and beside me is caitlin rother. rother has written a hoax fiction and nonfiction. a pulitzer prize investigative journalist. rother worked for nearly 20 years for daily newspapers and made scores of tv and radio appearances as a crime expert. her latest book "lost girls" came out last year and she lives in san diego. welcome to all of you. looking forward to a spirited discussion. the format will be i will ask a couple of questions to all the panelists and then i will have a couple of questions for each of the panelists about their works after which we will take some time for questions from all of you who are with us today in the session. so, first i would like to ask all three of you, your genre of nonfiction true crime differs quite a bit from mine and from several other stories of nonfiction. mine is typically called current affairs of sociology, biography being another that comes to mind related to this sort of work you do in a certain way. but current events and current affairs types of approaches have a fair amount in common i think as all nonfiction with the

, from the los angeles times festival of books, a panel discussion featuring deanne stillman, caitlin rother and david mcconnell. it's about an hour. >> welcome to all of you. looking forward to a spirited discussion. the forpat will be i will --le o format will be i will ask a couple questions of all the panelists, and then i will havea a couple questions for each of the panelists about their specific works after which we will take some time for questions from all of you who are with us today in the sessionment so, first i would like to ask all three of you, your genre of nonfiction true crime differs quite a bit from mine and from several other stories of nonfiction. mine is typically called current affairs of sociology, biography being another that comes to mind related to this sort of work you do in a certain way. but current events and current affairs types of approaches have a fair amount in common i think as all nonfiction with the work you do, specifically the work requires a lot of research. and we write about real people, real events and we try to do that in a way that has -- and t

[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you have been watching authors deanne stillman caitlin rother and david mcconnell. we are live on the university of southern california south of downtown los angeles. as you can see it's a picture-perfect southern california day. the chamber of commerce could not have ordered a nicer day. our live coverage continues. over here on our set next to the c-span bus we are joined by beau kilmer who is one of the co-authors of this book, "marijuana legalization" what everyone needs to know. mr. kilmer is with the rand corporation. mr. kilmer if you would start by making an argument for legalizing marijuana and against legalizing marijuana. >> guest: there are a number of arguments that could be made on either side. some folks who want to legalize marijuana aren't happy with the fact that there are 800,000 arrests every year for marijuana possession. they are unhappy that people are being put through the criminal system for a substance that they believe is safer than alcohol and some people argue that if you were to legalize marijuana he would be able t