Gentle Reminder

Tonight is Garrison Keillor’s last performance on the Prairie Home Companion (6pm East, NPR. In NYC, WNYC 820).

I finally finished my new book after collecting the best moments from my favorite people in the world and it created a lot of best moments for myself, working with and befriending people who I consider my heroes and who inspire me now and while growing up, artists and great thinkers like Adam Ant, Joe Frank, Roz Chast, Marc Maron, Michael Palin, Deepak Chopra, Terry Gross and the list goes on and on. I enjoyed spending time with them all.

But the highlight of the book has been having Garrison Keillor work on the book with me. And nobody contributed more. He was generous with his time and craft. Watching him perform up close was very special, too, and put his genius in perspective. Writing the whole show, memorizing a new monologue without notes and without slip-ups and I saw how much was ad-libbed–here is a very strong writer and a true humorist. I hope my book captures some of the spirit of his shows–a love for story telling filled with humor and tears as well.

It’s sad to see him go but Mr. Keillor is leaving an unimaginably large body of work behind for us to revisit and enjoy. And his influence can be seen throughout public radio and beyond. Here's Scot Simon's good-bye to Garrison: http://www.wnyc.org/story/a-fond-farewell-to-garrison-keillors-prairie-home