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>> welcome to the tv fiction addition you have written nearly 50 fiction books let's start with devil in a blue dress the book that launched a series who was the character? >> the every man for the black community in the 20th world war ii, his whole view of himself and his world of community has changed he came back to southern texas because he could no longer live there from what he has learned he and thousands of other black people moved to los angeles.

and he was followed by the unofficial detective that reveals what life was like in parts of los angeles. >>host: how did you come up with that name? >> i was writing a a story, speaking first-person talking about a party he was giving and raise money to pay his rent and a woman he was in love with named adam may be he was in love with n another man and the person who was talking said hey ez how are you doing? and that is where that came fro from. >>host: what voice is he supposed to represent? >> guest: it is interesting because how the african-american voice is one

of the voices in the choir of america. >>host: did you set out to use him as a vehicle? >> guest: any good novel, doesn't have to be like a great novel to talk about the character has to talk about how they are anchored in society with a culture and politics. if you don't do that, then you don't have a real character. so it seems like everybody does that but not a lot of people are doing that with black male heroes so that becomes a strong cultural and socialot commentary not necessarily because that was my intention but i was the doing that. >>host: for once a black man

with the additional detective. >> that's true the traditional form of a black character. i'm not trying to take anything away from either of those becauseec otherwise the people that i am representing would be misrepresented and that is one thing i don't want to do. >>host: did c you aim to set out to create easy rawlins as a series? >> and as they were swamplandage in the and the listeners said it is a wonderful book but it isn't commercial because this was back in the late '80s white people don't read about black people and black men don't read.

they like the book but they thought that could not publish it. then they made it true but then in' wrote devil in a blue dress and said this is great because now there is a black detective we don't just want to buy one we will by two so that decision. >> you describe easy rawlins a gun in one pocket and a short fuse in the other. >> so those heroes that are on the i battlefront and has to be willing to explode. but how we make decisions whether or not and to control,

that is the point and moby dick the cook is trying this off the side and the sharks have a feeding frenzy the chef starts to lecture them. angels are sharks that learn to control their appetite. >> when does devil in a blue dress take plus -- take place? os1940 los angeles. 1948 it is the amazing event for change. maybe 300,000 then move into los angeles from then until now.

and then the black people from southern texas or louisiana the city and the ideas are building the culture, it was a wonderful time. >> and a world war ii veteran what story are you trying to tell e to make easy rawlins a world war ii veteran? >> that was an amazing change for black people in america one of my father's stories he left in late 42 with about 100 people that he knew. maybe ten or 12 died note most were not from violence but when he got back to texas

almost everybody that he knew he realized he was safer in the largest of the humanld war than he would have been at home in this battle. >> so when easy rawlins returns and makes his way how was he treated in los angeles? >> racism was institutionalized b in the south so for one thing there were no jobs they could get so whatever his talents they would get those jobs in texas or louisiana or mississippi or anywhere else. this is the biggest problem i

cannot on anything that cannot be taken away. that is the biggest problem but stillou los angeles to be extraordinarily racist department and they can do pretty much anything a they want and to represent something and what they are afraid of also but there is a lot more opportunity. >> almost any job you want you can get. nobody ever takes away your property based on rice loan -- race or to say whites only. >> talk about migration from texas to los angeles. this represents what is

happening in our country. >> i am from los angeles and that people in l.a. from central avenue they either started there or moved through their. but these people stories there is a giant part of los angeles history nobody would write about it people don't pick of history books to say i will learn something today. >> and you write at the people not crowded room migrated california was like heaven how you could need the fruit off the trees and then retire one

day. and if you work every day what were race relations like? >> the problematic race relations with the police but also in the subconscious of america so the best thing to be with the european culture you are better even if you didn't work hard because of what you were not what you knew so if you are chicano or black or asian people will look down on you then make assumptions if you are doing

better than there was anger and resentment. and it was hard. it is still hard today but it was hard then for people to see what theyet were looking at for something that was not true. >> black men versusll black women? >> there is no verses. i do think that black men, people are more afraid of black men and their anger and what has happened to them with the response of women so black men have been kicked out of the hero category.

and the black characters were less euros and more protagonists. and then for that guy to protect me. >> industry becomes the next plantation. but it is your labor being spent to make somebody else rich. and with the 40s and 50s people of the color suffered from working hard and not making enough.

to move toward a small group of people they don't care what color or what gender but they take advantage of you no matter what a lot of people are responding so must be theseul other people and with this content of ownership not just with the easy rawlins series with a character and with a bookstore in l.a. so with ownership why is that important? >> a citizen has to be a good property owner a literal

investment in the nation if you're not a property owner you are a migrant and then you can't vote. the men to gerrymander out of it fixed my -- existence but it cannot be taken away from him as most people before the war are rural so that land mean something. and that makes me a citizen. >> this mystery novel crimesea are committed on the justice system i thought it was wrong for a man to be murdered in a more perfect world i thought

the killer should be dropped on -- brought d to justice i thought there was justice for blackce men money isn't a sure bet but the closest to god i have ever seen in this world. >> i wrote that i thought that then and now and most people in america when i wrote this book at that. when this book was coming out i think a lot of people thought there isus justice who represents you or who -- how popular you are so then think i won't get a fair shake especially if i am black but that is a truism that black people have known because we came here as property.

but as time hasan gone on many, manyfi more people have come to understand that first with their appreciation of music and culture certain elements of jazz but as time goes on that turns to literature and general knowledge. >> the motivation to write this book is to talk about the justice system did you choose that form of the mystery novel because of that? >> i chose that form i like mysteries and once i started writing then the justice system appeared it wasn't my goal to write that out and i think anybody reading my books could make a different decision on things so you say i think this is right or wrong but is a fiction writer and

never trying to tell you what you should think i will to you what easy rawlins thinks or ravenn alexander or the police think but i will not tell you what you should think. bookt: i watched a review and the woman giving the booko review suggested to her audience you really need to read the whole series otherwise if you just pick up one book you don't know how easy rawlins knows mama joe or mouse and she said could he have an index? >> i'm glad that she said that because when you no you have to read all 14 and then i'm

like i have to read 14 books i have barely had time to read one but each book you understand you may not know the event that led up to these relationships to mouse but you do know he knows mouser how he feels about him you know all of that because i'm writing a novel not a chapter. >>host: so you continue on with f devil in a blue dress focus with easy rawlins in l.a. but your latest book down the river takes place in new york with her former black nypd protagonist. what inspired you to write this story in this city? >> there was a political spark that started to write this story and i'm thinking black

men specifically conway in baltimore maryland or pennsylvania the man they were protesting about the guy that was killed in new orleans. so i'm thinking of the response to oppression in a community that is usually not talked about walking down the street and the police. him and question him very closely and let him go and then two more police stopped him and as angry as he gets he is just walking down the street he has to make sure that he never expresses that anger because if he does, then something bad will happen if you add to that a journalist

or political activist anybody who makes the movement, they get a target on their back and on their front and both sides it is very likely to be heard so i wanted to create a detective even though he was black he was a policeman so he will not feel sensitive to a policeman who was killed on death row but as he investigates the guys case to see what happens he proves to himself beyond a shadow ofs a doubt yes he probably killed him but they were definitely trying to kills him and as far as he can tell it was self-defense. so then what happens when you know something like t that? and that is what i wanted to do with this book.

>> three will remind our viewer viewers. >> a political activist journalist in philadelphia the police they got into a gunbattle with them but he didn't. a police man or two died and he was sentenced to death. for me if you kill somebody you should pay whatever the law has to say that is what you have to do but there are circumstances we have to see them it is true but also for black people anywhere in new orleans if you see somebody on top of somebody holding him down and shooting them you think what is wrong with this picture? never. if it does happen and you have to wonder what everybody else

will think and feel and how they will respond and that is what the novel addresses. >> did you speak to him? you did not. so then how do you grab that story that you incorporate into your writing? >> that story is our story. more than anything else the guide it was interviewed he lived in a complex two different gangs but a police man started to bring the children to gather so they could slowly work some stuff out said what do you think about this i'm used to the police they grabbed me let me in handcuffs and throw mee in jail.

that is my relationship of with the police but this is a general. not just among black people and also white people in america that police to become people who are trying to force you to fit that is not conducive to your life. because of that you have to write about that. even though with these characters it is like black america toat understand it goes back to how much money you have and who is taking care of you. >>host: your next book due out in september what is that about? >> it is a novel about a

historian and it starts when he was a kid, growing up, kill the guy. and he completely re-creates himself. he doesn't have the same name or the same birth certificate nothing the same but he becomes what he has done deconstruction and it follows him through this path of how he sees himself in the world around him and how he teaches and discovers things about himself and he discovers he is a social path and that has helped him in america become successful. i do believe if there is

something wrong with you if you are social path you are probably more successful than if you aren't. >>host: how do publishers respond to your ideas that are not easy rawlins book? >> they hate it. i say i will write a book a fortunate son were all these books i have written then they say no so then i go to another publisher and then they say okay so then it publish a mystery and then only mysteries from now want to go to another publisher. >> you have written a lot of books do the characters reflect people ine your life? >> know. that is a hard question to i answer because obviously they

must in some way but i a don't write about myself or people i know or my mother and father i write about worlds experiences that are secular so i guess in a way but mostly no. >> who was raymond alexander how did you come up with the idea of his character of mouse ? >> he is an interesting character when i was a kid my father had a friend who was just as crazy h as mouse one of those was hijacking liquor trucks he would hijack them get a bunch of cases of whiskey andhi would bring one to my father and that i will be via pick that up in a week but then somebody comes over and saysy i have some whiskey maybe another party so when the guy

comes back maybe nine or ten bottles how much do you own me and my father would pay him. that guy was in a barbershop he got into an argument and said you only a nickel he said i paid everything and pay me right now he said no so he killed him shot him right there in the barbershop. he was arrested and sent to prison for murder spent the rest of his time there my father knew this guy but i was too young to remember him i don't think about him but this story sparked mouse he is a very different character but but it comes from that stor story. >>host: that same youtube review the woman asked if you

would make a book about raymond alexander a book or two about him as a protagonist thematic raymond is a few are social path. he belongs inside the system for most of the things that he does but a certain set of circumstances happened he will go way outside the box but only then.n. but mouse lives outside the box a social path living outside the box is not interesting because you know what he will do but mastery popped up all by itself. >> jacksonon has a lot of my characteristicss they are very smart, they like that sedentary intellectual life

debating and thinking and writing and he knows everything about computers before computers know themselves. i like writing about those characters because so many things are not written about black men but the guy is a genius and canin do anything he is also a coward he is afraid of his own shadow and his shadow goes a great distance but he is completely frightened and i like that because not everybody has to be big and strong andtr courageous. he is small and scrawny and afraid of anything and i like that character especially because he is edgy like a computer genius. >> a computer programmer? >> yes not a genius to give

him that. >> in one of the books it is said he kept bookshelves his home but on the books he would read twice do you have the same philosophy? >> yes there are 12 books that you have you have a look at them for 12 years. they are not doing anything on thehe shelf but if you give it to a used bookstore or library or put them in a box people pick him up and read them and that is what books are for. they are to be read andos not sit on the shelf why is that portent? >> reading is important because it is the closest thing that we have two active thinking. i love music and film and

movies that movies are much more passive as a rule that when you are reading you are creating the images you are reading about and the thoughts and the ideas so when you read like that your mind is getting exercise other than working or being educated by somebody who was close c to yo you. >> is there a message you are sending about education because he said to his son who drop out of high school you need to read every day then explain what you have read in your own words and then this character is a reader.

>> there is no competing with jackson if you read you will and up like him anyway but but just to talk about and to support the mind is important sphere that we have to pay attention there are certain ways we can do that and also talking about black men in america they are buddhist, they are primal all these things. primal and sexual but i also like reading a history of the world because that is interestinghe to me so i have always known in my life really intelligent black who could read and discuss and play with

ideas and that is really important i think everybody shouldnk write about that. that isn't the only thing somebody says to be a writer you have to read and i'm not sure that's true. the i greatest novelist is homer he was blind and illiterate but he knew how to tell stories i think that is more important for a writers than reading stories from other people it just doesn't mean it may not make you a writer. >>host: you wrote that the librarian easy rawlins comes into the library to help librarian who is a black woman reading turner -- catcher the right and you like the book he said i did but i can't imagine

a black kid or latino kids reading this book how are they supposed to relate? he is whining about his life. >> if i had his money i would be happy i don't understand why anybody would kill himself may have a nice big house. and that is a notion but i don't have any limit on what you should read because what you like or don't like who knows what that is? it isn't defined by your gender or race or class, none of that you may love reading charles dickens or the iliad. fine. but you should read what you love to read and if you open a book and say this is great if

it is aoo comic book, fine george elliott, fine. i c don't care. >>host: another character throughout the series is at ma. who is she? >> at ma is that woman who has the strength and weakness black women have had to carry since they were dragged overan here. that they can't keep or control mendicant keep or control lives they have to hold together there is a strength that defines the world aroundla them. not all black women of course but etta mae is that ideal woman that is why mouse and easy love her and why she loves them because it is

implied she loves mouse more and he is more of a problem they and easy ever would be. >>host: mama joe? >> meant is that mystical and spiritual moment i think a lot of us have and create because without it, we become less because society defines us less but if i could reach a place you can't understand it is like owning property because ii understand something about the world. if that's true or not doesn't even matter. >>host: you wrote the book jacket says readers will find easy will be in the tar pits of political life when

blacklisting was official policy racial tensions boiled. >>host: was the political meal legal and tar pits of l that time? speemac it is interesting because my mother was born jewish and and her family had come here around 1910 and then migrated to los angeles but these people understood the plight of black people in america because they had almost theck exact same experience in europe. they lived in the ghettos people hung them and burn them and excluded them from society in general. but a lot of them because of

that were part of the revolution and behind the revolution it didn't like them but they were a big part of creating it. one of these characters is a guy living in los angeles who decided to give secret that america has to everybody. and because of that he was being run down. it was somebody whoas had done it was somebody who had done he was right but the government thought it was wrong was against the loss he wassha involved what was happening with that guy and his daughter. >>host: what is redbaiting and what is happening at this time? >> we hated the russians in the late 30s as soon as stallman realized hitler didn't really like him we made

a deal with them and they became our allies and a lot of people supported russia and their heroic battle against germany. but then as the 50s came those same people were a target so anybody who was a socialist or began on -- belong to a group were oppressed by mccarthy and almost everyone. and those people i think are the first so-called white americans to understand how you could bele singled out, tortured, arrested, imprisoned , kept from having jobs for something that you believed in. >> how does this impact african-americans at this time? >> paul wilson and harry belafonte i think had some

problems but if you were successful was like they would call in a janitor with the communist manifesto in his pocket g because they couldn't get any political currency from that. you can say whatever you want nobody is listening but if you had i an important job or position or if what you said impacted many americans with cultural political impact, then you were treated poorly but most people it went right over them. >> were race relations shifting at this point in the 50s? >> the thingbo about america with shifting race relations, they are always shifting but

they never get soft it is shifting still you have people running around to say i'm white but that doesn't make sense in europe there were no white people there are ten different races there there were britons it just goes on and on the dot and then the spanish and g the greeks and scandinavians they didn't think they were the same race as the greeks they knew they weren't. evenew the greeks in the roman senate think they were the same race but they came to america they were pressed to kill the indians because the land was theirs so they thought they had to get rid of them so they enslave the black people to clear the land so

they had the red people to slaughter and the black people to do the worst kind of labor they needed arm race. they said we are white if you have blue eyes or green eyes or what kind of hair? people are different. so what? i think for me is what is most important but the so-called white people said we are a race we have a common history and common language but that is notot true and these people over here are something else andle something less but subconsciously that stays with peoplele it is like impossible to get better because both of

those are not true there is no truly black people are true white people there is just various shades as we relate to each other. so to say things are shifting or changing, yes people make laws we get our president, but still underneath there is a problemm as with the jews in europe, fall backward. >>host: i invite our viewers to call to join us in this conversation with walter mosley this special fiction addition. as a make our way from 50 books he has written and we

would love you to join us in this conversation. in the book easy says he has seen more black man of authority,i black cops. >> i think he is seeing it at the same time he is recognizing what you have to give up to move into that level of authority because easy is the guy who does favors for people nobody tells him who you can do favors for or how but he makes every decision what he is doing on a level.-case that's it i think he recognizes that people have problems then they have to

give up some of their choice and it is the same for him. things shift because we still believe in the basic, untruth ofol that they never get solved. >> the backdrop of the book is church but during this time what role does the church and the preacher play in black american lives? >> in the entire world the more oppressed you are, the more religion takes the primary role in your life. because you need an absolute form to help for a better time in this world or beyond and you also need people who will organize around you for everybody it is hopeful and

doesn't always happen but in the black community we were so shoved together so tightly and so segregated that the church was really one of the only ways to be organized. we didn't have political organization with nova presentation outside of the community so the church is one of the strongest forms for us to take care of ourselves. >>host: how did that influence your life? were your parents religious? >> no. me reallye discussed religion he hoped it was true but we decided it wasn't that the support monday same time we are on the board of education so they sent me to a private baptist school that was a lot of money back then. nine dollars a week because it was all black kids and all-black teachers they taught

african-american history in the 60s and the best thing for a child in education it so funny because you think they learn math or english but they felt loved and cared for and a part of things they knew that wouldn't happen in the schools of los angeles solicit me to a private school. >>host: what effect did that have on you? did that affect your career? >> i'm sure it did but i don't know how. honestly i was never religious. i never believed in anything we have little bible verses at church it was nice. i loved it. i don't know. the biggest impact is by your parents and that happened i'm

sure that was important i tell people that are novelists if you can think of the perimeter of the entire novel that it's not a novel. there are many things that impacted me and changed me but it is difficult to know what those are. >>host: another aspect of this book e is alcoholism and he struggles with it a lot of the characters struggle with addiction andtr you wrote later liquor shines when the light incident reminiscent this is a living thing capable of any emotion that you are it will hold you tighter than most lovers can. >> that's true.

you don't have to be black in america to think i need to self medicate but i drank so much when i was young 16 through 21. then i quit for 40 years i started again because i thought i don't want to die. i liked it but i knew it was such a danger because it can destroy you and it has that potential to destroy you and i think my father drank every day i am absolutely sure of that there are people he does not know because he was enraged he was a proud man very successful in anything he could do he could do almost anything and very

social and ade good leader but a black man in america in the 50s and 40s and 30s all that time he was treated as less and talk down and pushed asidee people are angry. a lot. a lot alcoholism. >> so maybe the drinking could have killed him but he never drank when he went to work or at work but when he got home just to blow off steam and i think that is true for so many people in america and the issue the way our lives are

organized is not the way human beings should live. the whole idea wake up every day at a certain time to go to work my kids go somewhere far away i work really hard i make enough money to assure a good life but i make enough money to get from day to day that is not the way people should. i think you live in a society where you create enough that everybody has a little something the future is assured that maintenance protections are there. some people have more, some people will work harder or second-story on their house with the idea that tennessee henry ford had that phone i own my soul to the company store i think that is true for most people in this country i don't know about any other

country but you are just a little deeper in debt every day a little -- another day older and deeper in debt. that is a problem a lot of people have if they drink alcohol or smoke dope or do opioids it doles the pain. >>host: why did you quit? >> i was almost dying and drove off the side of the mountain of my hand throughe- a plate glass window. >> why did you start? >> and i wouldn't do it anymore. i don't want to be drinking every day or into oblivion. >>host:po your 12 step revolution -- revelation and with consumerism.

>> yes. i am trying to say even with that look the system tells us these aree the realities this is how you should be at work at school,ol relationships but i think there is a whole other set that we need to have. i don't remember the steps but i do know there is a system out there that doesn't really care about us in general. we have to understand that. >>host: what kind of system? >> it ends up being people with the most power. the people who pay the politicians and give them

money to be in that situation of control. i remember $110,000 or something to a senatorial candidate somebody asked me to and i said okay so he said we are having lunch with the candidate who is we? the ten people who gave $10000 so now they can talk to the personnd. we talked and i said what what i get if i gave a hundred thousand or million? my power should be no more than my vote. that is the idea of america. your power is your vote but if you have $100,000 if you are a corporation that doesn't mean

anything but i will come back. i'm not saying anything new but where people confuse and there are two systems, they are mine but they need to be separate.. money should not enter into myve government. they should take money from me but for taxes but not through donating or using my airplane or whatever i do it is a job i give them after they get voted out. >>host: there is lot more to go through with a lot more topics let's listen to interviewers have to say let's

go to steve from richmond virginia.n. good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i have been waiting for the longest time to at least say hello to you i'm one of your best readers and my question is what about kennedy's? so for them to talk and just like those who do alternate history or things ofng that nature or even with the science fiction base. >> i have written 14 books of science fiction at least ten literary novels, 24 mysteries, five or six books of nonfiction i'm working now as a fellow mystery writer we

will see if anybody was but i have friction loss of genres. i have not written. so yes if you look, a lot of science fiction it is about of a slave on a plantation who meets and alien and forms a bond with tall john and how his life goes forward. >> we will talk about the science fiction books and here

are some of them. always outnumber always outgunned, future land and then to publish 47, the wave and in 2009 and inside the silver box and as we talked about tonight we will hear it from eugene. >> caller: can you hear me? thank you very much i have to tell you mr. mosley for so many years i have had some of your books and you have always been an inspirational person to me because i always wanted to write a book and we share the same last name so i look at your books on the shelf it

would inspire me. [laughter] and then i have got to say thatct although fictional the truth is coming out what you put out and say to your novels. it is tight. the most important thing what inspired me is my father who was a marine received a congressional medal for something that i felt and to be added ever since i have to tell you i am moving towards the down stroke with the bibliography so i want to thank you for your inspirational leisure years t-1 thank you. very much and also i would like to say maybe you don't need this now but a lot of times people asked me how do i

write a novel? it's only maybe an hour's worth of talking to explain that but normally you don't mind -- to have an hour this year you write your novel that book is everything i know about writing novels so talk about truth and fiction i think there is more truth and fiction than nonfiction because you keep editing things out so people only talk about one side of the story. . . . .

spike s lee, john singleton, something like that? >> i would love to make more movies. it's not an easy thing to do, no pun intended. i get to a certain point and then it doesn't work. it's like aee nine-month window with black panther have a been

made. >> how did dabble in a blue dresss gets made into a movie? >> guest: i met a woman named donna who knew the right moves to make and at the same time franklin was looking for me so we all got together and the film got made. it was a perfect moment. >> host: did you have a role in the making of the movie? >> guest: i executive produced always outnumbered which we did for hbo but i was an associate

producer and that was good. >> host: black betty, white butterfly, the center of both books are women. what was happening with women and their sexuality and how has a changed? >> guest: black sexuality has been hit in and i think they've often experience to the fact their sexuality has been taken away from them and their general culture so you see hairspray for blonde people and it's like the

vista and appreciating beauty based on the culture in some other way but at least you could pretend. i think that black women have always had the weight of their community on their shoulders. talking of sexuality, children. they were responsible for children and a kind of life that in my work black women have a prominent role that i neversp sy that speaking for them. the great thing about literature in the 60s on up through, black literature was dominated

so you have alice walker, toni morrison, and many others. >> host: i was on the warpath against women and older men i knew wereai too. >> guest: it doesn't sound good but i don't remember what i was writing about.in >> host: you also talk about not learning to respect women. >> guest: that is a big thing in the community was there were camps between the men and women.

women were angry at men because they didn't seem to stand up for what they need to keep at home and heart together but at the same time great it's better if i'm not home because at least you will get public assistance. there's a lot of people who get along really well. and most of the conflicts most people don't hate each other what are you trying to say in these books about marriage in the community?

>> guest: i don't know. i wouldn't say if somebody asked me to comment i wouldn't have anything to say about it. marriage is an interesting institution and it hasn't really evolved with the rest of the cultures. world war i it tumbled and it kept getting faster and faster. this is why everything we do is almost obsolete before we get halfway into it because now we are doing something else. ie used to have a taxi into medallion but those don't work now.

i think that marriage in america in generall doesn't have the sae place that it did a century ago but it's hard to change that notion. i would never say that i'm trying to comment on the institution of marriage because before i finish the senate that wouldea have changed. >> host: let's hear from james in philadelphia. >> host: yes, good afternoon. i met you at temple university when you sign a book for me. i don't know if there's any other writer like you said it's

ironic that first said i read the wave and i've been enjoying some of your series particularly stepping stone and the gift of fire. i love those two books. i often wonder how they would deal with other fictionalke charactersan and see how they dl with hawk. >> guest: i think that mouse would give him a run for his

money. i'i am a great admirer of yours and today may be the best fiction writer writing today. >> guest: thank you so much. i appreciate that. i will keep up with me. i like to write john ross and create characters that have a strong place in the world. i know there are so many coming out of our community and they need to be heard in paid attention to. >> host: you once said why would youyo can't write a piecef foam tdecentpoem to save your la continue to read the poetry of others because it informs your writing could you elaborate on that? >> guest: understanding poetry is one of the basic requirements

for writing fiction, poetry does everything. it does metaphor, condensation, music, choosing just the right word but says the thing you mean. it brings things together in a form that feels real. poetry is the most important thing that we writers need to know and understand. it's like the original language, one for everybody that started in the beginning it would be poetry because that'sha the waye understand the pope and express the world. we see material if we are thinking something beyond that and then we bring those two things together.

>> host: another facebook comment. i have a question where you've encouraged to write a nonfiction book by your publisher, friend or was it your idea? >> guest: almost everything was my idea. after that nobody is encouraging me to do anything. >> host: i just can't write these if i only wrote an i would have stopped a long time ago. tell the viewers a little bit about the book. >> guest: it's a book about a woman who was living a hard night and was hard to set in that life. i was going to write about a woman whose life was harder and harder and more difficult and

then she would die at the end and what kind o it would kind oa tragedy, but i realized somebody that is so connected to her world, that would be a relief, the person's survival is more tragic and was the whole purpose of writing that book. somone of the most successful. i'm liking the new one. >> host: you've got more of an insight. rather than working with them to do anything they work with phyllis jones for another and it was just you really begin to understand what it would be like if you had an extraordinarily successful black man whether he is criminal or not, most have

some crimes in their closet. you see how hard his life is and in seeing that and being involved withuy this guy you alo seee how powerful. as a matter of fact he finds out how powerful which he never really knew before. >> host: explained that. >> guest: at one point he's talking and says have you always been trying to lie to me can mistreat me, get me killed and he says i would never mess with you, you are the most dangerous man in los angeles. i'm talking about your friends these are the most dangerous men i know of and they are all

behind here. the social belushi and hasbrouck gave a great deal of power which is an interesting thing. some people yield great power that they are not successful in their capitalistic and efforts. >> host: you right on the first page the world was changing and give us the chance to be america the first time in hundredsds of years. >> guest: at that point we are entering the 60s and the people are getting educations. it used to be in the 40s and before, you could study for a phd at harvard if he were black.

there was always something being held back. the opportunity was there. i think it was just harder to achieve your goals and they have to be smaller. you have to act in a certain way. they asked her to give back one of her o nobel prizes since she was having an affair and she said why should i give it back all of youal have affairs. i'm keeping my prize but there was an expectation on her as there areon people in america today certainly in the 60s that still hold people on that because even that fact and saying it means something different. >> host: davis california do our next.

thanks for the good word about poetry and congratulations on your new novel. i wanted to ask if you could talk a bit about your writing habits and if you do your writing an afternoon or at night, what are your writing habits? that.st: i can do i see the creation i is your conscious mind that comes from a practice not unlike psychoanalysis to say he spent every day two to three hours writing u, and putting them in order o in the story but i'm

writing and then the next morning i write than 20 to 21 hours in between all the stuff is happening in parts of my i have no awareness of this when i get up new things have come to the surface and i say okay i will write this into this and it goes on and on. i've written almost every day the last 28 years every once in a while if i'm sick but i have to get on an airplane i don't do it, but every other time i wake up in the morning and i write for probably three hours but just every day and every day that i write is a day that i get deeper into my understanding of the larger story tha but i'm trg to tell.ou >> host: when you are not writing how i are you collecting your thoughts and stories?

>> guest: when i'm not writing it's happening in the back of my head and it's hard to explain. 1everybody i talke i talk to at it's like to give it 100 days, start righdaysfrom the start rig today and every day bright for maybe an hour and a half just right and you will see that the way that you think and the way that you are organizing and plots come together gets better and better. and it happens over the years. you are describing different characters. you describe the personal features and how that reflects their personality. do you study people? >> guest: not on purpose. it's an argument i am making to say do you study people is kind of a thing about consciousness

that argue consciously so it's likeo you already have the structure you need you just need to fill in the data 5-foot 11 or seven for two or 3-foot one, red or blue or pink but it's not bad. it's that you see all these things and experience these k things floating around in your head and write for say three hours and then the stuff that you've written kind of reaches out to these things that are in your head that you haven't really thought about. like with whiskey looks like it's not something i studied and said i could translate that into this, it's translated in the mind and when i started writing it came out.

>> host: tallman culpeper virginia.. >> caller: me and my family are great for an up yours. i wanted to ask a question i heard you've been thinking about this. do you think you can continue the series of ballots? >> guest: no. that's a good question because i can see it and so i did ask them if they said no. it's not happening. >> host: what was the reason? >> guest: they justw? said no. right now they aged the right amount.

they have their own careers they are doing their own things, they've been getting all these plays and there's interesting movies i like this one recent film and satan thing, producing, acting, moving further out into the world, they did it and now they are moving on. i might go back to t the beginng to make a film i foun right nowt again from the beginning so i will need younger actors. >> host: what are you describing or what with the kickers -- >> guest: it's almost 30 years ago now and so we could do a remake by this point i think

that would be a good thing so that's what i'm thinking right now but we will see if i can make your thoughts into reality. >> host: hello, you are on the air. >> caller: first i'd like to say that everyone else, i'm a great fan and particularly happy about the comment you made earlier and how important rating is because i have in common with you a great love of just reading stories. myou question though about the stories is a character of yours. i was just wondering how he kind of seems that a distillation of other characters, how did he come about?u

>> guest: a publisher of mystery books came to me and said i want you to write me a collection of short stories and i said okay and started writing this story. i have the title and it was about a young woman getting revenge against an older private detective who framed her father for doing something you don't know that for first. she almost succeeds in destroying him but she doesn't. she kills herself and she's going to blame him for her death but it doesn't l happen and he

realizes his whole life he been doing the wrong thing and he now has to turn his life arounder ad start doing the right thing. he doesn't run into the same troubles. it's different than it was in the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s. i'm writing a short story if you call the heart of darkness a short story. >> host: name in texas city. >> caller: you are a new

discovery for me and i'm enjoying watching. a >> guest: i'm not sure he was a member of the confederate cabinet, secretary of war and state and confederacy. >> guest: i do know him but i guess i lost the name. you've are also probably tell you with [inaudible]

>> guest: i didn't even know about benjamin until my studies on the civil war so maybe i am but why don't you tell me. >> guest: they were moved -- >> guest: chere we have the member of the confederate cabinet.

>> guest: >> guest: how much research do you do for your books and history,t any papers etc.? >> guest: the first time i was asked that question i and how sd it made me. how much research do you do and how. i want to researchan my charactr and i tried to figure out how to live but in the end i didn't, i will go through to make sure things are not wrong but i want to make sure that it already exists when i'm writing the story, and it did.

today it's not about character than things. i'm not trying to educate people about things if the early 60s in la they respond to the easiest comments a physician could make like louis armstrong. you know how the streets eat up demand. >> guest: this is true for

anybody i who are born into poverty, everything militates against you succeeding and if you accept that militant attitude then you will survive but if you have dreams that came beyond that so much more wealthy against you. there's already a lot against people but it's so much more a lot of people died from it even people at the pinnacle of success. he had a diabetic attack and at that the hospital would take him so he died. you get to play all kinds of things.

>> host: puts the emotion that you are getting at? >> guest: the emotion is that i think it could be a lot of different things but terrorism of the character who tries to get beyond where he or she is to make it to a better place forlv themselves which will help a bunch of other people no matter what whether they succeed or don't. >> host: robert in philadelphia the lead.al >> guest: >> caller: hello, i've been a admirer of yours for a number of years i may fiction writer and as a social worker i think fiction and incredible release especially since i had to

immerse myself into the struggles of other people for a number of years and i see that very much in your work but i find rating is more important than writing so i was wondering have been the most influential to you? >> guest: that is all faced such ans interesting question. if you have a young black woman who says who do you feed them first,he tell us weekl phyllis e most people don't know who she is and then alice walker or maya angelou. the reason they tell you all

those writers is because they want you to think of their work as this great relation to work over here but when she was a child it was nancy drew that most influenced her because as a child, reading is an amazing thing. there is no more words being printed there are actually images happening. that's a tough story for a chi child. it started off writing, comic books and later on.

when i grew older i loved the idea olove theidea of telling tf story that in different ways so much transported me that have impacted. >> host: we are going to pick up on that and let you over the halfway mark on this sunday afternoon and so we are going to take a short break. stay on the line if you've dialed in and keep trying we are going to take a short break and we'll come back to your conversations. i want to show you as we go through the break the trailer for the bulimia blue death directed by carl franklin.

[inaudible] ♪s what's the kind of work you do? >> i'm looking for somebody. he thought he knew how to play the game [inaudible] where there are no rules. he's looking for a woman nobody

wants found. [inaudible] i don't know if i should think of you as a friend or a private. seduced by power, searching for the truth. [inaudible]

devil washington, double and a blue dress with a toe dress

>> i'm going to read to you from all quiet on the western front. i'm doing this because when i was asked to find something to read for a book does have the mood i feel not only about us up here in new york for all of the world for all kinds of reasons i . becomes clear from this

passage. a few of us are about to get up and i'm given crutches to hobble around on. i can't bear the gaius following me with such a strange look so i escaped to the corridor and then i can move about more freely. on the right side of the wings are the wounds did pick you sent here a man realizes for the first time in how many places a man can get hit and that last only their eyes with stubbornly maybe if they had their limbs hanging in the air underneath a basin is placed in every two or three hours to send it.

i see phones that are constantly told. the clerk shows x-ray for the graphan a man cannot realize abt such there are human face of such life still goes its daily around and this is only one hospital, one single station. there are hundreds of thousands in france and russia how simple is anything that can be written, done or thought when such things were possible it must be my the culture david coculture of a thousand years these torture chambers and their hundreds of thousands of hospital loans. i am a young man 20-years-old yet i know nothing but a life of despair, death and superficiality.

i see people for or against one another and foolishly, obedientlobediently, innocentlye one another. athe brains in the world naked t refined and more enduring and all men of my age throughout the whole world seee these things if suddenly we can do for them and profited the bill what do they expect a time ever come if the s when the board is over? in the years our business has been killing of his first calling inwl life our knowledgef life limited to this what will happen afterwards and she will come out of love. >> we are back with walter mosley for our special fiction edition talking to him about his

writings nearly 5 50 books usedn fiction and a reminder to all of you you can joi can join the con eastern is p a part (202)748-82, mountain pacific 8201 will get back to mor8201 we willget backe calls were just listening to you rating from all quiet on the western front. that's one of your f favorite books. >> guest: it is a novel in which you understand the four from the pedestrian point of view so place in the middle he's been in a terrible war and then he goes on for over five or six days at how crazy that is. one of the characters is a guy

who everybody else is dying, starving, he goes out and comes back with an arms full of cheese and wine and two or three women. some of the other books u2 was before the fire next time, their eyes were watching god. >> guest: they are all beautiful. she has such an incredible vehicle voice. writing at a time when women had no end in difficulty. ending difficulty. women were considered second-class.

and james and his understanding of the passion that underlines the politics. >> host: super simple stories why those? >> guest: sthe isn't my favorite politically but his writing before is just gorgeous and the poetry is absolutely beautiful. i mentioned when you asked me because it's a speculative fiction novel it's not really science for a good word after word he pulls you in anywa any y that i think is just amazing.

>> host:. >> guest: he understood things about plants when he wrote that book putting it like a billion years into the future but he understood things people didn't startt getting into until decads after he wrote the book. they have an interesting intelligence. >> host: does inspire her science fiction writing? >> guest:. >> host: how and why did you

decide to write a science-fiction? >> guest:. they learn to define the following century with his inventions and novels that later became real and when i look at things like for instance, star wars, there's no black people in star wars. i don't think there's any people that don't have two eyes. it's like a racist dream there's only going to be one kind of people so i think it's very important if i'm going to imagine myself i have to imagine myself in the future.

the idea of creating a future that reflects the political, social and technological advance that i see following me in that direction. >> host: let's go through some of those books you've written a. a. way of.. what is the favoritwhat his fave written text disk with the most recent i wa is able to imagine e entire o universe in one great machine had a response to its creators they were wrong so if withdrawals and comes to earth. you have these two characters

whove unite to protect the universe from these aliens. it was fun to write that and a few people who seem to be hopeless were powerless to give them more power than anyone else they featured this sort of unifying consciousness, where does this come from? >> guest: i don't know. i like writing about that stuff and i wonder if other people know. another thing i do in books, a lot of the science-fiction is an invasive alien force that could

anything from a werewolf they have innocent humanity i usually flip latch on its head but it's interesting that don't understand why humans a pen. i woulate them. i would like during that month. >> host: you touc touched on tha little bit. many of the books post questions in the face of the larger universe. >> guest: it's usually all of that. the universe houses for them is an intelligence is that they just don't understand.

we think everything surrounds us and either it's better than us s or if i spend us us were blessed them thus when itit hates us and it's nothing like that. it's ba that if we can accept m, larger, deeper, different than we can go to those places. >> guest: and what does that look like? >> guest: it depends what's real and what's not. usually often in my book one person decides they want to help the alien exodus and that's one person making that one decision might actually save the potential for humanity in the

future. there is a political message that i was never thinking it when i wrote it. >> host: defense of a cataclysm that has effectively destroyed most of humanity. is that the survivors and are predominantly nonwhite. at the t end of the book these people create a virus that is supposed to kill all colors so only white people survive but one of my heroes in the book offers a slightly and what happened is that kills everybody

that isn't at least one eighth black player turns out there's all these people that survived because a lot of them are wanted they just don't know it. so it was fun to say me surviving means i have to recognize i'm par i am part of e people i was trying to kill. >> guest: >> caller: thank you for facilitating this outstanding program and thank you especially mr. mosley for sharing your art, humor and expertise on this most uplifting easter sunday program. your words are truly a godsend.

i've really enjoyed the comments but i would like to flip the switch to my recent story. i loved the way you stimulated my vocabulary. i could go on and on but i wanted to ask about this quote because it was deep and the main character, i forget his name.

>> guest: kingsolver, yes. followingi' the. i'm a civilized man and that got me thinking. i live in the inner city of st. louis. i followed the rules, too. that was such a powerful statement that wrapped up everything. in order for us to live and be proud of this colored experience we have to embrace and stand for

those that we must hold those rooms are comfortable. one of the things is he's pulling the rules police department in order that he's discovered not call the police are following the rules, but he finds himself alone and in following the rules is going to be breaking t the rules he will always be breaking another set of funds who can rules. >> host: >> caller: hello.

kind of a c-charliindividually i wondered if it has anything depends. >> guest: that's fine. it doesn't have significant other than the fact i saw it in an airport i saw it and said i love that and if i'm going to buy this and i did a. i don't own a dalmatian but i do love the pen. thank you. my ring is another thing. i got it and was a collector of

african antiquities. >> guest: hello and thank you so much for accepting my call i first want to say that i love you. i had to say it and: there is. i also love the writing. when i am reading your book i always feel like i'm right there with the characters and i love that about your books. the question i have is good you are what you offer advice for selecting the dialogue or characters? >> guest: hashuler. you should probably look at my book.

one of the things i think about writing in general and the dialogue specifically is when we write that's one experience, that's one way we do things that they are not necessarily reflective of our experiences. when i finish writing a section i sit dow sat down and i read te thing, . when you read the dialogue out loud you think no one would really talk like this or i need to flip it around and make it shorter. a lot of the critique you can make you can do by yourself just by reading out loud. >> host:

>> caller: [inaudible] >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i can't tell you how important this is for me to be speaking to you. thank you for that stingy grant you are wearing first of all. [laughter] i render him saying this is nice and she grinned i always remember that. i wanted to say as a black woman who's been writing all my life i see you are going to put up this book for writing that one of my questions is everyone says you needed to get an agent and do ts if you were going toub be are

now insignificant, they want to move on. and that's what i know, so that's what i write about. .. a lot of different ways to go about it. you can look up self-publication, i think the aalbc, aalbc, one organization

at that time helps with self-publishing. another thing is if you read a book and you like that book and you think that your writing is somewhat like what that book was, you can call the publisher, get to the editor, and who represents that writer, what agent represents them and call that agent. and tell the agent, i i think i've written something that is like this other book you have represented and how can i get it to you? they'll usually say, give us a chapter and i've taken courses in writing classes and you meet other theme who are trying to do the same thing, and the teaches often have that kind of information. might not need the class put you do need to meet those people. so there are a variety of ways to do this. >> host: what about writing conferences? ronald rushing on facebook says he met you and you were -- i met

walter mosley, and what featured in a nice photo with him. it was wonderful. tony morrison was there and i had the pleasure of meeting the great gwendolyn brooks and other famous writer. >> guest: the cop friends are good. you go to -- conferences are good. you go to different panels and meet people and pick up things you might not even know you're learning at that time. there's a great writers happening, not -- actually across the street from where we are at thrillerfest next to grand central station, where they teach you how to pitch to agents, have agents there to talk. to it's every summer, called thrillerfest, one word, thrillerfest, really good thing to do to and they share a

another of information use we covered the black writers conference in march and that is airing next weekend on booktv at 1:30 p.m. eastern time on saturday. willy next is in waco, texas. hi, willy. >> caller: good afternoon. >> guest: hello. >> caller: mr. mosley, happy easter to you and the young commentator that's working with you. i watched booktv often on weekends. never have called in to c-span before out of years and yore of watching, but today as i was watching c-span and your program come up, i was fascinated and run to my phone and i was determined to talk to you.

my question to you is, again, happy to -- for beg of you and i feel so blessed today and the day that is the day to god rose from the grave, but my question is, what do you do for recreational things, like fishing, going to the flea market on the weekended, hunt rabbits, working in the flower bed, and that's my question. >> host: okay, i willy. >> guest: i live in new york no flower beds or rabbits either, but i draw. i really enjoy drawing. i'm ready bad at it but have been doing it 50 years and it's a copied of a relief. i like -- a kind of a relief. i like being in the streets with

people and doing things go to events a lot. last night i went to a play which was a lot of fun, called "king." tonight is its last night am friend of mine was in the play and i enjoyed that. and -- put one of the interesting things is the thing i love doing the most is writing. i love it. and so anything that has to do with writing writing and me wrid other people write, i'm really doing that a lot. >> host: what about cooking? do you like to cook? you write about it? my father cooked every day when i was a okay, and i cook every day now. but it's like something that you do, that you have to do. it's like drinking water. it's really good if you're dying of thirst but you drink water every day anyway. so it's not so much that i enjoy it. it's something i do issue like to cook for myself. love how foods work and work

everywhere. love the maces with great food, new york, san francisco, new orleans, and that's -- i love good food. >> host: easy rawlins prides himself on being able to put a meal on a table five minute after the people in the room or hungry. >> guest: you hear people say i'm a gourmet cook and only cook once every month. i have a special thing all over the place, and i'm like, i open the refrigerator, and there should be something in there i can make a meal out of and that might be as different as anything i've ever cock -- cooked above. that's the housewives relationship to cooking. my job is to feed these people, not to aggrandize myself as a cook mitchell job is to make sure you're eating to has to be good for you and something you like enough to eat. >> host: darryl in cleveland, ohio. >> caller: hello. such an honor to speak to you identifies today, and i've been

on dedicated fan of c-span for over 20 years now. mr. moseley, you are -- the voice of the voiceless. when i saw the movie, always outnumbered and always outdone, i damn near cried because you're spoking to the heart of so many people that just don't -- no one listened to us, and i think about the movie, angela's ashes, and how he wrote about the irish and their plight but i want to say god bless you and keep doing what you do when i think of you, i think of sanya sanchez and tony morrison and norm mailer and carlos santana. i saw him on an interview and he said he feels that miles davis

was -- the vessel for miles space john coltrane, and i see that you are a vessel, too, for so many young writers that you give us inspiration. i'm an artist myself, and, yes, i love to cook to but i like to grill, and it brings me such pleasure to see people enjoy the food i put together. knocking pasta pans and doing a mealing to ask seeing their response. on one occasion i saw where alice marker was on booktv and one lady called and was in tears and said, you gave me a hug. i was hooked on drugs, and now i'm a counselor for this community service place, and the woman started crying, and the host starts to cut her off and alice says, no, no, let her finish speaking. and she says, honey, when you hug me, youing he me like my

grandmother would. and you gave my inspiration to get up off thank you ground and star walking like a real woman. she said i was doing some bad things in the streets, and alice walker immediately said to her you tears are the window washer's the soul. mr. mosley, your writings are the window washers to her hearts. thank you so much for what you have done over the years? thank you issue appreciate. >> host: for those what haven't read always outnumbered, always outgunned, tell us about the story. >> guest: i will but first i want to say one thing to him and to anyone listening. one day -- i moon i know most of the people he listed. not everyone but almost everybody i met. one of them i know pretty well is sonya sanchez, and i was walking across the street again in grand central station with her one day, 10,000 people there is, she is 4'11" or something

and some guy, very tall young black man in a uniform, 6-something and he sees her and says, miss sanchez, and she says, yes, dear? and she -- brother? she takes him by his hand, and he starts talking about his sister and his sister -- she was pregnant and was with a guy and the guy disappeared and joan ya said, does she want to have that baby? he said, i think she does, and she wrote down her phone number and says, here's my phone number. i'm getting on the train now and will be in philadelphia tonight. by 11:00ment you have their call me and we'll talk. that's that thing that i so respect. sonya is so extraordinary, such a wonderful individual. she is there in the world for the people, and her poetry is there in the world for the people, which is -- it's just a wonderful thing.

you have great poets, like ts eliot but the yates wrote about what the irish experience, and write about what is real, you exhort more from that. >> host: what was your -- what were you thinking when that caller was comparing you and -- >> guest: wonderful. hard to think that stuff about yourself because you're going of the a life in a pedestrian kind of way, and you know your flaws other people don't know them, be and you're like, i'm not this or that but it's something i try to do and my work tries to do, and i know it's true, for sonya and other people. >> host: how too do you that always outnumber -- >> guest: it's about an ex-con who committed a terrible crime, he spent 27 years in prison. now he is out and is trying to

be better because a young boy, who is also committed a terrible crime, figures this out, he finds his killed -- this kid and the kid knows that he knows if he wants to help this kid become a better person, he has to become a better person himself, and it's about that life. it's really close to the streets. it's really close to the bone. it's really impoverished. its not like some little kid who is going to become the prince or king or millionaire. it's somebody trying to live day to day. >> the main character. >> guest: socrates fortlaw. he is struggling to be a better person, and to overcome what -- huh -- his own nature, which is pretty violent and angry. his own guilt for the things he

has done. he learns in order to be a better person, help this kid be a better person, i have to be a better person, but in order to help my community become better, i have to forgive myself. >> host: jb in toledo, highway. >> caller: thank you for taking my call and thanks for the innovative brian lamb. what does he think of george gm james, and, two, does he think the tragic 9/11 tragedy deserves examination? and does it merit writing about, and, three, why is there a 100 year limit on george w. bush's library there in texas? thank you very minute for taking the call.

>> guest: hmm. i don't know the answers to some of those questions. i think that the central -- the question, which opens itself up for kind of a general interpretation, is about 9/11, and that i find -- i think that most events that happen in the world deserve self-examination. meaning to say, like, well, what is my part in the world in general? how do my actions, my taxes, my representation, my people, my gender, how do all of those things inform what is happening in the world? because we -- politics in a broad sense vilifies people, and

certainly there are people who deserve to be vilified, and fought against, and struggling again, but it's always more important for me to figure out, okay, after i've come to those conclusions, the war on terrorism or whatever, how is my everyday action contributing to the pain in the world today? and if i am able to assuage that pain, can i make a better world? sometimes you have to fight and you have to kill and blow up things-but doing that won't make a better world. might make one safer in some place, might achieve revenge in some ways, but in the end, what we have to do is make a better world which is helping rather than hurting. >> host: olivia in california. welcome to the conversation.

>> caller: hello. >> host: hi. >> caller: i have to thank mr. mosley for years ago when i was working as a librarian and i can even remember which one of the easiest books it was but -- the easy books it was bus carried mouse out of the hospital and i was so distressed, wondered what happens to the characters so i wrote him a letter, as i do to a lot of authors, but he wrote back and said, have patience, so i waited and he did write about easy and mouse again. i appreciate that. what i said wanted to talk about was always outnumbered and outgunned. people ask moore the recommendation and i recommend socrates. two great american philosophers of the 20th century, one white man, john wooden, and other was

sock could trees and i tell people -- sock extra tease -- socrates and i want to thank you for everything you have rein, especially those characters who struck me to such an extent. thank you. >> guest: i do want to say to you theirs a third socrates collection that follows socrates and i appreciate your comment. >> host: why did you decide that mouse could -- or leave the question out there that mouse could be dead. >> guest: i don't remember why i thought that. just -- i'm writing -- like i said, almost kind of like freestyle. i'm just writing and writing, and mouse gets shot. i never thought he was dead, but -- and etta may takeses him out of the hospital and take him

to mama jo. if number can raise something from the dead, it's mama jo, and she does. there was just a moment, you see, mouse was so powerful inside the books, had to get rid of him for a while. so easy could stand on his own and i could figure him out on his own, without mouse as the crutch, and that worked for me. >> host: following that book, easy is trying to figure out whether he is alive or dead. why is that important to the character? >> guest: one, makes -- it allows mouse to be there for the audience, but at the same time, it's easy making decisions and understanding who he is, outside of the negative space of mouse. >> host: greta in mt. very non, indiana issue think it is. >> caller: yes, that's correct. thank you for booktv.

i want to thank mr. mosley for being to gracious and articulate in his interview. first heard of mr. mosley as a mystery writer, from bill clinton, a number of years ago in an interview, maybe early days of his presidency. and i was curious and immediately went out and checked out devil in the blue dress, so did they give you boost in your recognition as an author and a writer? are there other well-known people who cherish you as one of their favorite writers? >> guest: well, there arlet of people who like my writing. some of them are well-known. i've given books to all kinds of people, on all over the spectrum between clinton and orrin hatch,

but i think the impact -- he did have a big impact on my career it and was like the news people. so, whenever i would go somewhere and somebody would ask people -- a newspaper, magazine, television show, would you like to talk to walter mosley. oh, yeah, he's the one that clinton liked, and i'll talk to them and people around the world did that. i'm not sure how many booked it sold, probably denzel washington sold more books, but regardless of that, i think the political and journalistic world paid more attention to me because of clinton. >> host: which of the books has sold he most? >> guest: i have no idea. probably devil in a blue dress, i would imagine. i can think of anything that would have sold more than that but could be another book. i don't know. a lot of those books. >> host: we'll go to linda next,

spokane, washington. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i've been enjoying the program and i appreciate this opportunity. i work in a small indy book store, and i love talking about your books with customers. i love your writing, primarily because you're able to talk about a lot of different kinds of communities that some of us are obviously not a part of, and you help us understand people that are, but you also at the same time manage to write about the human condition and it covers everyone. so we can all relate to it as well. i could go on and on but i want to ask you, you maybed a couple -- you mentioned a couple of times where your ideas come from, from your sleep sometimes. i get same thing from my little bit of writing i do. i see advice that says, write for yourself, not for the

reader, and i just wondered if you could comment about that and if there's a balance you find inure own writing, or if you lean one way or the other. >> guest: okay. first i want to thank you for working in an indy book store and for keeping indy book stores alive. really important for literature because big gigantic become stores are good to have, amazon is go to have, but -- is good to have but has to be that personal relationship, you going to the book store and talking to somebody about books they like and books you like. that's really important. i'll just tell you, when people ask me who is your audience, i tell them this. i had a favorite cousin named alberta jackson, older than i was and used to baby-sit and the was wonderful woman and i loved her. she made great hamburgers and

she would hug me while we are watching monster movies and i imagine i'm in a train, and i'm talking to alberta, and she says, well, whats that it friend of yours, that mouse, what is he doing. >> host: i say he's. i would say he's in all kinds of trouble and tell her the story. the audience is somebody sitting behind us, overhearing the conversation of me talking to alberta. that's how i figure it. i imagine the best possible light to illuminate my story, is alberta, and nibblings who hears it. >> host: who are you talking to in little scarlet when you write about the riots of. this is easy rawlins with the white principal of the school he works at, explaining to her about the riots and you write the: if come from down in fifth

ward or harlem, every soul you come upon has been thenned and beaten and jailed. i you have kid, they will be beaten and no matter how far back you remember there's a beat there waiting for you, and so when you see some man stopped by at the cops and some poor mother crying for releases, it speaks to to you. you have been there before. and it's hot and you're broke and the people have been doing this to you because of your skin for more than your mother's mother can remember. >> guest: yeah, well, yeah. that's exactly what i -- i think the anger of the riots -- i was writing about the riots and remember them quite well. i was in los angeles -- the original ones in '65 and i remember it so well, and i remember the experience, and it's so funny because so many other people just didn't understand because they didn't

understand the lives of the people. they didn't understand what was going on in those people's lives and said, why are you writing in everything -- why are you rioting, agency is fine? everything was not fine, that's not enough reason to riot but nothing bass ever find. people had been lynched, burn, slaved, beaten and killed, and people were excluded from all kind of jobs and all kinds of institutions and all kinds of spaces. in father told me when he was in fifth ward and fats wallinger would come to tax, or houston, the first five nights on for a white audience and only on the last night, that a black audience could come and hear fats waller, and i said, god, dad, that's terrible. he says it was but it didn't matter because every night those first five nights after he finished playing for the white people, he would come down to

some juke joint in fifth ward and play for us all night long. but just even the fact that you have to do that, you know, it makes you happy and it makes you angry, and everybody was angry, and that was something -- part of writing this book was to kind of extricate that anger. >> host: did thorites change anything. >> guest: changed a lot. back then, nobody was really aware of the anger of black people because they weren't in anybody's life, ever. but after riots happened, somebody would say, well, does everybody down there feel like this? yeah, most people down here, 90% of them feel like this and there's another 10% who are really mad. and so that caused the country to think, we have to change. brought about a lot of change. not enough change but brought about a lot and a lot of things

get different in america. helping people, opening doors that had been closed. a lot had happened. people say it war terrible and stupid to burn done your own neighborhood but it made a big difference in america. >> host: you have the influence of martin luther king. >> guest: he came to los angeles after the riots, only kenneth haun came to talk to him and he left the next day and on them way out a reporter says, well, what do you think that los angeles can do to make things better? and king said, with the representatives you have? there's nothing you can do, and he just left. this is a man who had been fighting for equal rights in mississippi and alabama but los angeles, he said, just threw up his hands, i'm leavingy what are your thoughts as we approach

the 50th anniversary of this assassination? next week, april 4th. this week coming up. >> guest: you know, martin luther king said a great thing once to a friend of mine, they were talking and and king said, you know, as i look at the news and i see what is happening in the world, i think that we may be trying to integrate ourselves into a burning house. and my friend said, well, so, if that's the case, what should we do? and he said, we are going to have to become firemen. and i -- that's -- whether it's the 50th anniversary or the 51st or the 37th or the 129th, the-his understanding

of the duty that we, all americans, have is really a very special thing. >> host: albert in chicago. >> caller: al about the chicago. >> guest: that's right. >> host: that's you. >> caller: hello, hello. can you hear me? >> guest: yes. >> host: we can. >> caller: well -- >> host: go ahead, albert. >> caller: my comment is i'm on the station with -- on easter day and my comment is -- i didn't know he was a humanitarian. how did he become a humanitarian? we supposed to help each other. i like that part and i'm trying to be a writer. >> guest: well, okay. when you say he, you mean martin luther king or talking about me? i was a little confused there about that. >> host: were you talking about

mr. mosley? >> caller: mr. mosley. sound like a humanitarian. >> guest: i certainly am. i'm a humanitarian but i exist in a certain place. i exist like what i feel is a long lineage of black males who i want to celebrate and to the the rest of the world wonderful and great these black men and are have been. as far as being a writer, that's great. be a writer. the only thing that you have to do to be a writer is get up and write every day for a couple of hours. do that for a year and then look back what you wrote and then figure out where you're going. >> host: how did you start? you were a computer programmer. when did you decide to be a writer full-time. >> guest: one thing i keep saying, i started writing across the street from where we're sitting right now. i was in the old mobile oil building, computer programmer issue ways working on the weekends, and i had been writing

this program and this language called rpg and was tired of it and i decided to write a sentence and i wrote a sentence that was on hot sticky days in southern louisiana, the fire ants swarmed. now, i knew that was good line. i read a lot of books and thought that would be a good line of a first back, and i knew it was fix because i'd never been to louisiana and never seen a fire ant so i was making it up. i aid i'm going to try to be a writer and i finally made it. >> host: who inspired you? >> guest: no one. i really -- honestly, i could say everyone -- when i was a kid -- when i did that i was 34 years old. before i was 34, ier in thought about being a writer. when i was a kid my father was the greatest story-tellerment i lord hem bus he was my father but we would have parties and there would be 20 people and my father would tell stories and everybody would be laughing or

moved or whatever. think that, again, unconsciously, my father said, this is who you should be. you should cook and tell a good story. >> host: dana in corns, mississippi. >> caller: hello. >> guest: hi. >> caller: hi. i would like to know, have you ever thought about any of you writings ever going to playwrights, i like the theater, broadway, like august wilson had several of his write examinatios and -- writhings and so forth in the theater. >> guest: i've written a couple of plays. they've been produced. i wrote a play called the fall of heaven. it's -- get produced in six or seven different cities. cincinnati, and st. louis, and

chicago. and, people like them. it's kind of a difficult world. i write plays but the plays i go to and see and the plays are write are very different. right now i'm work on trying to create a musical for devil in a blue dress. i've written a book, which is a play, and my friend, a very talented musician and actor, is working on the lyrics and the comp kissingy do you -- the composition. >> host: do you have other time frame. >> as soon as possible. hopefully we'll do a couple of readings of it this summer. >> host: great. robert in nashville, tennessee. >> caller: good. hello. my name is robert rivers, and i'm from nashville, tennessee, area. originally, although i'm 73

years old, i was home from greenville, mississippi, in '40s, '50s, '60s, a great literary center for the delta area, pretty well-nope, hodding carter in my years was the owner of the delta democrat times which was a noted progressive newspaper in the south. i've read a couple of mr. mosley's books, i have the last days of gray, and the long fall, and enjoyed them both quite a bit. great collector of books. i just can't get rid of them. but i'm inclined towards the interracial relationships of the

last decades, particularly because of my history being from mississippi. i was just wondering, as a writer becomes extremely well-known and apparently influential, does mr. mosley still like that there is a responsibility, major or minor, for writers to present themselves into the sociopolitical events? do they feel -- does he feel that just besides their individual writings and the influence they would have, that personally it is positive or negative to inject their personal feelings outside of their writings, into these

events, particularly the way it is right now. thank you. >> guest: i -- it's an interesting question. i'm like very politically active the way writers would be, and i'm not rung for office and i'm not even supporting anybody running for office because i know better, but i'm -- i try to comment on things and -- but two things to say. number one, i would never tell another writer what they should or shouldn't do, how they should tike or not, injection themes or not. writers have to do what they can do. and if they come to a place that i respect, great. if they don't, great. they're writer. i was on a internet television show recently, six months ago, a

little more. and there were like four journalists and me or five, and i don't understand how that got done but all talking and abe e everybody is talking about fake news and they're mad and said we have to convince people that fake news is just a made-up term and we're real journalists and saying real things, and i was nowing and listening and at one pound i said, you know, but you have to understand, i'm a black man in america. i i've been listening to fake news for 400 years. and so if there's any legacy that trump leaves behind him, it is that there is fake news, and i'm right there with that. i'm not sure if it's against him but i'm sure it exists. >> host: define what it meandrous. >> guest: walter cronkite for years talking about vietnam as if it's a sensible war we're winning and we're there for a good reason' and the vietnamese

are threat to the united states and one day he comes on and says, i've been saying this stuff for years, but it's not true. and it's not real. and we're not winning. and they may not even be our enemies, and the people were supporting are dictators and it was nice to hear a moment of real news after years and years and years of lies, basically. >> host: christmas black is one of the characters who is a soldier, fought in vietnam, other wars as well, but is he that voice, that is so -- what voice is he? >> guest: i think that christmas is an interesting character because the comes from, like, a military family, a black military family that goes all the way back to the revolution, the american revolution, and they have been fighting and they've been part of the army and they've done all this stuff,

and he has come -- he is at the very end of that and has kind floundered, saying the thing we're so proud of is the sin we have committed. and he doesn't even know how to deal with it. and it's a wonderful moment to have somebody say, i've been wrong. and it's the hardest thing to say. i've been wrong. i've thought this, i've said this, i've done this, but i've been wrong. >> host: he fought in vietnam and comes back. what's the differs between christmas black and an african-american who fought for the united states in vietnam and somebody like easy rawlins who fought in world war ii and has come back. easy talks about feeling peyton rottic fight -- patriotic

fighting in world war 2. >> guest: i have a friend who is a wonderful guy, and the '60s the head of the panthers in baltimore, and he has done a lot. when he went to vietnam , he -- when you ask him, when you against it? he said eni went through thought i was john wayne. wonderful for a black man to think he was john wayne and he is fighting for liberty, and i think he was disabuses of this notion while he was there and came back and his politics came up and he joined the panthers, et cetera. then became a libraryon and now a publisher. and i think that a lot of people, especially young men, want to believe in what they're doing, in wartime, and they're

fighting -- the want to believe that the anger inside of them, which is kind of natural, has a reason and a purpose and a patriotism. but often find out, it's not true. that's true for mark in all quiet on the western front, true for a lot of germans in world war ii. i think it's true for a lot of russians, also, and understand wore 2. and -- in world war ii. i income every war there's a moment where you may feel like, wow, this is wrong. made a snake, -- mistake. the revolutionary war, not. in the civil war, many sides made a lot of mistakes.

>> host: muhammad ali shaped your think about the vietnam war. >> guest: that was so interesting and wonderful but ali. i think that indeed he was the greatest. i'm not sure about the ring. i'm not sure if he ever really bet kenny norton or not, but i think that his ability, his physical genius, which all really great sports people have, his physical genius morphed into kind of a social political genius. i think in the beginning him joining the nation of islam was part of that. when we stood in front of anybody who would listen, a lot of college students, a lot of people in the nation of islam, and other people, and he said, look, i'm not going vietnam

because no viet cong ever called me nigger. really. it's poetry. i know like he always did his little poetry stuff but that was more poetry than all the rhyming stuff he did. it's so true. i'm going to go kill somebody who doesn't have anything against me? for the people who have everything against me? and really as kid -- i'm not -- i know now that he helped form my thinking but i don't think i knew it then. i think it was everywhere, in the atmosphere. >> host: you were how old? >> guest: probably -- when that happened -- when was he -- i was probably 14, 15. >> host: you were talking the way muhammad ali was talking about the war. didn't realize it was him. >> guest: i one thinking it was

him. if people would say are you going i would say, no, there's two reasons, first, i don't want to get hurt. i don't want to get shot or killed or anything, and second, i don't have anything against those people. why would i want to go shoot some guy in vietnam? what sense does that snake so far away i can't imagine it. and of course he is the one who told me that. >> host: patrick, you're on the air with walter mosley. >> caller: yes, thank you for taking my callment mr. mosley, i want to thank you for the earlier comment you made on reading. that is the closest thing to active mind. take that as a new quote for my life. i have two questions. you have written about a lot of characters and i want to ask how do those characters compare to what happened 20 years ago and what is happening today? and then the other question i have is, how would you describe

what privilege? and can black people develop black privilege? because abraham lincoln said at one time that privilege comes with power, and that almost every man can withstand adversity but if you want to test the character of a man, give him power. i just need to hear your input on that. and also, tell you today that you have just changed my life. you mentioned you were a computer programmer. i'm an engineer, and i've always thought about writing, but i never took interest in the political or literary readings, but after listening to you, for some reason, i don't watch this station that often. something pushed me to listen to you today. so i want to thank you. may god bless you and keep on

going. with what you're doing. >> host: all right, patrick. >> guest: well, the first thing about what happened 20 years ago and today, i don't think there's a lot of difference. i think that the -- see the way i look at the world them germans, lament world war ii but the americans are happy but it but the americans lament the vietnamese war because it was mistake, and, boy, the war in iraq is really a mistake. we begin to think this. i kind of forgot the second question. >> host: white privilege. >> guest: it's interesting thing. white privilege is different at different time am time when people in america would say i'm free, white, and over 21 and that meant they could do anything. i'm free, white, and over 21, i can do anything. that was then. today white privilege is a long

ago, far away, dream, that a lot of white people are really -- so-called white people are really unhappy about. they thick used to be in control. used to have everything. i used to be able to work hard and do this and do that and retire and take care of my kids and everything was fine and that has been taken away, and it's crew. but we never had it really, but so-called white america had it. so white privilege has become more of a fantasy or long ago memory than a reality. there's rich privilege, that's for sure. there's rich privilege, but i think that's all there is to it. that the rich have privilege and everybody else kind of thinks wistfully but the past they might have had it at some item and would like to have it again. make america great. >> host: is it capitalism that created it and may have

destroyed it? >> guest: i think that -- both. i think that early ocurrents of capitalism, where you want land, we'll just kill all the natives on the land and then its your. you want to build great farms and plantations and houses and roads? we'll just take a whole bunch of slaves and just make them do it, and you don't have to pay them. they have nothing but you have everything. and i think that's the early parts of it. that's when it got built. and now you have today where more and more of the wealth is in the hands of the very few, and wealth -- people think. we is him limitless but it's not. it's base opened labor and labor is finite wealth is finite. so if the acknowledge income of every person in the world is,

let's say -- should be $80,000, that means everybody in the world should have $80,000 this year, but if a person has $100,000 or $200,000 or a billion dollars or $200 billion, those dollars have become out of the pockets of all the $80,000 people and the more and more that wealth combines in the middle and aggregates there, then the poor and poorer everybody else is and their wealth reflects this. in chinese, it's a little bit more worse tharp it is here, but here no one has enough money. >> host: would our history be different if we lived -- if we had a different institution, socialism. >> guest: i'm not sure that socialism -- it would be good to say there's capitalism and social jim. don't think that's true. i think we have to be aware of

the system of wealth. as soon as you have abstract forms like money, banks, interest, you have capitalism. it doesn't matter if is called socialist, i.e. china other, monarchy, it doesn't matter, as soon as you have printed money, and somebody is making profit by moving that money around, not things but money, then you have capitalism. the think is we have to by aware of the systems we work in and have to control it in such a way that not all of the wealth is siphoned out of our pocket. that's the thing. and it's certainly not black people taking it from white people and not white people take it from black people and this he institution and we have to have more control over.

>> host: shawn in hawaii. >> caller: very irrue do it explanation. i do not have to ask a deep question. i'll be cas. if you had one last meal to eat, what would it be and how did drinking influence your writing before -- while you drank and now that you don't drink. thank you. >> guest: what would i eat? >> host: your last meal. >> guest: my last meal? it would be blue crab gumbo no question. my god, with sausage and thyme leaves and fried oak okra. i would love that. the other question was --

>> host: i'm blanking, too. we don't have him on the line anymore. maybe it will come to us. >> guest: hmm. >> host: let's go to john and then -- here in new york. do you have it? >> guest: no. >> host: john go ahead. >> caller: good morning, mr. mosley, pleasure to have you in my house today. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: thank you very much. i got interested -- introduced to you through blue lying. do light. love that book. said that back into be -- when i read it, i read it again signs finished it and read that book several times since. because is was so enlightening to me because it transcended race and everything. you used those to describe your characters, but i always said that book should be translated

into every other language in the world. it gave me such perspective and it's to bring peopling to and enlighten met he very much and i thank you for taking my question, sir. >> guest: thank you. thank you very much. if there's any book that's my favorite book, it is blue life, and i saw that because it's the only book i've written that i read again. i just sit down and say, oh, okay, i and i enjoy reading it. why i wrote it was that i'm not in any way a religious or spiritual person. i'm not. i just am not. loo like to i would like to be but i'm not. i believe in a materialistic, pragmatic universe, with one exception. believe in the soul. i believe in the notion of the soul. i feel like i have one if feel

like souths, personality, identity, transcends my corporeal existence and i wanted to write about it without confusion about religious, so in writing blue light -- a moment in the book where a person is walking back and forth, considering who he is inside, what his essence is, and i think i got there in that walking back and forth. i wrote the whole book in order to write that. writing the planets and the lying hitting the earth and how it transforms people into superior but not necessarily better parts of themselves. so thank you. that's why i wrote it. i still love it. >> host: the second part of that caller's question because about drinking and how it influences your writing while you were drinking and influenced your writing now that you don't drink.

>> guest: i do drink again. i. >> guest: i did drink and -- i did drink and i didn't write back then so didn't matter. then i didn't drink and for most of the time didn't write and then i started writing, and i was just writing and i wasn't drinking. now i still -- my writing and my drinking stay very far apart. i'll never -- if i drink, i'm not going to be write. >> host: why is that? >> guest: i get foggy, not more specific. i know a lot of writers who seem to be held in emotionally somewhat, drinking, and it frees them to express. a lot of poets say that. never been my experience. >> host: kent neglect in richmond, virginia. >> hello, mr. mosley. enjoy your writing but one thing it did for me, helped me connect with my father's generation. i'm a baby beamer boomer and --

baby-boomer and i started looking at the janitors in the school and my father's generation differently. how were you able to connect with that generation then write stories about them? i just saw them as older people. >> guest: that wasn't my experience. my experience was when i was a kid, i was born in '52ment when i was a kid who couldn't addition wouldn't let me go outside by myself. i was around my relatives and my relatives were so like interesting. told wild stories about fifth ward, houston, texas, and world war ii, and about trouble -- i remember my father telling me they had gone down to galveston in ha big old car, four guy, and we are pearing all night but now it's the next morning, driving back, three of the guys are sleeping you can't see them and one guy is driving and another guy drives in front, like in a car, and then another car comes up right behind them and the guy

driving says, i think we got trouble. and sure enough the guy in the front, hits his brakes brakes ao they had to stop and the other car jumps and both guys come out of the front car and back car with guns and then all four doors fly open and all of the guys in the car come out with their guns. it's texas, everybody had a gun and the other guy's got scared and jumped in their cars and drove off. the kind of stories they told me. and they held their aspirations this, dreams, their humor and those were the story is wanted to tell. >> host: white weren't you allowed to go outside by yourself. >> guest: three years old. you'd be dead or five or seven. you could go outside a little bit but every ten minutes, walter, where are you? i'm here, dad. come back in here and then i'd listen to more stories. >> host: what about your mom? what impact did she have on you. >> guest: my mother is a very interesting case. she loved me really deeply but she kind of had a psychologyol thing where she couldn't express

affection. it was really kind of interesting. she was incredibly smart, and she went to hunter high school -- she graduated hunter high school when he somewhats either late 15 or 16 and graduated hunter college when she was 20. really smart and she was really, really independent. she was in los angeles, married to a guy who is one of the richest guys in los angeles hat that time named novak, and she was with him and then she took a job because she was socialist and took a job in a school because she had to dethe right thing met my father. ...

>> how did she your mother and your father influence your thought on not seeing color, because you say white? >> the idea that -- that somebody -- it's a made -- the notion of the color lines was -- was a colonization tactic. black people in slaves, we are the white people. it's ridiculous. it's so silly.

not one of us is the same color. like, are you black, yes, but obviously, what kind of sense does that make, makes sense only in the insanity of the asylum that i'm living in. it's like it doesn't make sense and -- and i don't know if my parents gave me that or not, i mean, they certainly weren't worried about it. and it's segregated as it is, mostly segregated by class. when it comes to where you work, everybody works together. you can't say, i'm not working with that mexican, that means you will find somewhere to work. they didn't have time to say, i can pick and choose among my laborers. >> what's next for you, walter mosley? >> i have my book coming out.

john woman, i'm excited about that. that's going to be really good. i just -- as i -- i was at the public theater snowfall john singleton series, a guy named tommy is running it. he told me last night he wrote the episode i wrote. i'm excited about that and will be out soon. i will try devil in a blue dress as musical. i'm trying to make it as a movie and, you know, and working -- i'm working in a lot of different things all at once, i'm writing a book which is fun and i'm writing the -- the next installment on how to write novel on calling it the structure of revelation. >> thank you for your -- our

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