BOOK NOOK: Preparing for my first public appearance of 2025

Oops, impossible to review poetry without quoting it. Deadline is mere hours away. What to do? Employing a basketball metaphor: I am driving to the hoop, seconds on the clock, to lay in the ball-a tall lawyer blocked my path. Time to pivot, to pass.

Okay, I am also preparing for my first speaking engagement of 2025. I go out and talk to groups about my reading life. I keep getting asked to do it and will be heading to Centerville to address some avid readers who live in the Bethany Village community.

My contact there informed me more than 50 residents signed up to attend. I’m thrilled. My contact mentioned she hoped I could include specific authors, writers I have interviewed.

She mentioned James Lee Burke, John Glenn, Anne Lamott, Studs Terkel and Garrison Keillor. No problem, those are people I love to talk about, some more than others. So here’s a preview (actually a post view-by the time this column runs my appearance will be done and dusted):

James Lee Burke. One of our greatest living novelists. His Dave Robicheaux series is fantastic and much loved. I have interviewed him 25 times. Nobody else comes close. He always says exactly what he thinks.

John Glenn. My hero growing up. I was in awe. He was so easy to talk to. We discussed his Ohio boyhood, his Korean War exploits, being a test pilot, his legendary orbit of the earth. This was my longest interview and we didn’t even get to his political career or his return to outer space.

Anne Lamott. I did several interviews with her. Deeply spiritual, she has had her share of troubles. Best of all, she is the real deal.

Studs Terkel. My radio idol. My dream interview. How that man could talk. He made me a martini one time at his place in Chicago. I introduced him on the night he won the first Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

Garrison Keillor. Once the biggest star on public radio. A great humorist but so serious. He addressed me as Mr. Mickunas. After one of our interviews he wandered off on foot in Dayton to try to get a haircut and got lost. Another time he called me from a phone booth at the airport.

And of course I will also be mentioning my interview with the most famous person on the planet.

A correction: In last week’s column I covered Dave Essinger’s novel “This World and the Next” and described “veteran pilots serving at Wright-Patterson AFB.” This was an error on my part. I spoke to the author after filing that column - he clarified his fictional air base is not Wright Patterson. It only feels like it.