We're planning to watch "Mary Queen of Scots" tonight. I'm reading the book it's based one: John Guy's "Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart." Fascinating stuff, but VERY detailed. Not sure I have time for nearly 600 pages on her at the moment. I'm torn, because I've been fascinated by her all my life, and she's definitely worth 600 pages. But with a book launch and several other big things on my plate . . . We'll see. I'm about 70 in, just reaching adolescence.
I got to talk about the amazing year the March For Our Lives kids had, their impact on the culture, and preview "Parkland: Birth of a Movement" on MSNBC's "Deadline Whitehouse yesterday. Clips one. I actually prefer a second clip I recorded off my TV and posted to Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJloq9_1eio It was great to be on with Elise Jordan, guest-hosting for Nicolle Wallace. Elise read an advance galley and said: “It’s exceptional. I really look forward to it being unleashed to the world, because the Parkland students really did something. They are a political force to be reckoned with in our country.” --Elise Jordan, NBC political analyst
I got the near-final page proofs this week for Parkland: Birth of a Movement. Final changes due tomorrow. I'm going over the most tiny fact-checks (like making sure they had the A/C on in the car when the Peace Warriors drove to Emma González's house), and checking and rechecking. It's a little scary that we'll be out of time to fix or alter, but . . . What a relief that for better or worse, this baby will be birthed. Tomorrow. Almost there. :)
The scariest part of writing a book: the author photo! haha. So I went to a real pro this time. I had new headshots done by Vanity Fair photographer Justin Bishop. Cool to work with someone that talented. (Check out Justin's Instagram, too.) This will be my book jacket photo for “Parkland: Birth of a Movement.” Finishing final edits this week. (BTW, you can pre-order it now, at my site, or the usual places. Comes out Feb 12. We're still racing.) Justin was also wardrobe consultant. :) I showed up with three shirts to choose from, and he suggested combining two of them.
I worked for months on the big Vanity Fair print piece on the Parkland kids, but when it finally hit newsstands this fall, I was so locked pounding out the book, I never stopped to post about it here. It's called: Meet the Ultra-Organized Teenager Masterminding Parkland’s Midterms Push. I hope you like it. I will confess that I was also a tiny bit apprehensive at the time that it might cannibalize a lot of the book's story, since the book was supposed to be done short and fast, a max of 50,000 words. Well, I just had too much material, and kept writing, and turned in 75,000, assuming my editor would make tough cuts. She said it really worked at that length, and made lots of cuts line by line
These are always interesting for unexpected reasons. Last December, I would not have believed that 7 of my TopNine on Instagram would be murder-related. Sigh. My world changed on Valentine’s Day—though not nearly as much as the Parkland kids I’ve been shadowing. Nice to see 2 non-murderous entries: Surprised to see me as a young soldier in there, and the bottom left was just for fun. (Bottom middle is Columbine. 1st time they ever put up a (temporary) fence around it, when 60 #Parkland kids came to visit for the 19th anniversary.)
I was a cockly journo at 19. (Try to imagine. Haha.) As a sophomore at U of Illinois, I'd landed the politics beat at The Daily Illini, which usually went to an upperclassmen (or grad student). Illinois was a swing state in 1980, and 26 electoral votes, fourth highest, so all the big politicians came through. That season I covered President Jimmy Carter (my first time getting Secret Service clearance), Nancy Reagan, major indie candidate John B. Anderson (twice), and our governor and senator. I interviewed most of them. About a week before the election, before he was first elected vice president, George Bush did a campaign stop at UofI, at the big basketball arena, Assembly Hall. They offere
