Misha kwa kwa Belanda is a team, it's Mitzwez, we have two more, Lake Hill Stadeel. So in 2020, if you all remember, there was an incident where one of us, alikwa Ndanya Ambulance, Ile Stori, Ile Sagaia Ambulance, Ile Nyekunamse, wasul kuna turn up Ndanya Ambulance Ndabotia Gilbizwaki Fani, ACPR. So msi mojako yo kwa squad, alikwa po. And the funny thing is, out of everyone, juye endwa na julikaana, yae endwa atu wakai make it about ha. Welcome to yet another episode of Crazy Eleven. Today I'm super super excited, I'm hanging out with a star. They call him Kokode Rasta.  Ya let's talk to him. Mambo Bobby. Po asama, Santisama, Santisama Karibu. Yae umesama Stadi ni kanda kuskia. Yae mama imedit. Very star, baby very star. Bado man zitu, bado tuko kwa isafari. Dutu mele kia, bado tuko on the right path. We're doing very well. I enjoy your content, it's Bobby and East Mitsuesa. Thank you so much. So I'm going to be asking you eleven random questions. Okay. I'm an open book. Okay, let's do this. Love or friendship? Ooh. Ame ni pe love kusama tuko elin. Mama besta wame ni. Hey mama besta wame ni umiza. Mama besta wame ni umiza. Like it was love in Nairobi. It's was, crazy. I know you're a very good filmmaker. What shiga do you love for film? Um, I guess, uh, wow. Just having a crazy imagination. I feel like, um, Nikiwa nga, fun enough, nili kwa nga ulem semba ya. Nili kwa na mkasu bui na piga staff, tahi na tia nga. He's was okay. Hey, I ran Helto Skelton, kizungu kuwale, audience ya kizungu. But I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I feel like I just had a crazy imagination. But then also, um, se li kwa na fika composition, inisha nili kwa na nika witu crazy, alaf na kula 0-3. Jumi skutu mia. Hey, we're hanging out to pack up. Oh, so put investor. Mahfuta, ah, skutu investor, investor manze. So, um, I guess, I just fell in love with film in, in, nimanze nili kwa na watch movies more. But alafwa I used to work in a movie shop. So nili kwa kitu asa kwa na get. So umse, back in the day, kabila YouTube na nini, this is in like, um, 20, around, this was like 2011. So utem manze, YouTube aiko abadu na ma waifai na nini. So umse aiko na trailer za movie. So he used to give me movies. I go home with them na watch. So ami do na kam na kwa trailer. Na kucho cha, na tokoko na movie kwa 20. Na kwa miha ii movie na ma dragon. Uki einda ni. Aiko na get. I can't think like a man. Then miha kwa miha witu za ma dragon. So I feel like now then I just wanted to direct and write my own films. And I was like manze una joa. And this is where I belong. Ushai na nili kitu na feel. Uki do na feel, na feel right. For me, YouTube and film always felt right. So far? So far, so good. I've won, in the past I've won 12, I mean my team, sorry. Film 60 na fa nyanga peke aiko. So I feel like we've won more than 13 awards. Wow. I think 2017 won 8 awards in the East African Student Film Festival. 2018 we came in fourth in the world, in Africa at Natalie Lorenzo award. 2018 again, we won a Kalaasha award. 2019 we won a Kannon's award. And also Kulikwanaezi district awards when it happened. Then COVID hit 2020 na kuna kitu. 2021 na kuna kitu. Then 2022, there was a film festival organized by Israel Embassy in Safaricom and Kenya Film Commission this year. And we also came in first. So manze God na fa nyanga vi tu.  Ah, maano, maano. Maano, maano. Maano, maano. Maano, maano. What?  Okay, do you prefer texting or calling? Oh calling manze, njwa dem, njim, tachu kwateria, zalafu kitu uni bo. I learn me come up with more frustrations. I even work out. Manze na kukutekst, zalafu uko, uko Instagram una kama post, textyango jajibu. So you mu jam. Alai mu jam. So mu prefer atu niku pigyesimu. Tungu angiki tu tu nungia. Kilam tu endengia, ke zena tiyo na kutekst. alafum denya kwa uko na matastrako, alafum wanawa leita na onarudi oh ya, you know, it's beautiful and good But don't you think texting to non get through to the day like a get to know how your day is going?  Okay, closest to, the person I've known the most out of everyone is Sasha Kwa is we've known each other for more than 12 years to lingura pamoja Ikifika sinsa, shere dunda ina kwa nga sesil Most times ka niko out na kwa nga sesil Napiya ki na re So I feel like too, my friendship with each one of them ina kwa nga different Na ina bam bani different Like kama na dom na joa ni car rides, tuta chill, tuta pigama story Oni dom, uno na So kitu ya dom si, kitu ya sesil, kitu ya sesil siya Sasha Yeah, it makes it fun because that's your gel Inge kwa umse na chill na umse na umse wa dunda ndo Kila umse wa dunda, inge kwa boring Because then, together kwa gyi, isolate No umse nge nge feel biba So with them our friendships are just different Na ni more family Yeah, agree And which has kept you together over the years? God As much as what we've been saying, I won't even lie to you God Kumanzi kuna time Uku jo kila mitu ni, kila mitu aminji tambu wa Isi itu chaneli Isi itu chaneli achia woe Wada na juw, wada na juw na kavizuri What people know they look good So pia yo kitu na yo attention to na get But I feel like too Also realizing penye jani lianza Penye tulitoka za team And also just pia evo Yo vien mesama manze tu God Ndom se al kuna tu shikani shanga And then the more we started going up also I feel like the more deals tuliyanza ku get Na cooperates tuliyanza ku wakna Wa saka nzakuna the seriousness in it So we end up pia part of kitu li tulikapa moja Ah nice What's the best deal you've gotten Is Miss West Emanze kukakola Namnuwa content, your content is amazing Kukakola, big sheratu kukakola And also we're yet to start But I also, I wouldn't drop EABL Now we're working with EABL I feel like EABL really know how to treat their influences And I'll even kukakola does But EABL pia wana jua Tickets ni VIP Muna invite you all to All EABL events, kama yo polo Manze wana feel po Wana feel like you're being appreciated For what you do So in aku piaile sensia EAPL wana takaku wak Kwa onye sha that Aku make the wrong choice Because by the time we end the event Wana just sit me kutikidu iktu for 5 years So asana come up say Aku piti as in a struggle sit kwa na piti Siti kwa na itu anga event tu mangalia Nata magia tu pewi Tu kutu ma story tu apu But you know now the game has changed So with brands like that Asana kutrii tu po asana As long as you also just respect your job And piawewe tu wu give your best U kipatizu brandi Have you ever thought of having a YouTube channel as booby? To be honest, I don't like to you There's been that noise U na get Muu sema manze Goda kia mwa kitu ya Yemo nyan najuwa the reason why Apart from even just Ismitwast I'm also in another YouTube channel Bixara to them It's a sports channel Piawe nenda kuli puka Iyo bado atu analala Pia box tu atu atu pata kai shani ni Muu sema muu rada kukua In spaces where I can work with other people Because actually teamwork makes a dream work Kwi fanya solo ni kua selfish I feel like even if I did it alone I wouldn't have achieved as much As I have achieved as a group Kusai the beautiful thing ni Whenever corporates are looking At they need a group for something Ismitwast no group ya konzata fikiri ya Why?   I'm accessory person Honestly I don't even like to you But my Shoe game of late mi kwa chin Adolting Una pigeivi e sabu Una nzaku notice Manze ukona vitu Ukona requirements But I honestly wouldn't lie to you Next year na inenda kwa ribu Ushad Shoe Next year na inenda Wachan kwa mi kwa hambol 5 years Siya tenda kwa hambol Ile hambol 2 ya angusas Next year sa sa nile Kwa kaya angu Next year na Ya zi zi Imoakani li kwa na I had certain things that I'm happy of Una get I thank God that ni meza kuget kwa kuna brands kubu Una na Like for instance I was on an ad for stand chat I saw that, good job Then Pia Juzi ni wefichakwa Ngo maia kagoe So I feel like my career is also taking a proper path So Imoakani li kwa tuku Next year sa sa For me Niku skyrocket Next year nile Ile hamom check Next year nile amom Mam checkin do So that's what I want to do Are you a morning person Or evening person? Hachani kwa bio kwa li Una na this studio that we are in And the people behind there Una na checka What time do you live here? 3 am in the morning 4 am in the morning You also have to realize It's only 1% of people in the world Who achieve their dreams So lazimu akuna takako kwa 1% Una push ni ni Una takaku kwa msewa kawama ni Suto kapa ni ni na kumemi ni mela la Ni mela la 6 Umsi 11 Mutua na ni pigiasi mu 12 Kufika a person I'd say a night person Kwa zi yo morning hours As much as I'm still awake Nisha adapt to your system Lazimu kwa li Lazimu Una na doda kwa e Eduendo hongena Nani Kuna jacket yangu na skyakabari Difu na ni sukimu kwa gari Una jitu mu hafa sasa Nani Nani What makes you block people on social media? Imagine I don't block people So jai block me So jai block me As in mi Penye mi na nda in life Akunam teneza ni stop Ispoku wa mugu na mi mi Sata lau ni tukani wamki asubu Umi ni tukana yoni kwa raza kwa Staka chini ni anza kusama tu Umi ni tukana sasa As in uki takaku du kitu na do Una get Niliyam dwa there are two types of people People who do stuff and people who talk about people who do stuff So you have to choose Una takaku wagani Kama una takaku kukaku kwa sababu woli Shinda kwa chig dreams ako Wesa una takaku kachini wanzeku Uangiavi baju Una jami hata sigia why And that's something I was taught by my mum Ata kwa comment section Yami tu sigia yandika kitu If you don't have anything nice to say about someone Nyama aza Nyama aza tu Just keep quiet It won't cost you anything to be quiet JK is your thoughts So I feel like for me Even doi me kwa si blocking ewa say Laki ni kugost na yota gustio Big shout out to Kaguni Kugost na yona gustio Kugost ni yona yota gustio Daku nyama zia tu Mini ulemsi smenangi ata drama Niki feel too like meaning Daku ulemsi smenangi Niki doi kitu You want to tell me the nasty comments Ata u delete ata u block When I started YouTube It got to me Niki anza in 2017 Jumi si kwa ni mezoia una geto Alafili apia kutokam tani Islams by the time Unongiavi baju Akunanga story atiyo Let's talk about this We will judge it We will judge it But Back then When I started this time I was in phase I was in phase I trust God So I feel like I can stop at this point To me God Manenoza wa say ita uma Sita kudanga anyanda Yona ita ni uma But I noticed Actually let me tell you a story Juzi ni meituwa Showmax and Vision TV Wali kwa na fanya launch So they called me And I saw someone who wrote a nasty As comment on my TikTok Natukami TV face to face Anika shanga, anika jumi Yani wu niza unge ambaya Hadi nili kwa triana shanga Na ono mtu anani unge li ambaya Ona tu uni mse yani alikwa na project Na get just because you have low self esteem You want to now project it on me But I didn't even respond to the comments And I remember I left Katemiya kunge ya lift Lift ya li funguka Mne bidiwa shuuke Jumi sishuki mi na panda Eiii okay Meni yola wami star Mi na panda kishuka mi na panda Okay Okay Miche kwa kwa blanda is a team It's me Tsuess, you have too much Like Phil Stadel So in 2020 if you all remember There was an incident where one of us Alikwa Ndania Ambulance Ile story, Ile sagaia ambulance Ile kuna mse wasol kuna turn up Ndania Ambulance Na boti agil bizwaki fani As CPR So mse moja kwa yu Kwa squad Alikwa po And the funny thing is out of everyone Juhia ndo ana juli ka Kwa kwa iimekit about So e ona jua To yo time Edgar li kwa me voma Yo time Instagram atu kwa tu na la la Ona inga tu ni mi Edgar Eiii eiii Ono agopa Edgar takuli koveni ono agopa mumu So Edgar took the story Piaiaia ran with it At the time no juhia ndo time ya Covid manza kuna do Signing a six figure deal Piga tu simu ni kamboa Is it? Imeyenda No juhia time akuna do Ya ni there's no money Kila mse pocket za kila mtu ni dry Na ilikwa tu jobia kupost V2 IG Ata ikwa job at we needed to meet So we ended up losing the deal But no mse mam Lango moja ikifunguka Ikifungika ingeni na funguka At the time we learnt through that And it was a good lesson on a get Na Piaia say to li learnt to Na it was what it was at the time How was it for her? It was crazy because The whole of Kenya na feel ikwa against her Na get If you get to know the story It wasn't what people was Wasal kwa na sema story li kwa Walu kumichi kwa ambulance kwa ndeshe re Kwa kwa kwa covid Lakin ni na kano maata e Lakin du sehi tu kwen Idu sehi tu kwen Luki ambo utanap nda ni ambulance But that was in the case And they needed help Ju kafil kwenafika na Kafi I think was 7 Makara yutengu kwa na piga So mse moja kapigietu mzaewa ke Mzaewa kaka organize ambulance Just like any other parent would do Mzaewa kwa easy onukiyo kwa shida Na kwa chiapo So when the ambulance was supposed to take them home Blandi ni kwa them Abede lachi zechini waga Eh wacha tuwa nyeshesini waga Situ nezaku la tanam So it affected her I remember she wasn't on the channel for like 3 months Deleted her socials There were death threats Manzaitu lukatu na mbo Uu tukim pata At the time even people didn't want to work with us So it affected her and us But at the end Izondo vituzu Piya zina solidify bondi enyu Izondo vitu piya When you rise from them You just get better and better Di siya piya may happen So as always yangali If you want to say Wacha ikitu ikai Tukim alizia Tell me a lie A lie I tell you a lie Eh mabeya mii si na Ah please Ah future wife aneza kwa na cheki So mabeya mii si muo I don't lie kwa anza ni mela zimisha Wacha kaza ni se meivi But a lie Eh A lie I don't drink but that's not a lie That's the truth actually A lie Eh mii ni vajo Mii ni vajo That's a lie quili Mii ni vajo Wacha tu mii niki sema Mii sii vajo alafi munguata Ni pii garaadi Wacha tu mii niki I don't really repent I don't really repent Do you ever see yourself in marriage? Yeah I do But I see Kenya I see Kenya I see Kenya Honestly I do I see Kenya in my 40s I see Kenya in my 40s I see Kenya in my 40s I see Kenya in my 40s I see Kenya in my 40s Desohon au bi jaного takama You see Kenya in your 40s I see Kenya in your 40s We see Kenya in your 40s I see Kenya in your 40s I see Kenya in your 40s I think Kenya is the country Yeah but see Kenya is the country He sung in the west barriers yo nii Niki Tokana isu ki nii wite Nyimi w implementing ni Uko na uko ni mabezako Yako na uko If tia wongo Nakatu na fano na itawo Uno na me nios chana udanganya Oh my gosh That's another reason why Tafka tuji an Nairobi Nairobi a chana na yo But I think it's because Nairobi is very small Oto na juwana? Adas historia ku juwana Nima dem tu muna have fun Nime Nime juwada game Nime na cheza bila Nime na juwana Man say muna cheza bila Nime na icheza Nime na icheza Adi skizia to si Suki ziti naka shokt na watuloyo Adi umi kwy na relationship five years Mimimimimimimimimi kwy na relationship five years Za tana feint Oho mimi Oha lai aji Five years aji Mi na nani ko short term courses Three months, ICGN Driving school Three months Kitwi meisha tumesonga Tumi achakongeleshana Lafukuna nia miata But you said something about ghosting November 2017 I feel like people are making a mistake I might have lost my life I made my decision not to interrupt They had предst 밝 and told me a long time ago That the husband had suggested that Aki leo unanyu nyesha wana, ena G Kesho unanyu nyesha ena Jingine, apo mi ni kaituni ki kufuata nyuma, tidenya, denya, denya, denya, ah yoha chai kaa, wea biga shubi yako.  Mischa na mirembo, if you're going to date a very beautiful woman, you have to understand that you're not the only one there. Kauki jyoku na umeka, sita piya, atakana kwa mewendo half-everite u jyoku na wa sita. So leo onezakata kutuma lunch, e Kesho kuna wa lunch na flowers, kia uki jyua me sham changa yisha. So saye ni wu kuchangam, iwe wu changam kesa sabi. Ah, kuna, kwa ni tuna chiza i game, kwa ni... Ibo ni kulize, why are babes always acting like yola, the prize? No, mi ve itiven no mageowans flowers. Tanbu ya so... No, but you only have put it, like, Kabi sa, Pusetu n'stone, nil kwa e prise. Like, kuna saye ni nia wu oki jwyo ni, de bago una jwa... Ah, hiata iwa ke, hii, o kem ekpatun ni katio ni late sa. Ini late, 5 years from now, oni pege mende kwa na. Life yambakie ni n'nil ni alai skudanga... Ibukumende, mende budi kwa Ruanda? Atasi Ruanda... I feel like I'll be a greater place.   Ah, lili, kwa yukika. Kwa yukika na hini. People don't respect influencers that much in sense that, bada kitu so-do so-fi. Manzetuli, mi misa ki, imagine wiki wiki to events. Namazita yi ni wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki, wenye unambati, kam utu ta kwa pwaia ticket. Uta pwaia lan lido ako ticket. Uta pwaia lan lido ako ticket. Awez pwaia lan lido. Enmantha tiki, e kula hi ticket, endo wone jo akali. Hupini, hupini. Hupini, hupini. Hupini, hupini. So, I feel like, um, for one, it was just a stunt that, manzeta kiki, ununa akuna ta artista na performi yode. It's just us, in a lineup, a crazy lineup, CNG na dream, DJ Toffas, DJ Wheezy, kuna new upcoming DJ na ito asa m, ununa DJ Sikh, like it's just us in that. So we're trying to do what we do up on set but not doing it live and just giving people a vibe of a live show Jwa sayo ni piwa lukona sama e manze nata kukam, kishut nata kufanya iwi tukasama wacha tufanya live show And the goal is to kwa nyeshatu wa sayo na brands that Influencers can pull the number wacha ni kubeba wa sayo wengine ndogo una get Like we've done shows before Atra back in 2018 sendo tuwa say tu lukotu meanza kufanya gigs na nia restaurant Oh ya, I remember the big square Na ilikwe na jam, manze adi tu lige wuza big square kula abi ilikwe me chrome wa saya diwa na kuja nashanga e ni na hape nuku But then you see we don't get that recognition Tuna taka the goal is for atasu wa ko yuni misaki sama na toka na na fanya content creation that later on ni neza pe Ono na neza kaiti chinia seme ikitu neza pe e kasa me pull crowd ikitu neza pe So the whole event is just about that Also the part of the money that we are getting we have a school that we tuna jenga classrooms we've built classrooms for So part of the money is going to also that jutu kuna chuikoflani form e apo in an informal set up to me jenga classrooms una get Isn't it a bit watu wata onya esha una get apa influenza kini unwa gari Eeeeeee gari view Mi na pambia na zitu zitu me jenga classrooms a tu jeyo nekana mahali Naki ni wajatupati kana kwa shida maa maa hia dosikutu kwa kumtanda ozote So I feel like people will only glorify you when you're doing when you're able to do vitu fleshi fleshi but like me see no offense when it comes to community build up manzea kuna YouTube ozomi fanya kama sisi it's just that we don't get that recognition but we are doing it we have other projects and programs coming outreach programs in the same area So the goal is just to make sure that we push a narrative that manzea influencers content creators everyone is important and to show brands that manzea silas muendo lipe yo ad kwa TV say ono ana unneza umse na umse aneza pull numbers ono ana it's all about a numbers game so if you can show them that asipi aneza i do then wa sako uni amata wa sewa ko tu u konja aneza duiki tu na aneza ana living from them so the live show is on the 8th of oktober it's 500 bop ita kwa winning post skudangani aneza konyeza on the side tiko zime sell like crazy ase lu kwa niku dize kutakwa na tiko kwa gate kutakwa na tickets kwa gate so you can also come get your ticket in the gate but it's about to be something manzea kama bashi aiswezwa ima jina tu jaya please usingo jaya after when this tape should not come usingo jaya after movie ni ambi elitu iu usingo jaya after movie because it's about to be manzea ine na kwa mba siya tu jifanya kitu siya tu watu ba duwa na ungea watu wo ungea mwishwa eventu watu wo ungea so it's definitely gonna be vibes are we invited SPM we can come and cover the event sure thing man sure thing baka kwa guest list no na sii ni watu aneata you day to take care sii ni watu mi na kwa mba mi I understand influencers so you day aata cha kula manze start aga mpigu kwa na jiwa miss mama mi na juwa juwa bi bo mi na kwa na ii footage we can chapter tune na unangiri aah come manzeo day because that's the whole thing we're just trying to show the industry na kukonegtu na industry na piya kutakwa na usingi na piya wka other content creators that are also coming for the event so piya mkikam takwa na interviews asu tu kama iso lakin wkataeo patiya maj kuna k Crown jokes too na katae na shide no that's it from me tisus a bobii kindly Kwa tiyadrof? Tadma nipuple to like, subscribe, kwa yuson yung shikamaya? Okay, hey! See, mic me. Me, hey mic, bi kubuwa. Nnojoni wu sigiazohia mics. Umesia! Haa na filsu, nika ni ko. Nnojoni wu suma multi media journalism. So hi na filsu kama. Nimi meruli ni. Wa penzia taza madin ni Bobi Moneji, kutoka... Kikundi cha... Masha Riki, Kutana na Maga Ribi Nani kohapa kwa eleza kwa msi saha kubonyeza Subscribu batom Napolo batom But anyway, make sure to Hit the like button Hit the subscribe button sasa SPM Buzz is where the buzz is And watch their content This guy is amazing Thank you so much for having me


Are we live? Oh, all right Hey, dog. Yeah, nice to see you here. Hey, never follow fool's fury. It's a tough guy. I learned it's a tough gig So thank you to Ben and the company. This is really really fun for me And and the work that I've done with them has not only been really fun But it's something that really kept me going when the novel wasn't going quite so well We worked on monster in the dark together and that It made writing fun again It was a blast to work with the actors and that's a whole lot different from sitting in your room alone watching words not come up on the screen and So yeah, I think I think monster really helped the book get finished So we talk about your novel not going so well. Oh, we can start there. We sure Hey, thanks to the library and to Litquake and everyone who came out on this rainy night It's a wonderful event and dug to have you out here as a dream when they proposed you coming to town I was like, I got to be that person to make it happen. I just remember You know the times when you were working on this book and we were both in the Stegner workshop together and So many memories what one was When you'd hurt your back and you couldn't sit in the chair when we do workshops and you had to lay on the floor It was like there was a ghost in the room Tobias Wolfe would lead the workshop and he'd be like, what do you all think of the opening of Melinda story? We hear the strange voice Think it should be third person. It was dug under the table So, I mean we've we've shared it all since the beginning And it's it's great to kind of have read this book as a novel in progress many years ago To have read it with glee when I was going to be published and to read it with The curious all the readers in mind as well One thing I was curious about was just coma the why coma question and I drive down the 280 and you see the fields of glowing Headstones and the big jets coming up out of SFO and I'm driving down to Stanford to teach and there's that one flag That's always at half-mast and I'm like, do they lower it raise it and lower it Or do they just leave it there? Perpetual morning flag You know what what made you think that that this was a place you'd want to reside as an artist for a novel I The the germ of the novel came came to me actually while I was in grad school in Iowa and I while I was in Iowa I read in a newspaper that a kid had been tied up tied to a tree and left for dead in a cemetery overnight on a night when it went well below freezing and the senselessness and and banality of The sort of actions that would create that that would put him there really really struck me And I knew that was something I wanted to work with in fiction And I tried to write it as a short story Which considering that the first draft of the novel came in at about 900 pages Was probably a doomed venture and I didn't get very far with it and I moved back out here and finally dug that story out of a desk drawer and Right about the same time the Chronicle ran a feature piece on Colma. I think it was Halloween They were doing a you know spooky feature, right and and I had never I had lived in the Bay Area Bay Area for a long time And had never known anything about Colma. I knew it was that place with gravestones along 280 But that's about it. I knew it was that Bart stop that sometimes is there and sometimes isn't and And the more and so I read this piece and I said oh wow this this is where that cemetery story should get told and in and I knew immediately that was a much better choice because This was home the Bay Area it made a lot more sense for me to be writing about a place I knew then about Iowa City where I was just passing through and And at the same time I also found out that I had a friend who was a cop in Broadmoor Daily City and And so all of those different elements just kind of came together and I figured well Let me see where this goes Feels like you haunted that place like you drank at every bar and walked through every cemetery How did you research? I mean did you go kind of exist there? a little I'm I'm there are some writers who will go and like take up residence in a place and get to know Everybody and research intensely, and I'm really far too shy for that And there's no doubt I would have gotten better material But I'm not the kind of person that that does that easily, but I did go hung out at Malloy's and had some beers and research and Talking to people generally go better when there's a little bit of beer involved for me and Yeah, I walked around through the cemeteries I got to do a ride-along with the colma cops one night. Please please Let's share a little. Oh, yeah, it was a big ride-along. It's pivotal in the book when that's true He comes into being nothing in the ride-along section of the book actually happened on my ride-along They did not take me out and try to scare me with the big stuffed panther But but there is a thing much like that that they do scare the rookies with really yeah But yeah, we did we did some Traffic stops and you pull over somebody and they're on probation subject to search and you they search the car And then there's a crack pipe in the back seat or You know there's it's the same stuff that that cops in other towns all down the peninsula in the city They're all dealing with the same stuff. We're writing down cop talk Stuff like that. I was trying to be subtle about it. I was trying to just remember it Did you have a bull professed on I did not they just made me sign something that said if I got whacked it It was my own fault. I Did I did a ride-along in Phoenix one time researching a short story when I had a character was a cop as well and I think the cops saw me.  He's one of us Because I rode with two white guys with buzzed hair and they were like I was in the back seat And they'd be like guys tail light looks out. Don't you think? You know, and it was just like a whole night of violating people's civil rights Shockings and I wondered if I had had hair and looked a little differently if I would have got that I I didn't see any I'm actually trained as a lawyer and I would think I would be like ready to hop on any So we're gonna get to that. Okay What I mean is the mayor of Colma here anyone on the Colma City Council We can speak freely any Feedback, I mean did they give you the key to the city have the cops read this book? I mean, I think I think a couple of them have I got a nice letter from the chief of police And I believe from one of the sergeants and from the city manager So yeah, some of them have read it and I'm really glad that it I Can you never know what to expect especially since the cops in the book are incredibly foul-mouthed they they do make mistakes they you know, they're they're not always behaving impeccably and But it's nice to know or at least my sense is that people, you know, we're able to recognize it as fiction Because really what what I saw was I mean, it's boring to say this But what I saw was complete professionalism And maybe if I'd been bigger and more buzz-cut I would have seen a little more. I was chewing tobacco and smoking a cigar. Yeah It was interesting to hear that you'd begun the book in Iowa because one thing I hear time and time again from From the crew of riders that we know is that people tend to not write about the place that they're in but that the place that they Were in last, you know, that somehow it lives larger in their minds and that when we leave a place I think there's a filter and all the mundanity falls away You just remember the interesting things and there's a kind of nostalgia develops and you start to I don't know psychically be there and So it sounds like a really interesting feat to have written a novel about a place that you're living in Except I did have that experience when I moved to Texas I mean I wrote the almost the the first two full drafts of the book while in San Francisco and I moved to Austin in 2005 and And the entire third draft was while I was in Austin and I very much had that experience of using the book to connect back to San Francisco and and it I think it made things easier definitely Not just because I think that filter was working. I mean, I think that definitely happened and also I Didn't really have the luxury of losing myself in research I couldn't you know take a day to go down to Colman scope out locations I Was living in Texas. I had a deadline. I had to just make it up and move on and that was probably something I needed to be able to do so It was freeing I suppose as well to be away from it One thing that you know, it's a historical novel in the contemporary novel at the same time, which is quite a rare bird I thought and You know, I read maybe in this amazing brochure Like this before I also read the discussion questions. I didn't know the answers to any of them. I was like What is the route? Um But I think I read that 10,000 people came to like the Emperor's funeral, you know, and I kind of wondered You know, is the San Francisco of past a more fascinating place? Well, they're more interesting characters than or now Did you come up with a conclusion? Yeah, I got it. I'll figure it out 10,000 people go to anyone's funeral Anyone's the mayor's anyone's little on a whole yeah I mean for Norton the The procession was several miles long. I think as they were going up to Lone Mountain Laurel Hill, I guess is is where he was and Yeah, I do think it was more interesting then I mean I'm sure just all of history feels that way because it's in black and white if it's in, you know Photographs at all my wife and I were just up in North Beach yesterday. They had a bunch of shots on the wall just of Guys in the 30s and 40s, you know those those eras where everybody wore hats and So I have this theory that everything stopped being interesting when people stopped wearing hats That somehow hats are are at the core Anyway, it's a work in progress this story But No, there is something about about the past in general and in particular San Francisco's past It's just so colorful And it would be fun to be a part of it wouldn't it be great. Yeah 1880s. It's a wild time You got things like You know the young the younger Spreckles boy Soon to become the the sugar trillionaire when his father left him the company goes down to the offices of the Chronicle because Michael D. Young the Chronicle editor has written an article suggesting that Spreckles is sugar companies engaging in fraud. Well, mr. Spreckles 27 years old Walks into the Chronicle offices pulls out his gun and puts about five bullets in Michael D. Young Right and he's subdued by other Chronicle staffers. I mean, it's just like this incredibly cinematic moment that The newspaper articles of the time captured. Yeah, that was San Francisco in the 1880s now We have comments on SF gates It's not as dramatic No, I remember there was one day we were you and I were walking down Hates Street and You were you were well in your book. You were probably at least three years into it and Three of eight. Yeah We're you were at least three years into it and you we're walking on Hates when you look at Adam Adam I've got it. I've got it The ghosts are gonna talk I remember thinking oh Doug the painkillers you've got to get off the painkillers is what I was thinking But it turned out to like add a dimension to the book that was so amazing It really seems to start off as Mike's book and I can tell you that was where the seed was and you began it that way When did you include multiple perspectives? When you decide to open it up to everything? It was after a couple of years of working on it. I think and I just I Don't know that I really approached it you know very intellectually or I Think I just had the sense that there were more stories that I wanted to tell I wanted to be able to go with Toronto and see what he was going through in his relationship I wanted to be able to spend some time with Fiona apart from Mercer Especially because who she was with Mercer. I mean, they're both a little broken when they're together for a lot of the book So I did I did want to see what she would do on her own And I and I thought well, and then there's Jude Jude's got his own narrative. He's a 16 year old kid trying to figure out who he is And I thought well, I'm going to trust that the novel is big enough to hold all of these Because yeah, my intent had been to write a really like simple streamlined Mercer Centric book it just it didn't work out that way and then dead people started coming in and it all just It went nuts At 900 pages dog. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking I I got into not well the fun of working with the dead is I got to work with history do the research Invent emotional lives for these people And I also got to invent the rules of this world, you know, why are they walking around there? When do they leave? Why do they leave? And then on top I think I got so caught up in that then I started creating more and more of that world I I created their economic system. I created like a gang rivalry for pruno distribution, right? I mean a massive socialist uprising of dead root miners. I mean it All which I think I still think is kind of cool, but it God bless anyone who'd read that book. I mean it DVD notes. That's what they'll be Well, it would be nice, but it's that kind of obsession That it takes to make a novel eight years eight years of non-stop And psychological immersion in the lives of others until they become real people and I just know myself as a writer You know, it's a strange relationship. It's part like having a child. It's part like Melting yourself with another in an intimate relationship and then of course it ends in the same way that parenthood and marriage don't You kind of move on to other things. I don't think there's a relationship quite like it But I will say that when I was writing my book and this was before I had kids I had never really kind of been obsessed with death before until I got deep into my novel and then I started to think daily about death and You know, I called a friend and I was like buddy if I get hit by a bus Here's the here is the Password to my gmail account where I save a copy of my novel every day and you must finish you must swear to me in writing that you'll finish it And Neil was like buddy. Are you pain killers? Are you on painkillers and he he agreed and I I never thought about dying until I wrote a novel and I could feel the contemplation of death constantly in this book and I I thought about it a lot too and in fact, I was just paralyzed with fear that I'd get hit by a bus and And they would you know, this book was sold long before it was written and I was afraid that you know, oh my god The editor of the publisher they're gonna want to go into my computer and see what I've actually produced And they'll realize I was a complete fraud and that will be my legacy. I'm dead and a fraud So it was kind of a relief to get it done because now if I die, well, hey, there's The book If only you'd had a friend to warn you not to sell a book before you write it. Yes, if only When we were Stegner fellows together Adam On his first book tour had met a writer named Tony early who's someone whose short stories that I've love very much and Adam was telling me That Tony early had gone through this He'd sold a novel that wasn't written and he went through seven years of just agony stained glass Oh, really? Yeah, he did stained glass for five years. He said Because of the terror of having sold a book without written it right and Adam said Doug Advice never sell a book that isn't written. I said, oh, that's that's Swell advice Adam and then then my agent said, okay, we've got a buyer for the book and I was like right on I'd never say I told you And I was aware of it. I was like, I'm gonna work on this. I'm gonna work through it I'm gonna show Adam that it can be done and and I remember I think you told me it was seven years for early Yes, and then when you're seven of this novel rolled around. I was like, oh my god. It's worse for me. I Did worse So anyway, don't ever sell a book that isn't written, please I just I don't take directions. Well, I Got another question for you Doug. One of the interesting things about the book is these police forms Memoranda one of the assignments I have for my students is to you know, write through official discourse, you know, and It's a kind of writing in which you're not supposed to let anything personal into it Whether it's an office memo or a police report And yet of course it always does it's an exercise and withholding and our mutual friend Dana Roscoe It's kind of done a couple famous examples of this To a wonderful effect, but think about you as a lawyer a being a deeply creative deeply feeling artist in The realm of law school and completing law school And I kind of wonder if that tension between Wanting to create but having to write in a certain way Hasn't come out of the book in some way. He's speak to what it was like to be a writer in law school Actually, I wasn't a writer in law school. I got to law school and shut down completely creatively It was really I mean in part because it's a lot of work, but also I just I didn't have that side of my brain Working and It was and in fact, I don't think I've ever been able to harmonize those two Those two sides I actually did practice law for a year and I left it to take the Stegner Fellowship and I think the first two months of the fellowship I couldn't write anything because I was still in this very sort of linear analytical world And I couldn't do the associative kind of thinking that I needed to do it. It had atrophied a little So it's it's not really easy for me to move between those worlds But it was a lot of fun to get into it in those police reports And my friend the cop was really he was really into writing And he really prided himself on being able to write a damn good incident report Yeah, and and you know and the whole point was like simple declarative sentences, you know, and It's an interesting way of seeing the world. It's an interesting way of trying to render action in a book And it was a tricky question sometimes like there I had to decide Okay, do I want to do this scene in a police report or do I want to do it in more traditional narration? You certainly get a more vivid experience with the traditional narration But there was something about working in that form that felt right, but there's definitely a cost So and I don't know that I would make every decision the same way if I were Spending another eight years on the book. There's much that I would change about my novel as well But you know character management is such a difficult thing, you know, I don't want to get too kind of technical but you know what I would Write a scene in my novel and there were six or seven characters on stage You had to keep the reader aware that they were all there and someone would have to pipe up And oh, it's my turn to say something or you forgot about me or give everyone like ridiculous juggling actions to do And I'm like, oh, I would like do anything to get a couple off stage. Hey, we're gonna go on a beer run I'm like, I got rid of three And of course obligatory scenes a big wedding scene is always Hard to do because they're cliched or things that readers have seen before and you had this giant showdown at the end of this book But telling it through the police reports Saved you 50 pages at least it did and actually I had in fact tried it in the traditional That that was part of the 900 in in the first iteration of the book Yeah, so overwhelming it's really hard Any sort of choreographing physical movement and action it can really bog a book down if you're not really on it Not doing it really really crisply and clearly So in a way doing it in the police report But you know, I have the little critical voice that says I punked out a little by doing it that way instead of really committing to the full narration But I also think you know It's a form that I was using and it made sense for the form, you know This this form of the incident report to occupy some significant place When the events of the book were coming together. I Think you were wise. I mean you did write it all out and your little voice said no not that way At the end of my book, I was like I have one character too many and I went on this I exercised a character called big daddy What was I thinking? I made the three quarters of the book and I had to go through and embrace Every single trace of him. You just don't you know search or replace big daddy But I felt so relieved But I got rid of that character. I was a little lighter Do you make any big changes at the end any big terror moves? Not not at the very end the big decisions at the very end were I Mean actually it was all about what's gonna happen to Jude I felt like there were several different options with him and I've actually since found an entry in one of my notebooks that Had an idea for what I think is a better ending and My eureka moment in discovering it was only about two years too late But that's okay. You know I like what's there The there was a big decision about 300 pages in I had been writing the book in past tense and That little voice started talking And I had I had been reading a book by Stuart Onan called the night country Which is has this real dark spooky kind of vibe to it And it was in present tense and I looked at it. I said, oh, that's the vibe that I want and And I the verb tense is a big part of establishing this feel I was like, okay, do I go back and again, it's not just search and replace the verbs You know got to reconstruct the whole thing so, you know Do I go back and do 300 pages of rewriting and I said I I guess I have to I wasn't happy about it I knew that like I was committing the next six months of my life to redoing stuff that I had just done But it felt right One thing I think you were blessed with is having a real old school editor in Sean McDonald at Riverhead. He's not old But he has a belief system of how a book should Be fostered through fostering a young artist and he's stuck by your side a year after year even after changing houses Which is unheard of it's really really rare my editor Had been with double-day double days who originally bought the book and he went over to Riverhead And he took the book with him and we know many many people who've written Fantastic books that you know the editor for their own personal reasons has made this career move and the book is orphaned at the old publishing house and You know sure some editor gets assigned to pick it up and work with it, but they've got no investment in it They don't love it in the way that the other editor did and so the book gets lost when it comes out You know, there's no juice behind it I'm extremely lucky that that Sean stuck with me and and he you know He really gave me the space He would every now and then you know apply a little pressure for some progress here or here But I think I needed I needed that room Because I don't think the characters really started making sense to me until year five or six which probably sounds insane But but yeah, there were still important discoveries to be made then and honestly if I'd not taken all eight years I don't think the book would have been any good at all. I think when you're making real people out of whole cloth That's what it takes and it's easy to kind of inherit or borrow or steal or pastiche Characters that readers have seen out there in the world, but if you're gonna create someone They should be like real friends, and I think a real good friend You're still getting to know after a couple years and they can still surprise you and they'll say that one thing about their past You didn't know and there it is and And there's even some left on the table that you're probably still coming to a Saw on this Scene I saw in this and I'm not gonna ask you what the root is But there's your playlist. Oh, yeah This is about you know music you listen to music when you write. Yes, I often do I mean sometimes it's it's the last thing that I should be doing sometimes. I need absolute silence, but Yeah, I put this playlist together for a website It's largeheartedboy.com and they ask writers to write about music and musicians to write about books and Some people do it as a you know a soundtrack for their books kind of scene by scene what the ambient music would be like For me it was okay here are the songs that I do this crazy OCD thing sometimes where I put a one song on infinite repeat. Yeah, I have it up really really loud and I generally do this when the words aren't coming and I'm a little angry with myself and it's a way of like forcing words onto the screen and just and Trying to write with fury when writing with calm isn't working like that So so this this playlist it contains it's all songs that were part of the infinite repeat roster I guess over the eight years of the book and some of them are very sort of mellow and haunting but some are kind of punky and attitude filled and Yeah, there were a lot of nights were like I'm at the coffee shop at four in the morning My wife is home asleep. I've got four classes to teach the next day. Nothing's coming out. I Just was so sleep deprived. I drove the car into the house And you know a little a little bit of punked-up music was was just the thing How did you make it out of this book? I don't know. I'm not gonna write another one. Are you? Don't do it. It's crazy Well, I would like to think I know a little more about if not how to do it I'm some thinking that you have to relearn with every book how that book wants to be written But I think I at least have gotten to know myself a little better such that I can avoid I can get myself out of the pits more easily as opposed to just falling into them for weeks or months at a time Yeah, no that's off, huh? I do I've never listened to music before when I write but as you know, I'm writing this book set in North Korea and I will listen to music sometimes if it's another language it doesn't distract me if it's Portuguese or Spanish and On the DPRK central website. They have all this propaganda music Glorifying Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, of course, you know you could download the MP3s for free and I do have these like huge playlist of big brassy propaganda music In honor of Kim Jong-il Sometimes I'll sit in the library for like 10 hours listening to that and you don't want to talk to me afterwards really And does I mean does it do you do you find that it has influenced the prose that comes out that you sort of get that? I don't know if I can identify the the scene Scenes that I listen to that music or not, but it's gonna turn into now that I have three kids I've turned into a person who can't write in my house and I write in the public libraries and UCSF is close to me. I use that one Sometimes the park branch is my branch Coal Valley Sometimes the mechanics institutes and I see a library downtown But there's often lots of noise and stuff. So I'll listen to things going on and I Guess I you I do get into a strange North Korean trance when I put on that music and you know, it's weird you look on your iTunes And it's like that one song has been played 247 times You're like my god I've just been through like a grade school year of North Korea really in terms of indoctrination I'm gonna go crazy.  Yeah four and a half is nothing Yeah, I scoff at your four and a half Now you you know when I Know you're working on short stories right now. There's such different animals.  It's I think it was a little trickier than I had thought it was gonna be I think I had this sense that That it would be That I'd be so relieved to be finished with the novel and finished with that form that I would just fall right into it and I had like notebooks full of story ideas and I I had a I've had a hard time actually getting Back into that into that mode what helped a lot is that I went and re-edited some older stories that are going to be in the collection. I wanted to make sure that You know that they stood up that they didn't feel dated and that they didn't feel too juvenile You know that it was still my language my voice the writer that I am now You know try to harmonize that with the story being from a certain time So that helped, you know that that's those are that's training wheels kind of work Getting into the stories and working with them again And yeah, it's just going one by one It's I Think now I'm at the point where it is easier to think of it as You know, it's a shorter it's a much shorter commitment it's It's a finite little project one year So yeah, I'm having fun with it. I actually started the second novel over the summer and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. It's it's a little on the back burner right now, but I Think it'll be fun to work in that expansive realm again, you know where you can have characters like Glenn You know making jokes about lifting from your knees and like you can't do that in a short story Glenn can't occupy a page in a short story But but in a novel you have that kind of freedom And that's a really fun way to write when you can just you know find everything that might be there and throw it in And see what sticks so you're writing short stories and a novel at the same time Yeah, yeah, but I mean the novels It's it's ongoing But a little less active than it might be But that's that was one of the things that working on the play helped me with I realized I'm much better when I'm sort of moving from project to project and actually forcing myself to to To try to be that nimble Instead of just getting lost in the big monolithic commitment I know you've been blessed to have some great great mentors, you know Stanford and I went at Stanford again. Are you you have students under your wing now? Do you have some students you're passing things on to I do I? Got to work with some fantastic students at through Stanford continuing studies One of whom is in the audience now as a Stegner fellow himself I would like to say that I recognized his talent earlier than anybody It might be a lie, but I'm gonna say it anyway His stuff was really good And I've got some students from CCA the master's program who are still writing You know really trying trying to make it and the undergrads that I'm working with now At St. St. Edward's University. It's a little university. I You know and I assumed that I had gotten spoiled at Stanford that I wouldn't see you know really quality student work and They've really blown me away There are some kids there who are really really into it, and they've got the chops They are far ahead of where I was as an undergrad. It's almost a bit frightening But I try to hold back the fear and and and dispense wisdom I know them. I know my Stanford students are so sophisticated. They're so aware. They've read they're cultured You know and with them I always found that subtlety You know was the paragon of writing and anytime you were obvious that was the greatest sin And they always write these beautiful well-crafted stories. We didn't know what happened But you know I taught at Louisiana for a couple years and You know my students there You know My god, they would write stories, you know, I'd ask the student like hey, how come he didn't come to class? He's like well, you know my dad had his parole hearing, but our bass boat blew up on the way and You know my crossbow went off and I got to deal with that, you know, and so it's something about You know students in Texas, Louisiana other places well Doug I just want to say You know, I hope we haven't scared people by talking about eight years and things like this to make a book For people who are writers out there and working on their own But it seems to me there are writers who don't write from themselves who research who like I'm gonna write about you know Submarines and Antarctica and they go research stuff and they do it and then there were writers who write from deep personal experience From the chronic aches and yearnings that they have across a lifetime Who are trying to make people and have fully realized? Relationships with them and that takes a kind of time though The people can't often understand and you're one of those writers who are kind of deeply deeply curious about the human experience and are trying to portray it in a wholly new and original way and That's why your books so fabulous Can we take some questions from the audience? Who where's someone's got the mic is it on it is Thank you for writing that book I thought you took on so much, but you pulled it off Thank you, and I'm here with my book club members and we we always do one city one book So this was a great pick. All right. Thank you I just had a comment and then I got to ask about rain up at first the comment You brought it up about you know the end of the book toward the end of the book and resolving the Dead conflict and the officer That was a huge relief for me I didn't find that to be a shortcut Because when I saw you got the reader in such a frenzy things are going wild at this point But then like oh my god. He's alive. Thank God. That was the first reaction. I had if he wrote the report He lived so thank you. I didn't have to suffer, you know It was hard and frenzy so I like that it was easier on me Raina I was that was the only thing I felt like you know, you should write me into the book So I can slap her personally because I really Found I was one thing I thought well, maybe he's gonna do another book and it's gonna be all about her So what I'm she's an interesting character if you could tell us a little bit more about creating her Yeah, she was So Raina is the the girl that that Jude is head over heels in love with in that 16 year old way and You know and she's young too. She she's still you know She recognizes the power that she has over him and that's you know I think a pretty big realization and she's someone who I Mean it was I didn't want anybody to be purely evil or Sociopathic in the book But she does make some decisions that are pretty disturbing and pretty cold But what I was trying to do with her was actually I wanted to to make it possible for for someone to have some empathy for her or at least to understand why she was doing what she did and You know a lot of you know where she ends up and you know I don't want to give it away, but They've all read the book don't not all oh really be not all But just in case That you know, I think it's something that she she can't deal with she doesn't have the wherewithal to deal with what she really needs to deal with in order to be a sort of Moral adult I Liked writing her. I mean I I don't know I certainly wouldn't take her out to dinner And I certainly wouldn't you know trust her to look after my cats But I you know I did want to get into her story and and sort of show what that push and pull with Jude was And as for her actions at the end of the book a Little reprehensible. Yes But I also understood them You know I understood why she would behave that way. Sorry. There's kind of a long rambly answer Did the club figure out the root The root that's what that's what we had some discussions about turning the book into a TV series and all the Hollywood people were like Okay, the root. How does the root work? It's it's really really just like blunt and and direct and I'm like, well, it's kind of the you know And Hollywood metaphor. Yeah, Hollywood has no use for that. They're like give me an answer and The root was a contrivance I needed a way to account for the fact that not everyone who was ever buried in coma was there because that would get kind of crowded and And I thought well, you know what? I'm gonna have my dead people make the choice every day to remain You know alive and walking around they've got to have a reason to keep doing this and some of them many of them We'll get to the point where it's just not worth it anymore. And the root is a sort of final exit Device for them. I don't know what plant it is the root of I Sure didn't want to get into that my wife is a botanist. I would never be able to fool her with it So I said, well, it's just the root capital R root. Let's go So Doug you you said earlier that you don't take directions very well and both you and Adam were in workshop together Can you talk a little bit about what it's like to I mean not all novelists Come up with their novels in a workshop situation and what it's like a little bit too to workshop along project to take directions or not and Especially I mean if you're taking directions from Tobias Wolfe, you know, where do you say no? And I think that's one of the hardest things about about writing is trying to figure out where that that Balances between, you know being porous and open to voices from the outside who can help you and also knowing Where it's yours and where you are not gonna bend. I do think it's probably It's probably best not to workshop a first draft of a novel, you know before it's completed I think it probably makes sense just get to the end have it be your own thing let it come out that way Because I think too many voices too early on might push you in some wrong directions And It's hard. I don't think there's any real answer I think you you have to kind of look deeply and just figure out what's most important to you And it might be that some of those things are not things that are working yet And in doing that you're saying okay. I'm committing to this, but I might have to do it really differently But I'm gonna make it work And that it's scary I have no great answer Do you I remember I workshopped a chapter with John Leroux Who's a professor of fiction writing at Stanford and author of like 18 books now? I think and I Turned into chapter and we were about to discuss it on our day I was a little nervous and he's a little bit. He's got a dark streak in him And he certainly knows when he has power over you. He's a wonderful wonderful teacher But he said we were about to start he said he put his hands on the table Of course, everyone understands how absolutely dangerous it is to workshop a chapter of a novel in progress It's really fool's work I would never do it myself. I'd never advise anyone to ever do it But Adams put this before us and he knows what he's got himself into Let us begin Shit And then it was wonderful. It's wonderful. I remember You know reading Adam's stories in workshop and You know, I I love Adams work and I have from the very first one I saw in workshop and But I remember writing you comments I remember hating the ending of the eighth C One which is one of the stories in Adam's collection and I think I wrote something sort of very vociferously to that end and I just took it out again. I just taught it to my class.  This ending is perfect. Thank you I finally get now eight years later what Adam was doing way back then. I see those angry comments Sometimes I unwrap them But you know, sometimes when you when when you you love when you love what a person's doing It's like you you really get invested in in wanting to help shape it But thank you for not listening to me. Oh, you're welcome On the on the topic of endings, I'm back here. Oh, okay. I haven't read your book yet doggie, but I look forward to For to jumping in I you mentioned and maybe this is a silly question But you mentioned that you discovered in your notebook as an alternative ending and I'm thinking of the various movies that we see that Do have a second ending and I'm wondering if you've considered Writing a second ending for your readers.  I'm a writer I got to write other things So I think it's gonna have to remain a theoretical exercise Yes, sir. Oh It was um, yeah She was really really drunk and squeezed into pants that she should not have been wearing Which is let it out. That's um That was actually a chapter that was kind of weird to work with because it if anywhere in the book It comes close to like judging people or having fun at people's expense That's that's the one and and there's a degree to which I'm not quite comfortable with it But that was also a story that my cop friend told me he had in fact been working security up at Seton Hospital and There was the girl trapped in the jeans and there was the projectile button and I was like, I'm gonna work this into the novel some way Because because how could I not? Um But yeah, there's a little a little comic relief there Thanks, I'm curious about a timeline you have a master's in writing and then your law degree The law degree came after you're a master's no the law degree came before I went straight from undergrad to law school Because that was what my parents wanted me to do and I was I had no idea that It was actually my task to figure out for myself what I wanted to do They made it very easy, you know, and it was this slippery slope of chronic achievement It was like take the LSAT Doug. Well, okay. I'm good at standardized tests I'll fill in some dots and I did well and I was like well you have to apply and See where you can get in, you know, and I was buying into it. It's like, oh, yeah feather in my cap But that's not it was not a successful strategy for me as a way to live so I was in law school I did finish But it was During my third year. I had not all my classmates had jobs I Hadn't even gotten a sniff of a job. I was incredibly depressed. I had hair out to here.  I would not have hired me And yet I was baffled about not having a job anyway I actually found out from a college friend that a mutual friend of ours from Stanford Who is actually sitting in the room right now? This is Ben of fool's fury That Ben was in Iowa doing the I would writer's workshop and and I had this moment Where I mean I've been broken down to little pieces at this point and I said why does Ben get to go have fun and and do creative and now I'm doing this and Then and it was just this little twist where I was like, oh, wait a minute. I Can do that too? I mean, it's amazing like this Paradigm shift that it should have been obvious years before So I just put off studying for exams. I dug out my old stories. I worked on them I put in an application and got lucky it worked out and Ben and I lived in a farmhouse for a year in Iowa And I got to think of myself as a writer, which was a great relief after law school Then I practiced I came back and practiced law for a year There were bills to pay student loans and I also kind of thought well Having done these three years. I at least have to try it. So I practiced for a year with varying degrees of success and Ignominius failure death penalty cases. No No, thank God. No, no, no, I couldn't I was not put into places where I could do any harm It was a document review and such and then I got the call They said we have a Stegner Fellowship for you and I said, okay, I'm out of here and It's actually a decision. I've never regret I've yet to I'm a man of many worries and This is not a decision that I've ever worried over It felt right then and his felt right for the last ten years Hey, we have time for one more question. Oh There's two hands. Okay. I'll go quickly hands be crisp answers Lindsay you'll choose well Hello, I Have a question about the way that you write.  Have like inspire inspirations from dreams and you're like, oh, that's chapter there and I Generally do write linearly except when I get stuck and I feel like in order to continue I need to jump ahead and work on this scene that I know is needs to happen But I do better actually working Sequentially like that and the pieces may get mixed and matched later But yeah, I I work a little traditionally like that Can we squeeze in one under the wire? Okay, great. I thought the strongest part of the book was the juxtaposition of Mercer and Fiona and Them using one another as a sort of foil to figure out who it is that they wanted and trying to make each Each other, you know work in it talk a little bit about those characters The the Mercer Fiona relationship was really really difficult to work with it And in fact my my wife read an early draft of it and she put it down and she said you are not treating Fiona Well enough she is not you're not treating her with the dignity that the character needs to have She was a little too much of a sad sack a little too Reactive and and not strong enough and she pointed out it only works It only makes sense if she's got some strength such that we can believe in her and then we can believe in Mercer At least being torn about wanting to be with her, you know that that he might want to And also that's the only way that that the relationship is gonna Offer anything rich to the story So the third draft of the book one of the big focuses for me was was building up this I mean I had I changed the whole relationship in that in that third draft And I tried to give her a little more You know gravitas and and energy and You know, she could push back, you know, she wasn't just gonna be pushed I Don't know if this is answering the question. Is it okay? But yeah, it's a it's a tricky relationship They both kind of wanted but also kind of don't and and I I did want the relationship to live in that Uncomfortable world where it's not necessarily clear who you ought to be with or who you ought to avoid being with and You know and and where they end up is What can I say this I suppose y'all know I mean it's neither magic happy fairy tale ending it's it's not doom and misery It's what felt real to me Which is they make this decision and they're gonna do their best with that decision and keep moving forward Thank you. I guess we're wrapping up. Thanks for coming out tonight. Thanks for writing a great book. Thank you Thank you for hosting That's all the advice I ignored Thanks, I love you for coming out really appreciate it and thanks again to fool's fury Doug would Don't be happy to sign copies of your book So maybe you can say a word to him in person as he inscribes your copy. Yeah, I think we're doing it somewhere out back there Okay, thanks for everyone who came out on a rainy night. Yeah


Oh, I need the USB-C to HDMI. Oh, you don't have one here. The other room? Maybe the other room. I don't have one here. He will grab one in the other room? Okay. Okay. Otherwise, I'll be able to put my... I guess you can just put my slides up and give me a quick... Yeah, I can... Okay. Shoot. So what I do is I need a USB-C to HDMI. USB-C to HDMI. Let me go check from the other room because I had one the other day. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. And are you going to need like a clicker? I can just use this. Okay, good. So let me just open the email. And I have the rights to... Is there a right to edit it? Is there a right? It can be all rights. And is it okay to just mirror the screens? Yes. Mirror screens. Okay. Can you see my screen? There we go. Okay, so let me go full screen here. All right. I'll go through this. Excellent. Okay. Wonderful. Thanks a lot. Okay. Excellent. So folks can come on forward if they like. You can see a little bit better. Some of the text might be a little bit small. Perfect. So I'm James Heilman. I'm with WikiProject Med Foundation. And for this here talk here, I'm going to be discussing the relaunch of our translation effort. So thank you all for joining. So a little bit of history around what we'd be doing. The healthcare translation work was something we started back in 2011. So it's been going on now for a dozen years. We initially began with partners at Translatorsville Borders, among others. And the first process was a little bit cumbersome, but we did manage to create 19,000 translations into other languages, representing more than 22 million words of text on various languages of Wikipedia. We saw work happen in more than 150 languages, and there was more than 3,250 translators who took part in these efforts. With respect to the translations that we created on these key healthcare topics, they've received about 3.7 billion page views since 2015. And this represents, you know, translation is a very common method that we get healthcare information in other languages of Wikipedia. Translation represents about 40 to 50% of our healthcare content that exists in non-English languages. So the initial starting content was 1,300 articles. And what we're doing is we're improving the leads of the English Wikipedia articles, making them a good summary of the topic in question, and then putting those out for translation. So just those three to four paragraphs of content, we're encouraging people to translate into other languages. The English articles themselves received about 4.5 billion page views, those 1,300 since 2015. So over time, we generated more and more content. There's more and more content for us just to keep an eye on and try to keep up-to-date on English Wikipedia. And, you know, we were doing much of the moving manually. You know, we're a cloud-bringless trend, there's no borders. We were creating Word documents from Wikipedia articles. We're emailing them to translators. They were giving us Word documents back. Wikitext will get broken in the process. And then, you know, it was a lot of work for us as volunteers and coordinators to get this material back on the language in question. So it was just becoming too burdensome. And, you know, over the years, English Wikipedia has become more and more unhappy that it's having references in the leads. English Wikipedia says that, you know, the references should be in the body of the article and the leads should not contain references. And that makes it difficult for translation when all you want to do is translate these short summaries into other languages. English Wikipedia is also unhappy with us using easier-to-understand language. You know, the language level we're trying to write at is about a grade 12 reading level. And English Wikipedia is looking more for, you know, sort of a grade 18 reading level for medical content. And then finally, we lost some of our key contacts at Planetaries of Borders. And then, you know, monitoring English Wikipedia content was simply taking up almost all of my time. But what did we do? You know, we took a step back and we changed a bunch of the workflow and we relaunched our translation process here in 2021. One of the key things that we started our own website, mdwiki.org, where we could write these short summaries of key healthcare topics and then take these key healthcare topics and translate them into other languages of Wikipedia. So the final location for the content is still Wikipedia, but the starting location for the content is our own website, which gives us a greater ability to include references in the lead and to use easier-to-understand language that is easier to translate into other languages. Additionally, we've built a dashboard that has automated much of the process of managing the Wikitext and our dashboard interacts with content translation, the tool built by the Wikimedia Foundation to move content between one language of Wikipedia and another. Additionally, this has given the opportunity for us to fix a number of the issues that content translation struggles with. One of the issues content translation struggles with is that it drops a bunch of references and they weren't quite sure how to fix that. So one of the workarounds we've built, this new process is allowed at the build, is we expand the references and then we load that content with all the metadata expanded and then we shorten the references after it reaches the target language and that has allowed us to keep the references going missing if you've noticed that problem with content translation before. Another benefit of having our own tool, our own dashboard that has automated the ability for us to not only collect the impact of our work but also it has allowed us to follow along and find translators who might be running into issues in the target languages they're working in and provide them guidance around some of the technical difficulties. Additionally, it's allowed us to bring on a number of new partners including working with the WHO around hearing related issues. We're working with NIOSH around some workplace safety issues and we have a new volunteer translator group called prosed.com. So as I mentioned, we launched about two years ago since we've generated about 1,500 more articles ready for translation in other languages. We've had 53 translators join us. We've created almost 1,600 translations which represents a quarter of a million words. We've seen work in about 30 to 50 languages and this content has received about 1.5 million page views. This is an example of the type of material that we have put up for translation. The text is a little bit small but what you see is here's a four paragraph summary. We're only recommending people translate. Only this amount of content gets loaded into the content translation tool so it helps guide our translators and what amount of content we're expecting them to work on. One of the nice things about this is this is 300 to 400 words of text. This is something manageable. It's not something like taking on a 10,000 word maths of English Wikipedia article. When we started our translation efforts we got feedback from some of our smaller communities and we initially were translating entire articles and they simply found that that was too much content for these small communities to manage on an ongoing basis. Additionally, further research from the Wiki Media Foundation has found that only a small portion of people read beyond the lead of the English Wikipedia article. 60% of people never make it beyond the lead of the English Wikipedia article which tells us that if you want to have a big impact on our readers make sure that the leads of these articles are understandable and are correct. Let's take a look at how the tools work. Where's the plus key here to make it bigger? Found it. Here's a look at the landing page of our translation task force. We tell a little bit about the background and then we have step-by-step instructions on how to translate your first article. The starting point is our translation dashboard. This lives on Toolforge and let me see if I can make that bigger here as well. There we go. Basically, what we see here is we have campaigns and the campaigns are based on categories that exist within MD Wiki. We have our main campaign. We have a campaign related to COVID. We have a campaign related to hearing which we're working on with NIOSH. We have a campaign with respect to essential medicines that we're working on with respect to the World Health Organization. What you can do is you can pick one of these campaigns. Let's say essential medicines and then you can put in your two-letter language code. If we pick Japanese, for example. Oh, I need to log in. Sure, you made it as well. Yeah, exactly. So we have I-Off on MD Wiki and that basically allows you to use your Wikipedia username and password along into this system and it keeps all of your edits associated with you as you move through the content translation process. Okay, once more. You might need to hit log in with Wikipedia. Yeah, I did. Oh, maybe just hit log in. I did both. Oh, okay. Want to try your credentials? I think I have two doctor authentication online. I will try one more, but I think I'm biting this right. Maybe hit the top one. Okay. So what the tool will do then do is it will generate a list of what your articles are missing in your language that are ready for translation into your language. Okay. Sorry. No worries. And then from that list, you know, you'll, oh, and then from that list, you'll be able to then pick articles and it pretty easily walks you through the process. The other feature that we've built is we've built ourselves a dashboard and this gives us a breakdown of how people are doing with respective translation. You know, we see Odea is leading the, leading the board with the director the number of translations done. This retired orthopedic surgeon has translated more than 1000 articles since the relaunch of our efforts. We have the number of languages we're working in and then we have a graph of number of translations over time since being launched back in 2021.  And so what we see here is, I can make it a little bit larger. These are the most recent translations that have occurred via this tool. We see this JSDS has been translating copper IUD into Spanish and you can easily take a look at the translation that result. So to see whether or not this user has run into any issues from the Spanish community with respect to the resulting translation.  We're still working on improving those tools. So for example, when you translate from English into Spanish the dates of the references, January's not translated into Jean Vieille or the Spanish equivalent. So we're building tools to help automate the bits of text that don't translate automatically with the content translation tool. And then we also have the ability to view what translations are in process. And this, you know, some people start translations. They run into barriers. And you're not quite sure why. And this gives us a list of people who have begun translations but maybe haven't finished them. And this allows us to reach out to those folks and see if they need further help. So we've built these tools to help people run translation campaigns. Currently we have campaigns primarily related to medicine and healthcare topics. But there would be definitely the potential to run campaigns and other topics using this sort of software, this tool here as well. Oh, hey. So, yeah, so as I mentioned, you know, we also did a big effort to look at what sort of impact our prior translations had. One of the nice abilities allowed us to figure out who our prior translators were. And it allowed us to figure out what percentage of all of Wikipedia's medical content came from these translation efforts. And it was more than 40%. And then we recently reached out to all the people who previously did translation as part of the healthcare efforts and encouraged them to rejoin us for this new process. Finally, I'd like to put out a big thanks to Mr. Ibrahim. He is our part-time programmer. So we have Wikiproject Men's Foundation. We have one part-time staff member. That's this gentleman here from Ibrahim. From Yemen, I should say, Mr. Ibrahim, who's done much of our programming for our tools. And then, of course, a big shout-out to Dr. Chandra Root, who has been our star translator and has, you know, written. Odea Wikipedia has some of the best medical content within any language of Wikipedia. And that's because there's one single gentleman. And he's basically brought a medical encyclopedia single-handedly to his language, which is an Odea language not known to many people, but it's spoken by 40 million individuals in India. So these sorts of heroes continue inspiring me. Okay, I'd like to open up for questions. Let's bring you a microphone and just so you can repeat that question So I think that the main concern for me regarding the project that all of the project depending on the translation tool. So any issue in the translation tool will affect the project in a negative way. In my part, I have a lot of concern regarding the translation tool in the Arabic language. So I still use the manual editing way to translation or try the medical articles in Arabic language. So that is my comment only about. So there's two parts to the translation tool. One part is just managing all the reference templates, the info box templates and helping to convert those from one language to the other. And then the other part of the content translation tool is the machine translation. And it's the machine translation that concerns it. The machine translation is not very good. And that's why we, you know, human translators are 100% key, especially for medical content and why our work is so important. You know, you can go to the internet and you can use Google's machine translation to translate any English page into Arabic. But the resulting content that Google gives you is poor. You need real human Arabic speakers to come and, you know, take high quality English content or in other languages to generate high quality Arabic content. And, yeah, so, you know, in Japanese, for example, they have concerns about machine translation too and they have actually turned off machine translation for all of the Japanese languages. Now that sometimes it's kind of easy for the ordinary people to see the Arabic translation presented in the medical class. I'll tell you the last example today that Google is considering as only a Russian translation presented in Arabic cannot be functioned to do the cardiac as a heart and the cardiac as the organ of the stomach. They translate all of it as a heart. So when you read the translation, all of the content related to the cardiac related to the stomach are translated as the heart, the heart in Arabic. So when you read the text, it's a very poor person. And you need a specialized one you can say or one related to the main content that you use to kind of differentiate between... Yeah, and part of the solution to that is, you know, we're writing summaries in English and we're trying to use easier understandings. So, you know, we wouldn't use terms like the gastric cardiac or the English version. And if you avoid terms like gastric cardiac, then if you say the upper part of the stomach, then the machine translation will be able to handle the upper part of the stomach whether they won't be able to handle the gastric cardiac. And that emphasis needs to be on the English folks who are writing the initial content to make sure that we're writing content that is easier for not only non-expert to translate but also for the machines to work on. And yet, you know, if you can provide a feedback on specific issues that are occurring on the English easier simplified version, that would be useful for us. One moment. One's out. Oh, okay. Hello. I can see, like, this MD Wiki is trying to be independent from Wikipedia, is it? The MD Wiki is trying to be independent from the Wikipedia. Is that right? So, you know, we're, of course, a movement. We're the Wikimedia movement. Wikiproject Med Foundation is a somatic organization within the Wikimedia movement. MD Wiki is a Wiki run by the Wikiproject Med Foundation. It's not run by the Wikimedia Foundation. You know, that sort of distributes some of the, you know, technical infrastructure across our movement, which I think is, you know, a good idea for us, you know, as a whole for stability for the future. You know, this is independent from English Wikipedia. This does allow us to create more specialized versions of articles. But the resulting translations go into Wikipedia. So, it's separate but still related. So, how do you ensure this contents in the MD Wiki reach out to the readers? Yes, I think if you Google on the topics of any health or medical things, the priority will be from the Wikipedia. How do you ensure these are the contents from the MD Wiki to get to the people? And, you know, that's via translation, right? So, a content from MD Wiki is translated, as we said, there's 1,600 translations into other languages. So, you know, we're seeing more high quality content generated in languages other than English, which I think is key. You know, as an English speaker, more than 60% of the internet is written in a language that understands. You know, that's not the case for so many non-English speakers. So, I believe we need to put more effort into languages other than English. And this is part of what, you know, the family effort is fun to do. All right, thank you. MD Wiki to bring visitors. It's only for to help translators. So, it's not to bring visitors in MD Wiki instead of English Wikipedia. Yes? So, is that the aim? Yeah. It's not the aim to make a separate project MD Wiki for the medical articles and to bring the visitors to it. I think it's not the aim. The aim to help the translator and to avoid the guidelines and policies of the English Wikipedia related to the medical articles only. Thank you. Oh, yeah, sure. Or I can use this one. So, you know, with respect to is this competing against English Wikipedia? You know, our offline app in English, for example, is now based off of MD Wiki. And the reason why, you know, we know that 80% of people who are using our offline app are from low and middle-income countries. Many of them are healthcare providers. And many of them are using it in a location where there's no internet. And some of the things that I've been requesting is, for example, medication doses. Medication doses aren't allowed on English Wikipedia. You know, us having MD Wiki allows us to then provide medication doses to our offline users. So, this allows us to do a number of things. You know, it allows us to improve our offline offerings to healthcare providers around the world. You know, it's not directly competing with Wikipedia because, you know, we're not well indexed by Google. Google is not sending us much traffic. And I don't think that's going to change. Yes, the only thing that I want to add is that for the translation tool, the main improvement than any other machine translation as I tried it is that it used the inter-wikilings. So, for example, when we go to a term that is in Arabic Wikipedia, if the Arabic name in Wikipedia is correct, then it will use the correct name. But other machine translation, they don't go to a reference. They don't go to Arabic Wikipedia to see what's the name of the article, for example. They use the general dictionaries which do the problem that my colleague raised it around, like, for example, cardio. And there's other examples. For example, intelligence as a smartness intelligence as, you know, the policeman or the security man. So this kind of term that machine translation usually does not differentiate between. But for our tool at the MD Wiki, I tried it myself. There's still some mistakes. It's not human. But it is good quality compared to any other, like, Google Translate. Because it used, it's referred to Wikipedia articles. Other thing for the visitors, the outreach as a question raised by our friend there is that I want to mention that MD Wiki is connected by inter-wiki to other wikis. To English Wikipedia, for example. So this is another way to reach to MD Wiki. But we are not in a state to compete English Wikipedia, but rather we are trying to provide simplified content, more accurate content in our point of view. For example, as Dr. James said, there is, we add the prices. The prices, for example, are important for certain parts of the world, which is we cannot add to English Wikipedia. That's why we have this version. And also for internet and a box, if you attend the session yesterday that Dr. James talked about internet and a box, the offline version of MD Wiki is now available in more extended way, I could say, than English Wikipedia articles. And also we have other educational resources, like videos from Khan Academy, from Osmosis, at a certain point we add Osmosis videos. So this is what I think is not a competitive thing, but we are trying to add something different. That's it. Hi, I'm a doctor too. So, but however, I quit translating to Arabic, medical content to Arabic from English Wikipedia a long time ago because of the complicated content. I believe now science is highly complicated that I get to the point that I write the same word in English just with Arabic letters, so I always say what's the point? I'm not explaining anything, no one is having any benefit from that. So, having a simplified language is better in my opinion, but surprisingly this is not getting any traffic so what's the point? Why would someone contribute in this project if it will not have much audience? And my other point is that I'm not a programmer so I try sometimes. I hope I will get there someday. But is there a way to prevent publishing something before it gets a certain percent of editing? So, we make sure that it's not just machine translation. No, there is some manual and some person that has been done so, yeah that's better and can be published. So with respect to readership the translations that have occurred, we've seen that they've so far received 1.5 million page views in non-English languages and 1.5 million page views, that's not horrible that is some impact and of course those numbers are going to grow over time. These articles have existed for less than two years and yet people are still actively reading them in these target languages. I have a question myself. I'm wondering as you presented this like the main version of the article is in English and everything gets translated from English. Is it considered a different way of doing it, like for example somebody writes a very good medical article in Spanish and have it translated to other languages? So, we were previously translating into the language quicha and our only translators only spoke quicha and Spanish. So we ended up doing a two-step translation process. We ended up translating from English into Spanish and then from Spanish into quicha. One of the big efforts of this project was to make sure that the starting content is of very high quality and because I'm an English speaking physician I can only really verify the content in English and most of the few other physicians who are working on developing the content, the starting content are also working in English. That's more or less why we start in English and when it comes to medicine the lingua franca of medicine is very much English. Globally I did some time in Brazil as a medical student and the medical students were studying English even though Brazilian was their first language same in Switzerland even though English is not one of the official languages of Switzerland the medical students in Lausanne Geneva or Switzerland were still studying in English and that's the same in much of India and it's interesting like one of the push backs we got from the Swedish community is they wanted Swedish sources to be used for the Swedish medical content but the thing is their own researchers researchers in Sweden are publishing in English so even the Swedish experts aren't writing in their own language and so translation is just a fact of life. This is a question I guess about synchronization I can totally see the reasons for forking essentially MD Wiki off the initial starting point of medical content from English Wikipedia and then it gets integrated into other languages multiple seeding articles being created all the time and the question is then as material updates over time even some topics update very slowly but some topics update quicker and even for slowly updating topics in five years time in ten years time this will be relevant how are there plans for then updating and synchronizing the language the other language materials that have been generated from English content and also synchronization between updates to English Wikipedia into MD Wiki updates in MD Wiki back into English Wikipedia is this all entirely manual is there potential for some AI assistance even at least for spotting what could be synchronized even if it's then having to be manually checked yeah you know so right now we're only listing articles for translation when there's zero content that exists in the target language you know if there was four sentences of unreferenced content in you know a target language and you were to take three paragraphs of well referenced translated content from English and put it in that language that is sort of an insult to the community in question and you know you're stepping on their toes and really you know that sort of level of work can only be done by the core members of that community and can't be done by us or external translators that have joined us from you know our various collaborators so that's a difficult step and then you know with respect to back and forth between English Wikipedia and MD Wiki you know we're both under the same license material can be moved back and forth I don't think the English you know some of the English community don't want the material on MD Wiki yeah I think we're on time already sorry if it's just okay if it's okay moving on with the next session