It may seem odd that I'm here today - the unapologetic writer of popular fiction - on Faulkner's front porch, about to announce the finalists for the National Book Award, which are our most prestigious literary awards, |
It may seem odd that I'm here today - the unapologetic writer of popular fiction - on Faulkner's front porch, about to announce the finalists for the National Book Award, which are our most prestigious literary awards. |
One of the reasons we wanted to target Mississippi is, obviously, we are from there, |
Ten years from now I plan to be sitting here, looking out over my land. I hope I'll be writing books, but if not, I'll be on my pond fishing with my kids. I feel like the luckiest guy I know. |
the character will be portrayed in a good light. |
The King of Torts |
The month of September, we got involved in a big way, |
The worst letters come from retired high school English teachers. They will literally take a book and pick it to pieces and send me 14 pages of notes. |
We are very fortunate people. We never publicize gifts. We try to avoid publicity, but we decided this may be the time to do so and inspire other people. |
We didn't want to leave. You feel guilty because you can hop on a plane and come back home where everything works and everything is standing, |
We don't normally publicize gifts. It's something we keep extremely private. |
We don't normally publicize gifts. It's something we keep extremely private. But in these very, very rare circumstances -- this tragic time -- we hope the gift will get some attention and inspire other people to contribute money and help our fellow Mississippians on the Gulf Coast, |
We want to raise all we can and then take the next two years to spend all of it, ... Hopefully then we'll be out of business and there'll be no more hurricanes. |
We're not going to draw any boundaries, ... But the focus is the Gulf Coast region, from here south. |
When you make charitable contributions, you realize you can't save the world, so you find a small area you can go into and hopefully do some good and do it with your own money and your own sweat and you see the results. |