you'll probably recognize the voices of both of our guests tonight but our host is laura ziegler, a national npr reporter covering the midwest. currently she's producer and community engagement reporter as kansas city affiliate kcur. laura, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> you're welcome. good to be here. >> and i'm jumping in now, i guess. i'm delighted to be here and introduced you to pam fessler, who is an award-winning journalist at npr. she's covered poverty and election issues, voter issues for many years. now in the tradition of npr journalists who you recognize as excellent storytellers, podcasts and online, she's proven the ability to translate that ability to tell stories on the radio, to the platform of the printed word and, of course, a book. her new book "car ville's fear, leprosy, stigma and fight for justice." i'm delighted to have the opportunity to talk with you, pam. >> thank you very much, laura. i really appreciate it. one thing laura did not mention when i first started at npr 27 years ago, i was the midwest editor and one of the people i edited was laura z

one of the people i edited was laura ziegler. i'm just so pleased. >> best editor i ever had. >> best reporter. [laughs] i >> anyway, again, it's just so much fun to have you here. it's such a fascinating book. leprosy is a topic that we don't really hear very much about. we don't hear very much about it. but i think it's safe to say that for many of works in our consciousness, unfortunately with a pejorative connotation, just because of a history of every day use of the word. i bet it is not encountered very often in a medical context. i don't know, but i think it's probably rare. i know you talk about not very many cases. so it feels the whole topic kind of scary and exotic and unknown. i want to kind of start the discussion there. you found, to your surprise, that one of the most we front we -- said references to the word leopard was in and pr interview. and you are disappointed. >> you are disappointed to that because you make the point that we don't really use the word leopards anymore, and for good reason. it really kind of