The Drexel InterView: On rivers and young adult books

Last fall, I received a note from Lynn Levin, the executive producer of The Drexel InterView, who was inviting me to spend some time in the company of Dr. Paula Marantz Cohen, the popular author and Drexel University Professor of Literature. Would I join poet Gerald Stern, Chuck Barris, Craiglist's Craig Newmark, astronomer Derrick Pitts, Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney, social critic Steven Johnson, and others in the Season Six line-up of interviewees, she wondered. I said yes, but of course.

(Then worried for days about lack of appropriate wardrobe.)

In early October, on the second floor of a fabulously ornate 19th century building, Paula and I spoke of many things. Of the writing heart, of a career (my own) that has moved from poetry to short story to memoir to poetry to history to novel and back again to short story and poetry (and what, you ask, is this blog? A bit of everything, I guess, and too much of all, as someone just told me). The genesis of Flow, my autobiography of the Schuylkill River, was discussed, as were my three young adult novels to date, Undercover (soon to be released in paperback), House of Dance, and Nothing but Ghosts. If memory serves, we also discussed my short story, "The Longest Distance," soon appearing, along with work by An Na, M.T. Anderson, Chris Lynch, Jacqueline Woodson, and K.L. Going, in the HarperTeen anthology No Such Thing as the Real World. Young adult literature—where it came from, where it's going, what it might someday be—was very much on our agenda.

Lynn (a poet whose work you should seek out) has just written to let me know that that conversation will premiere this Tuesday, March 31, in the Philadelphia area at at 8 p.m. on DUTV (Comcast channel 54; in West Philly 62), then air four more times that week at 10 a.m. (Wed, Sat, Sun, and Mon). On April 5, it will air again on MiND (formerly called WYBE) at 10 a.m. In subsequent months, the interview will be available in other cable markets across the country.

I invite those of you who have the time and interest to listen in.