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Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Tink to bird.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm very happy to have us my guest, Amy Wulence, and we're doing something new.

This is the first time I've talked about a book about current affairs on Bookworm.

I want you all to watch me as I straddle the abyss.

We're talking about Farewell Fred Voodoo, a letter from Haiti by Amy Wenz.

The reason why we're talking is that Amy also teaches in the

literary journalism program at UC Irvine. So of course my eyes lit up. Literary journalism.

What's that? It's the only kind I would read. Tell me what literary journalism is, Amy.

Well, I think there's a reason why it's the only kind of journalism you would want to read, Michael, because it's good.

No, I don't, when I talk about literary journalism, I always laugh a little bit because I know my journalist friends would say, well, that's some kind of

fancy pants thing, you know, and we write everyday journalism. And I salute them and I've done

everyday journalism. I know what that's like. I've been a newspaper woman. But literary journalism

is an attempt to, for me, to take the facts of the world and shape them, put them into

a context that makes a controlled, beautiful thing that people will want to read, that will

attract readers in a way that a history book often won't, and even a book of

...