All Blog Posts from Author Talk

Jeff Glor talks to James S. Kunen about "Diary of a Company Man."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

James S. Kunen: As a director of corporate communications at Time Warner, I did my best to reassure employees that management valued and respected them as human beings - which turned out not to be the case. Along with thousands of my colleagues, I was laid off in the brutal fashion that has become the corporate norm: computer turned off, access to the building denied, treated like a criminal by the company we'd served faithfully for years.

I wrote the book to encourage the millions of people who have had this sort of soul-crushing experience. No one should be treated this way - but if you have been, lo and behold, you may now have the chance to get back in touch with yourself and lead a happy and useful life.

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

JK: In the course of writing the latter part of the book, I interviewed a number of new immigrants to the U.S. I learned that many people doing menial work here held advanced professional degrees in their home countries. I had no idea that was the case.

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

JK: I would be doing exactly what I am doing now: teaching English as a Second Language to immigrants. I am inspired by their courage, their work ethic, and their love for the United States. Sometimes I think immigrants are the only people who love the U.S. not as it used to be, not as it ought to be, but just as it is.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JK: I've just finished "The Death of the Adversary," the brilliant novel written by Hans Keilson while in hiding from the Nazis during World War II. I'm in the middle of "An Accidental Sportswriter," by Robert Lipsyte, who has such great insights about sports in American culture. And I'm looking forward to "The Persistence of the Color Line: Facial Politics" and "The Obama Presidency" by Randall Kennedy.

JG: What's next for you?

JK: I'm looking forward to just living life instead of writing about it. It takes me a minimum of 10 years to get over the agony of writing a book before I can even consider writing another one.

MORE VIDEO:

James S. Kunen explains what a "company man" was and what became of this cultural archetype. Jeff Glor talks to James S. Kunen about his unique career that spans 1960s campus radicalism to laid off corporate executive. Jeff Glor talks to James S. Kunen about the plight of millions of out of work baby boomers.

For more on, "Diary of a Company Man" visit his website.

Jeff Glor talks to Adam Wilson about, "Flatscreen," "a coming-of-age story about a young man trying to become a new person in a world where nothing is new."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Adam Wilson: A childhood in suburbia. A prolonged late adolescence. An obsession with television. Loneliness. Those kinds of things.

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

AW: My own stamina. I was amazed that I didn't give up on myself.

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

AW: Probably reading a lot and wishing I were a writer. And eating a lot of pasta.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

AW: Mark Leyner's back catalogue. He's a mad comic genius that more people should read. His book "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist" is one of the great books of the 90s. He has a new one coming out--his first in 15 years--that I'm really excited about.

JG: What's next for you?

AW: I'm at work on a new novel. It's set in New York in the fall of 2008, and centers around the Wall St. crash, and a woman's epistolary relationship with a death row inmate in Texas. The basketball player Dirk Nowitzki makes a cameo as the narrator of one chapter. It's weird, and definitely different for me. I'm excited.

For more on "Flatscreen," visit the Harper Collins website.

Jeff Glor talks to Stacy Cordery about, "Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Stacy Cordery: Juliette Gordon Low herself inspired me to write the book. I first learned about her when I was a very young girl in my Brownie circle. What struck me then was how someone so significantly hearing impaired could have created the multi-faceted organization that meant so much to me -- and to my mother and my grandmother. I admired Low's courage. Now that I have a more nuanced understanding of her life and times, I find her entire life to have been fascinating.

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

SC: The universe of support! When I wrote "Alice," I labored for nearly two decades with a few hardy friends encouraging me. But with "Juliette Gordon Low," I have discovered a whole world of well-wishers who read my weekly blog and send in cheery comments, a cadre of dedicated Girl Scouts whose knowledge and assistance are absolutely indispensable, and helpful people from Bedford, New York, to Savannah, Georgia, from my hometown to Warwickshire, England, who kindly share important information with me.

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

SC: I am a professor of History at Monmouth College in Illinois--and that is what I do. There's a lovely symbiosis that occurs as my research informs my classroom and vice versa. The energy of a book project and the enthusiasm of the students and my colleagues go round in a lovely, sustaining loop. Of course, when publishing deadlines tumble upon exams and papers, then I dream of owning a quiet yarn shop in North Dakota or being a lifeguard in Belize.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

SC: I'm re-reading Kristie Miller's wonderful "Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilson's First Ladies" or the Biography and History class I am teaching. For fun, I'm reading Amanda Smith's "Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson, and Clay S. Jenkinson's "The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the W"ilderness." I always have several books going at once.

JG: What's next for you?

SC: Talking about Juliette Gordon Low! The writing process is hard work. The reward is getting to travel, meet people, and talk about a subject I find endlessly intriguing. I am looking forward to many happy book talks all over. And, in the ensuing calm, the idea for the next book topic will undoubtedly appear.

For more on "Juliette Gordon Low" visit the Penguin Press website.

Jeff Glor talks to Krys Lee about her new collection of stories, "Drifting House."

Jeff Glor: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

Krys Lee: You learn so much--too much--about yourself. I'm not an autobiographical writer in the sense that my stories aren't lifted directly from life. Most of the stories have very little of my actual life in them, but when I reread the collection, all my obsessions and concerns, the traces of my history, and all the personal and historical wounds are so transparent that it's exhilarating and terrifying. Publishing a book is like walking into a cocktail party wearing a bikini. Everyone else is armored in their black dresses and suits, but you're completely exposed.

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

KL: I would be a human rights activist or a park ranger. Activists are some of the people I admire most because they act and sacrifice for what they believe in. There are activists working in the North Korean human rights movement who have sold their only house to bring more defectors to safety and many who have been jailed and tortured in China, merely for trying to protect a human being. I do my very small part in trying to live by my beliefs, but these people who risk so much for freedom and justice inspire me most.

In moments of frustration at urban life, I fantasize about being a park ranger. It's beautiful and humbling to camp in the wild and live to the rhythms of elk and moose. The vast landscapes of America remind me of how I'm one small individual in this universe, and I think that's healthy, particularly for anyone who is a public figure such as a politician or a celebrity.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

KL: I'm juggling a few books. In the evening before I go to bed, I'm reading Adam Johnson's "The Orphan Master's Son," a novel based in North Korea. He's a talented writer with a supple sentence and a great sense of rhythm. The research and care he's devoted to the novel is evident. I'm also reading "The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry." I started as a poet and return to reading poetry often, as there's a great deal for fiction writers to learn. In the morning, I begin the day with Wallace Stevens' "The Necessary Angel: Essays on Reality and Imagination." I'm almost finished with it, so soon my mornings will begin with a galley of "The Bellwether Revivals," a novel by a debut writer Benjamin Wood that will be out sometime in April.

JG: What's next for you?

KL: Next will hopefully be very soon, as I am in the middle of revising my novel. It's a novel about the dangerous journey North Koreans make from their country, through China, to a safe third country. The people who take advantage of and wield power over the refugees in their flight to safety also figure largely in the novel, as well as various characters from the West. I was originally motivated by anger as no country has been able to stand up to China, which has allowed all sorts of atrocities to happen to an unprotected group of people. This anger turned into a tenderness I felt for the main characters.

MORE VIDEO:

Jeff Glor talks to Krys Lee - author of the short story collection, "Drifting House" - about her unique experience as part of a new wave of reverse immigration. Born in Seoul, South Korea, but raised in the U.S., Lee returned to the country of her heritage as an adult. Krys Lee - author of the short story collection, "Drifting House" - talks about the challenges of writing about her two worlds - Korea and the West Coast - and the differences in writing novels versus short stories.

For more on "Drifting House," visit the Penguin Group website.

Jeff Glor talks to Matt Ruff about "The Mirage", a novel that delivers an alternate history of 9/11 and its aftermath.

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Matt Ruff: I wanted to tell a story that would allow me to explore the political and moral issues around the U.S. response to 9/11 from a unique perspective. I also wanted to give a central role to the folks who've borne the brunt of the War on Terror -- the vast majority of Muslims who aren't terrorists, and whose only crime is being the wrong kind of people at the wrong moment in history. And because I'm a big speculative fiction fan, the way I chose to do that was by taking a classic, 9/11-themed thriller and setting it in a world where the U.S. and the Middle East have essentially traded places.

JG: What surprised you most during the writing?

MR: The biggest surprise was that it worked. As I was reminded whenever I told people what I was writing, this was sort of a crazy, scary idea for a novel. It's got a mostly Arab Muslim cast of characters who I want American readers to identify with and care about, at the same time I'm raising these provocative questions about terrorism and religion and American exceptionalism, and also trying to keep the story fast-paced and exciting. Which is a tall order, and there were times, particularly early on, when I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull it off. And of course it remains to be seen what the public reaction will be, but I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

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

MR: Living under a bridge, probably. I decided to be a writer when I was very young, and never really had a plan B.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

MR: I'm rereading Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower" to refresh my memory about the real-world history of 9/11.

JG: What's next for you?

MR: I haven't decided for sure what I'm going to write next. But the leading contender -- the idea that makes me the most nervous, in a good way -- is a story called "Lovecraft Country." It's a historical horror novel about a black travel writer living in the Jim Crow era.

For more on "The Mirage" visit the Harper Collin's website

Jeff Glor talks to Dan Chaon about his new collection of short stories, "Stay Awake."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Dan Chaon: The book combines two fascinations of mine. First, I love old-fashioned ghost stories, as practiced by writers such as Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Bowen, Shirley Jackson, Daphne DuMaurier, etc. Second, I find myself drawn to contemporary "weird" news, true crime and strange human behavior. I set out to combine these two elements in these stories.

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

DC: These stories were written over a period of ten years, in-between times when I was working on my novels. When I sat down to put them together, I was surprised at how strangely interconnected they seemed. A lot of the same obsessions kept popping up. I thought: Wow, I've been circling around these things for a long time without even realizing it.

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

DC: I spent some time working as a DJ in Chicago when I got out of school. I was really interested in audio production and remixing, so maybe I'd have pursued that. Who knows?

JG: What else are you reading right now?

DC: "Lint," a graphic novel by Chris Ware 

"The Outlaw Album," short stories by Daniel Woodrell

"Salvage the Bones," a novel by Jessmyn Ward

JG: What's next for you?

DC: I'm finishing the screenplay for my novel "Await Your Reply," and working on a new novel.

MORE VIDEO:

Jeff Glor talks to Dan Chaon about the differences in writing for the screen versus short stories and novels. Dan Chaon talks about how he's wanted to be a writer since he was five years old and how a letter from Ray Bradbury encouraged him in his craft.

For more on "Stay Awake," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Thomas Peele about "Killing the Messenger."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Thomas Peele: I am a newspaper reporter and in 2007 a newspaper reporter, Chauncey Bailey, was killed because of a story he was writing about a Back Muslim cult in Oakland, California called the Beys. Other journalists in the Bay Area were in a unique situation to do something about it, which was finish his work and send a message: killing a journalist is a futile action if the intent is to avoid journalistic scrutiny. Eventually, a group of journalists, students, non-profit administrators and academics formed the Chauncey Bailey Project to push that message and to also make sure that all responsible for Bailey's death were held accountable. While reporting on the murder and the Beys, and the questionable conduct of the police, it became easy to see that the complexities discovered would stand up to a long narrative treatment. There was a story to tell. I was also interested in tracing the history of the Bey's beliefs to their origins and explain them.

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

TP: How well all the divergent sourcing I had - police reports, interviews, recorded jail phone calls, grand jury transcripts, books, newspaper and journal articles - allowed me to work toward a seamless narrative that moved from the 1920s through 2011. The book is primarily about people, the Beys, who wish not to be written about - and who killed to stop being written about. It's most sympathetic character, Mr. Bailey, is dead. Yet a wealth of information existed to tell the story of both and put them on paths that eventually violently collided.

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

TP: I'd be pitching for my beloved New York Mets, assuming they'd want an out of shape, middle-aged, right-hander who never had much in the first place, let alone now. Then again, I'd probably fit right into their cost cutting budget, considering I'd pitch for free. Seriously, I don't know. I have been a journalist all of my adult life. I enjoy teaching, so probably that.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

TP: I am close to finishing Amanda Foreman's "A World on Fire," her fabulous history of Great Britain's involvement in the American Civil War. While writing "Killing the Messenger," I had to do so much for research reading that my reading queue really backed up, so I am looking forward to a lot of diverse reading this year. Next, I want to jump into a couple of old Cormac McCarthy novels and then Pete Hamill's "Tabloid City."

JG: What's next for you?

TP: I am a working investigative journalist and a university lecturer, so any book project has to be balanced with those duties. In the few months since I finished "Killing the Messenger," I've been kicking around some ideas and keep coming back to one that would involve a re-examination of a major even in American history. I love the book-writing process and certainly want to pursue other projects. "Killing the Messenger" is my first book, not my last.

For more on "Killing the Messenger," visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Kristin Hannah about "Home Front."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Kristin Hannah: Usually when I write a book, I can remember the exact moment the idea came to me. "Home Front" is a little different in that way. I can't remember the second the light bulb came on. I think it was a gradual realization that came from watching the nightly news. As the war in Iraq went on, I watched the stories -- night after night -- of soldiers lost in battle, wounded, and the stories of their families left behind, waiting for them to return. As a mother, I was heartbroken for the men and women and their families. So many of the young soldiers on the news were the same age as my own son, and that hit me really hard. As an American, I was grateful, and as a woman, I began to wonder what it must be like to go off to war and leave your children behind. I can't imagine anything that would be more terrifying and difficult. I realized that I had never read that story, and I wanted to. I wanted to explore the idea of a woman torn between love and honor. So I decided to write it.

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

KH: The most surprising thing about this book was how much it taught me. I don't come from a military family, nor do I know a lot of military families personally, so I was woefully uninformed about what our families and soldiers go through during a deployment. Prior to Home Front, I would have said that I understood something about their lives and their service, but I was wrong in almost everything. I only understood the thinnest layer. I learned so much in the writing of this novel and in researching it. I went to a deployment ceremony and honestly, I think every American should attend one. Watching our soldiers preparing to go off to war, and their families standing alongside to say goodbye, really brings their sacrifice into sharp focus. It is a powerful reminder that whatever one feels about any particular war, we need to always respect and honor our soldiers and their families. Honestly, I felt a little ashamed that I hadn't attended one before. Although, boy, was it difficult. I was humbled by their pride and strength in the face of such an undertaking. It makes you truly consider what heroism is and reminds you to be grateful.

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

KH: Honestly, I've been a writer so long now that I can't imagine doing anything else. I truly, deeply love this job. I love the mix of creativity and analysis that is my process; I love researching and editing. I love taking something as elusive and ephemeral as an idea and wrestling it to the ground, turning it into something concrete. The only other job that really speaks to me is being a Supreme Court Justice, and I think I've lost my chance at that one.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

KH: Right now I'm deep in the process of writing the first draft of a new novel. For me, that's the time when everything is up in the air -- characters, plot point, setting, back stories. I have the book' s theme and the main issues that I want to explore, but that's about it. So I'm reading a lot of research books. It's that time of year when my to be read pile starts filling up with all the novels I can't wait to get to. Up next: Lisa Scottoline's "Come Home" and Murakami's "1Q84."

JG: What's next for you?

KH: As you can tell from my previous answer, I'm not quite sure what I'm working on. It's shaping up to be a story-within-a-story novel, which is one of my favorite fictional structures. I'm experimenting with both tense and point of view at the moment, but I have no idea what will remain in the next draft. I've already thrown away two previous drafts. I wish I could give you a lovely little wrap up sentence that distilled my current idea into a single, compelling story. Boy, do I wish I could. I can only tell you that I'm writing about a cast of really interesting characters doing unexpected things ... that's what I've got for now.

For more on "Home Front" visit her website.

Jeff Glor talks to Robert Harris, author of "Fatherland" and "The Ghost," about his latest book, "The Fear Index."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Robert Harris: It started more than 12 years ago. I wanted to write a "1984" for the 21st century, in which the threat to human freedom wasn't the state any more but a private corporation using new technology. I kept turning the idea over in my mind even as I was writing other books. Then, after the collapse of Lehman in 2008, I realized that the best place to set it would probably be the financial world. And so it's about the collision of greed and computers and the way they are taking over our lives.

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

RH: The way the book seemed to be coming true around me. I had just started writing when the flash crash of May 6 2010 occurred, and that could have come straight out of my novel. And since I've finished it the sense of the financial world spinning ever faster out of control has intensified. And things that I thought were complete fantasy -- computers making investment decisions based on an analysis of human behavior as revealed by trends on social media, for example -- I have found are actually being done.

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

RH: I really can't imagine being anything else. It's all I've wanted to do since I was a child. It isn't really a job, but a part of my personality, a way of being in the world -- to observe and then to turn it all into a narrative.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

RH: I'm reading the wartime diaries of a British intelligence officer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, who later became a well-known historian. He was very brilliant, but unfortunately most people only remember him as the expert who said he thought the forged diaries of Adolf Hitler were genuine.

JG: What's next for you?

RH: I have written two volumes of a trilogy about the ancient Roman statesman and politician, Cicero ("Imperium" and "Conspirata"). I am working on volume three now, and loving being back in that world of more than 2,000 years ago. Not a hedge fund, an investment banker or a computer in sight ...

For more on "The Fear Index" visit the Random House website.

Jeff Glor talks to Jane Harris about "Gillespie and I," a follow-up to Harris's award-winning novel "The Observations."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Jane Harris: I had known for a long time that I wanted to write something about an artist in Glasgow at the end of the 19th century. Originally, I had thought that the novel might feature a female painter and her struggles to be accepted as a serious artist alongside her male contemporaries. However, very soon after I began researching this idea, I came across an article in a newspaper. The article gave the details of a court case that had just taken place in a seaside town in Britain. This was about six years ago. The piece in the newspaper was very short and gave only the most tantalising details about the case, which concerned a family, their daughter and a neighbour. The crime was so bizarre, and involved such incomprehensible cruelty, that it haunted me. I realised that there was no reason why this crime, (which happened in about 2004), couldn't have taken place over a century earlier. And so I began to work on a different kind of story, one that, ultimately, became more of a psychological mystery than a character study of a female artist.

JG: What surprised you most during the writing process?

JH: Interesting and lovely question. I'm having to think hard about it. *author walks away from computer, strolls to another part of house, potters a bit, returns*

I suppose the most surprising thing about this novel is that I ever managed to finish it. I can't say too much here about the story, because there is a mystery at the heart of this book and I don't want to spoil anything for potential readers, but there are certain elements of the narrative that made it a technically complicated book to write. There was a sort of balancing act or magic trick that had to be accomplished. This was difficult to achieve and, at times, I just didn't feel capable of it. I'm actually still amazed that I finished it and that I seem to have got away with it.

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

JH: I'd have been a supermodel or a porn star. Possibly. But (more likely), I'd still be teaching English as a Foreign Language somewhere. Or perhaps I might have ended up as an embittered, passive-aggressive librarian. In fact, yes, that's the most likely option. I'd be sitting behind the issue desk in my cardigan, swiping library cards, and imagining that the swiping action made each customer in front of me explode. Kaboom!

JG: What else are you reading right now?

JH: Mainly, I'm reading books that are related in some way to the novel I'm currently working on. So, right now, I'm reading an old book called "Obi," or the "History of Three-Fingered Jack" by William Earle. It's set in18th century Jamaica and tells the story of a slave who rebels against his masters.

JG: What's next for you?

JH: I'm determined to write a short, straightforward novel. Both "Gillespie and I" and my first novel "The Observations" turned out to be big books with fairly complex narratives. That means they took a while to write. I'm hoping to do something that's still rewarding for the reader, but not quite as long. I'm trying to remember the K.I.S.S. rule - that is: KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.

For More on "Gillespie and I," visit the Harper Collins website.