 Hi, good evening. Welcome to New America. So we're going to begin the Kind of presentation this evening I'm Peter Bergen. I with a wista. I hope over here direct the fellows program and Constantine has also been instrumental in Managing the program. He's a former fellow and we're going to hear from him About his experience and Jane Newton small Who's who writes for time and is starting her second book as a fellow here? Writing about Alzheimer's and Ted Johnson who was a recent White House fellow Well, not a previous pre a White House fellow and then a The speech writer for the joint for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs expert on cyber security Former military officer who is writing a book about African-American voting behavior So they will talk. I'll talk for a short bit. They will talk longer about their experiences of being a fellow what it meant What is how it's helped them with their work? You know, what was he have their experience of the application process? But let me just give you like a very quick 30,000 view 30,000 foot view New America was founded in 1999 It's a non-partisan think tank. It was founded largely by a bunch of journalists. So journalism is in our DNA and part of the theory of the fellows program is that we want to communicate big and interesting ideas in a way that a lot of people will find out about them because Obviously, that's more effective than few people finding out about them and we find that people who write in English is It's helpful if they can write in English. Well We've published probably 35 first first books of authors which Probably published about 70 books overall. We also are Supporting documentary filmmakers Photographers we are for the first time this year. We supported a novelist We don't ask you to give up your day job necessarily we And probably almost everybody I think this year who's got a fellowship is Doing other things at the same time But we also do support some people full-time if they decide to choose to leave their job to take up a fellowship This year We've had one of the books of the year from the New York Times Rosa Brooks writing about the kind of collapse between war and peace and now the boundaries between war and peace of Collapsed in the post 9-11 era We have had a couple of Pulitzer Prize finalists in the last three years an Ango Pals book about Afghanistan Fred camp and spoke about counter insurgency in the in the US military One of our recent picks Lauren redness Was subsequently awarded a MacArthur Award genius grant The the bad news for the purposes of applying is that last year we had 410 applications And we accepted 22 people so the acceptance rate is 5% and we turned away a number of very good projects and Constantine was part of that process the process is Fairly we read the all the applications that come in By design the process is not onerous, so we don't we expect you to put a huge amount of time into Writing the the application. It's 2,500 words at most so often that's That's not a heavy lift We narrow that down to 50 In the prep in the in the in that process we often have people at New America peer review If it will be myself and a weister and and Constantine who will take the first crack at it this year If we don't have an area of ex if it's outside our area of expertise We go to somebody who has an area of expertise at New America And then we whittle that down to 50 finalists we then have a group of ten people consisting of Former and present fellows we might Dragoon Ted and Jay into helping us with that They were so minded And also Amory slaughter and we then have a sort of scoring system That I think kind of excludes a lot of personal bias or favoritism so that it's as rigorous a process as possible and Last year we took 22 people this year. I imagine we will take something something similar So having given that sort of brief overview of the process and we turn it over to Constantine and then Jay and then Ted to talk about their experience of being the fellow and How it's helped or not helped them with their work? So I first came here six years ago, I guess which have gone by you know quite quickly as years tend to do I I came working on a project about Basically how the government funds scientific research looking at the fact that Even people who are researchers Funded by the government at NIH or you know at a university don't realize just how big a part this is of what the federal government does Because there's a lot of agencies that are sort of scattered around so basically 10 percent of what the government spends once you Take aside social security and other entitlements is scientific research It's not a sort of incidental thing that that the government does and you know that the fruits of that research then you know feed into the Economy in you know the many ways that we're familiar with of having the internet and Mobile phones and you know antibiotics and many other things So that was sort of my pitch to Steve call at the time And I wanted to sort of find a way not to just write a sort of like policy argument of how should this be done But a sort of a narrative journalism through line about how the sort of tension between an individual researcher and the bureaucracy many friends who are academics I studied physics in university and To a person they all say that their grant applications are basically lies Which is something that you know you won't get if you just like go out and interview some somebody who just like just published a paper in science But there because there's basically the a lot of the funding agencies say that they want sort of innovation and risk-taking But actually they don't they're quite conservative So people tend to write in their applications things that they already know are true and they use the applications to get the money And then they work on something else that they're actually interested in a strategy that I don't recommend to any of you in this application So I wrote about a couple researchers at NASA and sort of how they spent sort of 20 years of their lives chasing a dead end basically which was Something that I think I would have had a very hard time doing without the support of the institution But I was interested in sort of writing something that could reflect the actual sort of lived lives of scientists Which is if you pick up a sort of copy of the New York Times on Tuesdays when the science times comes out It's sort of breakthrough after breakthrough. This is true of sort of any magazine or newspaper about Science just because that's the bias that's built into the news like someone not discovering something is not news And yet it's misleading because most of scientist days are not like oh I made another breakthrough today like they come home after work most of their time is spent Not discovering things and I wanted to find a way to write about that and that's a hard pitch to make to a magazine editor or a book editor and I was sort of happy with how that turned out and I don't think I would have been able to do it without being here So I'm grateful to have been here It turned into an e-book, so it was a kindle single I guess which is a form that Yes, so I'm now working as partially as an outgrowth of that book on a history of gravity Of sort of human understanding of gravity Focusing on the 20th century So my name is Jay Newton small I am I just left Time magazine about two months ago, although I remain a contributor and indefinitely I kind of came to New America at a funky time and in my in my cycle And they've actually really ended up helping me with two books instead of one So I applied to be a fellow in 2015 for the 20 year for the 2016 year at the time I was just finishing my first book which was published last January Called broad influence how women are changing the way America works and that grew out of a time story I did about the women of the Senate coming together during the government shutdown to restart the negotiations to open the government when none Of the men would talk to each other And the book actually looks at critical mass So what happens when women reach somewhere between 20 and 30 percent in anybody whether it's a legislature like the Senate in that Particular session. It was 20 percent although they chaired 11 of the 20 committees Or you know a corporate board a Navy ship or an appellate court. There's turns out There's a huge body of research out there that shows that women really It's a tipping point when they reach critical mass And they really begin to change the culture of an inch of those institutions And so my book looks at all the places where they're Reaching this this tipping point and the differences that they're making and then it looks at all the places We're really far away from it and why we need to get there I was super naive. I think at like at what it would take to promote a book and and particularly You know, so I was like, oh the book will come out in January And I had already had in mind that I wanted to do a second book about caregiving particularly on Alzheimer's and the coming cliff of caregiving caregiving and Alzheimer's and dementia and And that was that what my pitch was about to come to New America was to write my second book So I thought, you know, I'll the my first book will publish in January I will you know promote it for a couple of months and then I will start my second And here we are almost a year later and I still have two dozen events in the next six months for my first book So I am really far behind on my second book Which my agent will tell you is very upsetting to him and they When New America was kind enough to renew me for a year, which is great So so now that I've finally left time and have time to focus on my second book and and a related startup That I'm working on in the memory space and Alzheimer's and dementia called memory. Well, you know I still have this wonderful net and this amazing group of people to To count as resources and so from not from my experience They were amazing and helping to promote my first book And so that was ended up being a marathon and I'm lucky. I'm really lucky it turned into a bestseller and it was You know, we're on our third reprint now for its for its hardcover and I interviewed a great interviews for it like Hillary Clinton and Kellyanne Conway and and a bunch of others and And so New America hosted events for me here in DC and an event in New York, which was amazing We had like hundreds of people come to both. It was awesome They were just and they were just really wonderful like as a group of Like resources or writers who'd been through similar experiences. So I don't know if anyone I mean ever like for me I'd never written a book before and I got to the point where I was like, okay publicist Tell me where to go and my publicist was like, well, no, you tell me what to do and I was like wait I have no idea and so My publicist, you know, so basically I went to all the New America fellows and said Where did you promote your book? And then and then I told my publicist you need to book me here here here and here and then that's what they did So it was it was a great resource that way And and it was also just great like, you know with advice on what to do and where to spend your time So, you know, I had a lot of great advice on where to place op-eds for my book and excerpts from my book and and and you know how to who'd approach to write about different things and Really great links, you know, like here's the the name and email of the the New York Times op-ed page guy Like you should email him and say I told him to to give you an email Stuff like that. It was just a really invaluable resource and amazing and I end up writing actually just recently recently like a couple weeks ago And not bed with Ann Marie about the election, which was awesome So yeah, it was just it's been an amazing experience and I can't recommend it highly enough and yeah And now we get to go into book two All right, so as as Peter mentioned, I am a Newly retired career naval officer who's writing about African-American voting behavior these two things don't necessarily go together quite well So I just started the fellowship in September of this past of also two a couple months ago I'm a brand new fellow a year ago. I was in your chair active duty military officer knowing that I wanted to do something other than the military in After my my career was over and so, you know black voting behavior. It's of interest to me for some obvious reasons others you know, I am Came to the Navy just out of out of high school out of college not really knowing what I wanted to do and I sort of searched and searched for a purpose and the Navy gave that to me But then in applying for the White House Fellowship I had sort of had to come up with something other something else intriguing about myself other than my resume because they're Impressive people applying for that program just like this one And so I started to dig into my family history and figure out the history behind my name and my full name is Theodore Roosevelt Johnson the third And so I you know, I wanted to talk to my parents like why am I named after a Republican president from over a century ago? and And so I started to dig a little bit and as it turns out my great-grandparents Were fans of Teddy Roosevelt primarily because he invited Booker T. Washington to the White House It's the first time ever a black man have been invited to the White House on a social visit to dine with the president And they were so inspired by this gesture that they decided to name their second son Theodore Roosevelt Johnson And so I am the third and as a White House fellow I got to meet the first black president of the United States You know something that my great-grandparents probably would have never envisioned But my father remained a Republican from that family history my mother is a Democrat And if you pay any attention to politics, you know that 90% of black people vote for the Democratic candidate in presidential elections But growing up in a house where there was a both both a black Republican Which is like the political unicorn that you never see and a Democrat I heard these conversations about the diversity of black voters and black of black America in general So I decided I'm going to investigate this I started to freelance right while I was still active duty just I would read something It would make me angry and I would write about it And I'd pitch it to a hundred places and 99 would tell me no But someone would say yes and eventually the byline started to accumulate and I realized I should probably get smarter on this stuff If I'm really gonna be an authority on it so I went and got a doctorate and Public policy studying Specifically how African-American votes do or do not turn into policy gains for the black community And so when I showed up here last year, I was beginning I was actually towards the end part of my dissertation data collection finishing a military career and sort of on this personal quest for Identity and wanting to answer the question or actually counter the argument that black people are a monolith when it comes to our voting And so I showed up to a new America with nothing but an idea and some freelance writing and here I am so it's you don't have to have the book proposal You don't even have to investigate something you've spent your life doing you can you can just have a question that nags you and Have somebody of work to show that you can you can actually Investigate it and make it intriguing and then do the application and go since then I was able to workshop the idea My application essentially with the fellows at a retreat. I wrote a prologue I workshopped it here in the in the building a couple of weeks ago, and they beat it up pretty good And now I'm rewriting I'm gonna hold I aspire to hold a a panel where I bring in Experts from the field to New America to talk about black America voting behavior post Obama in the Trump era and this is all good stuff for my book So I will leave the end of this first year without a book without a doubt I hope if I leave here with a proposal and an agent that's interested that's a victory for me And this could only be possible with the time and resources that New America is made available to a Navy officer Who wants to write about political science? Thank you very much. We're joined now by remesh retina sir who Has a busy day job as chief of staff at the State Department for the undersecretary for public policy He he was also fellow here. He's worked for Bloomberg. He's worked for business week He's written for pretty much every newspaper on the planet and for time Yeah, yeah, yes time. So how could I possibly forget that? So remesh tell us a little bit about your experience of being a fellow here and kind of what Anything you felt might be useful to communicate to people here. Yes My apologies for for running a little late I was a fellow in 2010 through 2011 and I Predominantly use the fellowship to Embark on a book project that remains unfinished I'm sad to say, but you know, it's out there And I'm sure there's other other people in the room who probably fall in the same fall in the same boat but the project was a book looking at a Sort of narrative history of August of 1945 the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki leading up to the Surrender on September 2nd On board the USS Missouri I also used the fellowship to Work as a foreign policy columnist for time I wrote a weekly column on foreign policy and was greatly Which was greatly informed by a lot of the conversations I had here at New America. I mean the the It was a somewhat informal Fellowship at the time we I think there about eight to ten folks who were here as Schwartz Fellows Some were sort of in residence, so they had office space and they were more or less Here every day others like me Basically used had we're able to use some office space at New America We weren't here every day. We weren't sort of in residence, but there were weekly Get-togethers with all the fellows there were the fellows lunches in which Folks would present their work their ongoing research And I think there was just a sort of it became a kind of Community of ideas and within you know the larger New America community And I'd have to say that the biggest thing I I derived from the fellowship is the relationship that I have had with New America since then so I Actually Basically left that fellows program And joined Bloomberg as a deputy editor of business week But I remained a future tense fellow essentially a non-resident fellow at New America While I worked a business week. I continued to participate in events in New York and in Washington and you know, I think just Maintained close relationships with a lot of the folks who are in my fellows class And I have to say that as an editor That was paid huge dividends because I employed some of those people like Charles Kenny who's sitting back there But it as also just as a As an individual as a journalist as somebody who's interested in ideas. I was able to basically expose myself to incredible group of people on a focus on a really wide range of Public policy issues and And I continued it to derive great benefits from that So I think that to me is really what the fellowship has meant I mean that that is the biggest thing that I've derived from the fellowship in addition to just the sort of general support for my writing and research Thank you So we'll open it to questions if you have questions just raise your hand and wait for the mic And we're gonna broadcast this later for other people who couldn't make it So just wait for the mic before you ask your question and if you can identify yourself and that would also be helpful Thank you Thank you. That's great. Thank you Joan Michelson Green Connections Media A couple of questions one is when we give you our 2,500 words or less Do you then at any time say well? We love this part of the idea, but can you flip it over and turn it purple? I mean do you tweak the idea? Do you give feedback in that way or do you just is it an all or nothing? I mean it is 410 applications. So it's hard to You know, I mean we're you know if you can ask us questions as you're you know, you'll have my email You have a week's email You know, we're very available to have a discussion about what you're doing But I think it would be you should submit what you want to do and you know Not not presumed that we're gonna ask you for a rewrite How much of your ability to market the book? Or the film or the documentary Codes into the decision to be chosen as a fellow not at all Thanks Richard Jordan from the Royal Academy of Science International Trust and from New York Are the total number of successful applicants equally divided between New York and Washington? because I've been to several events at the new New York space and And how does that work are there off-site? I just heard fellows On-site fellows. Could you be a little more specific on the breakup? Yeah, we don't have a residential requirement We have an office in New York. We have an office here. We have an office in San Francisco. We're opening in Chicago But you know our fellows have probably Many of them are in Brooklyn because of course a lot of talent is in Brooklyn But you know many are here in Washington and elsewhere, so there's no kind of We've moved away from a more residential model to a more whatever works for you model I'm Tara McKelvie. I work for the BBC. Can you tell us more about what you were saying about the process when you're here? You said talked about the meetings that you have it'd be really helpful to know about the support that you get while you're working in a book Yeah, so there I mean as far as mandatory meetings and requirements there are really none At the beginning of the year the fellows will get together and do a retreat so you can meet each other and sort of talk about your idea In front of new people and describe it, but then after that You know we present we talk about the progress we've made on our project throughout the course of the year over lunches So fellows will tune into that either online or by phone or in attendance But but that's almost it There is no weekly Friday meeting or no No requirement for you to be in the building a certain number of days So that flexibility allows the majority of us to pursue other things during the day But still leverage the network that is always available to you, you know, just an email or so away Additionally, you can request so like I mentioned I requested a workshop to workshop one of the chapters I had written and so and I think maybe seven or eight folks showed up not just fellows But also new America experts in political science, etc And then you also have the ability to convene panels to help develop your idea or people experts You want to talk to and you are able to leverage the cloud that new America has to bring those people in so so the mandatory piece It's like I said, it's almost non-existent, but it's always available to you to leverage for to make you know sort of further your idea and Plant I'm from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and I'm curious about what you say about resources Do does new America provide funding to bring people in experts in to talk about ideas? so Sometimes I think is the right answer. I think it depends mostly not You know if you want to fly in five people to come hold a panel here as a fellow that probably won't happen But they will give you the space. That's what your stipend is for You can use your stipend to bring those folks in the resources Really the value are the other fellows and the expertise at new America the space the brand and There was something else I was gonna say I've forgotten but but the resources are beyond just the monetary piece of it It's the it's the whole package I'm a part of my fellowship is with them the better life lab So I kind of split my time between the regular fellows and the better life lab Which is focused on caregiving. It's the former caregiving and bread winning sort of cone of new America And and they're a group of experts who are working on the various issues that I'm actually looking at particularly and and so my next book is actually about like I said the coming cliff of caregiving in terms of elder care and the sandwich generation and They're actually building a Sort of index of care for elders right now So I've been working with them on that and and and they've been an amazing resource for me Just with like ARP and other groups in town Who are also thinking about these issues Quickly take your question as a sort of opportunity to answer a sort of slightly broader Question which is the sort of relationship which Jay's remarks just provoke that in my head the sort of relationship between the fellows Program here and the policy programs we have in in specific areas New America as you can see is is a reason it's not a small place these days It is not a place however that covers all things that are important in public policy There are many things that are of vital importance to the nation and to the world Where we do not have an established policy program because we don't have aspirations to be comprehensive that is basically Neither here nor there but in an interesting way for the fellows in that if you have a project that's on an area in which New America does work. It's potentially a you know a beneficial synergy saying oh we do something here Somebody who's thinking about these same questions in a different way If you're working in an area which is important, but New America doesn't have an established program That's also a virtue in some ways of this is important. We should be doing more about this We don't have something already and here's a way to bring someone in the fellows program Historically has been I think you know Peter first came here as a fellow That's true of many of the program staff here as well Particularly in in areas where we don't have something already It's potentially a way and depending on what other outside commitments people maintain This isn't something that happens automatically But it's something that if you have an interest in developing a program that that's one conceivable outlet and then going to your question about narrowly about sort of funding of organizing forums The public the policy programs here as Jay mentioned mentioned the better life lab Part of their remit is to bring in people and organize things Just we have a large number of fellows and don't the fellows program itself doesn't generally do that But you can partner with programs that do you can take an initiative in in organizing things And we are you know located in DC where there's quite a lot of people who are local and in terms of organizing events for people Where there's not a travel overhead. There's not there's a sort of you can the skies the limit basically finding when this room is available And organizing things and yeah, and so that raises a point which is let's say you had a proposal that was in the education space It would be kind of strange not to reference relevant work that was done here It's not mandatory, but it would be strange if you didn't because it'd be like well, aren't you aware that? you know Kevin Kerry's views on You know the future of college are relevant to your work So it would it would behoove your application if you were at least aware of the work being done here If it had any bearing on what you're talking about just to say something like it would be great to you know Collaborate with x y or z which is not to say that there is a you know You should parrot what's being done here already You should just engage with it in some form and you know productive disagreement is the you know spice of life and this institution My name is Brian. I don't know if this is true of anyone else in the audience, but it's true of me There are a few ideas that are circulating my head some of them are lying some of them are non-complementary For someone who has different ideas passing through what in in some ways is your recommendation that you Give it your best shot with one idea that you've developed or and you know I would I would do you know in general I would do the idea you actually want to do and that you think is the best one Rather than produce five ideas that you might want to do because it's hard to sort of You won't be able to elaborate them very clearly and if there's five of them compared to just one idea I mean, you know, we we've had people come up with one big idea and say I am interested in this other thing that That we have accepted but typically it's like it's an idea that's developed That is coherent and isn't just a bunch of ideas that I seem to have at a particular moment Hi, hi, I'm Louise. I'm a producer with French television here in DC. I have two questions about the applications First question is would you say you should focus more on your the general idea of what you wanted to do or about? What you were planning to do with during the fellowship so more about the idea or more about your plans during the fellowship And the second question is what do you think made your application stand out? You know, I don't think those are either all questions. I mean you just decide the balance I mean obviously the idea needs operationalizing and you know, there's no kind of magic formula for that and I'll let Jay and Ted and My application was a little funky in that it was Yes, I do. I am writing a second book and the book is about caregiving It's about it's a memoir my father passed of Alzheimer's last year And I was his primary caregiver for the last five years of his life And he was he worked for 20 years in the UN and so he had all these amazing stories from Africa when he was my age And so kind of flips back and forth between my experience caregiving and his time when he was my age but I'm also working on this startup company that grew out of my experience caregiving for my father and And really my application I don't know if Peter if you remember this But it was sort of funky because it was it was about it was almost more about the startup than it was about the book I kind of was like yeah mentioning the book too, but like I and so the startup is about it's called memory. Well, and it's you know my Put my father into home a few years ago And they asked me to fill out a 20 page questionnaire about his life And I was like you're never gonna remember 20 pages of handwritten data points for the 150 residents that you have here Why don't you let me write down a story for you? I'm a journalist and so I wrote down a story and they loved it And they were completely transformed as care and they were like can you do this for everybody here? So me and a friend from the Wall Street Journal basically started a business on the side writing the live stories of those living with Alzheimer's and dementia Called memory. Well, and we have a website where we host the stories and family members can upload their loved ones favorite music and art and videos and Readings and it's really changing their care and so I wanted to work on issues Holistically around caregiving and I was really interested in and technology because I don't know anything about running a startup I don't know anything about really, you know about caregiving policy and about There's like just so many resources that New America had that I really wanted to to get hooked up to for memory Well and for my book And and it's not an area that I've written about extensively when I when I was it in the last ten years at time and so for me it's like this whole new universe of aging and of caregiving and but then also of startups and technology and Coding and like and so it's been a really great for me. It's just you know my idea my application of my idea my application was Really looking at that area and that space and and I and I and I saw I mean and I think perhaps I don't know I don't know what made them interested in having me on but I think I did cite a lot of people that I wanted to work With here and I did look really through New America and say wow this person's something I'd like to talk to you about this and this person someone I talked to you about that Because they had so many great resources Yeah, I think One the storytelling aspect is is a good method to use when you have to 400 applications the ones that stand out are the ones that sort of you find a character that you can attach to So that's what I did in mind the story I told about my name is what I put in my application But I balanced it with the academic rigor of from my doctoral work So I kind of said look I'm the only one with this story and I'm the only one with this data that you know I use for my dissertation so I can tell the story in a way that no one else can The other part of it is why New America because I could You know you could write the book anywhere, but what New America it prides itself on it's challenging well-established concepts, so You know the America thinks they understand how black people vote in my and you can see it in the way It was talked about during the election, and I wanted to challenge the the conception of that topic And so this is a place where I could do it And I wouldn't I don't have to worry about stepping on someone's toes or offending them because my research is contrary to theirs And so that that that gives you a freedom to explore things that in other places you may be more constrained So being able to sort of distinguish yourself to be the a person to tell the story in a particular way And then why you need to tell that New America and what makes them unique Well, I have no idea what my what stood out of my application to be honest, but I can't remember it I can't remember right it's so longer, but I I just remember that I actually was on the selection committee for the fellowship for the following year in 2011-2012 And we didn't get 400 applications back then. I think we had about 30 I don't know maybe I maybe I read 30 maybe we portion it up And all I would say is I Mean, you know, I treated it the way I did. I you know as a journalist as an editor I mean I that the applications that stood out were the ones that were well written that made me want to read more and That had an element of discovery to them, so You know I and and I think a handful of the ones that I liked were the ones that were granted fellowships, but I Think it's as simple as that really I mean my view, but you know I'm not on the committee anymore. I Guess you know honesty as well. I mean going to Jay's point about Jay was like oh I mentioned the people I wanted to work with that doesn't mean you should just like mention people that you like she actually Wanted to work with them and that you know that like not not and you know, they're being honest about your strengths and your limitations Useful We didn't talk I mean this should be self-evident, but just didn't come up in the sort of a public policy Relevance, you know there may be a very good memoir of you know a musician about you know How I can write music that may be a tremendous book, but you know isn't a project for here On the other hand not just a dry discussion of public policy, which does come in there has to be some sort of spark of originality for it to work within this program There was a question that was actually submitted online It's being live-streamed and someone was asking if they applied last year Is it okay for them to reapply this year and they have noticed that the majority of our current fellows and those that are on Stage have published books this person would prefer to do long-form series stories, and is that okay or not? Yes, and yes, and just to elaborate very good. I mean evidence of pro for someone who has applied in the past Evidence of progress in the past year is probably the single most important And just to underline the diversity one of my co-fellows from last year's in the crowd Andrew is writing a musical about policy So you don't have to write a book necessarily Andrew is writing a musical about surveillance Quick easy question. I think the answer has been given, but I just want to hear it explicitly if one's objective is to write a book Can the application? essentially be in the form of the book proposal including you know very brief paragraph long chapter outlines, but with some context of the Purpose of the book and where it would fit and need Both existing literature and policy debate is it a this does that make sense? I'm yeah, I mean 2500 words is not the classic book proposal and so I don't I think it can be a little bit more a little less reductive than that I mean, it's what's the big idea? Why am I the right person? I mean, what's the big idea and why am I the right person to do it? So two of the big questions that this proposal should answer David Gordon, I'm with an advocacy group called stop the drug war org my question is what? practically in practical terms does a part-time fellowship mean What range in number of hours, but more importantly? How are people's schedules? How do they tend to be structured and how does that fit into the environment here? So I've been a part-time fellow the whole time and and you know I was I was writing full-time for Time Magazine until two months ago. I was promoting a best-selling book I was covering a campaign which was kind of intense, but I was also a fellow at New America So did I make every fellow's lunch? I did not But I definitely made a fair amount of them and I mean there's no minimum and there's no there's no maximum You and it's as much or as little as you need or to take out of it. And so for me I got a lot out of it just from my cohorts and from other fellows and from past fellows asking their opinions asking their for their connections Asking them for their advice on how to do things that I was I was really struggling with And now that I'm full-time, you know writing my second book and working on my startup It's it's really an amazing, you know resource for me It's even broader resource than it was in the last year with the first book So I really it's it's as much as you make of it. I think yeah I work full-time at Deloitte and I also teach at Georgetown One time one night a week But I try to get to to work out of New America spaces at least once a week Even if I'm doing other work just to be just to sort of be here, but that's all all optional But the key is to always find time to work on the thing that you're doing at New America But that can be a couple of hours a day It doesn't have to be business hours. It doesn't have to be here on site. It's just you know, it's it's as you can make it I have two questions The first is just in terms of topics that you're interested in is the Trump election affecting kind of the scope are you looking for things really tied to the forthcoming presidency And then my second question is really simple, which is that is it possible to get health care through the fellowship? beyond the stipend Yes, and you know, yes, and maybe You know, I mean, obviously the Trump presidency is a subject of great interest and what happened and how it happened If there I mean that you won't be alone in trying to write a book about this if but But but there will be many good books about this. So Of course, that's of great interest on the question of health care. Yeah, we would sort of take that Case by case. I mean if you made a good case, we'd say okay You know, we don't automatically offer it because it's we have quite generous benefits, but But certainly that's something we would talk about with you I'm Catherine Lewis and my question is also about the application and the proposal itself it sounds like you're saying make it stand out make it well written and I'd love if you could address sort of the balance between I don't want to take your exact question, but between writing a piece of You know giving a piece of writing that is just compelling in and of itself and also making the case for the broader project So if you're sort of weighing the trade-off in just to 2,500 words of Really grabbing the reader and pulling them in and explaining why it's important. Where would you draw that line? There's really no good answer. I mean I'm gonna turn to our panelists because they went through the process and you know Ramesh was writing about a very specific time in a very you know and a book of a book of history and We decided that that was sufficiently interesting and that he was the right person to tell the story. So Yeah, I don't there's really no formula Unfortunately, I mean, I don't know that dichotomy that you set up actually exists, right? Like there's a trade-off between I mean there are trade-offs that are real in the world And there are trade-offs that are notional like it should be a well-written thing that makes you want to read more That's like that's what it should be Yeah, and I think in my application. I've used the word book maybe two or three times So I didn't really talk about I said I want to write a book and here's the idea And so I didn't describe what kind of book or the audience for the book or or anything about the method of communicating the idea Mostly about the idea Yeah, mine as well. It was very personal my experience with my father You know, it was very much expressing appalled like how isolating a lot of these homes are and how totally unprepared America is for the baby boomer generation to age out and Just wanting to be the person to ask questions and say why are people not more alarmed at this and that's about it Hi, Susanna Cunningham So I have a question. I understand that New America has a California division with the fellowships I guess I'd want to understand your relationship with that program and the distinction between The one based here and the one in California. Yeah, well, it's a good question I mean the one in California is based in California. So it's really targeted people who are in California and issues that are relevant to California and it's sort of a slightly different Conception it's more recruiting people who are sort of civic entrepreneurs who may be You know at doing some kind of public policy project and so it's a different It's a slightly different animal. I mean we you know and the process is different And this this is a national fellowship. That's a California's fellowship. So It's really something that's you know related but different What attitude you take to joint applications? We've had some in the past and you know, we haven't and it's been it's we I think that we've accepted them But we there has to be some sort of mechanics about the agreement about where the money is going to go I mean, then I think that should be pretty transparent of the if you're talking about applying with a fellow author a fellow author or some fellow researcher I think you maybe would be at you be explicit that you've agreed to whatever you've agreed to So that we you know, we understand what that agreement is Hi, Kate Lavender. I'm a national security reporter with the startup called the Cypher brief. Thank you all for doing this I'm wondering if any of you during your course here working on the fellowship Changed your idea either slightly or drastically and what how do you progress if that happens? Ted? I think we need to start with you Yeah, so mine mine did change. I came in thinking I was gonna do this great descriptive book about black voting behavior Over time temporarily and it be that's just too much to bite off So what I ended up doing with the help of other fellows and the workshops and the various resources was narrowing the idea to look Specifically at the black middle class specifically politics specifically post Obama So absolutely the idea changes, but the core of the idea is has not changed. It still remains the same The focus is the same. It's just the angle of attack has has changed a little bit But Ted just expand for a second because I mean you all what is the thesis of the book as it stands right now? so I mean, I'm trying to figure it out. No, no So what I think it is that the current instantiation of my thesis right is is that the the empowerment that black Americans Felt during the Obama elections is now gone with his sort of the descriptive Representation having a black and white house that that no longer exists But the surrendering of that power is not going to go quietly And so you see things like black lives matter and other ways of putting pressure on the system so my thesis is that the way black middle-class black America tries to address the they're the policy desires of black America being ignored by the political apparatus the means they choose will be the means By which America either acknowledges or denies Those policy demands not the not the not how black lives matter chooses to protest I don't you know, I think it will be the means that black the way the black middle-class chooses to express themselves that whether That acceptance happens or not will tell us about the future of black America's relationship with the nation and 200 words or less Andrea Peterson with the Washington Post So I'm curious about whether or not we should lay out our hopes for funding and our proposals because I know there's a Difference between full-time and part-time in funding. Is that something we should state up front in our proposals? Or is that something that will be negotiated later? Yeah, I wouldn't get hung up on that Because we can help you later Good evening. My name is Laura Taylor O'Callay and As a policymaker and sort of practitioner who's not a journalist who does not have a large body of written work to in you know discuss inform and You know reflect your ideas. I'm very curious. What advice you would have about the application of process I noted that you you know said that you it's You know You had some articles that you'd written and sort of that sort of let's her like it was like a little you know Chrome trail of you know, what you could possibly Provide and wait how you could be of a fellow But if you don't really have a large body of written work, how do you approach the application process? And do you have people that have been in that? Ted you were in that position. I was I mean I did have like a number of op-eds and Atlantic essays and Magazine things so but I have nothing that shows I am capable of writing a book You know just something that I'm capable of writing out ideas in a way. That's interesting And so I think you know, I don't think it has to even be published work You know what in fact one of the things I submitted was a fictional article or a fictional a It basically a fictional short story of like two thousand words that went into an academic journal, you know, so but it was related to Racial justice essentially so but I think the writing samples are just to show that you can write if you're gonna say I'm gonna write a book or a magazine article It's just to show that you you actually can produce the thing even if the things you've produced Look unlike what you're pitching Yeah, I mean it's difficult to get say you know an op-ed placed in a major newspaper, right and yet They're badly written op-eds in major newspapers, you know every day, so you know reading the applications. It's not that We would ever be hung up on you know what the brand name attached to the clip is Ted mentioned the writing samples can be published or unpublished and the people reading them You know have confidence in their own judgment and you know aren't gonna be oh, this was published on more prominent but it's not so I Think there are very few people who can write well once and not again So it's sort of regardless of sort of how you know because part of the whole idea of this fellowship is to indeed Bring people into you know writing an analysis who may have been practitioners who don't have a lot of clips But if that if that statement is persuasive, then that's that's enough basically Thanks for sharing your stories So my question goes back to sort of the evolution of not so much the idea But I assume there's flexibility about the end product itself. What if you write about? A book and then it's sort of morphs into something else like a podcast or a doc you film etc Yeah, we're we're open to all sorts of ways of speech a series of articles a book documentary we have a graphic artist who's Just was named a fellow so you know we There are lots of ways to communicate and we act we understand that and most people's projects Change as they develop now. I mean here as anywhere else in the world So there's not a you know a contractual idea of oh you said you would do X and I doing Y Yeah, and so I think so for an example. Let's say I said, you know what I don't want to do a book I want to do like a cover article for the Atlantic would the would there be yeah, I mean that would be great. Yeah You seem I Have a feeling you're gonna say we're open to everything because that's what you keep saying But just to clarify for people who work internationally I am currently working with a Peace Corps in Guinea and we'll be for the next to you for the next year and a half Are those people also eligible? Yeah, one of our fellows is based in Beirut Thank you. Yeah, Rania. I was a who's writing a I mean it is worth Maybe just saying The farther away you are the better reason there has to be for being for being where you are I mean part of what we want to do here is indeed create this community Which is difficult to do if you're in Conakry, but you know, that's surmountable. Yeah, and Rania's writing about the Syrian civil war So being Beirut makes sense I'm Alicia Shepherd I'm interested in whether or not you would are open to Documenting things that have happened like you said you wrote about a very specific period of World War two And I'm not sure how that affects public policy and Yeah, what was the argument? What was the argument you made at the time? We should have done it differently That's that's a good question. I mean, you know, I I'm a believer that that their lessons be drawn from history and and that that have real impact on on Current policy challenges and I mean I have to think back to my actual essay, but I You know, I mean if you if you think about the the last three weeks of World War two, I mean there's a huge number of Issues that were adjudicated during that time that had a great bearing on the evolution of the post-war World and then we continue grapple with today. I mean most notably nuclear weapons So and I mean the idea that I you know was interested in exploring and still am and I think You know was sort of the nub of Why that the book? Appeal to me is to explore How wars end and how enemies become friends I mean and that to me especially sort of the tail end of the Iraq war was a question that I Wanted to explore and so I felt that the historical Prism was a way to get at that Current issue and I you know, I mean, I think that's true of most good histories But that that's a very specific case There are many examples of people who have documented things I'm not sure is this well in terms of Daniel Kurtz fail in his writing a book about George Marshall's time in China and We've had Other sort of I mean typically we don't do a huge amount of history, but we do some if it seems like a Yeah, there's a current fellow. I can't recall his name at the moment who's doing a history of the economy Well, that's a little more policy related. I mean, but it's a it's a yeah I mean, it's it's sort of the things you can draw from from documenting Kim shank is his name He writes very well Hey My name is Mila Jokar. I'm a visiting lecturer at the Normandy Business School in France and contributor to the Hopperton Post. I Have a question related to international professionals. Do you have fellowships open for non-American citizens? We do I mean so Rania is a joint is an Australian Lebanese citizen And we had to get a visa for her which costs money and takes time and there's a hassle So bit for the right person will do it, but it's not something we're just you know falling over ourselves to do because it is You know cost money and takes time But I mean just to elaborate that it's not that we consider Citizenship when reading the applications, right? If the application is right, then we'll cross that bridge Hello, I'm Gabriele Barbati. I'm a foreign correspondent with LNTV Following up on this the last question could a fellow write in a language other than English to a special in a book or long-form work I think that's very tough for us. I mean I do I would have to be that have be such a good rationale for that Because at the end of the day, this is the new America Foundation. It's not like the new France Foundation I mean, we don't want to be parochial Yet at the same time it's hard for us to judge on the merits and a commerce in a language that we're not Conversing with and it it would have that have to be a really good argument of why that was necessary Hi, Sam Skolnick currently with Bloomberg BNA long-time journalist wrote my first book 2011 a beacon press published it the reason I mentioned that is that ever since that book came out I've been thinking about my second book But really because I've been working full-time jobs Haven't had the time to pursue and I had that was fortunate enough to get a night Wallace Fellowship at Michigan Which really helped me finish the first chapter of my book as well as the proposal So this leads to a two-fold question. I have a full-time job now as I'd mentioned I'm wondering has that ever proven to be logistically tough either for the fellow or For the employer in other words have you awarded a fellowship that has the employer balked at giving That fellow any time and then secondarily and one of the fellows might have mentioned I didn't get her name I'm sorry. I showed up late, but I'm wondering if the initial part-time fellowship works out. Well Could that morph into a full-time fellowship to finish up the book? And finish continue on with that process if all parties were in agreement that that was a good thing to do You know the answer to the first questions maybe and the answer to the other questions is you know We've had everybody everybody in this current fellowship has other jobs Sometimes we have We've had people leave their jobs entirely for a year and we've supported them of course That's an opportunity cost for us because we've got to pay more and pay benefits So, you know, there has to be a good reason for us to think that that's a good idea And then finally, you know lots I mean is part of the question like is it hard to write a book if you have a full-time job It can be done. Believe me. I Blake Phillips Board member at the Fulbright Association national chapter. So my question is if Is it possible to not have the project be explicitly about a book but more about a particular? Civil society project one which is focused on political discourse Which would have an effect on public policy and debates So it's so it's more of a project than a book and then book idea. I would describe it in more detail So I guess the idea would be so I currently work. So BC for the Fulbright Association We create social networks of current and existing Fulbrighters in both the United States and abroad and basically focusing on trying to increase the amount of discourse and Basically just kind of creating networks and creating political discourse like the opportunity to talk about Different discussion series or academic discussion series and so it's more creating those networks So it'd be a more of a project on that standpoint. I'm still trying to figure it out But I guess the idea is is it more is it okay to have more of a project versus a book? Or if it's really designed ideally to be around some sort of academic book Yeah, I'm sort of Trying to think if we we've had people apply who had sort of a project in mind that was similar to what you're saying And we thought it was interesting in the end. We didn't give them the money not because because there were other projects I mean as I tried to we've as we try to make clear there can be lots of outcomes for your work And if you can make the case that this is the best kind of outcome to communicate whatever the big idea is You know that that might be an effective argument You know rather than the documentary or a book or a series of articles or a multimedia project that this That what you're actually trying to support is this And if you made the argument in a compelling way, you know, I think we'd be interested in going back to Andrew Andrew's doing a musical about the NSA and you know, that seems on the face of a map see absurd idea You know, we thought it was actually a very good idea and he was the person to do it So that was a helpful question that I will sort of trail as well In you say here that that you support books films or other projects of similar scope So a musical perhaps might fit in with a similar scope of those the like other two categories So if the project is a group An initiative something that lot lasts far beyond maybe has a sort of extended longevity Does that fit in with what you say is something of a similar scope? I mean the same answer. I just gave You're asking the same question. I'm answering the same way that you know What do you have to present it in a way that makes it a compelling argument? We're not we're not precluding it I'd noticed that your materials mentioned that you don't already have to have a Conqueror with a publisher in order to apply fellowship I'm curious about does that negatively Does it wake your decision? Also, does the foundation help authors connect to publishers? I would imagine if you say your fellow that helps in deal, but To connect you to agents or publishers Yeah, really the sequences connect you to an agent because then they can get you a publisher And that is part of our job and we don't as you know Ted came without a book contract I don't have a book contract my second book, right? So, you know, it's certainly not It's exactly as we state we don't it's you don't have to have one you don't have to be writing a book I think a friend of ours who's a Publisher to major published editor of inch publishing house described to me She's she described new America as the best incubator for serious nonfiction in America and I think what she meant was that it's There just a lot of people here who whose products are that have not been discovered necessarily by By you know a large publisher but who? By virtue of being here and interacting with others here develop ideas that are Incredibly compelling and marketable And so I would say that you know once you get in the door You'll have a lot of people Who you'll find are interested in the work you're doing Any other questions? This case Alicia Yeah, is anyone up there open to running having someone run an idea by them or Do you just have to give it your best shot? No, please? I mean that's part of our job it so please run it by a weester or myself or Constantine Yeah, right so with that I want to thank Ramesh And Ted and Jay and Constantine all of whom have busy day jobs and volunteered to do this Thank everybody for coming and good luck with the application if you choose to do it You