It’s been nine months since the first ReadRollShow video appeared: a nearly 14-minute, long-form (for us) interview with Joshua Ferris on Vimeo. Topics ranged from Cervantes to coworkers who announce their bowel movements. An auspicious start for the program, no?
Nine months, a healthy gestation. And now: life beyond the womb! Expect lots of changes from ReadRollShow in 2011. All for the good, we swear! In time we think you’ll even trust us without that baby gate at the top of the stairwell.
One note about our year-end rankings: Mr. Ferris likely would have edged out Sam Lipsyte for the #5 spot if only we hadn’t divided the aforementioned long clip into four shorter ones for YouTube; cumulatively, Ferris garnered more than enough views — almost enough to catch Sloane Crosley at #4. So we’re giving him a Most-Watched honorable mention. (Okay, we just like Ferris a lot. We’re not too proud to admit it.) [click to comment]
Skloot explains how two unlikely influences helped her shape “a rare and powerful combination of race, class, gender, medicine, bioethics, and intellectual property” (Seed magazine) into “one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time” (Dwight Garner, New York Times).
Thanks to Heather at the Book Store in New Martinsville, West Virginia, for putting Fried Green Tomatoes in Rebecca’s hands. Lots of other great books, too, including Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine; Skloot credits that book’s multiple voices—Erdrich weaves them together to tell the story of the Kashpaws and Lamartines—as a model for how voice could work in The Immortal Life. [click to comment]
We hoped to get Rebecca telling stories that hadn’t been exhausted by the widespread media attention aimed at her book. She’d been seemingly everywhere in the months since The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was published; you couldn’t miss her—on TV, radio, in print, online, or making dozens of appearances in cities across the country. (See the links below for a sample.) Still, my question was innocuous enough: Do you have any funny stories from your road trips with Deborah that didn’t make it into the book?
Mission accomplished. And a great story of journalistic persistence, besides. [click to comment]
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Wordstock is a year-round Oregon nonprofit that works to promote writing in the classroom. And once a year, the Wordstock Festival takes over Portland.
Wordstock is a year-round Oregon nonprofit that works to promote writing in the classroom. And once a year, the 