-So this wasn't a way of you escaping the kind of bad-news world we live in now.

-No, [ Laughter ] I don't want to say it this way, but there is no escape.

It's a joy to be back in New Orleans, but it's even more exciting to be at a book festival that is so interested in lifting up new authors, but also exploring a range of ideas.

-Stacey Abrams is clearly a thought leader, and there are so many people who want to hear her talk about her experiences and her vision for the society.

-There are things we need to know that we don't -- we don't necessarily know we want to learn about or we don't know how to enter the conversation.

So if you're walking past the bookshelves, you're not gonna pick up a book about the electrical grid and cyber-security.

That's probably not the thing that's on your mind that day.

But you will if somebody is gonna die, so you pick up the book.

So, Avery Keene came to life in my mind almost 15 years ago.

I didn't even know there would be a book.

So, when I wrote it in 2010, nobody would buy it.

It was too unrealistic.

It didn't fit into the traditional at that time tropes of legal thrillers.

My characterization of politics was too far-fetched.

[ Laughter ] Writing by itself is a singular activity, unless you're with a co-author, But you are in your own mind, trying to make up stories, create worlds, and you hope that when you emerge, you've actually made sense.

And so being able to meet with folks who have similar experiences, even if you're writing in very different genres, is fun.

But what's even more exciting is seeing how readers engage with you.

I love the ability to share a vision or an idea and to give people the space to take it in themselves and to do with it what they will.

And that's for me the most important part of writing novels.

I like to think that politics, like my work in democracy -- I work as a civic activist -- my work in business, it's all about how do you tell a story?

How do you get people to come together around a central premise?

How do you set a vision for what should be?

And when writing novels, I'm always driven by what do I want to know?

What questions do I have?

Fiction gives me an opportunity to explore real topics and real themes, but with the distance of a story and with the comfort that I can come and go as I need to, but that every time I'm there, I'm learning something, but it doesn't feel like broccoli.

The responsibility we have always is how do we do good?

That part to me is what ties everything I do together, and it's what I think is so fantastic about this book festival, because you're bringing in people who are curious, who are trying to solve problems through their writing, and who are encouraging their readers to do good with the information they get.

When you can encourage curiosity, help people solve problems, and show them how they, too, can do good, then you've done your job.