Patricia Cornwell: 2012 National Book Festival

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC for Patricia Cornwell I want to have Ned Martell from the Washington Post come up and do the introduction welcome Ned thank you all for coming today it's a great afternoon for the Book Festival Library of Congress in the Washington Post in charter members since we got this going in 2001 and we're happy to welcome Patricia Cornwell today has there any has there ever been an author like Patricia Cornwell to give so much to her readers I was just thinking about you know post-mortem came out in 1986 and now we're on this year next month will be the 20th kay scarpetta novel that's a durable strong female protagonist but it also tells us something of what Patricia Cornwell has given to us as readers a sense of herself what it means to be a child of the Carolina mountains whose imagination took her so far what it means to be politically active in both parties what it means to marry another woman when you live a public life and on top of that to marry a psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard I mean in that relationship there's no hiding right I mean right now the book that is on sale in the sales tense is the red mist and that's number one on the paperback list and next month we're looking forward to the bone bed and I was thinking about that there's a in the bone bed there's a there's going to be a paleontologist who has gone missing in Canada but of course the term well resounds to where Kay lives through apparently the curious talking of her niece and some unspoken troubles of her colleagues but most of all we leave it to a talent like Miz Cornwell to show us that the topics may be dinosaurs in the dirt but we're dealing with so many layers of human behavior and secrets that only kay scarpetta can unearth so please join me in welcoming Patricia Cornwell wow what a crowd thank you thank you you know I can't think of anything better when I actually get to look at some of my readers in the face so thank you for the privilege today to say hello to all of you and I am so grateful that you took the time to come here how many are you local most how many of you travel to some distance to be here Wow well again of course all this assumed this was all for me but it's sort of like when when I was in London a few years ago to get the galaxy book award and we were going up this red carpet and all these people were holding out things to be signed and so I thought I'd be nice and I reached for this little boy's thing he said oh no that's not for you that's for JK Rowling so so I don't know some of you might be here for somebody else but one of the things that's really fun about this festival is it represents two groups of people very heavily who do a lot to keep us honest in this world one is journalists because there's a lot of journalists here and the others librarians and I had a very funny experience last night where I was giving a little talk at the Library of Congress and I was introduced to the librarian of Congress which sort of makes him the librarian of the United States of America and my first impulse when I shook his hand as I thought when I started remembering all my terrors as a child of being late returning a library book or god forbid you couldn't find a library book because that was pretty much a felony as a kid that was about as much trouble as you could get into and then I remembered how many of you remember the days of you know the card in the back of the book and and what's one of the first things you would do is you wanted to see who else had checked out the same thing you did so that was what began my time as an investigator was I would start looking at who had signed out the same book that I had usually you hoped it was somebody really cool in my case usually it wasn't because I checked out strange things in fact it was pretty typical that maybe the book hadn't been checked out for three years until I got it which added to my feeling a little bit like loser and isolated and all those other awful things we feel in school and so now that is segwayed into a whole different arena of we don't check out books that way anymore but now how many of you use iPads or Kindles I mean it's okay we're here to celebrate the book but in any form so I had this very funny experience I have an iPad because to travel with and my partner set up the account for it and there's a couple other people that are on this same account when what I didn't realize is that when I would download a book an e-book it wasn't going to my iPad it was going to my partner's aunts iPad and so she gets stacy gets this phone call one morning from her aunt who says I don't know what's going on here she says suddenly on my iPad there is sexual homicide and also all these Fifty Shades of Grey book and I said no no no no no no no that's for research research I don't read things like that I just wanted to know why it's so popular well then why did you get three of my I don't know that was probably I just they went in the cart by mistake so once again books will get you I mean they tell the truth oh I hear my favorite sound a helicopter going by and by the way do you know how hard it is for helicopter pilot to have to ride in a golf cart but that's how I just got here was in a golf cart and I said this is really worse there's no engine there's no nothing I mean that's I'm waiting for that to go by what we're gonna do in a minute is I'm gonna open up the floor because I want you to ask me questions I want to get into a dialogue I will just I will start by saying a couple of things that are going on with me first of all yes red mist just came out in paperback and I'm gonna be signing that in a little while for anybody who's interested and it is very good news that it's number one on the New York Times list for mass-market paperback and and I'm very excited about the bone bed coming out in about three weeks and I think you're gonna have a lot of fun with this book it's very unusual I don't know some of you who may have read cause of death many years ago will remember the Scarpetta worked an underwater crime scene in that book where she had to get in scuba gear and go into the water in a really scary case and you're gonna see her back in the water again in this one it's not not just about digging up dinosaur bones which I did for research in this case and I found some and a tooth of a rhinosaurus and I got covered in mud and stayed in a trailer that had no electricity and I thought while I was there I know somebody would get murdered here you know if in my world and so that kind of got my wheels turning for what I did in the bone bed and it's you'll you'll you'll be able to recognize that some of it is very authentic in terms of experiences that I had the other thing that I am doing is tonight I fly to London and I'm finishing up research after an additional decade since the objective Ripper book came out so a lot of you have asked about what's going on with that over the years and you're gonna find out fairly soon there's actually been a lot that's going on with that and so you'll be hearing more about that in 2013 so I am going back to do battle with mr. Ripper tonight so who's gonna be a brave person and ask a question yes oh um go ahead so I have two questions one I'm a recent new reader I'm on my fourth book and I want to know which one did you enjoy writing the most and why any other question I've noticed that you jump with your style of writing and it was curious if you wrote about one and then you jump like like two books and then you separate it you know how you jump I don't know but I wouldn't mind jumping now but just get some music going but anyway I'm not sure I know I know what you mean by jump but you have me absolutely intrigued so you mean you mean you stopped with one character and then you go on you continue with another character you to chapter you oh it's so you're probably talking about the Scarpetta books where I use third person point of view yes so which I which I'm not I'm actually there's another one whose loud things that's not a golf cart just so you know that's actually the whole third person point of view was interesting story because for the first ten years of writing Scarpetta it was always told from her point of view and then when I did the Jack the Ripper book and took like a year and a half off from scarf metaphor what she still hasn't forgiven me when I came back I thought you know I would really like to explore the perspectives of other characters I mean we know what Scarpetta thinks of Scarpetta but what does Benton really think of her what does merino really think of her what does she really think what really happened sometimes behind the scenes when they're talking about her and she's not there and I thought this would be a very interesting way to tell the stories a little bit more like movies and I did that for a number of books and then I stopped doing it I've this the bone bed will be the third in the last few years where it's back to Scarpetta spointer222 like the jumping it's not there I was what I'm trying to warn you about and but anyway I don't have any idea if I answered your question at all but a favorite book the most fun I ever had writing any of the books I've written were actually the ones that were not necessarily hugely popular that was the Andie Brazil books hornet's nest Southern Cross I love dogs I have a really dopey quacky quirky sense of humor of a sort of a farside sense of humor when I was in college I was the newspapers cartoonist if that tells you anything and so I love things that are funny and I had I made myself laugh when I was writing those books but I found out that most people really don't want me to make them laugh they would rather read something scary so I haven't done any more of those you're welcome yes well the cookbook that's without that's well that's a fun book I was kind of fun to eat while you're doing something so kids who are very interested in books but you don't want them to read what they should read well I actually did do a children's book and I want to make sure I include everybody over here so I did do a children's book I think it came out around 2000 I can't remember exactly when it was is at least 10 years ago and I would hazard to say that was probably the least read children's book on the planet I don't think it nobody was particularly interested in life's little fable and I thought that because I was asked I spoke to a second grade class and way back then and they wanted to know if I wrote anything they could read and I said no you really might want not one thing do I write that you can read and should you ever read and tell you're much much older which is silly now these kids know more about autopsies and gory stuff than I do so but I don't think I will be doing any more children's books and it's it's interesting question is what is a children's book anymore his kids are so sophisticated and they seem to be rather unfazed by a lot of what I think we would have found rather shocking when we were very little introduction to reading was well I will I will tell Scarpetta that she was compared to Nancy Drew today she's she's might even be here somewhere if you see your letter let me know she's very very elusive yes great I just when you started writing the books were you writing them more for yourself or to expose everyone and did you know it would have such like a rippling effect well when I first started we started writing books when I was a little kid I mean literally just a teeny tiny kid I would I would write stories and I would Ella straight them and then I would get cardboard or something and I'd sew little covers on them usually with a rawhide you know shoelace and I would make I was making books from the time I was really small and I certainly wasn't doing that for anybody but myself this was a wonderful way to entertain myself as a kid and I was as I was I was saying last night when I was speaking at the Library of Congress I said you know writing is for everybody it isn't just for authors I mean I'm an author because I'm very fortunate that I can make a living writing but writing is a it's a magnificent gift for all people not only to do it but to read other people's writing and when I first started writing I was writing because I wanted to and and and then the next thing that happened and this is very important if there's any teachers here to have any teachers yeah all right is that I got encouragement from teachers they would you know put my short stories or my poetry on on the bulletin board which was like the bestseller list back in those days I mean if I made the bulletin board nothing got bigger than that so so so then I started thinking well other people are liking what I do so it wasn't until I was in college that I wanted to really pursue it and and as some of it is because I just didn't really think I was very good at much else and I wrote my first novel in college I would have loved that if that had been for other people but I don't think anybody was much interested it got me a good grade but it was a really a terrible book and and then eventually I began pursuing that for living after I was a journalist but for the and I will say that for those who have how many here are aspiring writers or how many people here have a dream of publishing a book if you haven't already done it well the one thing I will tell you is don't give up because part of part of doing this often time especially if you're going into forensic science remember I said this that if you are not met with failure at some point you're probably not taking enough of a risk you know you cannot be good at anything without being bad at it first and that takes a lot of guts it takes a lot of guts to go out there and hit a tennis ball badly and everybody you watch on television hit it badly the first few times they tried it takes a lot of guts to just study a very difficult discipline in forensics and and have some failures or not understand something or not get a great grade or maybe you get something wrong when you're doing some you know mock casework whatever it is and that's the same thing with writing you know I just keep trying I had multiple failures before I made it and I still every time I sit down to write a book I still always wondered if I'm gonna be able to pull it off I don't have any of the self-assuredness that you might expect that I would have after writing 30-something books I still feel what if it that what if these people don't talk to me you know what if nothing comes so you have to be persistent good luck yes well you know that that's probably it such a hot button for her I wouldn't say that very often if I were you she I'm not sure she knows who I am by the way but she certainly wouldn't think she doesn't look like she's much better-looking than I am so or does it come to you and in the second picture which you kind of alluded to that you you get stuck are you always thinking about kind of what's next or what's your creative process how does that work I know a Scarpetta does not tell me which how she's gonna end a book she's really a very difficult woman to work with she doesn't tell me anything I mean I have to really find it out myself but but more honestly to answer your question I write my books the same way I would work a real case and if you usually when you're working a real case you don't know the answer when you've just started or if you think you know the answer you better be very careful so that what you think you know doesn't guide the investigation and the evidence and how you interpret it that's for any of you who are in law enforcement you probably know exactly what I mean by that that you need to work a cases if you have no idea who committed this crime let the evidence tell you let witnesses tell you and make them convince you so that you don't go down a false path so when I'm writing the Scarpetta books usually it starts with an idea a type of crime it may even be a certain piece of evidence that I want to have be very important and tell an unusual story and then I sort of see what the characters are gonna do with it and it's a very organic process I don't use an outline I don't use index cards I don't sometimes when I was working on the bone bed it wasn't until very late in the game that I know who the killer was I wasn't sure and she wasn't either and then she when she found out it really was the hard way as you'll see this is a very harrowing moment when she realizes who's doing these very very awful things to people in red mist I wasn't necessarily sure who was doing it and why until very deep into the book so but that's my method it doesn't necessarily work for other people so you have to do what works for you sure yes success and popularity of other writers characters on film and television and you know being in series I was wondering if there was any interest for turning Kay Scarpetta into oh yes we have the infamous movie question which is I say infamous because Scarpetta has been she's she's the runaway bride of Hollywood every time she's almost there she's gone that lady's been so close to being on the big screen so many times and then you look and nothing's happened and so she's been the Scarpetta series has basically been optioned by various studios or production companies since the very first one came out in 1990 and I could write a book it's you know in itself about the the various things I've been through trying to get Scarpetta on the big screen the bottom line is there's we've never had anybody he's been able to write a really great screenplay and if you think about it that's probably not surprising she's a very difficult character to capture and you really have to know her world so where we are right now is she's under option with Fox 2000 and we do have a script that I participated in which is why it's requiring some rewriting made because that's not my forte and so we're hopeful maybe this time it's gonna happen you know what we should know a lot more fairly soon yes thank you can I just interrupt if people have questions it's great if you come up to the mic or everybody else can't hear you but I'm one can you come over here and by the way you guys care if I take my coat off like this is killing me cool can you take a question on this side when she's coming up absolutely hello welcome back to Washington thank you did you come in on the whirlybird no I didn't this time I because I had it's a little it's a longer flight from Boston it was it's gonna take me a little bit too long to get here on the helicopter well I have to tell you my last name is Ripper is that right that's probably was that been good or bad for you you know which of your books I read first I can imagine maybe you should sue him for copyright violation well after reading your book I have a two-part question on your recorded books number one do you pick the reader and number two when they are abridged do you have to say so what is taken out well what happens with the audiobooks is I don't I don't pick the reader however thanks to social networking and I hope some of you were following me on Facebook and Twitter I hear things from my fans and for example there were some complaints about a recent reader that caused us for the bone bed to change back to somebody we've been using before all because of fans so if we hear if I you know if I get the word on this because I have people who monitor my sites because I obviously can't read everything everybody's posting because there's a lot of lovely people on there but we're you know so we pay attention I can't remember who's who's reading the bone bed does anybody know it's Kate reading I think so whoever I mean do you don't know if that means anything to you but we got a lot of people says we like her better you know and so as for the the abridged versions my editor goes through those scripts and it's a very painful process because they cut about a third of the book out and it's um actually I don't think we're doing the unabridged unabridged excuse me the abridged ones anymore I think that my publisher has stopped that now if you want if you're gonna listen to it you're gonna have to listen to all of it so come back and see us again well and but what joy may ask what your profession is that have you lived up to your name in any way I mean I know somebody who runs some New York medical examiner's office in her last name is butcher and she's proud to tell you that that's really true so I maybe maybe we don't want to know but you know I also knew of a I knew of a judge once who tried a cattle-rustling case in Virginia and his last name was bovine and I kid you not and how many detectives have we seen with the last name of gore so there you go with the name Ripper you should have a lot of fun yes my question I'm from the Williamsburg area so I wanted to ask you about your research for all that remains in the Colonial Parkway yes the Colonial Parkway murders which is I as far as I know have never been solved and that was a series of couples who vanished very mysteriously back in the late 80s I believe it was and then eventually the remains were found in wooded areas skeletonized it was really I was actually still working part time at the medical examiner's office which is one of the reasons I knew about the case I didn't actually go to the scenes or actually see the medical the records were examinations of these people but it was when I decided to work on that I decided to write a book using a similar theme because I not only found a terrifying I mean but also how does somebody get access to to people like this or was it more than one person why would someone pull over in their car and then there vanished from their car and then later their bodies are found made me a little worried that it might be somebody that was impersonating a law-enforcement individual because I mean and and as well and by the way this is Patricia's little tip for the day since they can't they everybody who knows me caused me worse miss worst-case scenario I'm always thinking of what kills people and hurts them unfortunately if you are ever being tailed by an unmarked car with grille lights going do not pull over you get you get on your phone and you call 911 you want verification that really is a law enforcement person that's trying to make you pull over because you can buy these grill lights and uniforms and stuff anywhere you can you can think of these days and so just be careful don't don't necessarily trust what's before your eyes be a little bit suspicious like I am and live a lovely long and paranoid life I understand some of the creative process you use but I'd like to know like your average working day or like you get up in the morning and I can tell by your your energy level you've got to at least have ten cups of coffee typewriter are you over your garage where do you write well I write in different places and I basically have I have a portable office which is really easy this day and age because so much of your research can be done on the Internet I don't have and you know it wasn't that long ago that I would have as many as 200 reference books in my library depending on what I was writing about so I wasn't very portable and or if I had offices elsewhere I would have duplicate books in every place now I'm very happy to say a lot of that isn't necessary I mean almost anything including very technical scientific journal articles you can find online which is really really excellent but you know my day starts it's different it depends on what I'm doing like right now because I'm working on Jack the Ripper my day may start with something I'm doing with that and yes I do have an office it's separate from where I live and I also sometimes go places and isolate so that I'm doing nothing but working basically morning noon and night because I have to really focus on what I'm doing to keep the whole book in my head and if you have a certain deadline does that seem to motivate you more I'm always on a deadline I mean my mind my biography should be called deadlines I it's it's an you know it's it's really an awful way to live in many ways because you're never finished with anything because even if you finished one book you got the next one to do but then the other side of that is if I didn't have that I think my life would feel very empty so it's I don't know for you those of you here who are journalists and writers I'm sure you know what I mean and I a deadline is very motivating though and I because I was a journalist I got used to that and of course in college you get used to it I mean how many how many people here still have nightmares that is today before your term papers do and you haven't started it you know those like your teeth falling out we all have those welcome well I think they're still extremely forensic oriented in fact I think that for example import mortuary which preceded red mist I almost worried it was too technical especially since I introduced the forensic radiology you know using CT scanners and and so I think they're still very technical and very forensic forensic ly driven I think what you might be sensing though is in the first 10 years of the Scarpetta books before CSI there really wasn't anybody doing what I was doing and there wasn't as much information readily available to to people about for example if you're talking about a scanning electron microscope what is that well I can mention scanning electron microscope in a book now and while I will give you a description of someone doing it I won't do ten pages on it because you can see it on television so my formula if there is such a thing for the first decade of my books and I think this is again what you might be just sensing is I would take a certain discipline of forensic science such as forensic fire investigation and I'd say I'm going to show my audience what what forensic fire investigation is like and so then the book became a bit of a procedural in terms of using that to solve a crime I do the less procedural method now because everything on television is a procedural so I've had to sort of change my emphasis and maybe my characters where forensic technology like like old pair of sneakers it's there but I don't flaunt it quite as much perhaps thank you yes based on usually it's not based on anything that I've seen in the news for example in red mist I'm not going to tell you if you haven't read it I'm not going to tell you what the terrible weapon is that's used but I I've started getting a little more interested in what I call I was well acts of terror in fact I'm glad you brought this up because this is a really important point in the in the 90s in particular the thing that terrified everybody Month the most were the Ted Bundy's of the world you know these quote serial killers the Silence of the Lambs type thing was what captured everybody's imagination in a horrifying way and that was pretty much the sorts of crimes I was writing about I think in modern times we now have a whole set of fears I'll be honest with you I'm more worried about what might happen at a shopping mall than I'm worried about a serial killer coming through my window and I think that these the the creativity of what people can turn into a weapon to use against people they don't even know and not just overseas but here and I mean we've all just think about what happened not so long ago at the the Batman movie I mean those are things that were inconceivable 10 and 15 years ago nobody thought of things like this so what drives me is what is really the going on in our society because these Scarpetta lives in the same world you do and I makes very certain of that whether it's social technologies for example in the bone bed well let me just ask you who of all the characters should not do Twitter a Murray no I mean the big lump can you imagine him getting starting to oh my god it does he caused a mess so for those of you who are Twitter bugs you will get a big kick out of good old Pete Moreno is deciding to do his social networking to bring up to build up his fan club because he should have one after all so so I wrote these people in the same world we all live in and that means Scarpetta is gonna be dealing with the kinds of crimes that not only happen today or that we fear could happen today so that's that's really where I get my ideas for this what that means is for somebody like me is I have to always continue to do research yes I get a lot of great information off the internet but I still go to medical examiner's offices I go to labs I hang out with the real people I ride with the police you cannot rest on your laurels because your readers will always know yes that you would be signing red mist where you are you signing other books as well no just I think I'm just signing red mist I think if people have brought other books they will limit how many just so that we can get through the line and so I can also I've got a plane to catch a little later I've got to go get mr. Ripper he's still running around out there and I've had enough of him I'm gonna get him this time I'm telling you you're welcome yes sir thank you I have a question on behalf of my wife and then a second question the first is she was quite upset when you killed Benton and brought him back and so the question I have is what caused that caught what caused the the decision to do that and then bring them back and leading to that to my second question as I'm thinking about writing or look at how other writers have a main character that character a series could you talk about what that's like that you get tired of writing that one character or and how do you take well I'll start with that but start with your second question about getting tired of a character if I got tired if I had got were to get tired of Scarpetta I wouldn't do it anymore because it there'd be no point if I get tired ever you would be tired of her and so fortunately I picked a character who is it's so unusual and so smart that she always keeps me busy just trying to figure her out I mean she's you know I'm not a forensic pathologist I don't have a law degree I couldn't do a CT scan if I tried but I can write about these things I've never done an autopsy I I have immersed myself in the world of all these things so that I make you feel they're real but I don't know what it's like to go to medical school and she did all that so that's why I don't get bored with her because there's so much to mine when you're dealing with a complicated character like Scarpetta I enjoy her I still do I mean I've always said to people you know I really wish you were real you know it's I'd love to sit down and talk to her because I think she's an amazing character and I don't mean to sound arrogant but I like her there have been times when I don't like some of the other characters and this is really fun to go through if you're a novelist because you have this happen like I got really sick of Moreno and I I got I just like I could hardly stand to have him in my office anymore there he is no good morning to you too what kind of jerky thing are you gonna do today he's but he's he's actually getting a little better so he had to have his bad spell we won't talk about that and polite company but as far as killing off Benton you need to tell your wife I did not kill him not why does everybody say why did you kill him I didn't I wasn't even there so I didn't do it you know em is sort of like actually in that same book point of origin my publisher after she read it she said you know the NASA last night they were together and you did not have them have sex and I said they have yet to ask my permission to have sex and furthermore I don't know if they had sex cuz I'm not always in the room and I don't blame them and they're not going to have sex just because I tell them to just try doing that with your characters alright listen you two let's go at it now and make me believe it they're just staring at you suddenly the screen is just blinking yes so I let things happen in the books that feels inevitable at the time and I didn't I didn't plan on this happening to Benton when I started point of origin way back in 1997 or whenever it was and when I saw that it was sort of gonna happen I just didn't stop it but then I had all my fans get extremely upset and several of them at meetings like this they they would raise their hand they say but is he really dead and I said that's a good question you know I did not I wasn't there and because it was Scarpetta spointer222 of course and so that's I started thinking you know Kay when you got a moment could we chat because are we sure Benton's really dead and turned out he wasn't so as usual my readers knew more than I did so thank you tell your wife next time that she should come too and ask a question that's you but I now I let me just I bet he does what you tell him at home - does he know she's shaking her head I want I want to talk to you later I know what your your formula is for all that all right yes thank you my question is as I've read your books I've seen that a handful of authors really create strong female characters and so I wanted to thank you for creating such a strong female character I think it's great to have and so I wanted to know was it your intent to I guess inspire people with a character like that or was it something where perhaps you know the character somehow came up that way what was your thinking in terms of the character well I've been I've been very fortunate in that I have known a lot of very strong women and not necessarily people that you might expect but for example when I was growing up in the teeny tiny town of Montreat North Carolina I knew Ruth Graham Billy Graham's wife she's unfortunately no longer with us and she was without a doubt a force to be reckoned with in that town somebody who was courageous and good and very funny and a real role model so there been a lot of role models and I'm getting the five minute sign thank you I was also grew up when Billie Jean King would dominated the tennis world and who's now somebody who happens to be a very dear friend of mine and I used I would get inspired from watching that I think I think women are strong I don't know why anybody's ever thought otherwise and men are strong too don't want any men to feel left out here I'm an equal opportunity employer but I think women are amazingly strong and women doctors women Medical Examiner's William with women lawyers if nothing else women journalists if nothing else you you have to be strong to deal with all those kids I guess huh so I hope that answered your question I think I couldn't write about a woman and not make her strong on her please no she I'm more worried about her killing me first don't start me yeah but anyway no I could there's only two type of women I can really write about they're either really strong or they're really evil have you noticed so I think we have time for maybe one more Thanks hi I've been reading you since the very beginning I love your books when I read a Scarpetta novel when I'm finished with it she's with me for a good month afterwards she lives maybe that's why I can't find her do you know and now I bet so now you're in big trouble because I usually go a whole month and I can't find her anywhere after I finish this book she's been with you the whole I'm glad you send her back eventually when you create these novels over and over again how do you keep your life separate and how do they not just be part of your life all the time these wonderfully I think they are part of my life all the time I mean even right now we're all talking about these characters ifs if they're real so they're part of all of our lives and of course when I'm really busy with Scarpetta as Stacey will tell you I go home and I saw all I do is talk about it Houston complaining because nothing ever goes as fast as I want it to they are not to be rushed they do things in their own timing so but one thing that's important to remember about that is if you're if you want to write or you do write it's really it's really important that you write about something you can live with because it it will live with you and that's one of the reasons except for the Ripper book I don't do true crime because if I had to spend all of my time dealing with some of the details of real crime stories and the the horror of it I think it would be so expressing to me that I just don't think I could stand it so you've been a great wonderful audience I'm gonna go I'm gonna go sign books so please come this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

Channel: Library of Congress

Views: 9,410

Rating: 4.4666667 out of 5

Keywords: Library of Congress, National Book Festival

Id: Rf0zXaO6VNQ

Length: 43min 7sec (2587 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 28 2012