there are four women winners up here . [applause] when i joined the

book review only 11 years ago there was still some of the background of women writing seriousnonfiction . now it's just natural and good. congratulations to everyone here. i just want to start off by asking a really basic question to each of you and i'm going to start, i'm not going to go down in order. i'm going to make it a little bit easier, we're not quite done. tell us about the origin story of your book and project because bi know you started this when you were at the times. >> yes. first of all i want to say i feel incredibly honored to teach this award and i am isitting in this room with mentors of mine in thisroom .

sec friedman whose book class i would like to see succeed when we'retalking about origins . my daughters hair and agent tina and i, okay. thank you for that. so you know, what i would say about it is to kind of summarize it is i have always been drawn to human existence and to the narratives of people more than anythingelse . i have been doing that for a long time when i found my way into this story but it is very ironic, a statistic is what did it.i saw one in five children growing up in america. i thought that was strange and outrageous.

i started working the phones to figure out why this wasn't a bigger story and in a way it wasn't a bigger story because that's part of the reason it was a big story is because it was a stubborn problem andit wasn't going away . we're coming up on half a century after lg lbj declared war on poverty and some games have happened but a lot remains to be done. so just from that many thousands of aboveground jump out of the sky, i wound up landing finally in the life of the sunny after a long birth. and by the time i met her, my typical checklist had gone out the window. i have the checklist, it was demographic tain profiles and it was a smaller family that i am lucky enough, it would have been easier.

all those things just wound up being background noise because when i met her she just grabbed my heart and i felt electrified around her. i felt like these were people whose lives i wanted to know and then what i find usually is if it's not the case for me is going to be the case forthe reader . that was how itall began . i never thought at the time as i wound up spending, speaking of time quickly. how much time to descend reporting the series and at what point did you figure and there's a book here? >> so i really think that writing a book, i'm just going to say this is a little bit like getting married. you have to be very much in

love because you know it's going to be hard and i had fallen in love up till then with the story . i didn't decide to write a book . it just kind of chose me. i don't even remember when the moment was but i remember saying will you be my agent? because this series is running in the paper literally with day to and my phone is ringing off the hook and i think i have a book and you said sure and it quickly became a book. it was in my mind i think as a book before that moment. i think it took possession of me. it's a story that just took possession of me and kept showing me things i didn't know and thought i knew. it really is, look at this. the history i thought i knew and at every turn i felt like it was an education. so many new and important issues so that's what it took as long as it did because i owed it to the story to go in

deeply. >> i'm assuming you went into this knowing this was going to be a book but what was the origin of the project? >> i've lived with this subject for several years and i think the seed was originally planted but in 2010 there was a terrible smolensk aircraft which when the president along with many dictators was on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre and the plane crashed just outside of smolensk setting off echoes which were very powerful. it was at that moment the seed was planted because i realized that none of my british friends knew what it was and had never heard of it . i started thinking about it. i wrote another book wand

stepped away from it and when i was thinking about it again dit took hold of me and she almost has yet to release me. but yes, it's taken up quite a lot of space in my head for a long time. it's taken me on a long journey of research. not with living people but dead people. and actually in a way part of my motivation wwas an active dissension because the victims of 22,000 polish prisoners of war who died just under 400. tend to be treated as faceless martyrs. they're only associated with massacre and i felt i wanted to bring them back as human beings with all their faults and individual personalities. that was the initial motivation .

>> given that there was a low awareness of this event in the uk, did you have to do a lot of persuasion that this should be a book? >> i was in the process of taking speeches and i sent him something else. and then i did that thing that writers do. i don't know if it's just me. i got this idea that the end you say i got a couple of other ideas. at was this little thing the end and emailed back and said i'm not interested in the first one but he was very much find it. one world whose a smaller publisher got behind it and that's how it happened. so actually i personally didn't have to do a lot of persuading.

>> roxana, you started off as andrea did reporting this. when did you decide this should be a book and it was a widely reported story at the time. >> i live in texas and the way i olgot hold of the story it was a breaking news assignment from the oregonians in portland. and i went to find the birth family of three of the kids involved inthe crash . that was a tip i got from portland. i went in there on a day one through three. i was only reporter around. so typically i had done breaking news in report new york with a scrum of people and everyone's always sort of expecting that itwasn't like that at all . i was invited in to their homes and i immediately i

mean, i was pretty overwhelmed with the grief they were experiencing . they heard the news of their children who had been removed from their care a decade prior. that they had to been murdered. so i had actually written three about foster care and 20 six teen or something. so when i was hearing what was going on i was like this is an author care story this is a child welfare story . and like you said, it was a pretty big national story at the time and it felt like there was this dissonance between what i was experiencing with the birth families and what was being reported. which was very focused on the women. very focused on the psychological motivations. it was very true crime and i felt like there was a if not

more important narrative about the systems in place that allowed it and it sort of enabled it to happen. that was not getting looked at. and then also there was this extreme emotional element of this families grief that felt very bold over and i felt like i did a couple breaking news stories and i get a deeper ostory and then i did a story on the other birth family and i was like this isn't done for me. i don't feel finished with it. that's sort of how i said i thinkthis is all one larger story . it needs to be told together. >> i'm not quite yet finishedbut hopefully will soon be . may , our other work in progress. how did you decide to write the book on this subject? >> i was thinking this prize

should be called not quite finished yet award. which i'm very grateful to have one. i have many origin stories but the most distinct one is that i'm a magazine writer and normally after i finished thestory i never want to talk utabout the subject ever again . i have done a few stories about sex work and sex trafficking and these prostitution rates in 2018 and 19. i still had a lot of questions left. which is always a good sign and i geared i'd work for myself and i figured i could afford to take maybe two months off to look into the subject and see if there's anything there. and at the end of this two months a lot of had nothing and was very confused and i actually went up to stacy's house. and i gave myself a week of i'm going to cobbled together some kind of proposal or something. and so i spent the week going on hikes, reading plays

and i did nothing. i came home in distress thing i'd wasted 60 days but what is 60 days and i'm going through my mail and there's a letter from like a women's prison facility and i think reporters do get mail from prison and usually it's like i'm your penpal and that's usually the case but in this case it was a letter with neat handwriting and there was a woman who had read an articlei'd done in vanity fair . about prostitution rate and the only reason why she hadn't described it was because of the she wanted to get this magazine and she'd normally never reads articles but it caught her eye because i'm telling the story terribly but she was in prison for sex trafficking with a minor. some terrible as is often the case when you peel back the layers it's notquite as it seems . that wasthe beginning of it .

i'm going. >> i'm going to ask a question i think we often ask at this event. the first time i came to rithe lucas prize ceremony bob carroll was one of the winners. and we asked for someone asked him about his process and this is where i first learned that he would get dressed and like put on a suit and tie and go to his office and i always thought i don't know, it felt like something to aspire to. but here's the process question for all of you and maybe i'll start with you again. what is your writingprocess , where do you write r? how do you work? do you do those old tiny things likepaper products and pens, what do you do ? >> scrivener, i use prisoner. i read everything, i talkto everyone . just download everything, watch all the things and then everything is done through scrivener. then i created like a document of everything i want

in their and i move it around until it makes sense. >> everyone can name their favorite app. in terms of also when you get up and work, what's your day like? i didn't mean to be nosy here. >> i always lead the most virtuous life. i rise with the sun, i don't know. a complete breakfast, doyoga for four hours . >> i love this question. i have to say. today i was lucky enough to be in new york for a few days. i just found a stationary shop somewhere in greenwich village. i'm obsessed with stationery. not that it plays a part in my process. it does a little bit. i start in the morning, i go

to work upstairs in my house. i start whatever, 9:40 whatever.f i work for scrivener which is a useful app if you're not familiar. it's a useful one for writers . there's a lot of material coming from different sources and i found it helpful looking at things in a non-familiar way. i have to have a coffee. there's like a symbolic coffee that it makes when you work from home, and if you have a family as well it's very important to make a dividing line to your working system and your family. and i shut my door. i have my coffee and then supposedly i start work but you show up.p.you do the work. you do it every day and you wait for inspiration. you don't wait for inspiration, you just get on with it . and i will work all morning depending, it's a different

state, there are different stages to writing. researching, i could do that all day. quite happily. i could research and archive read just disappear down the tunnel, it's wonderful. starting to write is like pulling teeth. it's awful and i would do almost anything to avoid it. it's sort of physically really difficult. w gh>> once you've written about the horrible rough draft and then you're rewriting, redrafting and this version 1.13 something whatever it is. then that becomes equally obsessive but that's my process. >> obviously this is a work of history. does the fact that you have to go deep into the historical records present challenges? in terms of language, in terms of accessibility of the sources. >> it's an interesting one actually because the nature of the subject sort of the

massacre because it was covered up for four decades in eastern europe in the west there was a lot of information about it. so actually most of the information free collapse of communism between 1990 is in london which is where the british government has exiled today and the sikorsky institute there hold enormous quantities of material . as adoes the british library hasextraordinary connections. so i have to do the research . i'm half polish but i was not speaking polish. i still find it hard work. everything was 1990 comes from poland or russia so i have to go to warsaw to research archives there. i mean, there's an awful lot you can get on the internet these days but i wanted to find fresh research so i went back to primary sources so it was a kind of two-pronged

thing but actually an enormous chance for the first part of the research was done in london. >> this is all open now. >> the material about captain was open in the 1990s and has connections to the polish. i don't speak russian so i left it to the polish. again amazingly the british library has astonishing copies of it and i only had to go to poland for very obscure things. but it hasn't found its way into publications yet. >> wroxana i'm going to skip to yoyou to say that if you're notusing scrivener, this will get you over the finish line . what gets you through your research and reporting? >> i got the book deal two weeks before lockdown and

wrthat was the idea i had in my hand. about the process of writing a book is not the way that it went . i have a afive-year-old and we were all at home for a year and a half. so i ended up doing writing tricks. i live in houston and i would go to these guesthouses on the ranch with the cows and the goats and stuff. i would report for a month on whatever chapter i was going to be working on and i would go and just bang it out in four days usually. and that was ... i did it because i literally couldn't get the space i needed to do the deep writing with my kids at home. but then i kind of just love it. it ended up being really, because you could work all

day, work 10 hours and not talk to anyone. so i feel like maybe now i have to spoil myself for future writing projects because it is very nice to write totally alone. >> andrea, what was it like for you? >> as a mom of two children, a single mom and a devoted coparent with my husband i could devote myself entirely to the writing. i very much relate to what you just said and i feel aabout time a certain almost kind of greed. like i'm jealously guarded when i have it. definitely i'm waking up at 5 am and going around the clock and you know, just obsessively trying to squeeze everything i can out of that

solitude because interruptions for me is the enemy of the process. and children love them so much what you insert they interrupt when i had my kids i woke up early. usually i tried to break out two hours of work before they woke up and theytended to wake up because they've grown up, either was three when i started . and that got me into this rhythm of waking up early but i will also say and i llove what you said. it is very early. >> after it for me i could never sleep past six after havingkids. i just rewire my brain forever . i could be hung over, doesn't matter. at 6:00 i'm juwide-awake. it's terrible but it is what s,it is. i love hearing you all speak about your process because i factually think of myself not as a writer but as a reader. i think that the first word

you put on the page are just an invitation to kind of really start. and there so much. it's not one process and it's also not even in the same day as one process so in terms of parting out time i did my project was very much a balancing act. as you could call it that. a strap straddling of real otime events that i didn't have to control over constantly happening that i had to take on top of an which is that the immersion reporting than a deep immersion of writing and they were sometimes in battle. i had to learn to toggle between them so and then i had a very outside it looks like an extremely very very organized process all to the point of ocd but when you go over a the service you see is a complete knot so i was

always trying to figure out where in the piles but i did have alot of systems in place . dand i think i also depend a lot on different mediums. i don't trust my memory so i worked alot with video and audio . the people i wrote about would share those things with me as well. they would take video if i wasn't there so that helped bring the writing alive if i hadn't been around for a while but i think like going back to process there's a morning brain andthere's an afternoon bring . i don't know, i like my early morning and my late evening brain andeverything else is fine . but basically they didn't learn in that period. but there's a lot to say about atprocess. it's a great question read another process question for you. you were writing about a very real person to sonny and her family and they are

continuing to live. their lives are going on . your story is continuing at what point did you sayokay , i need to stop here. this is where the story ends in terms of the book and i need to write. >> i can tell you specifically added on three occasions and all three endings are in the book i bought the book and it with the rings. i don't know, is yes maybe. i don't, i think i knew. finally when i witnessed the final scene that is the end i felt this kind of just whole body. okay, it's time to stop but the relationship with the material, with the people. it's doesn't end. it stays inside. i feel like i have inhabited the story for the rest of my life in a way.

of course it's different once you've released it into the world asa book . for one thing you get to enjoy the responses of people . it's so extraordinary to me that i get to engage with people who are then when she said this. these are people i was on a first name basis with and inside their lives for years and suddenly they feel that intimately a part of a life of the reader is such it's a revelation. but yeah, i'll stop there. >> i want to stay with both of you for a minute because writing with children, but your writing about children and your both writing about at risk children and balancing those very human stories with these larger systemic issues.and i'm interested in getting a sense of how you decide to balance those two big subjects, two very different kinds of storytelling in your work . and i'll start with you.

>> i've been there. iothat's a really good question. i think that my brain thinks of things in a systemic way. possibly. so you know, as i said when i met the birth family at first i said okay, this is definitelya child welfare story . i had learned some reporting skills of how to access information related to the child welfare stories which you know, information can be hard to come by because everything is confidential. that's really into specific cases so that's like a little puzzle for me. and that's sort of the easy part in the way. the hardest part for me was the emotional intensity of

the work. and the witnessing of the grief and feelings which were , which was i felt kind of i would tell my friends i had a part-time job of figuring out how to deal with this kind of work. so for me like, the riindividual stories are very clear because the emotional beats of the stories and of the my sources and experiences felt very intuitive. but it was a lot more difficult to do that work and to do the kind of systemic reporting which you can get angry when you're looking at things that are operating well and that can be, that's sustaining. the digging and the getting mad,that's very sustaining . and it's a different aspect

to go into these sort of emotional, to fit sit and witness and process. people's real grief. >> i'm going to turn to you because you're also talking about a lot of dysfunctional systems and larger issues. in your book explores so many different writers from race to immigration to our attitudes around press and violence l. how do you, can you talk a little bit about how you balance these different issues working into your book? >> all the things you just mentioned. that's why i love the subject. it's the accommodation of some interest as well as topics that we're having a nationalrecognition around . and i think that's also the challenge of the project itself. my organization lost these.

i think of it like chaotic evil. there's a lot going on and they were in the lab and i go down these radicals and occasionally someone pulls me out but yes. what i find super compelling about sex work is that it's not just about sex work but it also happens to be about class and like a theme that's been pouring in one of the instructions is this idea of this has been i think discussed quite a bit now but anti-prostitution legislation often is anti-immigration legislation. it often is anti-woman, anti-poor people and yes. so just the ways in which it is interpreted i find interesting. obviously i think it's upsetting on prominent display during the shooting in atlanta where a bunch of

abortion supporters were shot up. it was interesting the early hours of the event there was a lot of need. and i do think i don't know if there's an enlightenment need to categorize or is just a human thing but there's a lot of desire to figure out you don't know, they die because their asian and you you also right that people can be prostitutes do book, can you explain what you meant by that?? >> that was a revelation that came to me i think in some ways by way of my time in afghanistan. that's where i began my career and what what i was struck by was in a place like afghanistan matters if you are a civilian or a fighting age male or some other category atthat you can live and die by plthem. that was one of my biglessons . and then i come to america

and i realize our society is structured not much differently. the problem with the ways in which sex trafficking and sex work is adjudicated within our legal system is it is incentivizes to identify and it's the only way in which you can get your senses commuted or what have you . that is what is fueling the rhetoric about trafficking being this menace. if you identify sex workers ttas a victim, the manhattan da recently came out saying not going to prosecute women ugly enough if you talk to the a in the office is quite interesting. they call it the bottom problem and what they need is often in the hierarchy of being a or madam or what have you and the second in line is

colloquially called upon and it's often the women is often the bottom who ends up going to prison because she is often the one hewho is grooming, she'snrecruiting, she's out there doing the work of . in this instance the bottom becomes a perpetrator but so often she's also the victim as well. there's just no room for that kind of nuance in the current system. >> i think in contrast to the other authors here you did kind of reporting unique in that you went undercover and went and actually worked in a strip club. in what ways did that experience informed or maybe even change your views on the subject and how you're going about writing the book? >> the experience is still processing and i'm figuring out how to unpack that but i guess i was just struck by

yeah. i'm clearly still processing it but i just one thing i learned is you know, you can have this is like public facing version of yourself that has good politics and your coherent and all of that . but i think sex is this odd place where things become incoherent . and i was just coso forced to be in my body in a way that i think i often maybe i find ways of avoiding that by discourse or whatever but in the end i was like a woman of color and working. those facts are just inescapable in a country that hates women of color. >> jane, your book obviously is about the subject that

happened a long time ago. it's historical but it's impossible not to think about it in terms of contemporary parallels . do you see a connection between the massacre and the current russian invasion of ukraine? or stalin then put in? >> i think they are all inevitable parallels. i try not to hold them to directly. there are some things that you can see. there's a very distinct continuum in the methodology of the manipulations. the use of outright lies and creation of false narratives starts with k vd and continues with the kgb and the posner continuum. and putin was trained in the kgb. he was a kgb colonel and the mentality behind that is incredibly strikingly similar. and you know, often when

people have asked me about why should we care about the massacre which in the general context of the brutality of the 20th century numerically is small. you're talking about 2000 victims, more than all the other crimes and crimes of stalin against his own people. and one of the things that is most worth considering about captain is this long perpetuated lie. over four decades a forced narrative was maintained, completely fake history books, fake monuments.ke erasure of intimidation. so many things that just do strike a chord now and in some ways you could say when you look at for example alexi not only that the methods

have become slightly less effective because they are easier to uncover now. and then just in terms of the things that we're hearing, this is s obviously my view. these are things that have not had time to be evidence and protest. these things we are hearing. levels of brutality and things which we had hoped belonged to the past and i said to somebody earlier one of the reflections that i had , i found it difficult since the invasion i thought about it a lot. i'm not sure i could have written this book now because i think in order to, lots of people are asking ouwhy are you writing about a book about the massacres? it sounds so depressing, why are you focusing on this and for me it was about that kind of act of resurrection, bearing witness and honoring the people who spent so long

trying to uncover the truth. but part of my ability to write about it was dedicated on the fact that for me it was at least to some extent deeply in the past. and just doesn't seem that way now. >> having successfully sk finished the book i wonder if q i could ask you one last question and it's really a question on behalf of mei and roxana for both of you. if you had to give advice to the two authors who are working to complete their book, what would you say? what was most helpful in keeping you going on your respective projects and what was maybe your post-publication self say to the person who is knee-deep in the project? >> a couple quick things first of all trust in the process . that is just about knowing that you know where your book is going better than anyone else.

this leads to the other thing i wish i had learned early on which i think is especially relevant to someone who is midstream. when your midstream you are vulnerable i think more than at thebeginning of the book when it's exciting and new or at the end when you know you're reaching the finish line in the middle you're vulnerable i think to the perceptions of others that's what are they thinking ? the dreaded question you get if you go out. there was probably a two-year stretch where i didn't go out but where you had the words come out. how's your book? you don't even let them finishthat question . because it leads to doubts that are very corrosive to the process and i think what you really want is to never make major reporting or editing decisions mfrom a position of weakness but from a position of strength. that means you're well rested

and feel like you just won a grant and you know what you're doing versus you're desperately trying to figure out how to pay the rent. those are all part of advice to follow but i would tell that to myself again next time. >> i'm sitting here racking my brain. i have no o idea. lastly because i think the ones who are in the process to me that's relatively easier than starting the process of completing it. for me the focus is always the right thing and i'm endlessly chipping away at it. reworking it . i suppose there comes a point where you have to stop. and over to somebody and let them look at and let go i suppose. there is also that thing about the inability to talk about projects to people outside of it. i think is incredibly difficult to talk about something when you're in the middle of it. and trying to find a short,

this is a very practical piece of advice. a very short version of your story that when people go what are you working on you can say without driving them .nsane with boredom i have been able to do that before particularly when you'reobsessed with something and you can't encapsulate it in a couple of sentences . it's elevated to use a filmmaking sort of thing. i wanted wehappened to bump into my neighbor when we were getting on the same bus home and she was sweet and it seemed really genuinely interested and it was a mistake to ask me when i was writing about and i was still we got off the bus. she got off with me and i'm halfway through the story of stalin and these very serious things. it's like very nice to bump into you. >> you did a very good job.

>> practice for fresh air, being able to talk about your book . i could ask all of you so many more questions about the content of your book. writing e process of then but i want to give our audience a chance to ask questions. if there's a microphone right there in the middle if anyone has questions . for our four authors please feel free. >> we've exhausted you. >> resume audience can also send in questions. any questions that come in that way. >> congratulations all of you. thank you pamela, it's been a great conversation. i have a question about navigating your publishing deal. any advice you would have for someone who was interested in

having one or a lessons learned in terms of how did you get one, getting an agent . for any of our students who might be interested in possibly writing a book, just a few bits of advice on that would be great. >> maybe more recent dealmakers should speak first. i don't know. >> sure. as far as advice goes to people who would like to geta deal , you know, i think i really was flying blind for a good portion of it until i found my agent, mackenzie and she helped me a lot with my proposal. i think i wrote. wrace ahead of my book proposal and that was really helpful because it a, i did a

lot of recording beforehand but be, i also realized that it was all one thing in my brain and that helped me a lot i think in pitching the book . i do think your agent is super important in the process. the clearing process and also i think in my experience doing a lot of recording on the front end made getting the deal easier. and also made writing the book easier because i didn't have a sense of where i was going in with it . >> and what roxanna said. i was going to say the most important thing is getting a good agent but that feels a bit like atautology . obviously you need an agent, you need to do the work. there's patrick. but yeah.

writing a few pieces just to see if you even like it is i think a good thing to do just to test it out. i think just having conviction that it's a good story and in some ways fails like external validation of having an agent. that stuff doesn't matter as much i think when you're younger, that stuff is really important and it does help you obviously but if it's really good someone's going to buy it. so just trusting the process and knowing that it's going to come together i think that feels important.>> i would add i don't think the book is something youback into . it's something that you must write. that's what makes it the right project and having a great agent i am so blessed to have tina bennett is not rsjust about having a brilliant

businessperson to help kind coof get you the best deal. it's about early on creating a community around your book which you agent, your editor hopefully fand maybe a couple of very you readers let the work physically from its inception to its final stage. that will shepherd it through and that's, that was absolutely essential to my editor, these were people who for years were kind of holding the lantern for me when otherwise the field would have been completely dark. you're going to make it, you're going to make it. i think but also just knowing that i had to write. i couldn't not write this book. i think that's an important place to start from if you're coming out of jay's school also you have a lot of ballast there. but there's just an enthusiasm that is extremely

important to the process that you know you must read the book. i think that makes for a lot of experience potentially. >> you have to be very prepared. it's important to understand that a project you commit to has to be something that you are prepared to live with for several years . even if you think it's the issue it isn't. a long-term relationship and you have to be so passionate you can't not do it. and also the art of nonfiction writing is dissuading people to be interested in something they didn't know they were goingto be interested in so you have to be able to carry that . i can't the american process. i don't think it's very similar but it was in the process of changing an agent i and agent background as a nonfiction editor and i found that was so helpful on the way because he gave so much to helping put the proposal together. he in editing and is useful

to have another person that you can bounce ideas offthat you trust . >> other questions from our audience. >> i'm emily. i'm a student. thank you all for being here. i have a question about the recording process and how you build your confidence and maintain your confidence throughout your reporting and writing that you are the right person to be tackling whatever subject, specifically when your reporting and writing about a community that you yourself do not belong . >> i'll just jump in and say yes. it is very on point with your call. first of all i always assume i'm the wrong personto write about anything . our job as journalists is to be very very both driven and

ambitious and at the same time insecure aboutour lack of knowledge. where there as students, we are there to learn . that's the thing that i love the most about this job is that i get to learn about all these other worlds . i've been asked before what right do i have to tell the dishonest story and what i would say is that i don't see it as my right. i see it as my duty. it is my duty as a journalist to show up for the most important stories of my time and i think this is one of them. to let her story represents and every journalist of every background should be trying to understand these issues delving into them in some manner. and of course we bring blind spots but it is not our job to stay in our own demographic or other cultural labels just to stay in my

lane means i would only be able to write about other women like me in their 40s from the east coast who have one immigrant parents and one american it would be a limited subject so i think it's in our dna. a lot of us got into this because we're curious. we like to cross these other lanes and go into other e territories . to be surprised by the unknown and eto encounter it . and in encountering it to also be met with the flreflection of our own you know, shortcomings and potentially our own blind t spots and i think it's also about being very open with the people you're writing about. having that conversation, talking about these things for them which i have for many years with her family and it's what's front and center to our process to talk about our differences. and also what we have in common.

>> i want to say i think it's good to question whether you're the right person to tell a story. ithink that's a good part of the process . i think if you don't then you do have i think your blind spots arare may be more obvious to others so it's good for you to say why me? i definitely did a lot. throughout the process. and i think part of it was i was making relationships with my sources and those relationships were deepening and that was, i was feeling their stories were not being told in the way they should be told. in my case the story i told was big national news so i felt like here i am in this

place where i have the ability to tell their story about one is telling that but i also think going, having that back and forth with yourself rsis an exercise in kind of interrogating your own blind spots where you come from. what your perspective is and that's all really important to the work as a whole. >> i don't think we're going to settle the debate of identity politics . because my book is about sex work obviously it's like meditation on consent really. as you mentioned what's really important is getting consent from the subject as well something i'm thinking about is i apologize, i won't be able to remember but aerosol talks about logos,

pathos and what the other one? >> you're very smart. it's not just about lived experience is veryimportant . what's equally important is doing the work, doing the hard work, doing all the research and making a very persuasive argument. when i think about thebook as a project , beyond my scrivener file that's what i'm thinkingabout . being able to do all those three things. and similar to what you've mentioned it's a duty and i think maybe more so for me i think about it as s a privileg . i'm contributing something to this community that's given me this tremendous honor of going into people's lives and if you lead with gratitude iand curiosity , that's a good thing. >> i'm not a journalist so

i'm not sure. >> we are actually out of time. i want to thank all of you for the opportunity to talk to you about your book. and everyone else here on the board and the judges and to urge all of you especially the students who are here or are watching to read these books and to follow these 4 great white writers work thank you all. [applause] >> if you're enjoying american history tv sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of upcoming programs lectures in history, the presidency and more. sign up for the american history tv newsletter today and be sure to watch american history tv every saturday or anytime online.

>>. >> it is my distinct honor to invite our keynote speaker tonight doctor evicted victor david hanson. as the winner of this year's henry and and book price.