WRIC-TV All About Books Chat

Still glowing from yesterday's series of long and short-form interviews about my recent books at local news station WRIC-TV (Channel 8), a lucky happenstance that occurred just because I happened to meet the dynamic organizer of an All About Books project at the station, Deanna Albritten, at my favorite bookstore Book People one day over the summer.

WRIC is a couple miles from our house, so a quick drive. The bunker-like building has a gated parking lot and a buzzer to get in the locked front door, but once past those obstacles, everyone there was welcoming and kind. In the spacious and floor-to-ceiling windowed lobby (pretty much the only windows in the building, as far as I could see), I met another local writer, a burly, bearded man in a baseball cap named Jo Lily (https://www.jo.lily.writes), who'd been featured on the morning news already. Straight up told me about suffering a stroke that brought on global aphasia, healing his way back to language by writing his first fantasy novel Overwatch. Fascinating guy. We chatted a while, and then they called me for my interviews.

It was interesting to be back in a tv studio, sparking memories from 40+ years ago to my days as a production assistant for WWL-TV in New Orleans (a glorified runner between the typewriters of the news producer and the set - this was in the dark ages before computers). Much of the studio was familiar, the windowless offices and hallways, the ON AIR signs above doors, the busy newsroom (now lined with pc screens, of course), and the sharply dressed announcers rushing here and there. One brief interview for the station's SHOWCASE feature took place in a studio set up like a living room with easy chairs and a coffee table. The cameraman stood opposite behind a desk and single camera, while the reporter, a young woman with an eager to please demeanor, shared a big handheld mike with me. But the main interviews, a 3-minute clip shot for the noonday news and a deep dive 48-minute chat shot for the station's streaming app (WRIC+) took place in a strange new environment designed for social media recording. Basically a big round table, around which sat three office chairs each positioned before a camera, a stand microphone, a computer screen that showed what was being recorded, and another screen that streamed text for the reporter to read. At one chair, the producer sat before a larger control console, occasionally adding photos of my books or other material onscreen to liven up the shots of our talking heads. It was an awkward setting to manage, since my interviewer sat six-feet away at her console, though her face appeared directly in front of me onscreen. I was advised to stare at a glowing dot on the screen before me if I wanted to look like I was facing the viewer at home, but it was hard not to turn my head away to speak directly to my interviewer way over there. That was the only hassle. The team made the whole experience casual, easy, and even fun.

Here's a link to the deep dive. That interview was conducted by Deanna Albritten, who conceived of this whole All About Books project now underway at WRIC. If you watch the clip, you'll readily see how well prepared she was for this talk, how she grokked the night doctor book so completely (at one point, I called her "my ideal reader") and how she's got this open-hearted Oprah vibe that guarantees she'll go far. It was such a wonderful experience, discussing my books with someone who really understood and appreciated what I'd attempted in writing them. And all on tv, too!

P.S. The shorter noon news interview can be found further down this webpage.