rd in the nation for basketball. we know it, millers on top. - no, we (indistinct) every single- (aaliyah laughing) uh, back up, too small, too small. oh. - i said i'm aaliyah's bestie. - there you go. - how about both of y'all? watch, i'm about to cover both of y'all. (aaliyah hollering) oh, god. (upbeat music) hello and on behalf of the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to "mosaic", we begin with two quotations, one from

the italian catholic priest of the late 19th century who worked with poor children, he said this, only god knows the good that can come about from reading one good catholic book. the other quotation from st. jerome the priest and scholar who translated the bible into latin in the fourth century. he said when we pray we speak to god, but when we read god speaks to us. that pair of wise sayings makes a good introduction to the topic today of catholic publishing, as guests we have two people who work in this fascinating world here in our city, san francisco is home to a highly respected publishing house, founded 40 years ago it has grown into one of the largest religious publishers in the country with a vast catalog of books and other modes of catholic communication. we will tape a brief break and join us

afterwards to learn more about catholic reading and writing. with ignatius press. >> when you put positivity out, it does multiply. >> you get stronger.

hello, welcome to "mosaic" and want to introduce our guests today, these women work at ignatius press a san francisco company founded 40 years ago. vivian to my left

and beyond her marianna. vivian you are a senior editor and mariana a marketing assistant. they say publishing is dying, maybe it isn't, you are living proof that publishing is doing well, i think. why don't you tell us a little about yourself and what you do at this company. >> aware couple of hats, i am a developmental editor which means books that need a little bit of help, i try to help and i review copy editing and proofreading done by other editors and help to move books through the production process. then we have a acquisitions team and i serve on that and we review manuscripts to see which ones we would like to publish. >> these manuscripts come from? >> all over, writers submit them unsolicited, other publishers send us works in

other languages and see if we want to do english edition and some people send books and say bring this back to print. >> there is busy traffic with a large cohort of people interested in what you are doing. interesting. you are the marketing assistant? marketing, i imagine is kind of a challenge in this day with so many products competing for attention. >> yes, getting attention for your product is a challenge as well as dealing with how quickly marketing changes with technology, constantly something new. in the catholic world, we may be do not keep up as quickly with everybody else, so you can be a little bit slower on the uptake which is nice, but we are on facebook, facebook live videos, everything we can do to reach the audience. >> if somebody goes to your

website, there is an endless catalog of things, books and other products. tell me about some of those. >> as you said, a wide range of things, everything from scholarly works done by theologians , to popular works , conversion stories. we even publish novels. we have a children's department, children's books from toddlers to teens. we have catechism that we sell mostly to schools. it is a big range of products. >> also you have video products right? musical cds and movies? >> yes, we don't produce these so much as license to sell them, but we have helped some upcoming moviemakers with money

to get their projects started , so yes we have quite a library now of film products. >> your office is in san francisco. >> yes, the main office is san francisco, but we have private contractors who work with the company all over the country and our printer and type setters are in other states. >> what is the word on print publishing? what's the arc of its progress? upward with more books, fewer books? >> there has been a contraction in the publishing industry, publishing houses have downsized, outsourced, and of course we know bookstores are closing. so, then again, amazon continues to steam ahead selling books by the millions. they sell in a number of our books so i think it is a mixed

bag. on one hand people are obtaining information by a lot of other digital means, the internet, on their phones , but by the same token there is nostalgia for books, used bookstores are popping up. hipsters hang out in used bookstores reading real books. so i think the jury is still out on what's going to happen. >> interesting because i think the layperson is well aware local barnes & noble's close and you are looking online for books. if you ride the train to work 10 or 15 years ago everybody had a paperback book, now everybody has their face in a mobile device. you wonder what they are doing, how many people are reading? >> who can tell and then again printed books were not always worth reading. interestingly enough studies show the eye

strain of reading electronic devices and the retention of what one has read off of electronic device, books have a certain superiority. so maybe people will return to books. even for the reasons of their not driving my eyes crazy. >> you are young and i imagine you are of the digital generation, do you prefer a book in your hand? >> i do. and a number of my friends mentioned they switched from electronic readers to physical books because they would not remember what they read and sales show there has been a decline in electronic book sales with the upward trend of physical book sales more recently.'s it shows people who do read , may be reading goes down in general but people read books are going back to physical books. >> very interesting. there are

stores like half-price books who sell used books. there is a large market developing. you would know far better than i and that would reassure me because i like books and i don't have a kindle. i imagine your products are available in digital format. >> they are, most of the new titles and we are trying to get back to digital format. >> when we come back we will talk about your backlist which is enormous and some of your other products than what it's like to join and work in this business . please join us after this brief break .

hello again we are back

talking with representatives from ignatius press our local catholic publisher and internationally known. let me ask you. about beginnings. the 40th anniversary will be celebrated soon and how did it start? >> started by father joseph , a jesuit from san francisco and he studied in europe under then joseph who became pope benedict the 16th. he also studied in france and in switzerland. these three really make up a huge formidable presence in 20th century catholic theology. >> this is after the second vatican council? this training in the 60s. >> and in fact, these men, they

were big participants in the council, so some people refer to them as reactionaries or something like this, no. these men were progressive in theology 20th century theology. in any case father received quite the education. for these men and returned to the states and wanted to make their works available in english because many of them had never been translated into english and that was the reason he started ignatius press. >> yes and of course ignatius is the founder of the jesuit order. he began here in san francisco and he wanted to publish scholar books, theological's. >> yes, he wanted to get theological works into the hands of people studying theology here, but not long after starting he realized it needed to be broadened to try to even sell the works he was

printing, he needed help so he hired tony ryan as a marketing director and quickly ignatius press started expanding into other genres and has grown tremendously ever since. >> there has been a great response to what you offer and you have the most clients individuals and you have some institutional clients. parishes and schools. >> particularly for catechism books. for example the u cat is catechism for younger people. a real hit. young adults are discovering it, too. >> this is a product you will market to young adults? >> usually popular with the youth released in 2012 or 2010 in madrid and since then it has taken off. using it and all

kinds of youth ministry. it was created for youth to have a catechism more accessible, but really it's for anyone at any age and it refers back to the full catechism so you can read in brief. >> glancing at the catalog i noticed there was a nice blurb from the archbishop who says it's a good piece and you should get it. >> we just released the bible which is leveraged for youth and has notes as well. >> ignatius will print bibles, you have your own versions of study bibles. >> the bible is still the number one international best-selling book so that's a perennial favorite. >> let me ask about the youth market. you must be attuned to that so are young people doing the kind of reading that you think they should be, are they

having the kind of catholic education that would seem beneficial? what's the story? >> i recently read millennial's have probably read more words than any generation but their words from headlines or posts. so i think in terms of reading full books it has declined a lot since the past years. the attention span is not there. so unfortunately i think we are not reading the way we should in general as a society, not just youth. we pass on habits to the youth so we are trying to reach them. it is a challenge. they are on all sorts of media that moves quickly so to keep up with them and their different media is quite difficult. i have been into the religious education congress in los angeles. a lot of youth are there. whether they are involved are just

there for education and they do stop by and they know about our books and they are looking for books so we are reaching them in some way. >> your job is finding and developing and bringing to market, the books that you want to sell so do you notice a decline in quality or a decline in the quality of reading ? are people able to read and read deeply as they have been or is there some superficial loss of skill in reading? >> there have been a lot of studies on literacy in america over the decades and it absent flows, literacy when way up during world war ii because american gis were taught to read as part of their training. not that you do a lot of reading in the foxhole , but you have to be able to read explanations but in any case, now we're sort of in a ab

period. educators are trying to teach children to read, still encouraging parents to read to their children, that's the number one way to help, to read out loud to your children and educators encourage this. so you know who is to say where it will end? >> you have products children can read themselves. >> yes we partnered with, maybe some of your audience is familiar with the little book published with readings for the day and so on. we have been partnering with them to publish gorgeous children's books for young children originally produced in france and very popular there. these are books that young people do not buy for themselves. these are bought by parents and

grandparents and people are still encouraging people to read. >> definitely. i have a grandson and we do that, i will write little books for him and then i leave pages for him to write his own words in. thank you for that, we will be back after this week pray for our final session of "mosaic" with ignatius press.

hello and welcome back to "mosaic". going through the

latest issue of your spring reminder catalog , not even the whole catalog, but interesting books of every kind. i want to ask you to mention two or three writers or authors that might be your favorites. >> in the upcoming catalog or in general? >> all-time favorites. >> i am very happy we introduced sally reed, night bright darkness is her memoir. she is a published poet , from england and it is a beautifully written memoir of her conversion story, basically. because she is a poet, she writes beautifully. anything by peter craved is a sure winner and we have things this season by him, lately he has been taking works of classic christian literature. and then

kind of condensing them and explaining. he is brilliant. >> he really is, very good. retired professor from boston college. >> i don't even think he retired, but he is 80. >> you mentioned joseph. >> of course, the reason for the season. the guy father wanted to publish initially and anything by him will be deeply moving and good for anyone's faith. >> many of his works including. >> now he is not really a popular author, he is pretty dense, not trying to discourage anybody from reading him but he is a musician, cultured and educated, maybe the most cultured men in europe of the

20th century. anything by him is beautiful and challenging. >> current writers, michael o'brien the best known in the country? >> we have a huge fan base for michael o'brien, will be the best known novelist . he is a painter, he writes visually and vividly and tries to write about religious experience which is hard to find in fiction. describing what religious experience is like. very popular, translated into more than 30 languages. so he is one of our favorites. >> some unique offerings. what about you? a couple favorites? >> i really enjoyed sally reed conversion story and jennifer's. both converting from atheism but they have different ways of telling their stories. jennifer's book is

something, other than god. i have been reading, last year's sneaky bestseller the book god or nothing. basically an interview book with him about his life and insights on spirituality. >> who is the cardinal? african and the head of the vatican department? >> divine worship. >> one of the first books i have written in the front cover notes, this section or these pages on poverty, because he has amazing insights and his new book is available the power of silence against the dictatorship of noise which is a really relevant title. where we don't just create space. per silence. >> there is noise and distraction, advertising endlessly. >> always looking at something, scrolling, trying to keep our mind busy and numb at the same

time. i think his book is appropriate. a huge bestseller. >> it was sold out before the first, the first print run was sold out before making it to distribution. amazon bought almost the entire print run so we had to reprint. >> a surprise the seller. a black cardinal from africa writing, a critique of the modern era? surprising that would be a bestseller. >> letting people crave silence and , they know they need it, they don't know how to find it because we are bombarded with stimulation all around us and people feel they need to get grounded. look at the popularity of zen meditation and things like this. there is a spiritual hunger. >> you have many unique offerings, but in your catalog you have three or four pages of

books and other materials devoted to the current marion year. from the apparitions and other things. i understand ignatius press staff went on a pilgrimage and you are just back last week? that is amazing. >> yes, it was really great, i worked on some books on the subjects and it was great to go to the places where these events occurred and i think most of us had some stirring spiritual experiences along the way. as we know, pope francis had just been there , for the two children and there were 2 million people there just before we got there. >> three busloads of ignatius press people. very interesting. i want to thank you for being with us. we do not get to know much about you personally, but i know you are you may -- wife

and mother and you are a wife soon to be a mother. educated working catholic women, a convert a cradle catholic? so let me close by quoting our sinks from the past. as st. john bosco who worked with inner-city youth asset, who knows how much good can come from reading one good catholic book. thank you for putting out hundreds, if not thousands. thank you for joining us on "mosaic". we will see you next time.

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