PCN-TV Interview about "The Complete Gettysburg Guide"

Yesterday (Wednesday) I traveled to our capitol, Harrisburg Pa, to the studios of PCN-TV to tape an hour-long interview for the channel's "PA Books." I was a bit nervous going into it, since it was my first on-camera interview, but host Brian Lockman (left) made me feel very much at ease and was very easy to talk to. It was a great time! It was a very conversational interview, which made it fun. Brian told me that he really enjoyed The Complete Gettysburg Guide, and knew it very well. His questions about it, however, were very well done - instead of simply asking me about this or that in the book, he asked more general questions about Gettysburg, which allowed me to connect the topics with the book however I wished. I thought that was a really terrific way to do it. Instead of just a fact-by-fact accounting of what is in the book, we were able to have more of a conversation about its contents, the tours, the battlefield and town, and the battle's impact on history and its participants.

The taping that we did will be edited to one hour. For a little behind-the-scenes, one thing you probably won't see (hopefully!) is when I deftly dumped nearly the entire contents of my coffee mug into my lap during the interview! Brian needed to take a break at one point for a drink, and I decided to do the same - accidentally spilling the water on my pants. We had a good laugh over it, and I thought that maybe they should just leave it in the final airing - folks who know me well would just figure "that's J.D." :)

The interview is scheduled to air on October 25 at 9:00 pm. Here is a link to the PA Books section of PCN-TV's website (scroll down through the window on the left side of the page to see the section for the book). Over 3,000,000 households in Pennsylvania receive PCN, and it will also be available as a podcast on their website so anyone can see it. I'll provide more information when I have it.