There Are Few Things Cooler

than scoring a big interview for someone, or when you are the person to call someone and say, "Hey, guess who called to interview you?"

I've gotten to tell authors that they're going to be in the Guardian and the New York Times, or that they've gotten a starred review in Publishers Weekly. I've gotten to tell authors that they're going to be on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Hardball with Chris Matthews (I even got to escort one slightly-overwhelmed Frances Moore Lappe across Manhattan for a live appearance on Hardball--thankfully I had an emergency box of raisins and a kids' Clif bar...), and I got to call Naomi Wolf to tell her that the producer for the Colbert Report returned my call to book her.

All of that is cool. Wicked cool. But there is nothing cooler than telling an 11-year-old boy that a local TV station wants to interview him because of an academic scholarship he won, and that he has two minutes to talk about absolutely anything he wants to talk about, AND, they'll give him a tour of the studio. That is pure joy and I got to do it yesterday. You shoulda seen the look on that kid's face. He nearly burst.