From the September 20th article on St. Louis Magazine:
When Kathleen Finneran floated the idea of interviewing Sally Field about the actress’ new memoir In Pieces for BookFest St. Louis past organizer Kris Kleindienst, she says it was “partly in jest.” Well, maybe it wasn’t so much in jest, Finneran, the senior writer in residence at Washington University and author of the 2000 memoir The Tender Land, now reflects—Kleindienst thought it was a great idea. The actress and Finneran are now set to talk in An Evening with Sally Field, on Friday, September 21, at 7 p.m. at the Chase Park Plaza.
Field’s memoir addresses a dark topic—the actress writes that her stepfather, actor Jock Mahoney, sexually abused her when she was a child. The idea of interviewing a celebrity would be nerve-wracking for a lot of writers. However, Finneran says, “there are some things in life that make me nervous, but this isn’t one of them.” To prep, she’s been reading Field’s book, of course, and “just trying to think of ways that I might speak to the writing of the book with Sally Field that will be exciting both to writers and readers,” she says. “When I think of books, just by the nature of my profession, I think of them in terms of writing. So BookFest to me means a festival of writers, but you have to keep in mind BookFest to others means a festival of readers.”
SLM talked to Finneran about Field’s book, the BookFest panels she’s looking forward to, what she’s reading right now, and, of course, her favorite Sally Field movie.
Read the full article here.
