One of these days I’m going to remember to bring my camera everywhere. Because today as I waited in the Green Room at San Diego’s channel XETV to tape a segment for “San Diego Living,” scheduled to run the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, I could have taken photos of the show’s other fascinating guests: a 10-year-old boy playing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” on an electronic keyboard, a gray-bearded grandfather wearing an aloha shirt with a surf board tucked under his arm, and the lovely woman from a public relations agency there to talk about “Shopping on Black Friday.” Her advice: Stay home and order online.
Of course, I may be the only person in the United States who doesn’t know how to use her cellphone camera, or carry a Blackberry or other hand-held device. While everyone else in the Green Room checked email, posted on Facebook, and Tweeted, I was left to review my notes, all the while trying not to watch the monitor showing the guests being interviewed “live,” which only would have made me more nervous.
Everyone at XETV was professional and fabulous, from the parking lot attendant to the receptionist to the Producer Tiffany to my segment host, TV reporter Renee Kohn. Can you tell I’ve never been interviewed about myself and my book on television before? Yes, I’ve spoken on camera about museum events and exhibition openings, but always as someone in the background, and for 25 seconds or less. This was five minutes about me and my family, and adoption, and Guatemala, and Mamalita. The subjects about which I am more passionate than anything else.
Thanks to Renee’s expert reporting skills, the interview went well. She asked good questions about adoption and our process, and listened closely to my answers. In our conversation, I managed to include the information that, worldwide, some 145 million children live without homes; in the United States, more than 100,000 children in foster care are waiting to be adopted. What I forgot to say was that countless studies by pediatricians and psychologists prove that children do best when growing up with a family. Next time…
Renee ended our interview by announcing that on Friday, December 3 at 10 a.m., I’ll be at the Santee Public Library in East County, San Diego, reading from Mamalita. With luck, some viewers who saw the piece and live in the area will stop by to hear more. Later, I can post photos from the event. I just hope somebody brings a camera.
ShareThisTags: East County San Diego, Mamalita book tour, Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, Renee Kohn, Santee Library, XETV
Hey Jessica, how fantastic! So pleased the interview went well – would love to see it if you get a link to it afterwards. Finished your book now, couldn’t put it down, and it was wonderful. So exciting and really gave me an understanding into how traumatic and frustrating all that waiting around must have been. Congratulations for sticking it out – well, your daughter (and son) must be reward enough. But I am awe of your bravery and determination.
I am 1 degree of separation from a genuine celeb!
Congratulations! Really great that you are promoting your book as well as a message about taking care of our children. It’s shocking how many in this country alone do not get a good meal, or get proper care.
Claire, yes, I’ll try to link to it once it’s posted. (After I review for spinach between my teeth of course.) So glad you liked the book–and that it gave you some insight into the adoption process. Don’t be in awe, really. You would have done the same thing. I know you.
Christine: Hardly a celeb, sis-in-law! But definitely one degree!
Li: It all kind of becomes the same thing, you know? When I heard you talk about your book, it was fascinating how one man’s story at the Three Gorges Dam became a kind of touchstone for Chinese history. A larger context that becomes integral, even when discussing it. I appreciated how you spoke about the Nobel Prize winner, for example. Thanks for reading, Li.