Three Cities in Four Days: Katie’s Wild Weekend

Last weekend, I had the nuttiest travel schedule I’ve had in a very long time! You probably saw me posting about it on Instagram, so I figured I’d let you know what I was up to.

I started in Atlanta where my Dad’s alma mater, Mercer University, was hosting an authors’ lunch. In addition to featuring my memoir, Going There, there were plenty of other authors, many of them published by Mercer University Press. University imprints play such an important role in the publishing industry: As Margaret Renkl recently wrote in The New York Times, “Many important manuscripts would not see the light of day if they were measured against expectations for nationwide sales. University presses take up titles that the Big Five, as the publishing conglomerates are called collectively, often won’t touch — not just works of scholarship but also small market books for general readers: Poetry, short stories and essays; memoirs and biographies; field guides and natural history; art and photography; local and regional history, among many others.”

It was wonderful to meet the authors there, including John Pruitt, who was a local anchor for many years (I remember him well from when I lived in Atlanta in the ’80s) has now written his first novel, called Tell It True, about a racially motivated murder in rural Georgia at the height of the Civil Rights movement.

What made this event particularly meaningful for me was my Dad’s connection to the University. He was editor in chief of The Cluster, the campus newspaper, and that experience started him on his journalism career. I was proud to wear a bracelet he gave me that had charms representing his college extracurricular: a pin for The Cluster, for his fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, and his blue key, among others. I was really glad John came with me — he never got to meet my father, but as he said afterwards, “I really feel like I know your Dad better now.” Thank you to all my friends at Mercer (including Bobby McDuffie, violinist extraordinaire) for inviting me.

Then it was off to a surprisingly chilly Phoenix, Arizona! Have you all ever heard of the Lions of Judah? It’s an international organization of philanthropic Jewish women who do incredible work in their respective communities. I was invited to be a keynote speaker at the International Lion of Judah conference, celebrating their 50th anniversary. (Past speakers include Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Madeleine Albright, so I was in pretty good company!) 1200 women came together in Phoenix and raised $24 million, which will go to a variety of causes, from relief work in Ukraine to after school programs to delivering meals to isolated elderly residents. At the conference, I was interviewed by my good friend Dana Keller — we worked together in local news in Washington, D.C. back in our twenties. (Dana’s board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, but on Sunday night, she became an interviewer!) After our conversation, Dana pinned me as the newest Lion of Judah, and I’m so proud to be a part of this incredible organization.

The next day I was off to Washington, DC. Along with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, I was in the Rayburn building, not as a reporter, but as a speaker — to announce the introduction of the Find It Early Act. This important legislation would require insurance companies to cover additional screening for women with dense breasts — which accounts for nearly half of women 40 and over. Dense breasts not only increase your risk of breast cancer, but also make it harder for radiologists to diagnose, because an abnormality sometimes blends into the image of the tissues. (My radiologist describes it as trying to find a snowball in a field of snow.) Too many women: A. Aren’t aware they have dense breasts and B. Don’t know what to do with that information. This legislation would require all insurers to cover breast ultrasounds or MRIs when a woman has dense breasts — with no copay. I hope it passes. I’ll let you know how to pester your representative when the time comes!