Nikki Giovanni/Laura Godwin interview

[kellyrfineman]

Today, my article incorporating my telephone interview with Nikki Giovanni and her editor for her biographies, Laura Godwin, is posted over at I.N.K.: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids. In it, we discuss their latest joint project, Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship, as well as the fate of poetry and nonfiction in today's publishing market

Comments

[jeannineatkins]

Thanks again, Kelly. Great job on so many of my favorite topics. I can never get enough of history and poetry links. Or the Lincoln era.

[kellyrfineman]

Some of the information conveyed in the book doesn't fact check, Jeannine, just so you know. I found at least two errors. So I wouldn't put this one high on my list of must-buy biographies (nor will I review it). For instance, Giovanni has Douglass and Lincoln meeting when Lincoln first went to Congress, although all documented sources say they didn't meet until 1861, when Lincoln was already President. (Plus, Douglass was in the U.K. when Lincoln came to Congress.) She also gives Mrs. Lincoln a line of dialogue indicating her displeasure at Douglass being at the second inauguration, when contemporary accounts from that time indicate that Mrs. Lincoln was unhappy when she learned he'd been there and she hadn't been introduced, because she wanted to meet him.

[kellyrfineman]

I'm glad it came across well. I got nervous that it might not, given my lack of enthusiasm for the actual Lincoln/Douglass book.