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Beautiful Writers Podcast

Valarie Kaur & Chris Jackson: A World-Changer and Her Superhero Publisher

Beautiful Writers Podcast

Linda Sivertsen

Writing, Authors, Books, Book Deals, Writers, Arts, Bestsellers, Book Proposals, Publishing, Society & Culture

4.7 • 592 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2020

⏱️ 77 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chris Jackson, legendary publisher and Editor-in-Chief of One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is here with Valarie Kaur, one of his star authors—or, as he prefers to see his writers, who include Trevor Noah, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jay-Z, and Mira Jacob, “superheroes.” After all, changing the country is not for the faint of heart, and Chris looks for formidable fighters. Kaur’s unique superpowers as a civil rights activist, lawyer, filmmaker, and author—with degrees from Stanford, Harvar...

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everyone. My new book, Beautiful Writers, a journey of big dreams and messy manuscripts

0:08.4

with tricks of the trade from bestselling authors, is ready for pre-order. Those authors are the

0:15.6

legends you hear here on this very show. Beautiful Writers Pubbs on August 23rd, and if you purchase the book now and plug in your

0:25.3

order number over on bookmama.com, you will receive lots of really cool writerly pre-order

0:31.1

bonuses to help you birth your own book baby.

0:34.3

I even send you personalized book plates to include in your books for holiday gifts with

0:39.0

five or more orders. I mean, how much easier is that than trying to re-gift used candles?

0:45.3

I love when wins. And now for the show.

0:58.5

It's an interesting journey that you take with writers, because I think at the beginning, there is this kind of excitement, and then it's really, really hard work.

1:03.2

It's arduous.

1:04.2

It's the hardest work in some ways, because if you're going to write something that's true,

1:08.6

you know, write something that's real, write something that's going to actually help people, you have to dig so deep. And you think you've gone deep enough. And then you have to go that extra layer deeper. It's hard. It's hard. And you do have these moments when you're like, I don't know, is this going to happen? Am I going to make it? I think every writer goes through

1:27.8

that. So in part, even when I'm making a deal with a writer, I know that we're going to go through

1:33.4

a dark moment together at some point, moments of doubt and moments of difficulty and moments when

1:39.4

you have to think, I know my story, and then it turns out you don't know your story, that your story is

1:45.0

maybe something deeper and maybe even more painful than the story you've been telling

1:50.5

yourself is your story.

1:52.0

It takes so much bravery, which is why I have so much admiration for the writers to really

1:56.2

do that work, because it's a gift to give to readers and to the world.

2:01.6

And it takes something really courageous in the writer to extract that gift.

2:06.6

The future is dark.

2:10.6

On this New Year's Eve, this watch night, I close my eyes

...

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