Two very persuasive factors stood in the way of writing a book about Barack Obama, but in the end author David Mendell wrote one anyway, he told SMA members at the Society's monthly program on Nov. 13.

The first factor was that Mendell had tried to avoid covering Obama altogether when Obama first ran for national office. Mendell, the Chicago Tribune reporter whose book is titled Obama: From Promise to Power (August 2007, Amistad), said Obama then was just one of five legitimate primary election candidates for an open U.S. Senate seat and therefore seemed unlikely to produce much Page One news.

"It really looked like a dog of an assignment," Mendell said, who began writing about urban issues and politics for the Trib in 1998.

Instead, divorce records torpedoed the leading Democratic candidate, Blair Hull, and Obama won the race, moving to national prominence.

That's when the second factor discouraging the book project came into play: Publishers didn't want it.

"The challenge became: What kind of book do I put together about this fellow?" Mendell said. "I pitched a standard campaign book, and that was of little interest to the publishers in New York. They didn't have much interest in Obama. They thought: He has written a couple books of his own."

To add insult to effrontery, "One [publisher] sent me back an e-mail saying: this is not daily journalism."

A friend at Wiley, however, suggested the "perfect agent for you," Jim Hornfischer of Austin, Texas. The project was back on track, and publishers [not including Wiley] even bid for the book.

That created yet another complicating factor, Mendell said.

"I had to go to Obama people, and say: how much are you going to cooperate with me? They [said], no problem. They thought I was a fair and accurate reporter, [but] once things got more serious a year later, that dynamic changed dramatically. I was constantly on shifting sands."

By then, to Obama's staff, a book — rather than bringing needed publicity — instead risked pointing out information that staff members couldn't control.

That's when "I became a nuisance," Mendell said.

Writing a book while simultaneously working for a newspaper that expected any new significant news to go into the next day's edition also was a challenge, Mendell said.

"You have to kind of run this up a flagpole [and] initially, their reaction was: this is a great idea. They thought it would be good for the Tribune."

Later, unlike the Washington Post, which is enthusiastic about its reporters writing books, the Tribune became less enamored of the Mendell's project, he said. Told that the work on the book had to be done on his own time, Mendell did his interviewing on evenings and weekends.

"I did just one interview on the clock," he said.

At the same time, a more-wary Obama campaign began restricting access to the candidate, but "I got an agreement with him that they wouldn't stop interviews [by Mendell] with other people," Mendell said.

When published, the book did not win many votes from Obama's staff, he said.

"They kept saying it was off-base," he said. "I think it is fairly positive portrait of their candidate overall. He is not an unlikable candidate. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who says something bad about him.

"There wasn't really anything about Obama behind the scenes that was earth-shattering, but I wrote a lot about the process of how they marketed the guy, and that was something that they were not pleased about seeing.

"I'm not their favorite guy right now," he said.

Defending the book idea How author got his project published

Q&A with Kevin Davis

On. Jan. 8 at the Society of Midland Authors monthly program, Chicago author and journalist Kevin Davis will present "Defending the Damned: The Book Idea That Refused to Die" the story of a long, bumpy journey from an idea to a published book. Defending the Dammed (Atria) tells the behind-the-scenes story of a group of battle-hardened public defenders fighting for those accused of murder.

Literary License: In 1996, you wrote your first adult book, The Wrong Man, about a wrongful conviction. Was your new book easier or harder to get published?

Kevin Davis: It didn't get any easier. Being published certainly opened more doors and helped put my proposal for Defending the Damned on the top of editors' desks. But ultimately, the proposal had to sell itself. I was exploring new territory with this book, and tackling a subject that wasn't popular. There are plenty of books about cops and prosecutors – the so-called good guys – but very little about public defenders. People don't think of them as heroes and find their work unsavory. I needed to shatter the stereotypes and make a strong case for a book. It took me a few years and several re-writes before I nailed down the right story and crafted a solid proposal to sell the book.

Getting my first book published was easier because I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and pounced on the opportunity. The Wrong Man grew out of a series of stories I wrote while working as a reporter at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. It was an astonishing miscarriage of justice in which a mentally ill man was coerced into confessing to the murder of a woman and her baby. The story received widespread coverage in newspapers, magazines and television. Hollywood producers were calling me. Everyone wanted a piece of it. Fortunately, I developed a trusting relationship with the family of the wrongfully convicted man, as well as the police detectives who reopened the case that led to his release. They agreed to work with me exclusively. I sold the book proposal within a few months.

LL: In October, the American Bar Association recommended a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty. Also, the Supreme Court seems to be putting executions on hold until it rules on the constitutionality of lethal injections next spring. How does your book fit into these developments?

KD: The public defenders profiled in my book work for a specialized unit that handles only murder cases, so many of their clients face the possibility of death. People should remember that even though there is a moratorium on executions in Illinois, there is still a death penalty here. If the next governor decides to lift the moratorium, executions could resume. These public defenders continue to fight for their clients' lives knowing that possibility exists. Most of the lawyers I interviewed scoffed at the reforms that came after former Gov. George Ryan formed a commission to address the flaws in the system. Rather than try to fix the problems, they favor abolishing the death penalty altogether because humans will always make errors and misconduct and corruption within the system are unlikely to disappear.

LL: Why did you pick the killing of Chicago Police Officer Eric Lee as the central case in Defending the Damned?

KD: I chose to follow that case because I believed the crime symbolized a classic battle between good and evil—a police officer who was a shining light in his community, allegedly killed by a street thug who showed no respect for the law. Not only that, both the victim and the accused grew up in the same impoverished South Side Chicago neighborhood. Yet their lives took two wildly different paths. I thought this case would be a powerful example to show how difficult some of these public defender cases can be. More than that, the case would expose the legal and emotional complexities of representing a client in a potential death penalty case.

LL: How did you persuade the public defenders to give you so much access, knowing, as they do, that they usually aren't the subjects of sympathetic reporting?

KD: When I first started hanging around the courthouse and asking questions, I found that many of these lawyers were flattered that someone would be interested in hearing what they had to say, and writing about what they do. I explained that I wanted to demystify their profession and offer something more than the usual stereotyping. Several told me they shied away from the press because news stories typically lacked depth and limits on space prevented any detailed explanation of their cases and clients. Because I was writing a book, I could tell their stories more fully. I asked that they speak honestly and on the record, otherwise I wasn't interested. I wound up writing a magazine story while working on my book proposal. That helped a great deal. Once these public defenders saw the story, and how they were portrayed, they trusted me even more, revealing themselves and speaking frankly about their lives and jobs.

LL: When you run into public defenders now, what do they say about your book?

KD: I've gotten lots of positive feedback from public defenders around the country. Many said they were grateful to see their profession honored and legitimized in a book. For so long, they've felt marginalized and stereotyped, and have suffered from a poor reputation as overworked, underpaid hacks eager to make plea bargains and sell their clients out. A few public defenders took issue with the brash and seemingly callous attitude of the main character in the book, Marijane Placek. But the overall message was that these public defenders were pleased to be taken seriously and portrayed as dedicated lawyers and defenders of the law.

SMA President Jim Merriner was on "Chicago Tonight" on Channel 11 Nov. 7 to talk about former Illinois Gov. George Ryan going to prison.

Billy McCarthy will co-host "The Most Ferocious Drummers Ever," a television special in production that chronicles the lives and careers of more than 50 legendary drummers in jazz, funk, rock, metal and alternative music. The special is projected for a 2008 release. Aside from producing film and music, Billy's next book will be Beat Me 'Til I'm Famous.

Ronne Hartfield read in May from her Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family at the Nantucket (Mass.) Atheneum Great Hall, where two of her heroes, Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson, had each read and spoken decades before. She's going back to the island in May 2008 to speak at the Nantucket Historical Association on preserving history and preserving memory.

Joan E. Cashin, an SMA 2007 Biography Award finalist, has joined the board of the Abraham Lincoln Institute, and she is serving on this year's dissertation prize committee.

On Nov. 5, a writer for the [Danbury, Conn.] News-Times wrote, "I was walking by the new book section on the third floor [of the Booth Library] when one of the biographies caught my attention — A Futile and Stupid Gesture by Josh Karp." Karp now is working on a semi-humorous book about golf and spirituality for Chronicle Books, scheduled to come out in 2009.

On Dec. 8, Stephen Kinzer took part in a forum titled "Averting Another Catastrophe" at Loyola University Chicago.

Sam Weller, author of The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury, was joined by Bradbury via teleconference during a Nov. 7 lecture in Tribble Hall's DeTamble Auditorium on the campus of Wake Forest University. Weller's book on Bradbury won the 2005 Society of Midland Authors' Award for Biography.

Marilyn Chiat will be in Chicago next September to speak at the Second Presbyterian Church about her book The Spiritual Traveler: Chicago and Illinois: A Guide to Sacred Sites and Peaceful Places.

"Don't show up with a wad of gum to the Olney (Md.) Theatre Center's 'Late Nite Catechism': Sister will make you spit it out," the Washington Post said on Oct. 9 of the play by Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan, which was scheduled to run through Nov. 11. Quade also has a new show in Chicago called "Sunday School Cinema: Sister takes on Hollywood." It's been running since June on Sundays at the Royal George Theatre. Also since June, she has been writing movie reviews for WLS AM-890 in the voice of "Sister" ("our moral guide to the movies"). Quade writes the script each week, and Elaine Carlson does the reviews as Sister. When Carlson can't do the reviews, Quade steps in as "Mother Superior." Also, "Put the Nuns in Charge!" has a date in March, and "Late Nite Catechism" is almost completely booked for next summer.

Joan Reardon has edited A Stew or a Story: An Assortment of Short Works by M. F. K. Fisher (Shoemaker & Hoard, $15.95), which collects five decades' worth of Fisher's short magazine pieces. New York Times reviewer Julia Reed praised several entries. "Lovers of Fisher should have A Stew or a Story on their shelves for those pieces alone," Reed wrote.

The final issue of the literary magazine Other Voices, out in November, included an interview with Aleksandar Hemon.

A VIP Party in the Special Collections Reading Room at the Chicago Library Foundation's Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner on Oct. 17 included authors Blue Balliett, last year's honoree, and Scott Turow. Balliett, a Brown graduate, also attended the Oct. 11 Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors. And in Nantucket, Mass., eighth-graders are being required this year to read her Chasing Vermeer.

Scott Turow joined John Grisham at an Oct. 24 event benefitting the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Park West in Chicago.

Capitol Hill Blue, which bills itself as "the oldest political news site on the Web" on Oct. 8 mentioned Richard Bales in its Quote of the Day, describing Bales' theory that Daniel "Peg Leg" Sullivan, not Mrs. O'Leary's cow, started the Chicago Fire.

Wade Rouse and Sue Harrison were among 50 Michigan authors to appear Dec. 2 at the "Holiday Hop" at the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Public Library.

Shane Gericke will sign Cut to the Bone Dec. 8 at Borders No. 106, 8675 River Crossing Blvd., Indianapolis, Ind. Gericke also recently appeared at the Oct. 20 Regional Author Fair at the Joliet Public Library and the Men of Mystery Conference in Irvine, Calif. He did an Oct. 23 radio interview on WSLR-FM in Sarasota, Fla., and on Thanksgiving, he did a half-hour interview on Fiction Nation on XM Satellite Radio.

James Finn Garner was on a segment of "Weekend Today" Oct. 21 at the Poetry Grand Slam at the Green Mill in Gurnee, Ill., reciting a stanza from "The Silver Lining, or At Least The Yankees Lost."

Lori Andrews was quoted in the Dec. 3 Chicago Tribune in an article about the legal status of embroyos.

Laura Mazzuca Toops spoke Nov. 20 at the LaPorte County Historical Society about her historical novel set in 1926, Hudson Lake.

Bill Barnhart is giving a quick recap on what happens with the markets every day in the Chicago Tribune's new bizwrap edition.

Alex Kotlowitz is on the advisory board of a proposed museum dedicated to preserving the history of public housing projects. It would be situated in last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes in Chicago's Little Italy.

Gerard Wozek's collection of travel tales, Postcards From Heartthrob Town, was nominated in November for a 2007 Lambda Literary Award in the category of men's fiction.

Deborah Woodworth gave a talk and signed books Oct. 8 at Excelsior Library in Excelsior, Minn.

Anca Vlasopolos did a poetry/prose reading Nov. 14 at the Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Scott Russell Sanders performed Nov. 16 at Guilford College, Greensboro, N.C., in "Festival of Friends," stories and song.

Simone Muench's poem "you were long days and I was tiger-lined" will appear in the 2008 Alhambra Calendar selected by Shafiq Naz.

Richard Lindberg gave a talk on "Infamous Places" to the Maine Township "MaineStreamer's" Men's Group on Oct. 23.

Lynn Voedisch did a reading and signed her book Excited Light with several other members of the Chicago Writers Association Nov. 9 at the Book Cellar in Chicago and Dec. 1 at the Ceremony of Loveliness English Tea at the Angel Museum in Beloit, Wis.

Author/illustrator Scott Gustafson signed his newly published Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose at Read Between the Lynes Oct. 27 in Woodstock, Ill.

Achy Obejas will sign This Is What Happened in Our Other Life at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 9 with Chris Mazza at Women and Children First, 5223 N. Clark Chicago.

Neal Samors was scheduled to sign Downtown Chicago in Transition (Chicago Books Press), co-authored with Eric Bronsky, at numerous locations in October and November. December signings are 7 p.m. Dec. 13, at the Oak Park Library in Oak Park, Ill., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Read Between The Lynes Bookstore in Woodstock, Ill. The authors also were scheduled to appear on WTTW-Channel 11's "Chicago Tonight" program on Nov. 6.

Kim Strickland appeared Nov. 25 at Books-A-Million in Chicago and will be at the Jan. 16 local author night at the Book Cellar in Chicago.

Jon Anderson wrote a piece in the Chicago Tribune about TV newsman John Drury, who died last month.

Sandra Pesmen, writing in the C.D.N. Alumni News September-October 2007 newsletter for Chicago Daily News alumni, provided an anecdote about longtime SMA member Marjorie M. Kriz, whose death this fall was reported in the October issue of Literary License. In the 1950s, Kriz ruled as the star of the County Building pressroom, where she was a reporter for the old City News Service. Covering the county for the Chicago Daily News was Fred Bird, who was a skilled investigative reporter but a loud, brash man who never knew when to shut his mouth. One day, Bird made a dumb remark to Kriz, then in her 30s (Pesman says she can't remember what it was), and Kriz slugged Bird, knocking him to the ground. "Ever after, he behaved himself around MM," Pesmen wrote. Kriz and Bird remained close friends afterward, she said.

In the Dec. 9 New York Times Book Review, Dan Barry calls Studs Terkel's new book (with Sydney Lewis), Touch and Go: A Memoir, "an engrossing stream-of-consciousness mediation on the 20th century by a man who, it seems, never forgave himself for being born three weeks after the sinking of the Titantic, and so he vowed in the crib to bear witness — to everything."

Ingrid Wendt was one of eight authors to read selections from their works recently at "The Magic Barrel: A Reading to Fight Hunger" in Corvallis, Ore.

Deborah Blum spoke March 15 at the first meeting of the Greater Chicago Chapter of the Victorian Society in America at the Cliff Dwellers Club in Chicago.

These are the judges in each category to whom books should be sent: