From: Pat McCorkle <mccorkle>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 02:16:10 -0600

Thanks for mentioning C-Span2, Lisa Ranson!

I was in a motel the Sunday before Thanksgiving and, for me, that meant an opportunity to watch BookTV. I was fortunate enough to catch the National Book Awards ceremony hosted by Steve Martin. The format allowed for speeches by the selection committee chairs and speeches by the award winners. Of course, there were "thank yous" to the usual sorts of people, but most people used their time to make substantive points.

Terry Tempest Williams told of the selection process for the non-fiction category. She lives in a small Utah town where hundreds of books coming into her post office box attracted attention. As she made her way through the books, they were stored in the garage. After the five finalists were selected, Williams opened the garage to the people of her town. As part of her talk, she named books that her neighbors took home with them. She was underscoring the interest people have in non-fiction. Andrew Solomon made me want to read his book.

I've been looking for a transcript of Virginia Euwer Wolff's speech and haven't found one yet. I find the differences between True Believer and The Mozart Season interesting. Arthur Miller was honored and I was surprised that he read his speech......but why shouldn't he since he's a WRITER? Jonathan Franzen is definitely the center of his world.

As I watched those speakers and thought about what they said, I felt fortunate. I also think we need to consider what it says about our culture that the Emmys and the Oscars get primetime network coverage and the National Book Awards don't.

Pat McCorkle mccorkle at qwerty.com
Received on Tue 11 Dec 2001 02:16:10 AM CST