Surprise Speaker

Last night, Mark Bowden came to my book publicity class. My teacher is his publicist, and our other speaker cancelled, and he happened to be in New York.

Mark Bowden wrote Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo, and Guests of the Ayatollah.

He was supposed to talk about publicity from an author's perspective, but he ended up answering a lot of questions about his experience turning Black Hawk Down into a movie. So exciting!

You know how in America's Sweethearts, they go around and answer questions at the press junket? Well, he had to do that. The production companies rent out floors in hotels and you go around room to room and talk to the press. He told us that the producers sit in this one room and watch all the actors, writers, etc. from all these tv monitors, and that if you don't answer a question the way they want you to, they come out and stop you in the hallway and advise you for the next time.

Although this is not always the case, Mark was very involved in the film. The film rights to his latest book, Guests of the Ayatollah, were purchased before he even started writing it.

He was super nice. This might be stretching it, but I think he's kind of a celebrity, so we'll take it one step above celebrity sighting and say that I just had a celebrity interaction. If only Jake Gyllenhaal would write a book.