All Blog Posts from Author Talk

Jeff Glor talks to Penelope Lively about "How It All Began."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Penelope Lively: Something that happened to me, and a reading experience. What happened was a fall in the street - I slipped and fell flat on my face. . No great damage, but I now knew what that felt like. The reading experience was a gradual one - coming across references to chaos theory, the proposal in physics that a small perturbation can have a chain effect: a butterfly flaps its wings in the forests of the Amazon and prompts a tornado in Texas- the Butterfly Effect, it has been called. I don't pretend to understand the physics, but I was attracted by the analogy with our own lives. So - the novel grew out of these two things. My fall game me the opening page, then something similar happens to a leading character, and this event has a ripple effect on the lives of others, some of whom did not know her never would.

JG: What surprised you most during the writing process?

PL: Not so much surprise, I think, as being intrigued by all the possibilities open to me - the way in which the story could go. This is true of all novels, but especially so of this, where the whole point was the contingent effect - how what happens to one person may send another off course.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

PL: If I had not become a writer, I suspect I might have been an archaeologist. I have always been hugely interested in archaeology - that intimate physical evidence of the past. I married young, and had a family by the time I was in my twenties. Had I not, I would probably have done a diploma in archaeology after my degree in history, and would now be a retired archaeologist with arthritic knees after a lifetime of happy toweling.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

PL: I have just finished John Lanchester's "Capital"- capacious, enjoyable novel that reflect our city today. Justin Cartwright's "Other People's Money"is excellent too - a financial crisis novel. Neil MacGregor's "A History of the World in a Hundred Objects" kept me blissfully happy during the winter - that wonderful selection form the treasures of the British Museum. I'm doing a lot of rereading, going back to favorite writers; I've put all my John Updikes and Phillip Roths on a separate shelf, the plan being to work through them gradually. I've enjoyed Ann Fadiman's essay collection "At Large and At Small," which inspired me to get hold of Joseph Brodsky's collected essays - fascinating. I wish the essay was not an endangered form.

JG: What's next for you?

PL: I am working on some non-fiction - a maverick kind of anti-memoir. And the gleam in my eye for when that is done is a ghost story - a novella. But all this could change - I've learned over a writing lifetime that the lightning can strike unexpectedly, and when it does have to drop everything and react.

For more on "How It All Began," visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Peter Behrens: My own family history: all that I knew and didn't know about my grandfather J.J. O'Brien. He was very much the inspiration for the novel's main protagonist, Joe O'Brien

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

PB: There is a scene in the novel where Joe O'Brien physically attacks his beloved son. Joe speaks to him with violent language then bashes him over the head with a tennis racket. When that scene began, I had no idea Joe was going to do that, although there was a tennis racket propped against the wall in a corner of his office, where the attack takes place. It belonged to his youngest daughter Frankie and he had picked it up from a sports store where it was being re-strung. I thought the scene, which takes place in October 1939, was going to be about Frankie's carefree heedlessness--playing tennis while Europe lurched into war---but it turned out to be about something else.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

PB: Well, my last job-job was as a cowboy on the GH Ranch, Sundre, Alberta. I had a bad horse wreck that damaged my knee. I was never a very skilled cowboy; would never have been a top hand. I overcompensate for my truncated career by walking around town in a big cowboy hat. Though I only do this in West Texas, where we live in winter. Can't get away with it in downeast Maine, where we live the rest of the year.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

PB: "The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multiethnic City," by James Barrett; a 4 volume history of the Ford Motor Company; and Hans Magnus Enzensburger's "The Silences of Hammerstein," about the Prussian general who was army chief of staff when Hitler came to power and whose daughters were children were communists; and "The Master," a novel about Henry James, by Colm Toibin.

JG: What's next for you?

PB: A novel about a man's journey through the 20th century that starts on a 4-masted bark in San Francisco Bay in 1885 and ends in a hospital room in Montreal one hundred years later.

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Peter Behrens talks about how his grandfather was the inspiration for his new book, "The O'Briens." Peter Behrens talks about how his extended family felt about turning their story into his novel, "The O'Briens."

For more on "The O'Briens," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Jenny Lawson about "Let's Pretend This Never Happened."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jenny Lawson: I wanted to write a love letter to my family explaining that all of the ridiculous, mortifying moments I wanted to pretend never happened were the very moments that made me who I am today. I hope that one day my daughter will read it when she's a teenager and realize that I'm mortifying her on purpose. With love.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

JL: I was surprised at how lonely writing is. I was used to the fast-paced world of blog posting, where you get immediate feedback and can post whatever you want with no editing. I had no idea how complicated and solitary it could be to write a simple book. Or maybe it's just me.

I was also surprised at how the people mentioned in the book viewed the stories. My parents enjoyed the book, but I think they still don't understand why people think it's so funny, simply because living it gives you a much different perspective than reading about it. Not everyone grew up with a dad who was semi-famous for armadillo racing.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

JL: Hard drugs, probably. Writing is my therapy. In addition to my real therapy. God knows where I'd be without it. I'd probably still be at my last job, working in HR at a religious organization. I was horribly miscast.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JL: I've been reading "House of Leaves" off and on for weeks now. It scares the crap out of me, and I end up hiding it in the freezer at night. I'm also rereading Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" series. Those are my comfort books. Like old pajamas.

JG: What's next for you?

JL: I go on tour for a bit, and then I start book two. Then I remember how hard it is to write. Then I cry a lot. My family is not looking forward to this process.

For more on "Let's Pretend This Never Happened," visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Kate Lomdardi about "The Mama's Boy Myth: Why Keeping Our Sons Close Makes Them Stronger."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Kate Lombardi: My son and I have always had a close relationship. So do so many other moms and sons I know. But the only cultural image we ever see of mother-son closeness is a negative one. Not only in books, but also in movies, on television and in commercials, the portrayal is always that stereotypical "Mama's Boy" image: the controlling, smothering mom and the weak, dependent son. But in real homes, mothers are nurturing warm, close relationships with their sons, and far from raising wimpy guys, they are raising strong, emotionally intelligent, independent young men. I wanted to explore that disconnect - what accounted for this big gap between the popular image and the reality?

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

KL: So many mothers I interviewed said something along the lines of, "You have to understand, my son and I have a particularly close relationship" or "We're unusually close." Young men, too, would talk about how they opened up to their moms more than most guys. The truth, it turned out, was that mother-son closeness was really very prevalent. But all these moms and sons thought their relationships were unique, because no one ever talks about it. The taboo about moms and sons is still so strong that this was all going on underground.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

KL: I would probably spend a lot more time cooking. I love every aspect of it - shopping for ingredients, coming up with new ideas, preparing the food while listening to my favorite music. I even have a few playlists with titles like "Music To Cook By" and have been caught using a spatula as a faux-microphone. (I could do without washing the pots and pans, of course.)

JG: What else are you reading right now?

KL: Just finished "Sense of An Ending," by Julian Barnes. Before that it was "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell, and I've been a little obsessed with "Room" by Emma Donoghue.

JG: What's next for you?

KL: "The Mama's Boy Myth" seems to have really touched a cultural nerve and opened up a conversation on the issues of mothers and sons. I followed my instincts in pursuing that topic, so I'm going to follow them again and see where this theme leads me.

For more on "The Mama's Boy Myth," visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Raymond Bonner about "Anatomy of Injustice."

JG: What inspired you to write the book?

RB: The case of Edward Lee Elmore, a semi-literate African American who was tried, convicted and sentenced to death ninety days after the battered body of a wealthy white widow was found in her closet in Greenwood, South Carolina; combined with the personal story of Diana Holt, who overcame extraordinary adversity to become a death penalty lawyer. When Elmore met Holt, it was the first break he had ever had, and she fought tenaciously for nearly twenty years to save his life. Elmore's case is a tragic story of the damage bad lawyers can do, and an inspirational story of what a good one can do.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

RB: The need to go beyond the story of Holt and Elmore, to examine the nature of the American legal system in the administration of capital punishment. I had a brilliant editor, Jonathan Segal, who pushed me to broaden the book, asking me questions in the margin of the manuscript: "What is the role of the defense lawyer?" "What is the role of the prosecutor?" I learned much I hadn't known about the history of the adversarial legal system -- in early English common law, for example, there were no lawyers, only the victim and accused, telling their stories to a judge.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

RB: Gainfully employed.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

RB: "What Remains," a novel about a female foreign correspondent, by the Australian author Denise Leith. It's at once gritty and philosophical. Also "The Sealed Letter," by Emma Donoghue, and "The United States and Torture," edited by Marjorie Cohn.

JG: What's next for you?

RB: I wish I knew. I'm a vagabond. I went from being a lawyer to being a journalist. I've moved every four years or so, lived on every continent (except Antarctica), and reported from one hundred countries.

I'm often asked, "What's your next book?" To which I reply: "You can only write a book when you cannot not write it." "Anatomy of Injustice" was certainly that book. I don't have another one yet.

For more on "Anatomy of Injustice," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Michael Patrick Leahy about "Covenant of Liberty."

JG: What inspired you to write this book?

ML: I've always wanted to write a book that captured the essence of the idea of America, told in a sweeping narrative. Until now, the timing wasn't right. With the rise of the Tea Party movement, and my role as a central figure in its launch, I finally had a unique and compelling perspective to tell that story.

JG: What surprised you most during the writing process?

ML: How much I needed to improve.

I had self-published four books before my agent, Don Fehr, secured the contract for Covenant of Liberty with HarperCollins. (The book was published by HarperCollins' new imprint, Broadside Books). I was probably pretty close to Malcolm Tidwell's 10,000 hours, so I thought I was a pretty decent writer.

There's a world of difference between self-publication -- where your editing consists mainly of one copy editor you pay to help with grammar and the like -- and publication with a world class organization like HarperCollins.

The scope of editing assistance and review I received from HarperCollins is just orders of magnitude superior to my self-publishing experience. At first I thought the process was too slow. From the signing of the contract to the publication date took about a year and a half, but it's clear in retrospect that was exactly the amount of time I needed to write an excellent book.

I probably wrote about 1500 pages, of which 263 ended up in the final edited version of the book. But I must say they are 263 really good pages, and my editor, Adam Bellow, really helped me get there.

What I learned from Adam was the importance of simplicity and focus.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

ML: I love history, politics, technology, media, and freedom of speech. For most of my adult life, I made my living in the technology and media sectors. Politics, history, and writing were just an avocation. I wrote for publication because I had a point of view I wanted to express, one that I thought deserved consideration somewhere in the public dialogue.

Now, I'm a writer whose avocation is politics and history. What could be better?

JG: What else are you reading right now?

ML: I like to split my reading between contemporary fiction and history/biography. Fiction writers like Ken Follett, Michael Connelly, and John Grisham give me a much better sense of pacing and narrative style, so I'll always read their most recent works as soon as they're published.

As for non-fiction reading, I usually focus on one or two historical periods at a time. Currently, I'm reading a biography of Robert Morris, the financier from America's Federal Era, and a fairly academic history of every-day life in a Medieval village.

JG: What's next for you?

ML: Two things. 

From a political activist point of view I'm working on a get-out-the-vote project, ElectionDayTeaParty.com , that will continue until this November.

I'm also finishing up an exciting book proposal about the history and future of what I call the constitutional liberty movement throughout the Anglosphere. The American Tea Party is but one manifestation of this nascent worldwide movement, albeit the most well-known and currently most successful.

For more on "Covenant of Liberty," visit Michael Leahy's   website.

Jeff Glor talks to Patricia Ellis Herr about her latest book, "Up: A Mother and Daughter's Peakbagging Adventure."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Patricia Ellis Herr: Alex asked me to write a public account of our real-life adventures. She knew I enjoyed the process of writing, since I had a regular habit of penning original, fictional stories. It was easy for me to shift my attention from fiction to memoir. I'd always kept a personal journal of our hikes, and it wasn't difficult to shape that journal into a manuscript.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

PH: "Up: A Mother and Daughter's Peakbagging Adventure" describes some, but not all, of our adventures on the trails. I was surprised at which hikes and lessons made my own editorial cut. One would think, for example, that a near-encounter with a bear might prove a more interesting read than a description of a dying bumblebee. However, the bumblebee illustrated an important point I felt was essential to the overall story while our near-encounter with the bear didn't add anything of substance. Therefore, the bear was cut and the dying bumblebee made it to print.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

PH: Since I'm a homeschooling mom, most of my daytime hours are dedicated to my kids; I do the bulk of my writing between 10pm and 2am, when everyone else is sleeping. Therefore, if I weren't a writer, I'd probably be snoozing away with the rest of my family instead of sipping coffee every midnight.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

PH: I'm knee-deep in children's classics at the moment. My daughters and I just finished reading L. Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables" and Sidney Lanier's "King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table." We're about to delve into Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island." For my own, personal reading, I just pre-ordered my copy of Cheryl Strayed's memoir, "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail."

JG: What's next for you?

PH: I'm working on another nonfiction manuscript. Also, the girls and I continue to hike mountains. We're in the process of highpointing the United States (standing on the highest point of each state), and we're casually making our way through three other White Mountain hiking lists. We're also planning a long-term effort of hiking or biking 50 miles in each of the 50 states; we'd like to do this for charity and are in the midst of working out the details.

For more on "Up: A Mother and Daughter's Peakbagging Adventure," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Madeline Miller about "The Song of Achilles."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Madeline Miller: I've always been fascinated by Achilles and the Trojan War. In particular, I found myself constantly drawn to the terrible moment in the Iliad where Achilles loses his closest companion Patroclus, and is utterly consumed by grief and rage. It was incredibly moving to me, and also intriguing, because up until then Patroclus has been a very minor character. I wanted to understand why this man was so important to Achilles -- who was it who could utterly undo the greatest of the Greeks? Writing "The Song of Achilles" was my way of answering that question.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

MM: There were several surprises, but two stand out. The first was just how must time it would take me to finish the book. When I started writing, I had no idea that it would be ten years before I was done. In this case, ignorance was definitely bliss!

The other surprise had to do with adapting such hallowed, beloved characters. Originally, I was quite intimidated to work with Odysseus. But the wily prince of Ithaca turned out to be one of my favorite characters to write. Given that he's been winning people over for the past three thousand years, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

MM: Teaching Latin and Greek to high school students, and directing Shakespeare. Not only do I love both of these just as much as I love writing, but I think that they are instrumental to my creative process. Being a good director is all about story-telling, and I continue to learn so much about pacing, scenes, and dialogue from plays. Likewise, my students are a constant inspiration to me -- they always challenge me to be my best self, and teach me far more than I ever teach them.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

MM: I have just started Jeanette Winterson's memoir "Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?" which is terrific so far. I am a huge admirer of her writing -- her "Written on the Body" was a revelation for me when I read it in college. I also just finished the amazing "Sisters Brothers" by Patrick DeWitt which completely blew my mind. Full of incredible characters, comedy, and some very dark, disturbing tragedy.

JG: What's next for you?

MM: I would love to stay in Homer's world for one more book, and am fascinated in particular by the women of the Odyssey, like the witch Circe and Odysseus' wife Penelope. I'm very much looking forward to exploring their experiences, along with Odysseus' continuing adventures.

For more on "The Song of Achilles," visit the Harper Collins website.

Jeff Glor talks to Dalton Fury, a former Delta Force commander and author of "Kill Bin Laden," about his new book "Black Site."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Dalton Fury: My own personal experience of being dubbed persona non grata, or PNG, from Delta Force, for one. It's not necessarily something to be proud of, but it does come with the decision to write about Delta in a non-fiction setting, which is what "Kill Bin Laden" was. The list is short but pretty distinguished. I'm nobody, but the other guys on Delta's unwelcome list are a pretty big deal. In the fictional thriller "Black Site," the impetuous and self-assured protagonist Kolt Raynor deals with the same stigmas of being exiled from the unit for making bad choices. Unless you have lived that personally, as I have now for several years, it's impossible to portray that accurately as a fiction writer. Coupled with that, there are so many extraordinary acts of valor by members of Delta Force that probably will remain classified for generations and can only be touched on in a fictional account. Crafting a thriller about these kinds of men is so easy when you have witnessed these things. As with "Kill Bin Laden", a major source of inspiration for me remains the indescribable feelings I'll always have for my former mates - including my mates that have shunned me since KBL was published. All are a special breed of warrior.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

DF: Clearly how difficult and time consuming fictional writing is. It's an all-in commitment to get a manuscript to the point where you hope your editor doesn't laugh at the work or reconsider the effort. A distant second though was the sporadic jolts of what I humbly call brilliance or the "ah-ha" moments where one plot point somehow seems to naturally fit within the pile of subplots after gentle tweaking. Fiction writing, at least to me, is easier in some ways, but much harder in other ways when compared to writing a non-fiction narrative like KBL. I knew how that ended before putting pen to paper. It was just a matter of writing the truth from one paragraph to another. The timeline was already set. Taking on a fictional series of Delta thrillers, allowed me to help readers enter the black ops world from the perspective of a disgraced Delta operator and write about many of those moments of truth I mentioned above where life or death decisions were made by a Delta operator. But, most importantly, still not compromise men or the missions of Delta.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

DF: I smile at that question. Who can make a living just writing? It's difficult to even consider myself a writer in the traditional sense. I'm not the guy who secrets himself off to some secluded beach front property for months on end, steadily pounding away at the typewriter well into the night, chain smoking menthols, and crafting a masterpiece. In our case, writing is a team sport - from the editorial team at St. Martin's Press expertly led by Marc Resnick, to the mega-talented thriller writer Mark Greaney, to my superstar agent Scott Miller at Trident Media Group, to the steadfast support of Facebook friends, and last but not least, my fairly unimpressed but wonderful wife of twenty years. Beach front property or not, I'd still be moving plot points around "Black Site" like a kid who just received a Rubik's Cube for his birthday all the while watching my wife shake her head as she asks if I had ever thought to do the dishes.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

DF: I just finished former Delta officer Brad Taylor's "All Necessary Force" on a flight home. Brad is a superstar and a very close friend. He is also a pure and natural writer. The difference between us is that his writing is like a Delta operator on a singleton mission -it's him alone on the X. For me, it's that team of Delta assaulters I mentioned above that gets stuff done. I also picked up Michael Hastings' "The Operators" for a flight from Atlanta to San Diego and devoured the entire thing before we touched down. I personally know many of the players in the book, particularly retired GEN Stan McChrystal, who in my opinion history will be kind to generations from now. He was the right man for the War on Terror and our entire nation owes that man, and his family, a debt of gratitude for their collective sacrifices since 9/11. I think our great grandchildren will be reading about Stan the Man as being the most talented, committed, no-BS general since George Patton. Even though he was a major force behind my being PNG'ed from the special ops community, I'd still pick up a rifle for the man today. And if I am blessed enough to be around when my great grandchildren are born, I'll be proud to bounce them on my knee and tell them the good general and I shared the same shadows on the battlefield in Iraq.

JG: What's next for you?

DF: We didn't slow down after "Black Site," in fact the sequel is already in the works and St Martin's Press has the manuscript. It's truly humbling and exciting to receive so much support from so many who are already asking when Kolt 'Racer" Raynor's next nail-biter will be on the shelves. I'm hoping Kolt will live for a third book in the series, and that Dalton Fury has it in him for maybe even a fourth, but that of course is largely up to the readers. I can say this, if you liked "Black Site," you'll smoke right through an all-nighter with "Tier One Wild."

For more on "Black Site," visit the Macmillan website.

Jeff Glor talks to David Forrest about "Slots: Praying to the God of Chance."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

David Forrest: I have always been fascinated with popular culture, what large numbers of Americans are doing--hence my consultations to Star Trek, my appearance on Olbermann to discuss alien abduction beliefs, and my going to #1 movies whatever they are about. One of our kids was studying math at Brown in the 1990's and while traveling through Connecticut to visit him, we noticed the fairytale castle of Foxwoods rising from the Connecticut woods. We visited it and Mohegan Sun even before they had slots. Like most psychiatrists I am accused of not being able to do anything without studying it. Since I tried slot machines I began to talk with the other players and study the unique mental state they seemed to be in, which seemed unlike the raucous table games, and to resemble solitary meditation and prayer.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

DF: As the author or co-author of hundreds of academic articles and books I discovered writing a trade book was surprisingly more exacting. Every word counts, as in poetry, and one cannot fall back on concatenating phrases of psychiatric jargon. I went with Delphinium as my publisher to work with Editor-in-Chief Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. Yes, that's THE Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who wrote over 4,000 book reviews for the New York Times and almost all the reviews of books on gambling. Even though we had a great time together reworking every word, we still had to go through a proofreader and a lawyer (e.g. can a random number table be copyrighted? Should a clear scandal be described as a "dustup"?). Christopher and I were both print-oriented guys and had to get used to making track changes in the text on our computers. In the midst of this the entire contents of my home were moved into storage containers in the driveway because of a remodeling project, which I don't recommend for a writer with tons of files and clippings.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

DF: I have a day job as a full time practicing psychiatrist and clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons. I also like to draw and paint, and admire E.E. Cummings, who wrote until he got stuck and then painted until he got stuck, and then went back to writing, and so on. Two muses are better than one.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

DF: "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Stephen Pinker, "What It Means to Go to War" by Karl Marlantes, the Journals "Science, Dynamic Psychiatry" and many others necessary to keep up professionally. I was the Founding Editor of SPRING: The Journal of the E.E. Cummings Society, which I of course still read, as well as Cummings' poetry, especially as spring is coming, as he is among other things a great poet of the seasons. I knew him and analyzed his dreams, given to me by his widow.

JG: What's next for you?

DF: I shall be continuing neuropsychiatric research on evaluating facial affect by computer programs in Parkinson's disease and psychiatric disorders. As a psychiatry professor I teach medical students, and as an expert on the expression of emotion, I am interested in helping them with the delicate and often painful process in young doctors in the making, of learning sufficient clinical detachment to function professionally yet preserving and developing further their humanity and empathy. I enjoy psychoanalytic anthropology of circumscribed worlds. Years ago my wife and I published a board game, "The Ballet Company," based on her experiences in the New York City Ballet, and I had published on child rearing and mythology of Vietnam based on my wartime research there. As a Trekker I realized the ultimate pleasure of becoming a technical consultant to that TV program's imaginary world. Delving more into urban anthropology, I am working on an interview project on the other lives of the fine arts models whom I sketch at The Society of Illustrators, Spring Studio and the Salmagundi Club, trying to understand narcissism better through the motivations of people who make their living in their birthday suits, whereas that is a common nightmare for most people.

MORE VIDEO:

Jeff Glor talks to David Forrest about how much profit casinos make from slot machines. Jeff Glor talks to David Forrest who likes to play slot machines and the likelihood of actually winning anything. Jeff Glor talks to David Forrest, author of "Slots: Praying to the God of Chance," about his work as a medical adviser on the TV series, "Star Trek.

For more on "Slots" visit the Delphinium Books website.