Remaking History

In a posting earlier this week I spoke of the gifts that the books we write can yield—gifts that fall far outside wealth or fame, and reverberate far more sweetly. I was making reference to Flow, among other things, a book which tells a river's story through her own words and which managed to fall both to the left and right of any mainstream publication category. And where were you thinking bookstores would actually shelf this book? other publishers asked. Temple University Press opted to give the book a life, regardless.

Writing Flow, and giving countless talks based on it, led me to places I'd have never traveled otherwise. Last week, it led me to the Cassatt House in Philadelphia, where I was privileged to sit with historians, authors, and the inimitable Sam Katz, a former mayoral candidate and impassioned Philadelphia citizen, who has dared to suggest and inspire a film about the making and remaking of my city for a planned 25-part series. I was (as I usually am) the least qualified person in the room, but I was there nonetheless, thinking out loud, voicing opinions about framing questions and narrative flow, the threads that might bind such a film together. It was an interesting process. It is leading to interesting places. And I wouldn't have been there without a book that the mainstream publishing world thought little of.

Here's to Temple University Press, then. Here's to Mr. Katz. And thanks to Philip Katz, who happened to snap this picture.