Deggans to introduce Jane Velez-Mitchell and Amber Tamblyn at Times Festival of Reading

It may be the oddest double-team of introductions I've tackled in all my years appearing at the Times Festival of Reading.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, I'll introduce Jane Velez-Mitchell, the brassy CNN Headline News host who just wrote a confessional memoir, i Want, detailing her struggles with alcoholism, breast cancer and coming out as a lesbian at age 51.

With Nancy Grace and new addition Joy Behar, Velez-Mitchell forms a trio of strong female hosts who are boosting rating at Headline News, where she landed a show after uber-conservative Glenn Beck took off for Fox News Channel.

But I'm still wondering how the high-flying host of a cable newschannel opinion show and the author of a hot memoir lives up to the subtitle of her book: "My journey from addiction and overconsumption to a simpler, honest life." Because, from the outside, her life looks anything but simple.

Four hours later, I'll be introducing audiences to Amber Tamblyn, the former star of CBS' Joan of Arcadia and ABC's The Unusuals, who has a book of poems, Bang Ditto, about life from the perspective of an actress in the public eye since her tween years.

Not sure if people who don't know show business and television will really get poems with titles like "Role Research" and "Dear Demographic," but I'm eager to see her interpret these works in person (I also want to tell her that The Unusuals had to be the best TV show unjustly canceled last season; just kept getting better as viewership kept going down).

Both ladies will be speaking at the USF Campus Activities Center in St. Petersburg; the big stage for the reading festival. If you love literature and literacy, there is no cooler place to spend a day; surrounded by folks who are more familiar with Capote and Updike than Balloon Boy and Jon Gosselin.

Others authors giving free lectures include former Sen. Bob Graham, historian Taylor Branch, funnyman Andy Borowitz, historian Ray Arsenault, the team from our Pulitzer Prize-winning Web site PolitiFact and Times writers such as Jeff Klinkenberg, Craig Pittman and Matt Waite.

It all takes place at the University of South Florida campus in St. Petersburg with the earliest lectures set for 10 a.m. Book signings and other activities are planned for the festival, which lasts until 5 p.m.

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Comments

[The Ultimate Authority]

Lin Young,

I agree, it IS a different world out there when it comes to employment, and I (unlike that Bulletinizer character) do not take these types of blog posts from Eric as "ego inflaters".

Nice quick "humanization of Eric" post by you -- more often than not, we see people losing their manners when posting comments, and they fail to respect the blogger.

[RagsTTiger]

Small-medium market? The Tampa is the 14th LARGEST market in the United States.

[Ricardo]

The fact is that he does have a highly inflated ego...someone needs to tell him that media critic in a small-medium market is not that big of a deal.

[Lin Young]

Bulletinizer:Yo, Eric IS the Times' Media columnist and he is part of the media, meaning it's his job to cover the media and he figures if we are reading his blog that we are obviously interested in what's happening in and with the media. Plus, people who blow their own horn tend to get promotions and keep their jobs. For example, women were historically taught to be modestly self-effacing and started getting better jobs and more promotions as they started becoming more assertive. I remember all the assertiveness self-help classes, workshops and books that sprang up in the '70s, helping women learn how to toot their own horns.

We are in a recession, and newspapers are laying off. They aren't laying off the newbie writers in their 20s who are dirt cheap to cover with health insurance and who don't earn much. They are laying off people over 50 and when they clean those out and still need to shave costs, they will dip down into the people over 40 who have trouble finding jobs to begin with because they are considered middle-aged (whatever the heck that is).

So, even if Eric - as a member of the media and a media critic - didn't have a reason to inform readers about what he was doing as a member of the media, he's got reasons to toot his own horn and it's what successful men (and now women) have always done. If you enjoy his writing, then you had better be hoping that he can toot his way into not being laid off the next time the Times decides to thin out its newsroom staff.

It's a cold cruel world out there. Let's try a little more compassion, we don't have to act like those Wall Street characters. I know Eric, he's my neighbor and friend. I know his wife, his kids, his dog. Trust me, Eric doesn't have a huge ego, he's a good dad and decent man.

[John McNeilly]

Ray Arsenault rocks! Highly recommend seeing him. USF is lucky to have such an accomplished, brilliant historian!

[Crazy Teabagger]

Attention everyone, stop what you are doing for this important breaking news! Internet Troll Bulletinizer has announced that he is breaking his one week vow of silence!
Repeat: Bulletinizer has decided to post again - about the self-imposed silence that he is breaking - to talk about the ego of people who talk about themselves.

[RagsTTiger]

Amber's biggest jump start was on TV's General Hospital as Emily Bowen Quartermanine. She played the role for six years, 1995-2001

[Bulletinizer]

Yes, I'm breaking my self-imposed week long silence to protest on-line registration, because this must be said.

Deggans to introduce Jane Velez-Mitchell, Deggans on Reliable Sources, Deggans talks balloon boy with NPR... blah, blah, blah, me, me, me.

Eric, freebies that inflate one's bloated ego won't feed the kids this Thanksgiving and it sure doesn't hold any interest for blog readers.

Nobody is tracking your every generous move. Here's a simple rule; less is more... try it sometime.