david lives in new york city and beside david is deanne stillman and deanne wrote "desert reckoning" based on stones peace. that book won the 2013 spur award for best contemporary nonfiction. her previous book, mustang with l.a. times best book of 2008 and won the california book awards silver medal for nonfiction. her book twentynine palms was an l.a. times best book 2001 and it has just been reissued and she lives in l.a.. 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

." >> next, 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 t

deanne davis, georgia. do not let clinton off the hook. you are our voice.ake that seriously, which is why we have thoroughly reported the libyan debalkle and why we're asking serious questions about the president's definition of the terrorist attack. russell, michigan. you were wondering why the president won't call the attack in boston an act of jihad. it's because he's scared. he's afraid of provoking further attacks. is that a fact, russell, or your opinion? can't be a fact because there is no evidence to back it up. but your opinion is valid. you have a perfect right to state what you think. dan johnson, mississippi. as a retired civilian army employee, i can tell you early in the president's first term we were directed to replace the global war on terrorism with overseas contingency operations. said, thailand, you read a letter from a lady in jerusalem to the effect that muslims were evasive. someone had written the same letter about jews. you have not read it. you must be working with the psychic, miss cleo. if a jewish guest was evasive, as was the m

[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

deann suggested i say the country has 99 problems, but jay-z isn't one.ists to go to cuba. and good for cuban artists to come here. i think the right wing attacking jay-z for this is silly. >> and the treasury department has to sign off on these visits. a lot of americans go as tourists to cuba. do you have a problem with any of this? >> i frankly have a problem with the way he's reacted to it. look, wolf, havana is no atlanta. cuba's not cancun. it's not disneyland, it's not st. part's. it is an island 90 miles from the coast of florida and the people are living under a dictator ship that has lasted 54 years. i live here in miami. i am not a cuban-american, but i can tell you that i've lived and grown up around cuban-americans. there are so many people in this community who are direct victims, people who have been in jail 20 years, 25, 28 years as political prisoners in cuba. i have friends in this community who are the children of people that were executed in firing squads by the castro regime. so what you see these people doing is representing those pe