- [Announcer] This program is made possible through support from Bucknell University.

(upbeat music) From the Weis Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

The Bucknell Forum presents New York Times bestselling author, Jodi Picoult, "Freedom of Expression."

(upbeat music) - Well, good evening, everyone.

I'm John Bravman, President of Bucknell University, and it's great to see you all here this evening.

Welcome to the third presentation in this year's series of Bucknell Forum Events, which examines the theme of freedom of expression.

Free speech has been an urgent topic in the news of late.

It's also we firmly believe here at Bucknell, a prerequisite for both democracy and education.

Tonight we are pleased to welcome New York Times bestselling author, Jodi Picoult.

You're in for a treat.

Jodi Picoult is the author of 28 New York Times number one bestselling novels.

Her books have been translated into 34 languages in 25 countries.

Four of her novels, "The Pact," "Plain Truth," "The 10th Circle," and "Salem Falls" have also been made into television movies.

Her book "My Sister's Keeper," was a film released from New Line Cinema starring Cameron Diaz.

Another of her novels, "Small Great Things," was adapted as a film starring Viola Davis and Julia Roberts.

Ms. Picoult's works have been adapted for the theater as well.

Her two young adult novels "Between the Lines" and "Off the Page," co-written with her daughter, were developed by the authors into an off-Broadway musical entitled "Between The Lines."

Ms. Picoult is the recipient of many honors, too many to read, including however, a few such as the New England Bookseller Award for fiction, the Alex Awards for the Young Adult Library Services Association, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, the New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit, and a Sarah Josepha Hale Award.

Now, in her writing, Ms. Picoult frequently addresses difficult social issues, including abortion, the Holocaust, assisted suicide, race relations, eugenics, LGBTQ rights, fertility, religion, the death penalty, and school shootings.

Her most recent novel, "Mad Honey," which she co-wrote in 2022 with author Jennifer Finney Boylan explores gender identity, friendship, and self-acceptance.

Ms. Picoult's books have been banned in about 40 US school districts, although she just shared with us over dinner that she no longer even tries to keep track of that because the number is too large.

She addressed this in an interview last year with ABC's Nightline in which he said, quote, "Books are being banned today not because they're bad books, "but because they're dangerous books, "because they do inspire.

"They do inspire thought and empathy.

"And for a lot of people that's terrifying "because it tears down the walls "of your echo chamber," unquote.

I'd like to share one more fact about our guest.

In addition to dozens of novels, Ms. Picoult wrote five issues of the DC Comic Wonder Woman.

That seems entirely appropriate to me.

I know you're all eager to hear from Ms. Picoult, so let's get started.

Please join me in welcoming Jodi Picoult.

(audience applauding) Well, Jodi, thank you so much for being here.

We have a wonderful crowd for you, and we just.

- [Jodi] This is great, and this is such a beautiful auditorium.

- [John] Thank you, thank you.

- [Jodi] So gorgeous.

- So you've written more than two dozen bestselling novels that explore difficult and often controversial topics.

And as I just said, your books have been banned in parts of nearly every state in the country, especially within school districts.

Can you share with us your personal experience what it's like to have your books banned and how do you hold that in you and what do you do with that?

- Well, gee, it's really not great.

I actually wanna share with you when I started to notice a change in what was happening in this country, and it's a little bit of a story.

As you mentioned, in addition to writing fiction, I also write librettos for musical theater, and I had the privilege of adapting Marcus Zusak's book "The Book Thief" for a musical.

And we were rehearsing it in the United Kingdom, and our director really wanted an actual prop book to be burned on stage because she thought that would be very upsetting to the audience every night.

So I was in a rehearsal watching an actor playing a Nazi burning a book when a notification popped up on my computer screen telling me that my books had been banned in Martin County, Florida, 92 books had been banned by one individual, and 20 of those 92 were my books.

They were banned because they were apparently porn.

I found this very interesting because they included a book about the Holocaust and books with not even a kiss in them, but this woman who banned them also very proudly admitted she did not read the books.

(audience laughing) And she did not have to by state law in order to get these books banned.

And you know, I was really, I was really confused by this because it's.

- Confused is the right word.

- Yeah, I, you know, I was in the UK.

I thought maybe I don't go home.

But honestly it was very strange because I had been used to having my books banned here and there over the course of my career.

I think the first time it happened was "My Sister's Keeper," many, many years ago, because the bartender in that book is gay.

Just in case you're wondering why.

But this seemed to be very intrusive and widespread, and I would like to tell you that things have gotten better.

But for example, a week ago in Escambia County, Florida, 1600 books were banned at once, including my book "Between the Lines," which is written for 10 to 14 year olds.

Again, because I guess it's porn, and also the dictionary because it has the word sex in it, and all of their encyclopedias.

So in Escambia County, Florida, there are no resource materials for children anymore.

Historically, banning is out of control.

Since 2020, banning has increased 1100%.

It involves 37 states in the country, 6,000 individual titles and millions of students.

And it does not show any sign of stopping anytime soon.

- Is that historically unprecedented in this country?

- [Jodi] Yes, in this country it is.

- Okay.

- Yeah, and you know what the other fact I shared with you at dinner is that we know that 60% of bans in schools are the result of 11 people in the United States, just 11 people.

And the playbook is at this point, they have it down to a science.

In Florida and in the school districts where my books were banned, Moms for Liberty are the people who are leading the challenge.

They reach out to people in their organization in other states and other school districts, and they literally have a binder at this point.

The binder has a list of titles in it.

The person goes into a new school district goes to the school board and says, "All of these titles are objectionable."

Again, not reading the books just because they are in a binder.

And what's happening is, as a result of parental rights bills that are being passed in this country, which I know we're gonna talk about in a little bit, we are seeing conservative legislatures pass those bills.

Parents see that as a way to control what is happening in their children's education, even in a public school.

And school boards too are being overrun by candidates who are part of the Moms for Liberty movement or No Left Turn in Education.

And they are doing a very good job of getting seats on school boards and making sure that the tide is turning, so that we're banning more books.

- Well, I actually, now I can't understand why I wrote this question, but why do you think it's so important for authors in particular to speak out about these decisions?

- That's actually a really good question.

So I told you that my books are mostly banned because of quote, mature content.

However, the bans started with BIPOC and LGBTQ authors.

They were targeting books by authors who are part of those communities or stories that involve those communities.

And you know, I am neither of those communities, but the role of the ally is to speak up on behalf of those who can't or shouldn't have to.

And so it's important for authors like me who are straight and white and cisgender to be able to speak up on behalf of other authors who are not and say those books and those stories matter.

And I'm telling you they do.

And I'm not even part of those communities.

I also think that the fact that now there's this slide towards mature content is really dangerous.

Nobody has defined what mature content is.

And that's a real problem because what's happening now in places like Martin County is teachers are pulling the books off the shelves.

Librarians are pulling books off the shelves because they can't get caught with something objectionable on them.

If they do in Martin County and in other places in Florida, you are subject to a $5,000 fine, a class three felony and losing your teaching license.

That's scary.

So the result of this is empty shelves in classrooms and in school libraries.

And I will point out too, that's the point.

So they know these parental rights bills that keep getting passed don't really say what mature content is or what is objectionable content.

So everyone is just sort of making it up as they go.

But even more importantly, none of these bills say anything about the process for vetting a book that is challenged.

And that is exactly what these groups are trying to do, to sow chaos.

Because when you pull 1600 books at once from a school or a school district, someone's gotta read 'em.

All those people have real jobs.

They can't sit around reading 1600 books.

And so as a result of that, the books stay off the shelf, sometimes for years at a time.

And that is exactly what they want.

They want this to be a ban as long as possible.

And that's the other reason authors need to speak out.

We need to redefine what the word ban is.

If I could tell you how many times some moron on social media has said to me, "You can still get it at Amazon, "and you can get it at your library or a bookstore."

You know why school districts have libraries?

Because there are kids who cannot afford a book from Amazon or they live in a rural area where they can't get to a library.

That is why school libraries were created.

So a book ban is still a ban.

- So your colleagues in the author community, are you pleased, dissatisfied?

How's it going?

- We're frustrated.

- Are a lot of people rallying?

- We're super frustrated because it's always easier to coalesce around hate and removal and to fire people up, you know, than it is to coalesce around support and freedom of expression.

So there are lots of groups that are working towards trying to get this message out against book banning, but they're not in sync yet.

That's very, very hard.

And in the meantime, groups like Moms for Liberty are literally marching in lockstep.

One thing that has been very positive is that for several months all of us authors were sort of floundering in a vacuum.

We were getting notifications that our books were banned.

We were speaking out.

We were on media, but nobody in the publishing community was talking.

You know, and none of the publishers were saying, "Hey, this isn't right."

Of course they all told us, well, this is terrible.

But we really needed them to take an active stand.

And I'm very pleased that my publisher, Penguin Random House was the first group to actually instigate two lawsuits against bans.

One is happening right now in Florida and is primarily centered on LGBTQ and BIPOC authors.

And they just got a notification from a judge that the case will go ahead instead of being thrown out, which is great for them.

And the other lawsuit was in Iowa where "19 Minutes," my book, is the most banned book in Iowa.

You're welcome.

And Penguin Random banded with me, John Green, Melinda Lowe, Lori Halse Anderson, authors who have been affected by this deeply and also a student plaintiff and her parents, and they took the case in Iowa.

The judge ruled in our favor, which is awesome.

And the state has already said that it's going to appeal, but the hope is that when you get legislation like this, if you can get a judge to say, this is unconstitutional.

You cannot do this because of a parental rights law.

When that happens, it can be used as precedent in other states as well.

- Has this in fact expanded to public libraries?

- Yes, it has.

- It has.

- Yeah, so for example, in Llano, Texas, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, it's Llano, Texas.

They came after public libraries to try to restrict mature content again and pull it all out of the children's area and said teens should not have access to any of that.

And sadly, what saved that situation was shaming.

The community got media involved and basically a lot of talking heads saying this really makes this town seem backwards and stupid.

And nobody in the town wanted to be thought of that way.

And so all of a sudden all those challenges disappeared.

Yeah.

- [John] They read a few books.

- Yeah, I actually would love to tell you a story about this.

"19 Minutes," which is by far the book of mine that is banned most often, and it has been banned in 40 different states at this point and many, many school districts.

"19 Minutes," if you haven't read it, is a story about bullying and the effects of bullying and what happens when you don't check that, and it leads to a school shooting.

I will point out that nobody who has banned "19 Minutes" is upset with the fact that it's about a school shooting.

The problem, that's not the mature content.

The mature content is on page 373, I believe.

And it is a date rape scene, which is completely endemic to the story of bullying and different ways that can happen.

And the word penis is used.

That is why that book is objectionable.

And, no, I'm not kidding.

And so that book, when it came out in 2007, was actually curriculum in dozens of states.

And in fact we had educators who were using it for professional development.

And then it spread so that like the state of Connecticut Department of Education, they created an entire fishbowl curriculum around it, so English teachers could use discussion questions and use it to model behaviors in their classroom.

- Yeah.

- And it was phenomenal.

It was so cool.

It was exactly what I'd hoped for the book, right?

- [John] Right.

- And we, my publisher was trying really hard to foster that kind of discussion.

So they gave away class sets of the book to several different school districts all around the country.

And a school district in New Hampshire called Gilford, New Hampshire, they decided to do like a one book, one school read.

So everyone was assigned "19 Minutes," and it was gonna culminate in me going to Gilford High School and giving a talk.

And I did, and I gave the talk I always give about the research that I did and why I wrote the book.

And when we finished, we took questions from the audience.

So I'm like shoulder to shoulder with the principal.

And the first guy I called on was this kid.

And he stands up and he goes, "Hey, so I don't really have a question, "but I wanted to let you know "that I was gonna bring a gun to school this October.

"But I read this book and I didn't."

And the principal was like, what?

And then I called on another girl, and it's a girl who uses a chair.

And she said, I go through the halls of school, and I'm invisible.

Nobody sees me.

And I came home one day, and I told my mother I wanted to kill myself.

And she was so upset that she ran out of the room, and I picked up my English homework, and it was "19 Minutes," and that's the reason I'm alive today.

So this is one, boom, boom, two, like the first two questions.

I think at that point the principal called off all the questions, but I mean, it was like, it was wild.

And the thing about it is like, it was a huge seminal point in my life as an author.

My husband happened to be in the audience that day, and he suddenly thought what I did made sense, and then also like, you know, it was incredible.

I know for the principal, his daughter wrote to me a couple years ago to say that was one of the highlights of his teaching career.

- [John] Right.

So that's what "19 Minutes" used to be.

What changed?

What changed are conservative legislatures that began passing parental rights bills.

Now the premise of a parental rights bill is so benign and makes so much sense that parents should have a say in how their child is learning.

They should be informed in what's going on in their kids' schools, right?

Doesn't that sound completely innocuous?

The problem is not that.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep track of your kids' education.

The problem becomes when you decide you can keep track of another person's kids' education, that is a big problem.

And that is exactly what the rationale is being used right now for all of these book bans.

And that is why it has become so explosive.

So that is literally what has changed in the world, in this country.

And that is why we are seeing such a proliferation of book bans, even though it remains to also, it's important to say, this is like a doom and gloom scenario.

We know that the vast majority of Americans do not want books banned in schools.

We know that.

But we also know this very small minority is very loud.

- Right.

What I was asking a moment ago, more pointedly, are you satisfied or disappointed with your peers who have your level of success in how they are or are not speaking out on this topic?

- I would never claim to tell them what to do.

- [John] Sure.

- You know, because some of them don't want that kind of spotlight.

And you know, here's the thing that you hear all the time.

Oh, your books are banned, you must be doing something right.

Oh, I bet that's a huge bump in sales.

- [John] Right.

- It's not.

It actually is not.

And I'm fine whether or not my books are being banned.

But there are a lot of authors, particularly at the middle grade and YA level for whom book bans are a loss of significant life income.

- [John] Right.

- [Jodi] And so this truly is hurting them.

- Can you define any, would you define any limits on free expression in literature?

And if so, how would you do that?

How would you define that?

- Okay, so that's a great question, and I'm gonna actually harken back to my "Book Thief" Moments and talk about "Mein Kampf."

"Mein Kampf" was literally banned.

After World War I, war tribunals decided it was too risky.

They were worried about sowing those ideas of hate again.

It was pulled from shelves.

It was not reprinted.

I'm sure there were copies out in the world, but the idea was it should not be, it should not be given a rebirth in any way.

And then in 2016 it entered public domain, and the book was reprinted, and it became an instant bestseller.

So I'm gonna let you chew on that for a second.

That is, you know, if you were gonna say, is there any book that should not be published?

I would say that might be a good start.

But I don't think, I think the more important question isn't, you know, how do we decide what is objectionable and what's not?

I think the more pertinent question is who gets to decide that?

And so again, going back to school book bans, who do we want making this decision?

Do we want, you know, some random lady who decided this book doesn't work for her kid to make this decision for all of your children?

Or should we maybe allow a media specialist who, oh yeah, has training and education and degrees in child development and in what is appropriate for children to make that decision?

Isn't that why we hired them?

- A lot of people make recourse to anatomy textbooks, but I won't go there.

In elementary school.

- No, but that's really important.

Let's talk about that for a second.

- [John] Yeah.

- Because you know what gets trotted out all the time as the most objectionable book is "Gender Queer."

- [John] Yeah.

- And it is because it is a graphic novel by a person named Maia Kobabe who is a fantastic, wonderful writer.

And it gets trotted out as porn because there are illustrated images in the book that probably I wouldn't show to a five-year-old certainly.

But this book is not in libraries for five year olds.

This is, we're talking about high school libraries.

The interesting thing is that the entire book is about being asexual, but nobody reads the book.

All they do is show on social media this one picture.

- [John] Of course.

- So when you take out of context something that you consider to be racy or pornography or too mature, well, sure, anything can look like that.

But when you look at it in the context of the story, you know, the definition of pornography is that it cannot have any literary merit or value.

Any book by virtue of being a book in that library already has literary merit or value.

Someone decided to publish it.

And so you've already disproven that argument, and it's the decontextualization of all of these images that are constantly being thrown up on social media.

That becomes really dangerous 'cause people don't understand it if they haven't read that particular book.

It's also worth saying that in no world in my mind is there a problem with a five-year-old reading a book about two male penguins that hatch an egg.

Okay, I don't know what about that is gonna ruin a child?

I can tell you that my son is 32, married to a man, and they have the most beautiful baby.

So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, how great that Grayson can go to school one day and see something that reflects his life.

- Absolutely, so you spoke very eloquently at our dinner about this topic.

So, and you self-identified yourself tonight just now.

How do you write and how do you think about writing very different perspectives in the other's voice?

- Right, so that's a really interesting question because I think that when I tackle a topic that has characters in it or situations in it with life experiences I have not lived, several things have to happen.

First of all, I need to do my homework.

And that means that for a book like "Small Great Things" for example, that's a great start.

I had a book that was about white privilege and racism in this country.

And in that book there were three narrators, a white woman, a Black woman, and a neo-Nazi.

Two of those I am not.

I'll let you decide which ones.

(audience laughing) And so for that, I had to do my research, and that meant for the neo-Nazi, I met with former white supremacists who have since left the movement and now work for the FBI ferreting out others in the movement, and everything in Turk's narrative came from them.

I also, however, have never been a Black woman.

So I sat down with 10 truly incredible Black women of all ages who were kind enough to give me their time, their life, their experience, and really teach me what it's like through their eyes to be a Black woman in this country.

The things they said were braided together by me to create the character of Ruth.

And then they all read the book before it was published to give me feedback so that nothing sounded wrong to them when they read that voice.

That is the only way I could have and should have written that voice.

And that kind of leads to this other really interesting piece of expression, which is who has the right to write?

This has become a really hot topic.

And here's the news flash.

No one is ever gonna tell you not to write something, right?

You always have the right to write something, but you really should responsibly ask yourself is this my story to tell?

And in this case, is it my story to tell what racism is in this country?

I certainly haven't experienced that myself.

I knew when I started that book, a couple of things.

First of all that any white author who writes a book about race is still gonna wind up probably selling that book faster than any black author who writes a book about race.

Because that is the sad state of our world right now.

And that's not good.

I don't wanna take a space that another author of color could have had.

But I also knew that it was my duty to write as a white person about what it means to have white privilege, to go through the world with a face this color and know or not know in many cases that it's opening up doors.

And that was my responsibility, and that was what I wanted to write about.

I couldn't do it without writing about racism 'cause they're flip sides of a coin.

So that meant, okay, I know why I'm writing this book.

I know why it's my book to write.

Now I need to make sure that I am, I'm learning the experiences and the voices and the truths of the people I'm not.

So that's all part of the process of deciding how to create a character who's different from you.

When I wrote "Mad Honey," I did something different.

"Mad Honey" is about gender identity, and in particular there's a trans element to the book.

And again, if I write a book about trans individuals, it's still gonna wind up getting picked up before a trans writer's going to.

And I didn't want that to happen.

And so Jenny and I teamed up.

Jenny is a trans writer, and that was so cool because she had a whole world of experience I would never have.

But ultimately what we were really writing about was what it's like to be a woman in America.

And there are so many ways to be a woman in America.

And what I got out of that book was a great education, but more importantly I got a lifelong friend.

You know, and that was another way to again, invite someone in whose life is different from yours and make sure that they have visibility on a bookshelf.

So ultimately that's what I do when I'm trying to create something different.

- Do you have in your mind, I'll go off script slightly, A subject that you would just choose just not to write about?

- I don't, not yet.

- So I don't wanna read a book about a 7-year-old girl being raped.

- Okay.

- But I bet that's an important topic in many ways, people could perhaps talk me out of that.

How would you think about something like that?

- I think there are people who have done it and who have done it well.

- [John] Okay.

- It might not be the book that I wanna write, but there was probably a reason that whoever wrote it did.

And there is someone out there who experienced that when they were seven.

- I was gonna say that's probably the survivor's to write.

- Exactly, and they might be able to write a book for someone else who has that lingering in their memories to let them know they're not alone.

- Right, right.

Do other genres of artists, I'm thinking especially of visual artists, painters, sculptors, are you in touch with that community at all?

It's very different, of course, with language.

- Yeah.

- It's art, but it's fundamentally different.

Are you aware?

- I don't know many people who work in those mediums.

I know theater artists 'cause I work in that community too.

- [John] Sure.

- But, and I know some people who bridged from theater into like singing.

- [John] Right.

- But I don't have that much contact with painters.

- That came to mind when you were answering.

- Yeah.

- So how do you think literature in particular can contribute to fostering free expression in society?

- So, just like what we're talking about.

- [John] Yeah.

- Right?

So there's this amazing woman, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, who talks about how literature provides mirrors and windows and sliding doors.

Mirrors to someone who needs to see themselves reflected so that they know they're not alone, a window into a world they might not have experienced, and possibly a sliding door that lets them enter it.

And you know, for a kid who grows up in a rural place or in like the heart of a red state who's gay, can you imagine how incredibly healing seeing yourself reflected in a book is?

That is the line between suicide and living for many kids.

And I think that when book banners come after those books and say that they are, they're corrupting kids.

It's the exact opposite.

Those books are giving kids a tool to use in a complex and increasingly difficult world.

You are removing that tool from their, you know, their wheelhouse.

I have a friend who's an author Nick Stone who says you can childproof the world, but you can't world proof a child.

And that's a beautiful way of putting it, right?

And then let's extrapolate that too.

So not only now are we banning the books that literally foster empathy and compassion, right?

And that build bridges when bans break people apart, we're also trying to rewrite history because they're pulling from shelves books about the Holocaust, books about enslavement, books about things that we may not be too proud of in our American past, but that we hope we can learn from and not do again.

And when you pull them away, you don't whitewash history like that.

You don't get rid of the history.

- [John] Yeah.

- No matter what you think you're doing, all you're doing is again, depriving kids of a resource that is gonna help them create a better world.

- So derivative from what you've been saying in your artistic freedom and of expression and your deep exploration of humanity, and you have sensitivity readers, and all of that, how do you think about the much wider audience, 14 million books, folks, how do you think about a much wider audience that may be traumatized by some of your work?

Or I don't care about anger, but I talk about deeply effective response that, how do you think about that?

- Guess what, there are lots of books out there.

You don't have to read mine.

You know, no one is holding a gun to your head and saying "Read a Jodi Picoult book."

Although that would be really interesting, but, I'm kidding.

- [John] Not on my campus, please.

- No, no, no, no.

But you know, I think that, what I will say is this.

Cancel culture is very real.

- [John] Yeah.

- And I think it's worth exploring that a little bit.

So there's this great author Liz Gilbert, she wrote "Eat, Pray Love."

You've probably heard of it, right?

So this year she wrote a book, or it was supposed to come out this year.

And it was a book about a literal historical event in like the, I think it was like the 1800s in Russia.

And it was about a small group of Russians who tried to escape like this militant regime by going off grid and living in the woods.

And it was based on a true story.

And some of her Ukrainian fans wrote and said, on Goodreads, this is terrible.

We're giving this zero stars.

The book was not out.

You know, just saying we are, we're so upset that you would do this.

This is so triggering for us.

She canceled her own book.

When that happened, I was like, what?

What did you do?

That to me is so dangerous, you know, and canceling culture can come from the right and the left, right?

- [John] So you used the word trigger.

And so that's in education.

- [Jodi] Yes.

- That's a very hot topic.

- I know it is.

Should you have trigger warnings?

There's nothing wrong with a trigger warning in a book.

Yeah, that's fine.

Because then you can make the decision based on your own life history whether or not you should read it.

But this idea of canceling someone for what they've written, especially before you've read the material, again, gets us right back into that weird book banning territory of judging things that you do not understand.

And what I will say is it does not necessarily matter if you are a writer or if you are just someone who's making a post on Instagram.

I was talking about this with some of your students today in a creative writing class.

There, right now, I'm quite sure.

This is a college campus.

I bet you have had a lot of healthy discussion and protest about what's going on in Gaza, right?

And healthy discussion and protest, all good.

For some very strange reason, a lot of readers were targeting fiction authors who are not experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in any way.

And do not write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in any way to say, why haven't you posted about the war there?

And we all were like, what?

Why do you need to hear from me?

Right?

And it was, it made me very uncomfortable, and I wrote immediately and said because social media is absolutely not the place to have this discussion.

Right?

- [John] Thank you.

- And you know, you can actually find fault with all sides.

You can support people who are affected on both sides.

But social media is not a very good place for nuance.

And it really stunned me that readers were so hungry for public figures to come out and say something.

And it was because no matter what you said, it was gonna be wrong.

- [John] Correct.

- And they were gonna attack you.

So everyone was kind of like, what is actually going on right here?

I read an amazing piece by a professor at a college, and I don't know which college it was, who went into a pro-Palestinian march on campus.

And the kids were chanting slogans and things, and he said to them when they said, "From the river to the sea," "Do you know which river?

"Do you know which sea?"

Yeah.

- [John] I read that piece, yeah.

- Yeah, and.

- Most didn't.

- They didn't.

And he actually wound up having a group back, and he taught like a whole lecture about the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

What those words meant, what they're actually talking about, why a lot of Jews are very upset when they hear those words.

And each time he kept stopping the class and saying, knowing this now do you still, would you still wanna support this?

And the number just kept going down as they realized there was so much nuance they did not know.

Knowledge is power.

That is why book bans are proliferating because knowledge is scary.

Knowledge means that your kid might grow up and think something different than you do.

And that's terrifying to a lot of parents.

So what I always would recommend, whether you're an author or whether you're a student, and you're going on TikTok is before you repost anything, know what you're doing.

Know the history of that, know what you're saying, and make sure that you have all the knowledge before you decide to make that your voice.

- Are you active on social media?

- Sadly.

(audience laughing) Yeah, you know.

- [John] That was a rhetorical question.

- No, part of it, it's okay.

Part of being an author these days is what I call the American idolization of publishing.

- [John] Yeah.

- Which is like, you have to promote yourself.

And I was on Instagram, and I had a Facebook page for my, you know, my readers, and then I was on Twitter, which used to be a very nice site for people who were in like author Twitter.

And now is just a cesspool of disgusting hate.

But it's a weird place.

But then I was like, hmm, maybe I should be on TikTok.

And I should tell you that I am on TikTok now.

I have like 155,000 viewers and like, I don't know, millions of likes and I have never scrolled TikTok myself.

All I do is make these videos to see if anyone's watching them.

(audience laughing) So you can all go on my TikTok tonight, and you can see what I do there.

- Last question before we turn to questions from the audience in the aisles.

I hope you would agree.

I think many people do.

Writing's hard, yeah.

- Yeah, it's really hard.

- It's hard.

We're very proud of the work we do here in the humanities at large and in various departments.

We have a wonderful literary magazine.

We have a poetry center.

We have a humanities center.

- Cool.

- Especially for our students, but also our professional writers and our faculty colleagues, what advice would you give on the way you answered that question?

Yeah, it's hard.

- Yeah, well, a few things.

First of all, it's a hard business.

It's a really hard business.

It's very different than when I entered the business.

You know, when I entered the business there was only traditional publishing, which means you get an agent to represent you, which can take years.

I had over a hundred rejections from agents, and then hopefully a publisher wants your book, and then they publish the book, and with any luck someone reads it, and they give you a contract for a second book.

And that was the only way you could get published.

Now there is independent publishing, and there is self-publishing, and there are lots of avenues to getting your story out there.

The difference between them is often about time and money.

You will outlay more money if you self-publish or do indie publishing at the beginning because you are also your only media outlet, your distributor, you're the one creating the cover, and the content design inside.

And everything that a publisher does for me, you have to do for yourself as an indie publisher.

On the bright side, you all could go home and publish something on Kindle tonight on Amazon.

So it's very, very fast if you want to.

And then the indies are kind of hybrids of the two of those.

So there are lots of avenues depending on what works for you.

And I think it's good to delve into that and figure out what works in your schedule.

I would also argue that there, in particular in context with the conversation that we're having, I highly recommend that if you do wade into this crazy business, which is constantly changing and manages to disappoint you all the time, make sure you are telling a story you truly feel the need to tell.

You know, I got asked a great question by one of your professors today, which is what do you wish you'd known 30 years ago that you know now?

And it was that you should never chase what you think is selling.

Don't write because you think it's gonna make money.

Write because you can't not write it.

Write because you have to get it out of you.

That's the only real reason to become a writer.

- So I have heard and had discussions with many types of artists who say basically the same thing.

You're crazy to go into this if you think you're gonna make money on this.

- Yeah.

- Do this because you literally have no choice in your heart.

- Yeah.

- You have to do it.

- I mean I always say that I would still be writing even if I'd never been published.

- [John] Yeah.

- It's just way more gratifying this way, right?

(audience laughing) You know, and there's a lot of luck involved, but there's also a lot of hard work.

- [John] Yeah.

- It's always shocking to people when they hear I was never an Oprah pick.

They assume I was, and that's how I became famous.

And I'm like, I was not famous overnight.

20 years of overnight, that was the longest night ever.

You know, but it was very much a few readers who passed the book onto their friends who passed the book onto their friends, and, you know, math is cool.

Exponential stuff works.

- I asked our guest how long it takes to write a book, and she answered, well, it's very gestational, it takes about nine months.

And she said, and pretty, pretty uniformly, right?

- Yeah, I mean there was a time where I was either having a baby or a book, but I worked that out, so.

(audience laughing) - All right, we'll turn in the last 12, 13 minutes here to questions from the audience.

I'll move over to the podium, and again, I'd like to start with some students if we have them here.

- So I recently read "Mad Honey," and your depiction of a trans woman was considerate in its insistence that readers get to know Lily first as a human person before anything else.

And I guess I just wanted to ask like how do you decide what is your story to tell as you like use your platform to amplify things you think are important?

- Yeah, that's a huge thing.

You know, I really truly believe that if you have a platform you should use it for good.

And I am so fortunate to have readership, to have like a certain amount of name recognition, to have people who are willing to go wherever I wanna take them in a story, you know.

They trust me to do it.

And if that's the case, then I wanna make sure that my books are somehow, I hope, expanding minds instead of tightening them.

And so, you know, I write about things that keep me up at night.

I always say that.

And what keeps me up at night are things that make me feel like the world is getting more and more divided, and we don't talk to each other, and we don't try to build bridges.

And the beauty of fiction, it's such a great insidious tool because people pick up a book, and they're like, oh, this is such a great story, it's gonna have a twist.

And then they finish it, and they're like, oh man, I learned something.

You know, it catches you like from behind, and if I do my job right, that's exactly it.

You should be having a rollicking time in that story.

You should be surprised, you should cry, you should laugh, but you're still gonna be thinking about that issue when the book is closed.

So thank you so much for saying that.

That book is very dear to me because of the work that I got to do with Jenny.

I will pass all accolades onto her because honestly Lily was the character she wrote, and obviously she was gonna do a better job with Lily than I was.

But I will say that we switched narrators for one chapter because I really wanted to write one Lily, and she wanted to write one of Olivia.

And it's really fun, and no, I'm not gonna tell you which ones.

You have to guess.

(audience laughing) - Thank you.

- Please.

- [Audience Member] Hi, Jodi.

- Hi.

- So besides supporting authors that have banned books and buying the books and spreading the word about them, what are other actionable things that people can do in order to help this fight to keep books from being banned?

- Great question.

So yes, obviously buying the books, telling your friends to start a banned book club, all of those things are really, really good.

You are not gonna like the first thing on my list, which is run for school board, right?

Like who wants to be on the school board.

But the reality is we need people who are proponents of keeping books in school on these school boards.

The other thing that I would recommend is to go to pen.org/action.

They actually have an entire list of things you can do in your community to support, you know, a school that's facing banning issues.

And honestly the biggest thing that you can do, that any of you can do, is to use your voice and to use your social media for good.

When someone says it's not a ban, speak up.

When someone doesn't even say it's not a ban, speak up.

Like I said, the only way we are gonna stop this is if we are louder than the people who are making such a fuss.

There are so many more of us, and I know there are lots of terrible things going on in the world, but I promise you this is an important one.

We know historically what happens when people say, oh, it'll blow over.

It doesn't blow over.

And we also know that the way you control a country is by controlling what it reads.

And we've seen that playbook in Nazi Germany, and I don't wanna live that one again.

So go home and start talking about this.

- [Audience Member] Thank you.

- Sure.

- So social media does have at least one benefit.

- Yeah, totally.

- I'm sure there are many, but you can't, it's not controllable.

- Yeah, I mean it's good because it does spread, but, you know, there are like lots of people who are choosing to post about different things in the world.

It's, if you really believe that we shouldn't be banning books, make sure that's part of your drive out into the world.

If you're gonna speak out in the world, speak out about this because it gets overlooked sometimes.

And because it's so easily overlooked, it's probably a bigger threat than you think.

- So you work, as you said for a very major publishing house.

Are you aware of, and if the answer is yes, what do you draw a conclusion from, what's the demographic of your readership?

- Oh, it's not what you think.

Yeah, so I get all of these emails from guys going I'm sure I'm the only guy who's reading your books.

And I'm like, nope, you're not.

I once tracked my fan mail because I was like, who is reading my books?

And it was 48% men, 52% women.

- [John] Were you surprised by that?

- Yeah, I was.

I have, the oldest fan that I know of is 107, and the youngest was eight.

So I would say I'm, maybe I defy demographics, I don't know.

But yeah, I think people come to my books for different reasons, and I love that.

I absolutely love that.

- And assuming you read a lot yourself, who are some of your favorite fiction authors?

Present day or historical?

- Wow, so this is always really hard for me because.

- [John] And maybe favorite's the wrong word.

- Yeah.

- [John] Important to you.

- Alice Hoffman is my be all and end all.

So Alice Hoffman was like, she was the author I found when I left college, and I was allowed to read for myself, and I was like the hugest fan of her writing.

And I was a fan because I love her magical realism, but also she makes it look so easy, and it is never easy.

And I was asked to do an event that she was also at, and I was like, yes, yes, yes.

And I got to meet her, and she was just delightful.

She was everything you want your idols to be, right?

And when we left she was like, you know, I'd love to stay in touch.

And I was like, you want what?

And I mean, I don't wanna brag or anything, but we like, you know, we text and stuff now.

(audience laughing) So, but I will always love her.

She is such an incredible writer.

I love Sue Miller, I love Anne Tyler, I love Chris Bohjalian.

He's an underrated writer who I think is terrific.

And I read a lot of first time novelists, and I read a lot of BIPOC and LGBTQ writers, and I try to blurb those books because I remember what it was like to get that boost when I was starting out, and I would like to be able to do that for other people.

- Well, I'm sure you know this but, oh sorry, question here from the aisle.

- [Audience Member] That's okay.

Thank you so much for being here.

- [Jodi] My pleasure.

- And also thanks for the school board shout out 'cause here I am.

- [Jodi] Yay!

(audience applauding) Woo, thank you.

- I think sometimes we're quiet about book banning because we think if we don't mention it, it won't happen.

We're very fortunate on the Lewisburg School district right now, school board, that that hasn't happened.

But I worry every meeting, so thank you.

I fancy myself a casual writer, and I would like to make that less casual.

My issue really is around the editing process.

- [Jodi] Okay.

- Which quite frankly is what makes it hard and I recognize that.

So I just wondered if you had any advice for sort of getting past when you're like, okay, I've already done this three times.

I don't wanna do this again.

- [Jodi] Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

- So once you get to that space, - Yeah, I wish I could tell you, but the answer is no.

It's only gonna get worse when you like get a contract.

- [Audience Member] Thank you, thank you very much.

- The truth is that like when I go through a book, I have to go do about seven or eight full passes through a book before you see it.

It's funny 'cause sometimes I get asked, do you ever read your books after they're published?

And I'm like absolutely not.

You know, because I've been reading it so many times.

You know, I think that sometimes if you, if the problem is that it's time consuming, and you're like, oh God, I've read this story so many times, you gotta suck it up.

But on the other hand, if the problem is that you don't really know where to start or to edit your own work, I highly recommend writers' workshops, writing groups, you know, friends that you can meet with who will edit your work for you.

Or you can hire freelance editors who will, you know, for a modest fee do that for you and get you started.

I'm glad you're talking about editing though, because it's really important.

Even people who think they're good writers need outside eyes and other ways to make sure that they're telling the best story that they possibly can.

So it's good that you want to do that even if you don't like doing it.

And honestly like part of self-publishing has gotten a bad rap sometimes because not everything is edited well, and I don't, I'm not just talking about typos.

I'm talking about like, you know, cutting down the story to its bones so that it really flies along.

But there are resources for you, and I highly recommend honestly a writer's group is the easiest way to do it.

If you live in this community where there, you know, you've got a terrific school, and you've also got libraries and bookstores and stuff, you're gonna be able to find one.

And that's invaluable because not only will they provide services for you in terms of editing or telling you this part of your book is great, this part really drags.

They're also gonna be a support system for you.

And it's really good for writers to have friends they can lean on.

Even at this point in my career, I have beta readers, and I also have other friends who are writers who form like, you know, a chat group, and we basically complain to each other.

But it's really good to have that if you need it just because you know, it's really good to have, it's really good to surround yourself with people who know what you're going through.

- Thanks so much.

- Yeah, I hope that helps.

- Really short, go ahead.

Same mic.

- I'm short, sorry.

So I understand that you're against banning books.

Makes sense.

How do you feel about books that perpetuate negative stereotypes, for instance, Dr. Seuss?

- That's a really interesting question.

Yeah, Dr. Seuss.

So I gotta tell you this probably may not be too popular, but I do not agree with pulling Dr. Seuss off a shelf.

I do not agree with rewriting Huck Finn.

I think what you need to do is contextualize that in terms of what the modern day is, what we know now that we should have known back then.

Whether that is making sure that it's annotated or that you have a librarian explaining some of the controversy around it or a teacher doing that.

I think it's really important not to sanitize everything by taking it out of circulation.

I think the only way you know how far you've come is to know where you used to be.

And so for that reason, my personal feeling and lots of people feel differently is that we need those books to remind us that we need to do better, and we need to continue to do better.

But we also should make sure that people who read them understand these are problematic and here are the reasons.

- Thank you.

- Sure.

- One last question, and then we're done.

- I apologize if I don't articulate this correctly, but you briefly discussed how on social media, you know, authors are being asked, particularly authors who maybe have a voice such as yourself in like allyship or just speaking for those who are not spoken for about how being asked about saying things like the liberation of Palestine is kind of not maybe appropriate thing to ask, but I was kind wondering if you could see the perspective of these people are looking to you as a voice and as someone to speak up for those who are unspoken for and that maybe social media is their only way to like gain that connection and how like that is also important even though they shouldn't have to speak up, that somebody asking is not necessarily a bad thing.

- Oh, I don't think it's a bad thing.

I just think they need to respect the boundary if an author says, that is not something I feel qualified or comfortable talking about on social media.

And there are a lot, there's a lot of harassment going on, which is really, I, again, I find it really bizarre.

I completely understand why people wanna know what their idols think.

I get that.

But I think they also need to understand and respect the fact that this is a really confusing situation.

And I don't know that anyone knows exactly what the right answers are.

And like I said, there's a lot of gray area there.

There's a lot of nuance and there's so much I don't know historically that I would want to know before I put words out into the universe to others that they need, I think, to also respect the fact that I wanna take the time to understand better before I take a stand.

And so for example, I'm very outspoken about book banning.

Well, I'm in the middle of book banning, and I feel like I can't speak with authority about it.

I have done research on abortion rights, and I have written multiple books about the LGBTQ experience in different ways.

And I think I can speak to that with some understanding of what people have gone through.

This is not something that I feel confident or qualified to speak on right now.

I don't begrudge someone for looking for the voice of an idol.

But I would also say it's on you to also do the work and to learn yourself everything that you can about this situation so that you can understand it better.

- Well, I don't remember an hour passing so quickly in my recent life.

I can't believe our time is up.

But Jodi, thank you so much for coming to Bucknell.

- Oh, thank you.

- That was spectacular.

(audience applauding) - Thank you so much.

It was really great.

Really fun.

Thank you so much.

It was great.

Of course.

(John and Jodi quietly talking) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible through support from Bucknell University.