Behind Our Eyes Book Launch Presents
Author Peter Altschul Interviewed by Deborah Kendrick
October 6, 2022 Transcript

Readers Note: If you have found this transcript to be helpful, please take a moment to let us know by sending a brief message to Marlene Mesot at: Marl.Mesot@gmail.com. You may also contact someone you know in our writers’ group. Thank you very much.

Ann Chiappetta: Hi everybody. This is Annie Chiappetta. Welcome to the Behind Our Eyes Book Launch interview with Peter Altschul and Deborah Kendrick. It's October sixth 2022. Everybody welcome. And I'm gonna hand this over to Deborah to start.

Deborah Kendrick: Okay, thank you so much, Annie. Well, I'm going to tell you a little bit about this book, and a little bit about Peter. But we're mostly going to hear from Peter about the book. Riding Elephants: Creating Common Ground Where Contention Rules, is Peter Altschul's third book, and it's not about safaris. How can we create common ground at home, on the job and in faith communities? How can we work together better to address those contentious culture war conflicts that divide us? By becoming better at writing our quirky feelings, Elephants, through marshalling our less quirky thoughts. This concept is explored through brief essays on topics ranging from family life, organization, behavior, and music, to Christianity, public policy and politics. The essays focus on lessons drawn from the author’s experience interviewing for jobs, raising stepchildren, playing, music, training New York city taxi drivers, watching sports, shepherding dogs, finding common ground on abortion, leading diversity programs and lowing his wife. They suggest the common ground does exist, if we can find the patience, skill and grace to create it.

Deborah: Peter Altschul currently lives in Columbia Missouri. This is his third published book. I first knew about Peter’s writing when he contacted me about a decade ago. He wanted some input, from another writer, and he was writing a book, and he wanted me to take a look at it, make comments, write a blurb. I did it because that's what you do. I did it to be nice. I didn't really know him. very well, but what I remember is being really blown away by the book, and really enjoying it, and I can still remember, it's probably been ten years since I read it, but the scene that he drew of his wedding and the music and the friends, it was just vivid and vibrant and and just beautiful writing. I really like what Peter wrote himself about the author at the end of this book we're going to talk about so I'm going to share that, too, because I think there are a couple of eyebrow raisers in it.

Deborah: About the author. For some unknown reason Peter Altschul was born totally blind. I like that, by the way. Since graduating from college, he has traveled a unique journey; Customer Service Rep. at the most hated federal   government agency. And yes, you are going to have to tell us who that was—a musician, author, trainer of New York city taxi drivers, educator, step-parent of three children, grants manager and mediator for pro-choice, pro-life activists and workplace diversity specialist, all done with the assistance and companionship of six wonderfully quirky guide dogs. So, Peter, I have a lot of questions for you, but for fun, why don't you tell us what that most hated Federal government agency was first of all?

Peter: It's the Internal Revenue Service. 

Deborah: I thought so yeah. 

Peter: Yeah. yeah. It was my first job out of undergraduate school, and I did that for four years, and couldn't wait to move on to something else.

Deborah: Well for those who have not read Riding Elephants, I, first of all, strongly recommend it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There's so much thought here, and so many places where you want to go back, read that again, think about that again. But I think there are a couple of places that I want to visit. By the way, I do have to say, Peter, thank you so much for mentioning my name in the same book where you mentioned Aretha Franklin, and Amanda Gorman,  doesn't get much better. 

Peter: Happy to do it. 

Deborah: So, with that, I love what you wrote about the Aretha Franklin song. And why don't we start there because that tells us a little bit about you as a musician and an author and a thinker? And I just like to hear you talk about it.

Peter: Well, the first time I heard Aretha sing I was a ten-year old kid in white bred New York state, and really wasn't that familiar with Motown. I sort of was but not a lot, but Aretha really got my attention. That song “Respect” of hers and it really sort of changed the way I listened to music in a very powerful way. I can't say more than that. It's just, I heard things differently after I had access to that particular song and Aretha sort of popped up in my life at weird moments. We all know she had a huge career, went on for many years, and in many different guises. And, growing up, I was just beginning to start learning to play the drums, and she had such a rhythmic drive, and she had a band with such a rhythmic drive to it, that she really sort of influenced the way I played drums then, and still play drums. now. And, of course, her voice doesn't need to be added, to comment about that.

Peter: So anyway, when she died, Sirius XM had a channel devoted to her music, which I listened to quite a lot when I wrote that piece, and I had no idea of the diversity of her styles especially later. I mean, she actually sang hip hop music to hip hop beats which I didn't know, and I didn't know a lot about our civil rights background and that was really interesting. I mean, she really played a key role in that whole scene, and I have one more comment. The word respect. What does it mean to respect people? What she essentially says is, find out what it means to me. And then do it right. R E S P E C T, find out what it means to me. R E S P E C T. So, you know,  it's, in order to respect, you have to sort of know what it means for the other person to be respected, which might not be the same thing as what makes you feel respected, and so I talk about the Platinum Rule, which is not the Golden Rule, and the Platinum Rule says, treat others as they want to be treated, not the Golden Rule which says, treat others the way you want to be treated, and that had a powerful infect on me as well. So anyway, it was just one of those pieces. Aretha had a very powerful part of my life at an influential part of my life. Ten years old is the time when you just begin to start growing and reaching out beyond yourself. And she was one of those people. 

Deborah: I got to hear her, by the way, at one of the last concerts she did before she died in August of 2017. Fabulous. So there are so many places that I could revisit, but one that I kept going back to is near the beginning of the book. You were talking about rubber bands and so forth, and you say again, folks, if you haven’t read the book, there is so much thought here about differences and diversity and coming together, that is. creating common ground. But this particular few sentences, just, I kept coming back. Some Jews who criticize Israel are accused by other Jews of not being really Jewish. Some African Americans accused blacks with conservative views of not being black enough. Some Isis members behead Muslims who don't believe as they do. And you do mention disability as you lead into that. But of course, for those of us who are blind, or who have other disabilities. This just resonates on such a deep level, and I just thought it would be interesting to hear you talk a little bit about that from a disability perspective, and how we, as people with disabilities, might find common ground or might not treat one another as well as we might. 

 Peter: So, a couple comments. The first is that we talk about, with admiration, those people who reach across those barriers to find common ground with people who strongly disagree with you, you know. So, I did that work a lot, in the abortion issue for example. And that was great work, and work I'm very proud of. But one of the things I've come to realize over time, that maybe the harder work, is to help people in your own group, to be more effective listeners and to be more effective advocates and the one of the things that you do not do to be an effective advocates, is to criticize people of your group that you don't agree with at the level that we’re talking about. So, those things that I mentioned about folks who are Jewish, and folks who are African Americans and folks who are Isis, is real, and this happens in every group. It doesn't matter if you're disabled, non-disabled, and it is the responsibility, I think, for those of us, in whatever group you choose to be in, to say things like, hey people don't agree with the basic whatever of the group that doesn't mean we kill you, whether it be physically or symbolically. It means we don't agree on certain things, but we might agree on other things. And I really do think, that in today's politics, we have so much going on within groups, this sort of cancel culture, which exists on both the right and the left, that it's just destructive. It's destructive, not just for having those conversations across those barriers, but within the groups as well. It's just destructive and the more we can do, as members of those groups, to discourage that kind of behavior, I think the better off we're all going to be. 

Deborah: I think we do it as blind people. We say, oh, well, Stevie Wonder might be a fabulous musician, rich and famous. But did you know he can't find his way out of the room. So. you know those kinds of things. Or you know someone did such and such really well. Well that's because they have some usable vision you know at either end of the spectrum.

Peter: And this whole ACB versus NFB thing is just, I mean, there are clearly differences, and that's fine, but some of the stuff I hear from both groups with the other group is just wildly destructive for us as advocates, and us as people.

Deborah: Peter. Now that would be the ultimate coup. I have been saying for years that I believe I will live long enough to see them merge as one, because they should. But now that would be the ultimate coup. Then you could write a whole book just about that. Talk to us about, I like the whole idea of Riding Elephants and elephants as feelings and thoughts. But talk about the origin of that, and your thought processes of carrying that through to be the title and theme of your book.

Peter: Well, the idea came from a guy named Jonathan Haidt, H A I D T. No, it's not the hate it's the haidt H A I D T, and he's a social psychologist, who wrote a book about this whole topic, and one of his ideas is, just as I write in the book, that  elephants, he calls them intuitions, which I think are akin to feelings, if not feelings directly, and feelings, he argues, and I so expand on, you know the energy behind what we do. It's not the thoughts it's the feelings, the feelings is the   and that we as elephant riders can be more effective at riding our elephants, or controlling our feelings and steering them in positive directions. Feelings are great things if harnessed effectively. Elephants are just amazing animals. They're herd animals. They roam in herds, and they look after their young, and they look after their old, and they're very playful and all those things are true about them. But if they get upset, they can trample in and cause all kinds of destruction. And you don't want elephants to trample. It's not something that you wanna be a part of if you can avoid it. And the same thing is true about feelings. You know, feelings, if used effectively, can be amazingly powerful things, and are amazingly powerful things. And I write a lot about that in the book. 

Deborah: So, in the process of pulling these pieces together as a book, which came first, assembling them and deciding later that elephants was the thread that could tie them together, or first thinking about rRding Elephants and wanting to find the pieces that fit into that. 

Peter: It's definitely the, well, I should actually back up. My prior book is called Connecting the Dots. It's the same subtitle, Creating Common Ground Where Contention, Breaking It Down to Connecting the Dots. You think I would know this right? And so I wrote that book and one of the things I didn't like about that book, is that the blog posts were, I think we're equally good that I used as the kernels of the book, but there was no common theme. And so when I wrote the Riding Elephants, so I thought, okay, how can I make this more organic? And the whole kernel of both books was this idea of elephants as feelings, and we ride our elephants through our thoughts.

Peter: And so, I really made an effort, when I wrote this book, Riding Elephants, to really use that elephant as the theme, and you'll see throughout the book, I talk about my elephant grumbling or also becoming restless, to my elephant celebrating, my elephant, doing whatever and that was deliberate. When I wrote the original blogs on which the books are based, you don't see that in the original blogs. But when I went through and edited the book, I made an effort to sort of use that elephant theme in hopefully creative ways. That's the history behind all that.

Deborah: Well, it works. 

Peter: Well, thank you.

Deborah: How often do you write your blog? How frequently? 

Peter: Actually, I haven't written a blog for about a year and there are complicated reasons for that. I've gone through a fairly traumatic personal life, which just has sort of made me not want to write. I'm sort of coming out of that now. but the other issue is, I've written two books on this whole issue of of sort of creating common ground and feelings and thoughts, and all those concepts that are in these books, and I'm not quite sure what I want to do next writing wise, and I've been thinking a lot about it and I have some ideas. I just don't have a sense of where to go next and as I said over the past year, I've been sort of, I've had to move twice. I'm going through some difficult times, which I will talk about other times, but not now. And it's just been a difficult time. and so the writing is sort of gone on a back burner, and the other thing I should say about that is, I know there are many folks on this call that they find they're passionate about
20:24:19 writing that for them writing is a serious passion and that's awesome, and I admire that, but it's never been true, for me.

Peter: Writing has never been a passion of mine. I do it because it's a tt helps you communicate. But it's. not something I am passionate about doing It's not something that makes my elephant dance.
20:24:39 It's okay. that makes my elephant sort of, yeah, okay, I gotta do this, you know, not especially excited and so you know it's not something that I, as compared to my music, which makes my elephant dance, or when I educate and the work that I've done make my elephant dance, but writing never has done that for my elephant. It's just different. 

Deborah: Another thing that's interesting about what you say about your own writing, and the motivation to write, is that I think, for many people, times of struggle and despair and trauma are when many of us write the most. And yet you're saying that the opposite is true, and you're going through difficult times you don't want to write, you can't write. 

Peter: It’s just not something I wanna do and maybe there'll come a time when I will want to do that. I haven't fore sworn to write forever and ever, but you know,

Deborah: Good.

Peter: If this is the time right now, I'm trying to figure out what my next impetus is. If it is to write and have some thoughts on the matter, but I'm not there yet, and maybe I’ll be there tomorrow, maybe there a year from now.
20:26:28 But I will start right. I will write again. What I find enjoying doing a lot more these days is helping people with their writing, and I very much enjoy doing that. I love the editing process more than the actual putting things down, I think, sort of honing a piece and making it shine, and making it crystalline clear. I enjoyed that part far more than the actual putting it down. That’s just me.

Deborah: Great, yeah, yeah, well, you have had a fair amount of experience of working with groups bringing groups together, finding common ground. Can you choose one such experience that you've had that you're particularly proud of, and tell us about that. 

Peter: It's funny you should ask that question because somebody else asked me  a similar question at a job interview. I was working in Glendale, Arizona, working with the community to help them develop strategies to prevent teen pregnancy that the entire community could get behind. And so, when I first showed up there the first day the HD that was coordinating this work drove us around the community, and the community was divided in half between a northern half, which was the white bred part of the community, and then the southern half had this large Latino population. And so I said to the person leading the organization, the community project, “What's the relations between the two parts of the organization?” And she said, “I never go to this part of the community. I don't know these people. I don't know who they are.” And my basic reaction was, excuse me? I didn't say this, of course. How can you be a community organizer and not take half of the community seriously? So, I sort of talked around and tried to find out who the leader of that, of the Latino part of the community was, and when I got back to Washington I got ahold of her and said, “Hey, I, we're doing this project. We very much would like to get you involved, would you consider it?” She said, “Yeah, but I don't know anything about the other part of the community. They don't talk to me.” I said, “Well, I will try to make that happen.”

Peter: And so, I called the representative I was working with and said, “Hey, they want to work with you. Do you want to work with them?” And she said, “Well I don't know err…err.” I said, “Well, you can't do this without having the entire community involved it's just, it ain't gonna work.” So she was clearly really nervous about it. So I said, “The next time I come out there we’ll schedule a meeting. We scheduled a time, and they all showed up in a neutral territory. I can't remember where it was we all met. I just served as a mediator, and got them to talk about each other, to talk to each other about their experiences, and what their communities were experiencing, and after the meeting I was sort of nervous. I wasn't sure how it was gonna play itself out. After the meeting they became friends, and they start talking to each other, and it totally changed where the dialogue ran. One of the things that came out of it, is that there were sort of youth groups on both sides of the border, if you will. And they went on a weekend retreat, and actually got to like each other, and know each other, and it really was a sort of fabulous thing, and of course they worked together on the dialogue. There were some councilmen who got involved who were representing that part, the Latino part of the community, and it really was a wonderful thing to sort of see grow. So the dialogue was the success. That connection, at least when I was there, was vibrant and really exciting. I don't know what's happened since, but while I was there, it was a great thing. 

Deborah: That's fabulous. Are you looking toward doing more of that sort of thing? Or are you kind of in a holding pattern right now?

Peter: Well I’m actually applying for jobs that will give me a chance to do more of that stuff. Whether they'll hire me is a different conversation. But I’ve applied to several jobs that have a major community building component. We'll see what happens. But I am trying to, sort of, get back into that life, if if you will. But it's been a difficult couple of years, and I'm trying to, sort of, get out of it. So we’ll see what happens. 

Deborah: Well, I always like to ask writers about their writing habits and writing process, but you're telling us you haven't been writing for a while. but when you were, are there any tips that you'd like to share, or quirks maybe, or you know, patterns that you follow in terms of your writing life when you are writing? 

Peter: I find it easier to write not in my apartment. That might mean writing outside on a deck. When I had a house that's what I did with the sun out and the wind and the birds chirping. That was wonderful. Or writing at a coffee house. I don't particularly care for coffee, but it was nice to be able to get out and walk the mile to the coffee house, buy a a tea actually, and write for a couple of hours there. I wrote at a church. So, I just find it hard to write where I live. I need to be in a different space. And the other thing, as I said before is, I very much enjoy more, the editing process than you actually putting it down. And what I had to learn to do is not to worry much about the editing when I’m writing it down, I know that I’ll come back to it and make it shine, or make it better shine, or whatever it is. 

Deborah: Yeah. 

Peter: So just to get it down on paper, and that's been really hard for me, because I'd like to get every sentence perfect. But then, of course, you run the risk of losing the thread that you're trying to get down. So that's been a challenge. But that's really the only thing I can say. Then the requisite, you know, to try to get input from other people, and all that stuff is really valuable. But for me I really very much enjoy once the stuff’s on paper, the idea is, okay, how can I make this work in a cohesive kind of way that will make people want to read it? 

Deborah: Well, I think that's wonderful to recognize that because I learned long ago. And you know sometimes we don't know things until we have to do them. But editing and writing are really too completely different talents and both are really essential if we're all going to have good things to read. So, ha, ha. So maybe there's another kind of future there for you in just doing some editing. I really like hearing you talk about going somewhere else to write too. I completely get that. I've gone through phases when I was in college. This shows how old I am. I had a typewriter. I thought it was the coolest thing that I had a portable typewriter that I could carry to sit under a tree, and I was convinced that with my guitar under that tree, or my typewriter under that tree, the most beautiful words would emerge. Ha, ha. So anyway, I get it. I see that we have 21, 22 people, and so that's 20 people who might have questions for you. So I don't want to monopolize Peter. Why don't we open it up at this point, Annie?

Ann: Sure.

Deborah: And I don’t know who’s doing the monitoring. It's not me. 

Ann: I am doing the monitoring so if you have a question, please raise your hand, and I’ll call on you, and then you can unmute and ask your question. Alright? Marlene has a question.

Peter: Oh, Marlene, okay. 

Ann: Yes. 

Deborah: Cause, cause, I can come up with more, and never… 

Peter: Oh, I'm sure.  

Ann And then after Marlene we’ll do Alice. And then we’ll go to the next two.

Deborah: Okay, alright, Marlene. 

Marlene: I just thought I'd let you know, Peter on the transcript, you have a new last name. It's now I’ll show.

Peter: Ha, ha. That's okay, thank you for that. It’s their data. My elephant doesn't quite know what to make it easier. He's sort of bewildered you know. 

Marlene: Ha, ha. We'll fix it. Thank you.

Deborah: Oh, dear, Okay. Alright, there was somebody else. 

Ann & Peter: Alice.

Alice: Well, again, Peter, congratulations on three wonderful books. I enjoyed reading and look forward to number four, I hope, one of these days. I find it interesting that passion is not your writing, because you're such a good writer. I'm very glad to hear that you're interested in editing, because you do give wonderful advice about writing to writers, as well, so that's good news, and I thank you for all that you've done with that. But, I have an unusual question for you. I'd like to know, have you read The Elephant Whisper by Lawrence Anthony? And then a follow-up book that his wife wrote, Elephant in My Kitchen? Such a wonderful perspective on elephants, and I just am curious if you've read either of those books.

Peter: I have not read them, and I should. I thank you for the suggestion. I mean, I did some research around elephants when I was writing the prologue of the book, especially the preface, because I write about elephants and the prologue in the first article, and they're fascinating creatures. But I have not read much more than the research I did and I should read more. So, thank you, Alice, for those references. 

Alice; You're welcome. They're both available on BARD. Thank you. 

Peter: Okay.

Deborah: This is Deborah. And speaking of BARD, I'm going to jump in and ask something else before I forget, and that is two of your books are on BARD and I wondered if you could tell everyone what involvement you had, and getting that done, and if Riding Elephants is in the queue? 

Peter: So, let me answer the question about Riding Elephants. Riding Elephants is being recorded as we speak. It's supposed to come out in either late winter or early spring. So when that happens, I will bring a big announcement.

Peter: I do want to share a story about the first book I wrote, which is the memoir, Breaking Barriers: Working and Loving While Blind. So, I wrote the book and called the Wolfner Library, which is the leverage for the blind in Missouri. And say, would you consider recording this? And they said yes, and so I forgot about it until I got an email from a friend of mine saying, “Are you aware that your book is now available on BARD and it's doing really well on BARD?” Well, it was not recorded by Wolfner, because they were just in the process of starting the book. It was recorded by another library. I still don't know which library did it and I still don't know how it happened, who had the idea of recording it. But it’s my first book. Usually, the library for the blind is pretty careful about recording first books of authors, but somebody recorded it. I still don't know how it happened. It's one of the mysteries of my authorship. How it happened. I still don't know how it happened. I'm grateful that it happened, and it was recorded really well. I was really pleased with the narration, and the third book, that Riding Elephants. There was a library that had said they wanted to do it and it was not Missouri and so I read about it, and then got a call from the Wolfner Library, saying, “We're getting calls from people saying, when is your Riding Elephants book out? We don't even know what Riding Elephants is.” And I said, “Oh, well it's my third book. Do you want to record it? And they said yes. That's literally what happened. Because the other library and the other state which will remain nameless, said they want to do it, and never did it. So now Wolfner Library’s recording it, and it, I think will come out in late winter, early spring.

Deborah: Oh, that's great. That's great. So it's a different reader for each? 

Peter: It's a different reader for each and for those who want to read Riding Elephants, you can get it on Bookshare, if you are on Bookshare, and of course you get it on Amazon, and you know other places like that so that's the answer.

Ann: We have two more people that have their hands raised. Kate Chamberlin. And then after Kate we have Diane Landy. 

Kate Chamberlin: Thank you. I have read the two books Alice mentioned, and they really are delightful. But, Peter, I was wondering how you and your elephant decided on the publisher you did. 

Peter: Ah! Well, the first two books were done by I Universe. And the only reason that I chose I Universe is because a friend of mine, was the president of the organization. I got a steep discount on their rates, and I would not recommend I Universe to anybody, because they just charge too much.  The one thing I'll say by a universe is that they have fabulous editors, and especially for my first book. It was incredibly helpful, the editor that helped me reshape the memoir.

Peter: The most current book I did through DLD Books. Leonore and David Dvorkin, who are fabulous. Yeah, I know I just Thank you. And but they did a great job. I very much appreciate the editing that Leonore did, especially and the computer things that David did. And, you know, getting it on Amazon and all that great stuff. It was a pleasure working with them, and they charged a lot less than I Universe does, and did a better job besides. So I I I will always encourage people to use their services. And Leonore and I had several conversations about certain parts of the book that really helped me sort of rethink some of the things that I said. Well, not what I said, but how I said them, and so I'm grateful for Leonore, especially about all those things. Thank you, 

Kate: Thank you, 

Ann: You're welcome. Okay, Diane, you're up.

Diane Landy: Hello, Thank you, and thanks for being here tonight. My question is kind of more about your process. But I’m also curious. I just find it really interesting you're not passionate about the writing but you really enjoy the revision. I'm on board with you about that and I'm not passionate about the writing, just because, I’m just not, my first drafts are horrible, and I have to do a lot of, it's more than editing. It's really revision. And I've just begun working on outlining a a novel piece, so I'm kind of curious about your process. And also just kudos for finishing three books, for someone who isn't passionate about writing.

Diane: I kind of came to writing later in life, and I love it. But I think what I really love about it is the rewrite, because that's when it really shines to me, and it sparkles. Do you set aside your mornings, and are you someone who outlines before and do you just kind of get it down on the page, and then let it set for a while before you go back to do your revision work, or you're editing? I'm kind of curious about those sorts of things. If you could elaborate, that would be wonderful. 

Peter: Sure. So, my second and third books are based on blog posts that I wrote. And so basically, I tried to get in the habit of writing a blog post every Wednesday morning. When every Wednesday morning came up, I had a general sense of what I wanted to write about, and what I wanted to say. I’d go to the coffee place or I go somewhere that wasn’t where I lived and write whatever it was I was going to write, and one of the things that I'm proud of about these blog posts that service the material for both books two and three. So they're all short. 

Diane: Hmm.

Peter: They're almost all divided into some 750 words. I did write pretty free flowing when it came to the blog posts that I wrote and then I spent often, you know, an hour or two making it work. ‘Cause what I found is that the structure didn't work, or it was the wrong word, or the sentences were too long, You know all the things that we writers obsess about. 

Diane: Hmm.

Peter: I obsess a lot.

Diane: Oh, I obsess too. Ha. Ha.

Peter: So by the time they were posted they were okay. Your question reminds me of something else which I wanted to say. Which is, one of the things when I was writing about my blog posts, I wanted to write about stuff that wasn't disability related for two reasons. One. Because there's so many people who do such a good job doing that that I sometimes feel superfluous when I do that kind of writing. But the other issue is, I'm tired of us being labeled as, we write about disability and nothing else.

Diane: Uh ha.

Peter: And Charles Krauthammer is a political writer who uses a wheelchair and wrote a lot about politics, much of which I disagreed with. But he was a really good writer, and he wrote about everything but disability. and I thought well, if he could do that, I can do that. And also, I just have lots of interests, many of which are only peripherally related, connected with disability, and sometimes not really disability at all. So I really made an effort to, and there are times when I do write about it, and I bring disability in, my blindness, into the topics that I write about, some more than others. So anyway, that's sort of off a tangential thing. But basically, my guess is I get too general. I had a pretty good sense of what I wanted to write. The other thing that I would say about this is, I'm a musician, I'm a composer I’m a percussionist, and that has had a major impact on how I think about writing, especially sentence structure. So, you know I'm really conscious about how these sentences feel rhythmically. I’m a percussionist, and so I'll write. I really make an effort to vary the length of sentences. And so sometimes they're jagged, and sometimes they're more flowing and that's something I really think a lot about, and also how it structures things. Because when you compose you think about structure a lot, and especially when I was writing my memoir. That was a really important part that helped me think about structure in a way, that if I hadn't been a musician, I'm not sure I would have been able to do as clearly and as effectively.

Peter: That's a long answer to your question. 

Diane: That's interesting because I write for children and so the sound of it being read aloud is really important and especially if it's a picture book you have to allow room for these illustrations. So there's a lot of different layers of revision where you've got to go through it. But I love that. I love that idea of how the music has inspired you to really be conscientious of kind of the pasting of of the work, and how it sounds on the page. So when you wrote on a Wednesday morning let's say out for your blog post, would you, you’d get it out there. You'd write the full post and then poof, post it off into your blog right then, or would you look at it again another day before it'd go out?

Peter: So I usually give it 24 hours before I posted it. And that helped.

Diane: Yeah, okay. Did you outline the elephants book, and I'm sorry. This is my last question. Ha, ha. And I’ll let the next person go. 

Peter: No, actually, I did not outline, because they are all blog posts.

Ann: So it's Annie, we have ten minutes.

Deborah: Thank you.

Ann: So we have two more questions and I want to give a couple of minutes for Marilyn, our current President of Behind Our Eyes to close it out.

Deborah: That's what I was going to do. Okay, alright, I mean that's what I was going to do, is turn it over, but go ahead. 

Ann: So we have, Marcia Wick’s been waiting to ask a question, and then after that, Marlene, and that's it. Please be quick.

Marcia Wick: Okay, I'll try to be quick. Peter, it's great to hear your voice. I have a lot of respect for your temperament. I haven't read your writing other than on the BOE Writers’ Partyline. But, hot topic, I'm gonna focus more on your intention to help us find common ground, and you mentioned the abortion issue, and I would assume one of the ways when you bring opposing groups together, is you help us find a way to agree to disagree. Given the law that doesn't allow us to make a personal choice and disagree, what is your advice to us? Find common ground now?

Peter: So let me respond. I could spend an hour on this question, and we’re already in overtime.

Marcia: Right.

Peter: So, let me say the following: One of the themes of the book is the idea of channeling. We all think and speak on a thoughts channel and a feelings channel. And when these conversations are really effective, both channels are in operation, and there's a lot more to be said about that. But the one thing I will say beyond that is storytelling is a really powerful way of finding common ground. Because storytelling, a really good story functions on both channels simultaneously. And so, when we were working on the abortion issue, when I was working on that project, we would ask people, and these are activists on both sides of the issue, to share their experience about what prompted them to get to where they are. What is their life story? What prompted them to come to where they are on whatever the issue is, the abortion issue. And people listened, and they thought about it. And that whole process, people could share their stories, made it much easier when it became time to have those difficult conversations to say, listen. I really like you. I like those, affection is a feeling. I like you. I respect you. We don't agree and that's somehow, that’s okay now. We don't agree on certain things, there's things we do agree on. But those things that we don't agree on, that's okay, because we have a prior relationship. And so what I always tell people when I did this work, and when I still do it occasionally is, don't start with the complicated topic. Start with just getting to know each other a little bit. Find out a little about each other, and then from there, move on to the complicated, tough issue. I hope that helps a little bit. But there's a lot more to be said about that.

Marcia: Yeah, it does help on a personal level. It's the legislation now that precludes that. 

Peter: One more thing I will say, and I say it in the book too. The major issue on abortion is not the morality of abortion. That's not what divides us. It does divide us. I'm not saying it doesn't, but the real controversy is the government's role in the issue. And we could say a lot more about that, and we will not.

Marcia: Thank you, Peter. 

Peter: Thank you.

Ann: Marlene had a question and then after that we'll go back to Deborah and Marilyn.

Marlene: Thank you. Quickly, Peter, could you talk a little bit about being a podcast host? What your podcast is, and what's coming up tomorrow?
 
Peter: Ah, yes. Well, actually, I host, I think it’s four different podcasts these days or co-host, I should say. The one that I think you're referring to is a podcast that Bob Branco and I co-host and every week it's a sort of, general interest thing. Deborah's been on that show, Annie’s been on that show. There are other people who’ve been on that show.  Tomorrow Leonard Tuchyner is going to be on about his book Merlyn the Magic Turtle. We're very much looking forward to interviewing him and we hope all of you will join us tomorrow, and we'll send you out the link when we have it. So that's tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. East coast time. One of the things I've discovered doing these podcasts is how much I enjoy interviewing people and again trying to structure it in the way that makes sense to both the interviewee and the listener and that's a whole other art form which we could talk about. And thank you, Marlene, for the promotion.

Deborah: Okay. So, if that is the end of the questions before turning it over to the Behind Our Eyes leaders for final business announcements. Peter, first of all I just want to thank you personally for inviting me to do this with you, because I consider it a privilege. And it's been fun and why don't you give the name of your book again, and tell people where they can get it, and if you'd like to, how they can find you. 

Peter: So, the title of the book is Riding Elephants: Creating Common Ground Where Contention Rules. Notice the alliteration. That was deliberate, and I don't think I would have thought about that without percussion creating common ground, contention right. That's just how my weird mind works. If you go to Amazon and type that title in, you'll find it immediately along with my other books.  If you want to learn more about me, you can find me through Leonore's website, which is DLD Books dot com, and then Peter Altschul once you get there and you'll see some of my music. You'll see some of my twitter posts. You'll see all kinds of things, information about my three books, and if you want to. So, check all that stuff out, that's what I would recommend you do. And Deborah, it's been a privilege to be interviewed by you and thank you for doing it.

Deborah: Thanks. It’s been great.

Peter: We should do more of it. 

Ann: Alrighty. This is Annie. Peter, could you spell your last name for people. 

Peter: It's not what's on the transcript. You have to ignore that. The last name is spelled, and it's a complicated name. Now that's why I encourage you to go, if you go to Amazon, just type in the title, it'll be easier to find. But my last name is spelled A L T as in Tom. Yes, that's S in Sam, C as in cat, H as in Harry, U L. A L T S C H U L. Thank you Annie for that question. 

Ann: Oh, you’re welcome. 

Leonore Dvorkin: Let's see, Peter, I really need to tell people, if you go to Amazon to look for the book that's actually yours, you'll find the book much more easily if you put in his name. Because if you put in Riding Elephants, unless you have this whole title, the subtitle, if you put in Riding Elephants, you're mainly going to get, you're going to see a bunch of books, about riding elephants on safaris. Ha, ha, ha. But if you go to Amazon and type in Peter Altschul, all of his books show up right away there. 

Ann: Thank you, Leonore.

Peter: Thank you, Leonore.

Leonore: Sure.

Peter: No, thank you. A L T S C H U L. Thank you, Annie.

Ann: Thank you, Deborah. 

Deborah: Thank you for the opportunity. 

Ann: Marilyn, say something about Behind Our Eyes. 

Marilyn Smith: Yes, I'm the newly elected President. So, I'm here for a couple of years and I am doing this so that people who will hear this Book Launch later will understand what the writers’ group is. I've been with Behind Our Eyes since it was founded in 2006! And if you're a writer with disabilities, or know someone who is, share the information. I really enjoyed hearing about Peter’s book, a lot of thought provoking things. Here, as Marcia pointed out, and I know many of the attendees here are members, but for those who aren't, I want to invite you to visit our website, and check us out in case you're interested in furthering your writing skills. We have a wonderful email list It was low traffic and very high concentration on writing itself and on our website which is Behind Our Eyes Dot org. You can see the calendar for upcoming events, conferences, workshops, critique opportunities, and that sort of thing. We hope to add classes in the not too distance future. But if you follow the link to join, that will take you to our membership form, and you can then submit it. And when you join, someone will reach out to you from our welcoming committee, one of the pilots, as we call it, will reach out and answer any questions you might have to help you find a place where you might like to start fitting into our work. I know that the book launch is one of our newer projects, and we certainly enjoy doing all the writing that we do together, and producing recordings and that sort of thing, magazines. We have one that comes out twice a year. So if you have any interests, do visit behind our eyes dot org, and by all means don't forget to come to the book launch in November. Leonard Tuchyner will be doing a presentation on his book. Thanks.

Ann: Good night, everybody.
 
Readers Note: If you have found this transcript to be helpful, please take a moment to let us know by sending a brief message to Marlene Mesot at: Marl.Mesot@gmail.com You may also contact someone you know in our writers’ group. Thank you very much.