The Moment

Two Authors, Two Assignments, Two Fates in the Balance

Novelists Bob Dugoni and Kate White have something in common.

It’s call grade school.

Okay, well, nearly everyone has that in common, but you’ve likely never experienced what these two New York Times bestselling authors did when they were youngsters.

For them, thinking they’d screwed up badly turned into a life-changing experience.

Dugoni was in seventh grade.

White was in second.

Both were given class writing assignments. Dugoni on slavery. White on––well, let’s just says she didn’t follow her teacher’s instructions.

Dugoni choose to write about the point of view of an abolitionist. He read his piece before his classmates about how demoralizing and abhorrent slavery was. When he finished, no one clapped. They all just stared at him, and so did his teacher, Sister Kathleen.

In second grade, White’s teacher was returning their completed writing assignments. “I was the only who didn’t get mine back,” Kate says.

Dugoni was anxious. Was his really that bad? Standing alone before them, he felt embarrassed. Then Sister Kathleen pulled him from the classroom with no explanation. Now he was really in trouble. She told him to stand right there, outside his classroom in the hallway. She entered the classroom next door as he stood alone wondering what had gone wrong.

Says Kate: “I thought I was in trouble because I’d written a story about my grandfather, not the assignment.”

Dugoni’s teacher told young Bobby, she wanted him to give his speech to the other seventh grade class.

Kate was scared. “Then the teacher called me up front and made me read it to the entire class. She then hung it up on purple construction paper on the wall for everyone to see.”

“I loved the moment,” Dugoni says. “I realized I could move people with words. That is the moment I decided I wanted to be a writer.”

I’m Rick Pullen, former investigative reporter, magazine editor, and author of the best selling thriller Naked Ambition, its sequel Naked Truth, and a stand-alone thriller The Apprentice. I’m also a magazine columnist and feature writer. Currently, I’m working on my next crime novel and a non-fiction book about many of the authors who appear in Idol Talk.

Literary Agent Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management represents my work.

Thanks for reading Idol Talk! Subscribe for free or support my work with a paid subscription. — Rick Pullen