jesmond was the first member of her family to attend college.went on to stanford and writes about the community she came from. one of the things i found most moving is at the national book awards ceremony this year when she accepted her award, she said she had been very discouraged first by publishers who said they didn't think readers would be interested in reading about the kinds of people she wanted to write about. turns out she was wrong heavily on that point because readers have, in fact, been -- >> brown: yeah, because in this particular book, i'm cheating, because i got to read it months ago before a visit to the small town in mississippi. i want to show a clip of the interview we aired. news is jesmond ward talking a little bit about, in this book, turning to writing about the supernatural which was new for her and how it made her think about writing a little differently. let's take a look at that. >> most of my fiction is pretty realistic, right, and, so, here i was, you know, introducing the supernatural, introducing like the magical i