Castro Valley Library

There are many ways to get to know your favorite authors, from interviews in magazines and on television to personal web sites and author events at book stores. Now the blogging platform Medium is offering author interviews that they hope will be unique.

In Medium’s new digital series “Foreword” author Kelly Corrigan (The Middle Place, Lift, and Glitter & Glue) conducts interviews with authors that typically focus on everything but their books and the craft of writing. In a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Corrigan said Foreword “is like if Comedy Central was crossed with TED talks—and they served drinks.” She adds that she doesn’t want this show to simply be another stop in the author’s book tour.

In the first “webisode” B. J. Novak, writer for the “The Office” and author of One More thing: Stories and Other Stories and the children’s book The Book With No Pictures, deeply explores the connection between humor and the dark side. Touching only briefly on his own books, the show allows viewers get to know Novak through his philosophy on comedy. The resulting interview is thoughtful, poignant, and, of course, funny.

Corrigan is an insightful and playful interviewer, which lends a lively tone to the show. New episodes will appear weekly through March. Upcoming guests include Mary Roach, John Cleese, and Margaret Atwood.

As another year passes, let’s take a moment to remember some of the amazing authors who died in 2014.

Norman Bridwell (February 15, 1928 – December 12, 2014)

The American author and cartoonist best known for the Clifford the Big Read Dog children’s series.

P.D. James (August 3, 1920 – November 27, 2014)

The British crime writer who rose to fame for her series of detective novels starring police commander and poet Adam Dalgliesh.

Nadine Gordimer (November 20, 1923 – July 13, 2014)

The South African writer, political activist, and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Walter Dean Myers (August 12, 1937 – July 1, 2014)

An award-winning American writer of books for children and teens including Fallen Angels and Sunrise Over Fallujah.

Maya Angelou (April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014)

An award-winning American author of autobiographies,essays, poetry, and plays, perhaps best known for her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (March 6, 1927 – April 17, 2014)

The Colombian novelist, journalist, and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature best known for his books Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude.