[laughter] >> i will tell you i have a very good literary agent named mckenzie watson young and she was the one who represented my book proposal and sold it to her -- herbert collins and she was the one who basically facilitated getting it into the hands of donna gelati the producer of "hidden figures" and donna read it and she immediately felt a sense of mission, i think. she really made her job championing this story as a movie like she made her mission and, i mean, it is not a usual or-- it was sort of a lightning strike set of circumstances that happened with the book and the movie. >> what i love about this book in addition to all the great details we get about these wonderful women is that you are able to talk about 70 different things within the narrative. one example is the way in which we have always had these periods where there has been progress on civil rights in america often because america is threatened, world war i, world war ii, the cold war and then periods of a backlash where black soldiers are coming back from the war in the get beat up in attempt to put people back

[laughter] [applause] yeah, i will tell you i have a very good literary agent, her name is mckenzie brady watson, very young -- >> excuse me. [laughter] >> she was the one who represented my book proposal, you know, and sold it to harpercollins. she was the one who basically facilitated the, getting it into the hands of donna yes ge locks tti -- gelotti. she immediately felt a sense of mission, i think, you know? she really made her job championing this story as a movie. like, she made it her mission. and but, i mean, it is not a usual or -- it was sort of a lightning strike set of circumstances that happened with the book and the movie. >> wow. well, now what i love about the book, in addition to all the great detail that we get about these wonderful women, is that you're able to talk about so many different things within that narrative. one example is the way in which we've always had these periods where there's been progress on civil rights in america often because america is threatened; world war i, world war ii, the cold war. and then these periods of backlash where black soldiers are comin