I’ve listened to shows on NPR for decades and have it permanently programmed into our car and kitchen radios. When Susan McBeth, founder of Adventures by the Book and Authorpreneurs invited me to join her on an interview she was giving on Midday Edition, it was like winning the nerd lottery.   What luck!  I don’t have to lose 10 pounds to sound good on a radio show!

NPR producer Megan Burke called  for a pre-interview chat yesterday and prepped me for the questions Host Maureen Cavanaugh, would ask. Around noon today,  my husband and I drove up to the San Diego State University campus, where KPBS is located. Susan was already there, and together we sat and chatted in the green room with the other Midday Edition guests : a UCSD scientist and his colleague who’d discovered some new bacteria, and later, a doctor in a white lab coat who mentioned “ablations” multiple times.  (I looked it up later. It’s a fancy word for excising body tissue).

Susan and I were scheduled for the last 20 minutes of the hour-long show.  Megan showed us into the glassed-in room, where Maureen presided over circular table.  She advised us to put on our headphones and lean toward our respective microphones, which were shielded by a round — for lack of a better term — spit screen.

My feet didn’t touch the floor, so I had to sit up straight.  I remembered to speak only when spoken to, and apparently my hoarse voice went over better than I had feared it would.  We talked about publishing and I tried, best I could to mention everyone who’d helped me along in the process.  Jill, my agent, Sandra my editor at Penguin and Susan, of course, whose classes at Authorpreneurs had prepared me for this moment.

Here’s a link to the podcast:

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/jul/22/how-san-diego-authors-are-responding-changing-worl/