As a graduate student at Oxford in 1963, I began writing about books in revolutionary France, helping to found the discipline of book history. I was in my academic corner writing about Enlightenment ideals when the Internet exploded the world of academic communication in the 1990s.
I began my career in communications and had the privilege of working with senior leaders in a variety of different business sectors. Eventually I decided that rather than helping them develop messages I wanted to help shape lives, that is through teaching, coaching and writing.
The Ph.D. system was designed for a job in academics. And it works really well if you really want to be an academic, and the system actually works quite well. So for people who have the gift and like to go spend their lives as scholars, it's fine. But the trouble is that it's become a kind of a meal ticket - you can't get a job if you don't have a Ph.D.
When we treat children's play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that's to be found in the creative spirit. We're helping ourselves stay in touch with that spirit, too. It's the things we play withand the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives.
There's a big difference between the role of an academic and the role of someone in government. That's a cliche, but in academic life if you say things that are common sense and people nod their heads, it's not very useful. You're not adding anything.
Because lots of LGBTQ people are really smart, and there's so much really interesting reading that can be done, and so much academic writing that's been done about it, people can end up getting quite academic about it.
There are so many choices I made simply for health insurance. Is it the ideal role I wanted to play, or the TV show I wanted to be a part of? No, but it let me afford to go to the doctor.
The best thing about Ikea - I'm going to do a quiz here - the names. Do you know what a Floria Fin (ph) is? It's a candle. A Pogestra (ph) - table. A Bar Grick (ph) is a plate, an Eterleeg (ph) is a wine glass and a Scuggle (ph) is the name of my third nipple.
The process for writing a picture book is completely different from the process of writing a chapter book or novel. For one thing, most of my picture books rhyme. Also, when I write a picture book I'm always thinking about the role the pictures will play in the telling of the story. It can take me several months to write a picture book, but it takes me several years to write a novel.
For me, I go in and play a few Christian songs for an audience, and now I have people come up and not tell me I'm great, but tell me that my music is helping save their lives, helping them in the Lord, and helping them end their vices.
I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria each caused billions of dollars in damage, claimed the lives of many Americans, and disrupted millions more. They also reminded us how important communications networks can be during emergencies - and that the FCC has a role to play in helping keep people safe.
Anyone writing a picture-book biography of Lincoln has a different set of responsibilities from someone writing a biography for sixth-graders, say, or from a Lincoln scholar writing an academic book on Lincoln. Each of these writers has a different audience and different goals. That's obvious.
I've always wanted to play a role in inspiring people to be better, to live higher quality lives and to feel good about the way that they look and feel.
Ultimately it's a snowboarding film [Fourth Phase], of course, so the main thing that we wanted to celebrate was how awesome snowboarding is! Secondly, we wanted to celebrate the environment that we all shape our lives around. So the film documents myself and other like-minded individuals attempting to follow the hydrological cycles that shape the worlds we've committed our lives to.
What is the role of an academic - no matter what they're teaching - within political debate? It has to be that they make issues more complicated. The role of the academic is to make everything less simple.