Hey Janet,

A couple things come to mind as I read your post:

About the fake memoir-I read another good article that might be of interest to our students. Bob Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writer, says:

To: The publishing industry.
From: Your friends in the news biz.
Re: Fake memoirs.

Two words: Fact check!

It was interesting to find out publishing houses do not fact check, saying they have to trust their authors and they don’t have the money to fact check. That’s the perfect kind of low-paid job that gets your foot in the door of a magazine or newspaper! Can you believe, Janet, that in my New Jersey hometown I started off my career as a features reporter by proofreading ads? ME! The one YOU’RE always correcting for spelling?

Anyway, Tim Madigan has had quite a successful career in the newspaper industry. That’s how he met Mr. Rogers. They instantly had a connection and kept up correspondence throughout the years. Tim would take opportunities to visit Mr. Rogers in Pittsburgh from time to time. Tim still likes to visit our area too. He was here in December supporting youth hockey, and he came here during the flood and wrote a really moving story, talking with many people from his past, including his long-time friend Ryan Bakken from the GF Herald. When I contacted Tim about the popular reading collection, not only did he write a letter to the students and donate autographed copies for us but he gave us a paperback edition of I’m Proud of You that we’ll include as a prize for our upcoming contest (to entice students to contribute to this blog).

Also, let’s hold off on our next “Author of the Month” until next week’s writer’s conference is over. In the meantime, wear on sweater on March 20^th. Our coworker alerted us that Thursday is 'Wear a Sweater Day' in honor of Mr. Rogers.

It's a beautiful day in the library-
Kristen