SEPTEMBER 5, 2009 10:15PM

Book TV/C-SPAN2 is replaying Peter Seln's interview with me at the LA Times Book Fest again this weekend.

Apparently it just ran (they don't tell me--thank you facebook friends), and it's set again late tonight if you want to set your tivo. The network is  C-SPAN2, and the show is called simply "Festival of Books"--and the description says it's me. It's showing at 3 a.m. my time (MDT), so I think that means 5 a.m. on the east coast, 2 a.m. on the west.

You can also watch it online via my site here.  (The Rachel Maddow Show, BBC and lots of radio interviews are there, too.)

News and political junkies will enjoy Douglas Brinkley, Howard Campbell, Bryan Carlile, and Dave Cullen.

That's still damn good company. And there 210 authors on the complete list. Laura Bush founded the festival in 1995. It runs Halloween weekend, October 1 and November 1, at the Texas State Capitol in Austin.

 

 

They have not actually given me my time slot yet. They have a page about me, which will probably have it soon, and I'll add it to my site.

I've got several other public events coming up this fall in/near LA, Chicago, Nashville, Helsinki, Grand Rapids and Denver (Longmont). And I'll be at the VA Book Fest next April (at UVa).  I've got them all listed at the book-tour page of my site.

I was just invited to speak at my hometown library the afternoon of my 30th high school reunion on Oct. 3. It's in Elk Grove Village, in the NW suburbs of Chicago. RSVP at the facebook invite so Barnes & Noble knows how many books to bring. (No purchase required, of course. And these are all free.)

And California State University at Northridge just issued a press release today about my appearance there Sep 23.

AUGUST 18, 2009 7:50PM

I will be on Ashleigh Banfield's truTV (formerly CourtTV show) "Open Court" again tomorrow (Wed), between 9 and 9:30 a.m.

I extended my trip by a day, so I'll do it from the CNN studio in Chicago, and will be on-camera this time, with Ashley, via satellite.

I will again talk about Columbine, and connections to the Alvaro Castillo trial they are covering. The prosecution did rebuttal testimony Monday and today.

This is from an ABC News story today:

Mental health experts continued their testimony Tuesday in the Castillo trial and suggest the accused school shooter, who killed his father, is not psychotic. ...

A mental health expert for the prosecution testified that Castillo's responses and other evaluations suggest he knew exactly what he was doing that ill-fated day in August 2006.

"It was my best judgment that he did not have psychotic symptoms," UNC Psychiatrist Karen Graham testified Monday.

But defense experts disagree . . .

AUGUST 12, 2009 1:07AM

Crap. I knew I should have replaced the lightbulbs in my kitchen light fixture when the second one went. But I get so sick of getting up on the counter, unscrewing the thing, finding new bulbs and screwing them in. It takes at least two minutes, but it involves balancing and finding things.

Something's wrong with my wiring, I think. I go through at least 30 bulbs a year. It wears me down. Daily maintenance grinds me down.

Sunlight works most of the time in the summer, so for the last couple months, I've gotten by with the hall light when I need to light the kitchen up at night.

Tonight, it went, too. (The second bulb in that fixture.)

Ugh. My life just seems to slide further into disrepair every day. One day I'll get that missing window in my car replaced. I really need to report that robbery.

How do other people deal with this shit?

--

Sept 7 Update:

Believe it or not, I stayed in the dark quite awhile, and finally replaced them about a week ago. Sometimes. I just don't know.

JULY 17, 2009 10:18PM

I'm heading out to Harry Potter. He's got a special place in my heart because I figured out Dylan in the middle of a the last Harry film, exactly two years ago. "Figured out" might not be quite right. Or "him"--more like how I was going to convey him.

It just all came together while I was watching--during the scene where they were on the suspension foot bridge and his girlfriend/pal (Hmine?) told him he needed his friends' help.

I pulled out my paper and started scribbling in the dark, continued in the lobby after. (My buddy was nice enough to wait while I spilled it. It doesn't come back if you don't catch it.)

I'm not sure how much of it had to do with Harry. It was a mildly spellbinding film, which got my juices flowing, and I think they were ready to rupture and there they went. It was not Harry-specific, but I maybe just needed something good.

That was also the end of my Dylan-induced depression. I noticed as I wrote that I was not depressed--it had just lifted, completely--but I was so close to the depression it was just fingertips away, close enough to observe it intensely for a little while, before it drifted slowly into the middle distance, where I could only see shapes and outlines. I was so close, yet outside it, which is everything. You can't see anything from the inside. At least I can't.

It occured to me also, that I had isolated myself for four months, and immersed myself in Dylan's world and maybe dragged myself into depression without knowing what I was up to so I could taste a bit of what he felt. I never did that consciously, but the trail looked pretty incriminating from there. 

However I'd gotten in there, or why, I was out. It was like I was drowning and someone yanked me out of the water and I was completely dry. (Another metaphor?  Hahaha. Sorry. I guess I'm just working them out here. The fog didn't seem quite right, because those don't disappear instantly, do they? This did. I was miserable, miserable, miserable, and then this one thought struck in the theater, my pulse raced, I started scribbling . . . and I never sank back down.

I have not been depressed since. Thank God. I don't like depression. At all.

--

Sept 7 Update:

Here's what I posted on the film briefly, later:

The movie kind of dragged. Probably the dullest of the lot, though at least there was none of the goofy filler high school dance stuff.

JULY 10, 2009 5:01PM

About a month back, I fell off the NY Times' bestseller list. It had been an eight-week run, but fom there it looked like a quick, steep drop off their extended list. But I keep managing to hold on.

Next week's list posted today, and for the third or fourth time, I was convinced I'd be off, but Columbine is still hanging in there, again at #28.

(The official list goes to #15, the extended to #35.)

Most books drop like a rock once they start dropping--and I feared at the beginning that mine would drop especially fast if readers thought of it as specifically-related to the tenth anniversary. And It did take quite a plunge at first--something like 13 to 21, when it went from main list to extended, so I thought that would only accelerate. 

It seems to have found a little home around #30, though. I'm not sure if it will last, but it's been lasting longer than I'd imagined. It dropped to 31 and then began to hold. It stayed there for two weeks, then moved up to 28 last week and now it's at 28 again in the list posted today. (Which will be in the magazine Sunday after next.)

I thought the first week where it held its ground was due to O Magazine, and would be short-lived. Maybe that's still a factor, but I think it's also just the summer doldrums for books and TV (the reverse for movies--I don't know about music).

I've heard about this for years, but watching the list week to week has been interesting. There was a lot of action in the spring, with lots of new books hitting the list each week, most rising and falling really fast. Now it's mostly the same books. There's only one new book on the main list this week (the top 15), and the extended list (to 35) is pretty steady. Most of the books are hanging out around the same position.... Read More

Hopefully new people keep finding my book, though. (Or getting worn down by friends suggesting it. Hahaha.)

The new Times list (for next week) is here:

You can just subtract 7 from the date to see each previous week. I did the math for the previous week for you.

Sept 7 Update:

COLUMBINE ended up spending eight weeks on the main list, and five on the extended.

Thanks one more time to everyone who supported it.

JUNE 12, 2009 5:02PM

Oprah has selected COLUMBINE for her "Summer Reading List." It's the cover story of the July O Magazine (hitting newstands soon), and the cover story right now on Oprah.com.

We gave her exclusive rights to an excerpt--the first chapter--now on Oprah.com. Her site also features new Book Club Discussion Questions for COLUMBINE.

They gave it a terrific review. A taste:

. . . Dave Cullen's spectacularly gripping account of the Colorado school shooting that shocked America a decade ago. But Cullen's chilling narrative is too vital to miss, as are his myth-busting revelations.

Thanks, Oprah.

I know people have very mixed opinions on Oprah, but I think she has done tremendous things for books and reading in America. 

(And despite an outcome I didn't like, she and her staff were really impressive to work with this spring. That is one classy operation.)

You can discuss any of her 25 books of summer. That is just getting started today, with just a few topics so far. Anyone want to add a topic for COLUMBINE? You have to be a member. (You can join for free.)  I'm not sure what the best topic would be.

---

FYI: If you have not heard, the producers informed us they don't ever plan to show the Columbine episode we taped in April. I owe you all a little more on that, and the story of how I got the news, which I'll post soon. 

Thanks for all the good wishes on that.  I've mostly put it behind me, which is part of why I haven't said much. You can't win 'em all.

MAY 3, 2009 3:00PM

I can't tell you how great it was seeing/meeting so many of you on book tour.

I'm just now figuring out that I want to assemble a page with pix from all of the events capturing some of the joy of it. (I'll post it on my website and here.)

I NEED HELP. A whole bunch of you snapped photos at all sorts of events, some of which you posted here or elsewhere, or maybe even sent me. And many others, I think were snapped but I've not seen.

PLEASE SEND THEM: photos and/or links to your posts. I'm interested in pix of all of you at the events--and/or pix of the venue, the book festival, etc.--not just of me. I want this to include everyone who was a part of the tour.

Send the links, too. I want to link back to everyone who was nice enough to write about it. And if it's OK, I want to quote snippets from what so many of you said along the way. I want it to capture a bit of how it came across through your eyes as well as mine.

And I'd love any help on names of people at the events. I never keep track of things like that well, and I want to thank all the people who came without leaving people off.

I hope to get at least a few from every city, including Chicago (that was a big day for me). I'm not sure I have any from NYC, Boulder and Denver, and not sure about Seattle.

Send to dave@davecullen.com with "Book Tour Pix" in the subject line. Thanks.

Sept 7 Update:

I created a page of photos, with the help of volunteers Monica and Lydia, and a lot of photos from you guys. But I'm still missing some cities, including New York, Dublin and Denver. So if you've got any, email away. Thanks.

MAY 3, 2009 4:02AM

Intro:

I'm doing the Coast To Coast radio show live for three hours, starting midnight my time (on 500 stations around the U.S. and territories). I thought I'd blog during commercial breaks every half hour. I'll post most recent on top each half hour.

2:58 a.m.:

We had a couple whackos in there, one conspiracy theorist saying I was duped by a Zionist plot, and one real-time email sure it was a plot by the Clintons, but those were the exceptions. Most of the callers were really interesting. And Ian, the host, was very good about moderating.

And with that, I will get myself to sleep. I'll be back in the morning. 

Thanks for reading.

2:33 a.m.:

Not bad. The callers were pretty interesting. It livened things up a bit.

And it's interesting to hear what's on their minds.

I think I'm going straight to bed after the final segment. I'll come back in the morning for a recap.

2:03 a.m.:

OK, we're going to callers in the next segment.This could be interesting. Callers are very unpredicable--obviously, I guess. It does keep me on my toes. With a host, I can usually tell where they're going--I get a feel pretty quickly, and sort of learn how to converse. But callers are a wild card.

Plus, I need to learn some of the basics: Like I always feel like I should great the caller when they're introduced, but apparently not--the host does that, and me interjecting there seems to get in the way. 

1:33 a.m.:

I'm halfway through my 3-hour coast to coast interview. It's going well and the host is interesting, so it's OK so far, but I'm getting a kinda tired. It's 1:35 a.m., on commercial break. Actually, not quite: The host is doing a little recap thing. The first three segments, I kept thinking I was on the air and he was leading toward a question. I've finally learned that he's doing a two-minute preview segment where all I do is listen, then another commercial break, and then I come back and respond. It's easier knowing when I have to be on the edge of my seat and ready to react. Just three segments left. Then bed.

I tried taking a nap from 10-11:30, but got a late start and then was too wired to sleep.

I thought it might also be useful to start fooling my body into thinking it was supposed to sleep during some of the time period that will be night-time in the UK. So far, no success on that.

I don't do well with jet lag, and that's going to kick my butt.

Oh, there's the music. We're coming back.

12:33 a.m.:

First segment over--about 20 minutes. That was pretty easy. Good host. We went to college together at U of Illinois and worked at  The Daily Illini together, but barely knew each other. 

He wrote the Campus Scout column, which was a humor column.

The show bills itself as covering a lot of the paranormal, conspiracy theories, etc., but they are doing this interview straight, which I appreciate.

(I also did a pro-gun show today with is normally strongly a pro-NRA advocacy show, and I did nearly an hour, but I appreciate that the host did not try to interject any of that, and just wanted to know what we learned. It was like any other interview.

MAY 1, 2009 6:22PM

FYI:

BookTV on Cpan-2:

I did a 45-minute interview with executive producer Peter Slen at the LA Times Festival of Books last week.

The first ten seconds are awkward because I didn't realize the questions would be that general, and was taken aback at where to start. I think it got a lot better from there. He did get me to cry at one point--and he teared up, too. That was unexpected. I had to look away from him for awhile at that point, or I would have totally lost it.

They are running it twice this weekend:

• Saturday May 2, 2009; 6:00 pm Eastern (3:00 pm Pacific)
• Sunday May 3, 2009, 3:00 am Eastern (Saturday 5/2 12:00 midnight Pacific)

And twice the following weekend:

• Monday May 11, 2009; 2:00 am Eastern (Sunday 5/10 11:00 pm Pacific)
• Monday May 11, 2009; 7:00 am Eastern (4:00 am Pacific)

 Their web page and mine will both post video once it airs.

 National Radio:

 "Coast to Coast" is going to have me on for three straight hours. Info on my appearance here. They are on 500 stations, including WABC in NY, KFI in LA, WLS in Chicago, KSFO in SF, WMAL in DC, WGST in Atlanta, KLIF in Dallas, in KTRH Houston, KLBJ in Austin.

Print: New op-ed and excerpt I wrote:

I just wrote my first op-ed for the Times of London. They ran it today. (I wrote it last weekend, while on book tour. Yikes.) The opening:

Ten years on, the Columbine high school massacre has been immortalised as the day that a pair of outcast Goths from the “Trench Coat Mafia” snapped. We remember them hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. None of that happened - no Goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping. No specific targets, no feud, no Trench Coat Mafia. 

The Guardian (also in the UK) just published an excerpt from "Columbine," focusing, wisely on Dylan Klebold. I think he's the real revelation in the story.

Slate previously published the first two exclusive experts. Salon's interview with Joan Walsh and me last month.

Coming soon: We're encouraging reading groups, and soon I'll post questions on my site. We've been working on them for awhile.

---

I strongly recommend our own OS blogger and Columbine mom Reinvented's moving tale of adopting Ocean Star after Columbine.

APRIL 29, 2009 5:56PM

I've been warned not to post about this. But I just can't stand it anymore.

It's bad form to brag about your book's success. But I don't feel like bragging, just sharing with my friends here.

"Columbine" just notched its third week on the New York Times list, and I can only call my parents to celebrate so many times. So here's the news, which I clearly gave away in the title, but so what:

It's #3. Woohoo!

(Since I have not mentioned it here, I should backtrack, and explain a few things. The list is published in print on Sundays, in the Books section. But the Times posts it  online nine days earlier, starting on a Friday. And two days before that, on Wednesdays, they announce it to industry people.)

So we debutted at #7 two weeks ago (the paper which just came out this past Sunday), moved up to #5 the second week, and now will be #3 the third week.

I can't believe we passed Michael J. Fox. And how cool, because I really like him--and he wrote a rare celebrity book that I would actually be interested in reading. He's got something to say. So it's an honor to be on the list with him--especially one notch ahead of him. Hahaha.

This is for sales last week, where it will likely peak, unless perhaps we get an Oprah bump. It's been a great run, and hopefully will continue for awhile, probably at a slower pace. Word of mouth is crucial for books and it seems to be good, so thanks so much to you guys who keep spreading the news.

I'm wrapping up the US book tour tonight in San Francisco (Book Inc in Mountain View, at 7:30).  Then Dublin and London next week.

They're letting me rest, though. It's been nice. LA was so much more fun than expected, and I finally met Laura Miller, and David Ulin. I had an amazing time in Seattle and really enjoying SF. I still hope to post about it.

More media is coming this weekend:

At the LA fest, I did a BookTV interview with Peter Slen that will run four times this weekend (all times EDT): Saturday, May 2 at 6 pm and Sunday, May 3 at 3 am. It will be repeated Monday, May 11 at 2 am and again at 7 am.

Late Saturday night (early Sunday morning), I'm doing three straight hours on the national  radio show Coast To Coast. (It's on more than 500 stations, but very late: 2-5 a.m. EDT, 11 p.m.-2 a.m. PDT. It's live, so I'll be wrapping up at 3 a.m. real time.

You can hear/watch previous TV/radio shows here.Book Trailer here.

APRIL 25, 2009 1:46PM

If there is still anyone not yet sick of seeing/hearing me, I'm doing three events at the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend, two of which will be on CPAN's BookTV (I think it's CSPAN-2, right?)

And two of them are open to the public, so I'm looking forward to meeting some OSers in person again. (A couple of people have said they'll come. I'm really looking forward to that.)

The info, from my publicist:

This Saturday is the Los Angeles Times Book Festival on-stage interview with David Ulin, to be broadcast by C-Span’s Book TV live, 3:30pm pacific/6:30pm ET. (Book signing after.)

On Sunday 4/26, Dave will be interviewed live on the C-Span Bus by executive producer Peter Slen, 12pm pacific/3pm ET. (Not open to the public.)

Saturday, Dave will do another book signing at the Book Soup booth in front of Royce Hall, from 1:30-2 PT.

Both TV segments will rerun several hours later,  when they repeat the entire block from the day.

---

David Ulin is a really smart guy, and I'm really looking forward to that discussion. Hopefully I'll forget there is a camera pointed at me.

The festival had 140,000 attendees last year. Wow. I've never appeared at anything like that. (Of course they will be wandering all over the UCLA campus, not all looking at me, thank God. But what a thrill, still. I'm going to check in an hour early and then mill through the crowd. I think I'll be tickled to know I'm going up onto one of the stages.

I just tried to wake myself up again--literally--in case I was actually dreaming. I will be SO bummed if I turn out to be sleeping and this is just a dream. (And imagine how bad that will be for you! You won't even exist! Hahaha.)

---

For the rest of the week, there's a link to the left for all my appearances: Seattle and Mountain View (SF) later in the week, then Dublin and London the next week.

In SF, I'll be on the "Ron Owens Show" on the radio Wednesday at 10 a.m. Most of the other local media tends to come last minute, so I probably won't be able to get info on it in advance.

APRIL 22, 2009 11:43PM

Book tour has been great: exhilarting and interesting, but tiring as hell. I hate hearing authors complain about book tour, so that's not my intention, but I do want to share a bit of what it's been like.

Dorkiest moment: dousing a woman and a row of coffee table books with water in Miami. I clumsily set the book down on a (flimsy) tripod after reading a passage, it collapsed, whacked the bottle of water and sent it flying. Whoops. I felt horrible, but the woman was so gracious and went to get paper towels and cleaned it up so I could continue. Thank you wet woman.

Busiest morning: Last Monday in NYC. I did the satelitte radio tour from my hotel room. I think it was 18 interviews almost back to back over a six hour period--7 a.m. to 1 p.m.--followed immediately by a one-hour on an NPR station, meaning no breaks, except musical interludes. 

The last one was scheduled to end at 1:59, and I was supposed to be outside the hotel lobby at 2:00 p.m. for a car to take me to JFK to get to Chicago to do Oprah. I got little ten-minute breaks now and then between some of the interviews, and one 20-minute break to shower, shave and wolf down lunch.

I didn't quite make it. They called while I had shaving cream still on my face, about 2/3 of  it scraped off. They usually gave me a minute or two on the phone before we hit the air, so I asked if I could have 60 seconds. she said barely. I ran back to the bathroom, stroked the rest off without cutting myself, rinsed and grabbed the tube of moisturizer. (My cheeks stay tight and annoyed all day if I don't put something on right after.) I got back just in time, with my hair sticking up and my face wet, and dabbed the cream on and rubbed it in while I answered the first question.

Room service has always seemed like a ridiculous luxury that I don't think I've ever indulged in. It was a necessity this trip. I would call down an order during breaks, but that meant it arrived while I was on air, either live or live to tape. I'd prop the door open so that they could sneak in quietly and I signed the check while answering. Otherwise, I would not have eaten. 

The most hectic single interview was Ron Reagan, for Air America. It was supposed to air live Monday night, but when a conflict emerged, they were nice enough to move it to the afternoon for us and do live to tape. But I had to do BBC America in a local TV studio, and could not get home in time. So I did the interview with Ron by cell phone, in traffic. I got home midway and had to get upstairs to change for another interview while that one was in-progress, so I went inside, but the stairwell was incredibly echoy. I figured that sounded bad, so I ran up the two flights while talking, and then found myself panting through the next few answers. I just kept going like it was all normal. He didn't mention it. He was really bright, BTW. He asked great questions.

About two minutes after his interview ended, the fire alarm started blaring. My neighbors came out, but we smelled no smoke. I ran downstairs to check, and the hallway down there was a big fog. I started feeling doors for head, like I learned on TV. No heat, but I knocked, too, and a dazed guy opened up and the apartment was belching the stuff. It looked like he had laid something plastic on the stove and fallen asleep with it on. It smelled like burning tires.

Odd. 

It wasn't that intense all month, but pretty close. They let me rest the night before Oprah, though. Smart.

We cancelled DC and Philly to do Oprah, so I missed a cool train ride. Easy trade.

I didn't actually get to Miami for the Miami event, though Coral Gables was nice. I saw I-95. I did not see the ocean, though I hear it's quite nice.

I saw myself on Rachel Maddow this Monday and didn't cringe, so I guess I'm getting used to seeing and hearing myself. But I did gasp at how tired I looked. Several friends commented on it, too. I knew I felt like that inside, but didn't know it show. My face was sagging like I didn't have the energy to hold my cheeks up.

Hahaha. BTW, I am not fishing for compliments. Please don't say I look fine, or I'll feel guilty for bringing it up. I'm fine with  it, just taken aback.

The relentless days of 15-20 interviews a day and more are over, though. Today I had just five, and it felt great. I went for a walk and actually went to the gym again. I'm halfway through a load of laundry, so I can put on clean sox and underwear tomorrow. I ran the dishwasher. This living room, though: Man, stuff is piled everywhere. The very unglamorous part. Hahaha.

I'm also officially bored with myself. If I have to hear my self tell those same stories one more time, I might barf--not at the questions, at my answers.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the interviewers, though. I always hear how bad they are. I have found most of them really intelligent. I spent an hour or more on the phone with several of the print reporters, and some of them really helped me understand a few things better, and crystalize some of my own thoughts.

I have really only had one bad interview: a radio woman who kept getting major facts wrong, and conflating different things, which I had to correct on-air.

I've learned things about my work from some of the reviews, too. It helps to see how things look from the outsided.  There are smart people out there reviewing books.

Taping Oprah was amazing. She was wonderful, and great to my family. (Seven of my siblings, both my parents and one neice got to come.) I hope she airs the show, but whatever happens, I had an incredible experience. The timing was wonderful, too, because I met my family at a restaurant for about 40 minutes afterwards before I had to rush to O'Hare to get to Miami. I got unexpectedly choked up raising a toast to sharing it with them. Then my publicist rushed in with news. He said he'd never gotten a chance to give an author this news in front of his/her family, but the book was going to debut at #7 on the New York Times list. 

I live a thousand miles away from most of my family. What were the odds that inews would come in the 40 minutes I spent with them this year? They told me they were proud of me. I don't have words to describe that feeling.

And I got a lot of hugs. I might have mentioned a few times being in a hug deficit around here. Hahaha. I got my share.

Working with the Harpo team leading up to the show was great, too. That is one professional outfit. Very bright people, and really nice, too. I worked closely with a producer named Veronica who has a bright future ahead of her. Thanks, V. 

The book store events are a nice change of pace. It's great to connect with a live audience, and see what people have to say.

The funnest part has been meeting OS bloggers at almost every stop. Thanks, you guys. Sheldon showed up in Colorado Springs last night, which was a pleasant surprise.The highlight was Miam, meeting The Dave Cullen Quartet. Hahaha. I'm still chuckling over that. How fun. I wish I could have gone out and drunk with you ladies all night.

(Cartouche has all sorts of pix from the Miami event, and a recap at the DC Quartet link.)

Boulder was also quite wonderful--kind of a homecoming. Mary T Kelly was there from OS, and Monica from my Brokeback forum, and lots of friends from grad school. And the two living profs who taught me the most in grad school, Reg Saner and Peter Michelson, both came. (They are also wonderful writers, BTW.) 

I was writing fiction then (mid 1990s) and Peter was the one who encouraged me to try nonfiction again, which led me back to journalism, eventually. Reg taught me Creative Nonfiction, and had a huge impact.

Something else surpring happened on book tour. I ask the audience some questions during my live events, and last week between NYC on Monday and Miami on Thursday, the number of people in the audience who knew all the answers had surged. Lots of people had read the book. That surprised me. Pleasantly. But I have to change my talk. Hahaha.

It's really nice to get a mix of people hearing much of the stuff for the first time, and others who have read it and give me their take on it. I've been writing for years and years, but never had this kind of interaction with my audience before.  

Monday it was also refreshing to take a few hours off and visit the Columbine Memorial, for the commemoration ceremony. That made me feel a lot better. I still need to write a post about it when I have a bit of time.

Tomorrow I get to go to the gym again, and ride my bike. And wear clean clothes.

Friday I head to LA for the west coast leg of the book tour. I'm really looking foward to the LA Times Festival of Books on the UCLA campus, which I've heard is amazing. How cool just to go, as a reader. And I'm doing three different events there. 

Then Seattle, San Francisco and I'm home again to rest for a few days. Then a 4-day UK tour in early May, probably just Dublin and London.

Full info on book tour events here. (With upcoming events toward the bottom, in white.)

I think I'm going to be ready for it to be done. But it's been a hell of a ride.

---

FYI, for those unfamiliar, the 2.5-minute "Columbine" book trailer is probably your best bet for a quick  overview of the book. And two good friends are updating my website with podcasts of many of my TV and radio interviews.

If you've read the book, my Columbine Guide makes a nice companion. It's got the killers journals, pix and videos they made, resources for survivors, etc.

APRIL 7, 2009 2:33PM

I'm rushing. It's crazy. Quick updates on COLUMBINE:

 I'll be on the Air America show "Doing Time with Ron Kuby" live today at about 5:05 EDT, for about 10-15 minutes. Find a local station in their network.

I'm on Sirius/XM Radio at 3:30 EDT. (The Michael Signorile Show on XM 98 and Sirius OutQ 109.)

Other Updates:

Borders is hosting an online discussion with me this week.

I wrote a really personal essay for Borders' site  about my struggle with PTSD writing the book, and how my shrink helped me get through it.

I hope everyone saw Salon's Joan Walsh's interview/podcast with me. (And hit reddit here to vote for Joan's piece to help people find it.)

Recap of reviews.

Locally, I'm at Tattered Cover LoDo tonight, to kick off my book tour: 7:30 p.m. East Coast next week, starting in NYC.

Book Trailer:

 

MARCH 28, 2009 7:54PM

My book trailer was supposed to be my big news, but the Newsweek essay on Columbine is up, and it's a stunning piece, and also a rave on my book, "Columbine":

The Columbine Generation

A decade later, the school shooting is still causing collateral damage.

My favorite lines (my bold):

More on that below, and a day of huge developments below. But first, my book trailer just hit the web:

It needs more views, ratings and embeds to go viral. Please click, forward, rate it, link and embed. Thanks.

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Back to Newsweek. Ramin Setoodeh was only 16 when Columbine happened, and it really shook him up. He's already a Newsweek editor--astounding, but you'll see why when you read the piece. He is one talented writer and observer. He takes us back there and illustrates why Columbine was such a cultural earthquake.

I would love this piece even if I were never mentioned, but I'm happy he devoted 2/3 of it to my book. That blew me away. My other favorite quotes:

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My book is the cover story in the Chicago Tribune's Book World Sunday, with another rave:

' . . . Dave Cullen's "Columbine," an astonishingly comprehensive look at the incident and the decade of struggle in its aftermath . . . Be forewarned that Cullen includes some blunt descriptions of the shootings, but those are far from a focal point of his book, which avoids sensationalism and carefully constructs a timeline of the events. It would be a rare and dubious distinction to complete "Columbine" without shedding a tear, but in the violence and grieving and heart-wrenching side stories, this an American story deeply embedded in the national psyche.'

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I created Facebook event listings for my book tour:

Cities include NY, LA, DC, Miami, SF, Seattle and five stops in Colorado (including Denver, Boulder and CO Springs).

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Time Magazine comes out with a big story including me at the end of the week. Cover story in USA Today coming, plus about 20 more national magazines and papers, and national TV that I can't talk about yet.

Watch for something with Joan Walsh in Salon soon.

Details and Reader's Digest are out. I have not gotten one bad review yet! I'm sure someone will burst that bubble soon, but not yet!

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I have my first Washington Post byline tomorrow: review of a Virginia Tech memoir. It is running on the front page of their Sunday Outlook section.

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Earlier, my book was featured on the New Yorker's website, as Very Short List's pick of the day, and a big true crime site  compared it to In Cold Blood.

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The filmmaker on my trailer, Andrew Kemler, is brilliant. Check out his other work. (He worked on South Park for years, and those guys don't work with any slouches.) I'm really grateful for what he did.

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 Thank you guys so much for all the support.

MARCH 19, 2009 2:05PM

This was the first day I literally started to consider this might be a dream. I pinched myself, slapped my face as hard as I could stand, looked at a digital clock and turned a light off/on. (In Richard Linklater's wonderful film Waking Life, they suggested the last two: they said in a dream digital clocks won't form a discrete number, and lights don't respond to their switches.)

Seriously, I did all that, just in case. I also tried yelling "Wake up!" while shaking my head violently. That has worked for me before.

It's been quite a morning. 

I got up, wolfed down coffee, OJ and oatmeal, while looking over my notes, then did a 20-minute live-to-tape interview for a NY state NPR station that will run in April, after Columbine is published. When I finished, I checked email:

All sorts of exciting things happening, most of which I can't announce yet, but one that's just now confirmed is a new event added at Columbia Journalism School in NYC on April 14, from 5-7 p.m. That's cool, more as we get details.

 But two web blockbusters:

1. VSL (VeryShortList.com) picked Columbine as their pick of the day.

My main regret here is that I have not had time to do a post I've been planning about how freaking cool VSL is--one of the best things on the web. (And one of the hottest.) 

It's called Very Short List, because each day, it's a list of one.  Anything to do with pop culture: a film, TV show, website, photo exhibit, collector's item--all sorts of things. So they do maybe five to ten books in an entire year.

Today, they did my book. 

Wow. I know I'm supposed to dream about the New York Times and New Yorker, and I do, but I'm a web guy, and the one I dreamed most and did not expect was VSL.

It was started by a group including Kurt Anderson, and it's one of the hottest, and most influential sites on the web. (I've had it in my blogroll to the left almost since I started here.)

 And they were really nice to me. A few bits (their highlight):

"Granted unprecedented access,he has emerged with a comprehensive, compulsively readable profile of the killers, the victims, and the surrounding community. . . . 

But the book is no jeremiad. Cullen’s Klebold is a lonely depressive, and all too easily manipulated. Harris is a genuine psychopath, a natural-born killer. And yet, both boys emerge as three-dimensional human beings. Throughout, Cullen refuses to sensationalize . . ."

2. On another front, CrimeCritics.com is perhaps the biggest True Crime (and also crime/detective fiction) site on the web. That will be a very big audience for my book.

They just posted a rave review of Columbine. They also asked me to do an online interview. I said yes, and that will go up probably close to publication. I'll let you know.

(And I'm going to set up a page on my DaveCullen.com site with links to all reviews, interviews, etc. I've already banked a ton of them.)

Highlights of the review (my bold--I just couldn't resist):

"Not since Capote’s In Cold Blood do we find such a thoughtful, illuminating, riveting, and disturbing portrait of the criminal mind."

"The book is agonizingly well-researched and brilliantly end-noted."

"[Cullen] has become one of the most informed minds to wrestle with the shooting, and one of the few to draw the right conclusions. . . . The layout and pacing in Columbine is also ingenious."

I swear I'm not writing these myself. Hehehe. The most rewarding part of this experience is that some of the things I spent years grappling with and focused so much of my energy on getting right, I'm hearing about in some of the reviews.

The structure and pacing of this book was probably the hardest single challenge, for really complicated reasons that will be clear once you've read it. I was really happy with the way it worked, though, hoping people would appreciate and reviewers might notice. I'm grateful that they did. (And that they liked it--thank God. Man, I would be sad if they were knocking that.)

The Capote comparisons, though--those are taking my breath away. 

Good day. I've got two more interviews scheduled, and have to meet another journalist in between, plus edits back on a book review I finished over the weekend, and emails flying like crazy about new requests coming in. This is crazy. But I'm really happy.

I'm gripped by fierce mixed emotions this afternoon.

Tuesday, the New Yorker asked me to do a Q&A for their book blog, about my book Columbine.  The interview is up right now--both on the book page, and featured near the top of their home page.

Making the New Yorker was a lifelong dream. I expected a glorious  day--and I am happy about. I was pleased by the questions from Lila Byock, and she was really generous with her intro.

But it's been a gloomy day and a half, too. Events intervened.

Lila first wrote asking me to do it on Tuesday, and her editor wanted a quick turnaround--posting the next day. It was the New Yorker, so of course I said yes. 

I got the questions just as I was heading to the gym that night, where I did one hell of a workout to make up for two weeks off during my trip to Harvard and NYC. 

So I got home, had dinner and looked at the questions at 10 p.m. I got to bed at three.

I slept in, woke at 10 a.m. still a little groggy (I like my eight hours!), and went straight to email. My inbox was filled with media requests. Uh oh. I knew it had nothing to do with the New Yorker thing. Something horrible has happened inside a school somewhere. I started opening them, and they referred to things like "the German tragedy." God.

Two years ago, I got the Virginia Tech news a similar way. A BBC colleague I'd met through the wonderful Dart Center called as I was literally getting out of bed. He asked me to appear on air to discuss "the events in Virginia this morning." I groaned, involuntarily, and I remember exactly what came out of my mouth. "Oh God. What happened in Virginia?" 

I was asking for the particulars, because I knew the gist. Someone had opened fire on a school there. That's when I get the call. I had not pictured something that awful, though.

Yesterday, I was a little more used to it. That doesn't make it much better. So sad.

For now, I guess this is who I am. The school shooter expert.  Hopefully I had something useful to say, but I am looking forward to writing second, third and fouth books on more pleasant topics, and getting the phone calls when something wonderful happens.

(But will I actually write books about happiness? Hmmmmm. I might not take that bet.)

I am happy about the New Yorker piece, though, and I like talking about this topic, grisly as it might be. Since I dove in to learn about spree killers several years ago, I have come to find them fascinating.

So I try to do my job, sometimes keeping a safe emotional distance from other tragedies. It's the survivors that do me in--and the victims. I talked to my shrink after one particularly bad round in 2006, and we agreed to some limits. I made a rule when Virginia Tech happened that I had to change the station or FF when any victim profiles came on. I get too emotionally involved that way, and it's just too much. I expect to follow the Columbine people in some way for the rest of my life, but I can't take more into my life that personally.

Anyway, if you want a listen,  I was on BBC-2's noontime "Jeremy Vine Show" today, and you can hear the whole thing here. (There's a scroll bar which will take you right to me at mintue/second 11:08, but the journalist right before me was excellent, reporting from the school in Germany.)

I'll try to get links to other shows I did later, as podcasts go up.

We delayed the NYer posting by a day to add in a question on the German situation. The rest of that interview was conducted before we knew it happened.

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I'll try to get back here with more thoughts on the German shooting.

So far, the reporting seems very responsible. I found this opening of a Yahoo News story this morning really enlighening:

WINNENDEN, Germany – "You will hear from me tomorrow, remember the name of a place called Winnenden."

Authorities say a 17-year-old left that message in an Internet chat room six hours before he went on a rampage in his former high school and killed 15 people in this southwest German town.

Tim Kretschmer wrote that he was "sick of this life" and planned to storm the school the next day "and really toast them," Baden Wuerttemburg state Interior Minister Heribert Rech told reporters Thursday.

The transcript released by authorities gave the first indication of what might have driven Kretschmer, described by his peers as withdrawn and shy, to carry out a bloodbath on Wednesday before turning a 9 mm Beretta pistol on himself after a shootout with police.

"Everyone laughs at me, nobody recognizes my potential," Kretschmer wrote in the German-language chat with a teen in the neighboring state of Bavaria. The Bavarian teen told his father and then police about the chat when he realized the threat had been real.

Since then, it has been reported that Kretschmer was treated repeatedly for depression.

Two huge cautions: 

1.Be very careful about early reports. A pattern does seem to be emerging here, but the early reports tend to be tiny bits of the puzzle, which can be very misleading about the full picture.

2. As I told the NYer, "There is no accurate profile of the school shooter, but there are several useful categories." I laid out three of the common categories in a piece for Slate in the wake of Virginia Tech.They are 1) psychopath (Eric), 2) angry depressive (Dylan), 3) severely mentally ill, with a complete break from reality (Cho, apparently).

Within each category, comparisons are extremely useful.

So far, early signs are looking a whole lot like another Dylan Klebold, but without the partner to spur him on. The fact that we have an actual medical diagnosis of depression is powerful evidence, although sometimes other conditions can present as depression.

So the diagnosis can change as we get more data. Don't allow him to get boxed in too soon. But keep an eye on depression. In the Slate piece, I laid out a thumbnail of how depressives tend to go interalized self-hatred to externalized. 

In the book, I have the luxury of showing that slow evolution by Dylan  over the course of several chapters. I think he's probably the most interesting, and tragic character in the book--which is not at all what I expected when I started writing. But the Slate piece hopefully gives you an overview of how the process usually unfolds in an angry depressive.

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FYI, The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma has wonderful resources for understanding tragedies and reporting on them, including case studies, tipsheets and this PTSD 101 guide.

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I want to use this moment to thank all you OSers for the tremendous support you guys have shown me over the long, slow process of this book launch. It's like nothing I've ever been through before, and I've enjoyed sharing it. I always feeling maybe I'm sharing a little too much, but I've really been encouraged by the responses here. It helps.

We got the first edit of my book trailer last night, and I'm thrilled. I love everything about it except my face (seriously, unfortunately--but that's between me and my shrink, right?)

I think the filmmaker, Andrew Kemler, is brilliant. (He worked on South Park for years, and both Matt and Trey's movies, and those guys don't work with no slouches.) We hope to have it posted soon. I'll definitely let you know here.

MARCH 10, 2009 1:51PM

I just got a copy of the advance review from Booklist, to run April 1.

It's a rave, and a starred review.  (And they sent a definition of the star in the accompanying email: "A star beside the title indicates a work judged to be outstanding in its genre.")

Woohoo!

There are four publishing trade journals that do advance reviews, and three are now in. Two gave the book starred reviews, and Kirkus was 90% positive.

This is so important, because I'm not exactly a household name and we are really counting on great reviews to launch this thing. We've been holding our breath. This is really nice.

Now we're just waiting on Library Journal. (The PW starred review is here. And my account of my book tour dry run, part 1, here.)

Booklist sent the review as a PDF, so I can't cut/paste, and it's not online yet, but there is not one negative word in it.

Here's a taste:

"Cullen, acclaimed expert on Columbine, offers a penetrating look at the motivation and intent of the shooters . . . Cullen examines the killers' beliefs and psychological states of mind. Chilling journal entries show a progression from adolescent angst to psychopathic rage."

Wow, that is so nice to read. (Aside from being called an acclaimed expert, which warmed me up inside.) That's exactly what I was going for on the killers. How satisfying to hear.

The trade journals always summarize their review in the final sentence. Here's how she ended mine:

"Graphic and emotionally vivid; spectacularly researched and analyzed."

Man. I like that. I had not been called specatular, before. I am open to hearing it again. Hahaha. 

It was written by one Vanessa Bush. I think I love this woman. I have to look her up.

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BTW, a major mag is going to post a QA with me on their website, probably tomorrow. (I'm not supposed to name any names until they actually happen, because media are always shuffling things around and I don't want to announce anything until it's in print.)

I'll announce it and link as soon  as it goes up.