by Jane Pauley
First published 2004
Jane Pauley sits down one Saturday morning with an unformed feeling weighing on her heart. Despite her success as a broadcast journalist, something feels missing as she approaches midlife. She begins writing to herself, searching for answers she cannot yet articulate. This process becomes what she calls "skywriting," a personal journey of discovery that takes her from her Indiana childhood through three decades in television. Pauley traces her path from a local Indianapolis station to NBC's Today show at twenty-five, then to Dateline. She examines the ups and downs of her career with honesty, but the book reaches beyond her famous television face. Growing up in the American heartland shaped her understanding of family resilience. Now she faces the challenge of redefining her strengths and discovering new parts of herself. The memoir explores how truth accumulates in small pieces until recognition arrives. Pauley finds that self-reinvention brings both difficulty and rewards as she navigates this turning point in her life.
Genres: autobiography, contemporary, memoir, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, self-discovery
Setting: Indiana
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
288 pages · Hardcover · Random House