Ask the Author: Joseph Rodota
Answered Questions (4)
Joseph Rodota
Find a topic that is challenging, but seems like pleasure, not work, when you are in the middle of it.
Joseph Rodota
I’m grateful for the opportunity to discover new stories that are buried – in the archives, or in the memory of someone who has been overlooked – and bring those stories above ground and onto the page. I note when I am talking about the Watergate in front of audiences, people like hearing about the people I’m fortunate to meet and interview, and my efforts to unearth hidden files (or tapes) that revealed something remarkable
Joseph Rodota
If I am writing at home, sometimes I find it helpful to take a walk around the neighborhood and see some trees and blue sky and not the screen of my laptop. On days when I was working on THE WATERGATE in my office in downtown Sacramento, surrounded by books and source material, I sometimes found it helpful to take a short walk to an Italian restaurant nearby and have a bowl of soup at the bar. I don’t know if it was the walk or the soup that helped with “writer’s block.” Maybe both.
Joseph Rodota
I was working in Washington and actively looking for a story about which to write. I thought it might be something buried in the National Archives, or hidden from view in a government agency that could only be brought to light through a Freedom of Information Act request. But on the way to the Kennedy Center one evening, I passed by the Watergate. I suppose I was at that moment open to inspiration, because I thought to myself: Maybe my topic is hiding in plain sight. After a bit of research, I discovered there were hundreds of books touching on the Watergate break-in and its aftermath, but no one had written about the building itself. Other buildings had inspired books, but not the Watergate.
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