Straight From the Author’s Mouth

Chances are good that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. will never call to chat you up about his new book. But feel free to phone him any time--heck, call him at 3 a.m. if you like.

That’s because Vonnegut is one of the authors on BookTalk, a 24-hour automated phone service where writers expound upon their latest work. It’s the brainchild of Sherman Oaks-based computer programmer and passionate reader David Knight.

About four years ago Knight went to a book signing in hopes of speaking to the author, but found himself crammed together with others who had the same idea. “I got to thinking,” he recalls, “that I had to write a program that would offer some interaction with authors and their books.”

Knight’s first venture was a call-in line featuring authors who had written solely about health, diet and fitness. Good feedback encouraged him to expand the subject matter to fiction, nonfiction and children’s books, and BookTalk was born. Publishers, who pay a fee to Knight, list BookTalk’s phone number in newspaper and magazine ads.

Callers can dial a four-digit code to access a specific author, or browse through a sampling of some 400 authors on the main directory. Vonnegut, George Plimpton, Amy Tan, James Ellroy and others give a quick synopsis and sometimes the inspiration for their book, their spiel filled with the “ums” and “ahs” of casual conversation.

While writers may be wonderful storytellers on the page, not all are accomplished raconteurs. “Sometimes it takes a lot of coaching,” says Knight of the taping sessions. “I’ve had authors who are pretty much horrible.”

Knight was thrilled to find that some callers were hanging on for hours. “I wondered what was going on, so I’d patch into the lines and just hear people snoring. They were calling just before they went to bed.”

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To reach BookTalk, call: (818) 788-9722 or (310) 273-1134.