it is really nice that to environmental books have been honored tonight and are in the pain of tony lucasam very honored and would like to thank the lucas committee and my agent to is your and my editor from norton for believing in this book. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> well, if our discussions lag we might invite florence back out. [laughter] we are here to bridge a topic in more than one way. alex's book is not done yet. we know the topic. something of the crafts, but we don't have the product. isabel's book is out. their on two widely different subjects, the african-american migration in the united states over the course of 60 years, and the identities of asian immigrants in the broadest and most historical sense. but what we are really here to talk about is the craft of creating the kind of nonfiction that tony lucas did, which has special challenges of being especially ambitious, difficult and taking a long time. and i want to open -- we just want to have some dialogue about the craft and then take some questions from you from the microphones very briefly. isabel, i want to a

and he of course said, guess i was inspired by tony lucas and common ground exemplifies this long history made vast, which is what it has done as well. thank you very much, all of you. [applause] bob giles is coming up next to present the mark within history price. before you leave, it will just say the last time i ever saw tony lukas, we had lunch, the purpose of an list to trick me into agreeing to do a study for the authors guild of which he was president on that list books and how they work economically. in his last words to me were, so, great, he'll do it, bye. so we did it. it's amazing to meet the quality of bill clinton's reported nonfiction is coming out today is a year in year out as high as i can never remember it being. it's a real bright spot in journalism. i learned something from doing the report for tony and now we always talk about the new business model for news new scum which is right over the next hill. the business model for this look is pure willpower and month-end determination. but there is a lot of it on the part of the publishers, writers and that is why theories

and yet if you have that sense of ambition, which is as good provided by tony lucas, then you do what you must. he taught at boston university. i've taught at multiple universities. i've taught at princeton, emory, boston university. and so you do which have to do for the work, and you hope that it will find a readership and will find an audience. that's the ultimate fulfillment of the work. >> can you both recommend this kind of work to other writers, given all, what you are saying is, what you both said is these are books you had to write, but you do consider it an art and a calling and you have to do it. i survey felt the same way. i would recommend, i would recommend it to any writer, provided you feel that way about it. you have to feel very strongly. what do you think? >> yeah, absolutely. i think that being a writer, it's not a total privilege. you have to live in tinsley, especially when you're writing about the kind of issues that isabel is writing about the issues i am writing about. there's a saying i just read, live to the point of tears. i forget who said that. live to th