Books
Hard to Get: Fast Talk and Rude Questions Along the Interview Trail
In her 1990 memoir, "Hard to Get: Fast Talk and Rude Questions Along the Interview Trail" print and television journalist, Nancy Collins -- Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Architectural Digest, ABC'S Primetime Live -- recounts her journalism career up until 1990...how she made her way from Hamilton Montana, population of 2000, to New York City, pursuing her determined dream of working in the journalistic big leagues. With candor, humor, the ever-relatable Collins boldly spins her tale of hirings, firings, successes, failures, waves of bravery -- and not so much. Collins arrived in Manhattan, one of twenty winners in the prestigious Mademoiselle Magazine Guest Editor Contest, landing her first reporting job at Women's Wear Daily. Four years later, moving to Washington, D.C. she wrote for the Style section of The Washington Post. Interested in TV, she moved to Los Angeles, brought on as a contributing correspondent for The Today Show. It was also there that she began her successful freelance writing career, ultimately leading to famous cover stories in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Architectural Digest, New York, Harper's Bazaar, The Hollywood Reporter, and People, among others. .
The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots
In 'The Archbishop Wore Wore Combat Books: From Combat to Camelot to Katrina," Nancy Collins and Peter Finney, Jr. tell the riveting life story of Philip Hannan, the popular Archbishop of New Orleans from 1965-88. He lived a singularly fascinating life for 98 years fueled by purpose and prayer, adventure and risk-taking. During World War II, Hannan, the son of Irish immigrants (though in his thirties), enlisted as a chaplain in the 82nd Airborne, seeing action in the Battle of the Bulge.In 1952, the young Catholic Senator John F. Kennedy, asked Hannan to be his sub rosa advisor on religious matters, a relationship that continued until Kennedy's death in 1963; whereupon Jackie Kennedy insisted that then-Bishop Hannan give the eulogy at The President's funeral in St Matthews Cathedral. Subsequently, he was graveside at her funeral as well as that of Bobby Kennedy's. In New Orleans, Hannan was a vibrant force in the multi-faceted civic life of the city. Among other things he was a proactive leader in civil rights who, during the Vietnam War, sponsored the immigration of hundreds of Vietnamese to Louisiana. Such was New Orleans' gratitude and respect for the Archbishop, that the normally boisterous French Quarter, fell silent as his funeral cortege passed through through its streets to St. Louis Cathedral where he was buried on the alter itself.