mediabistro.com’s ace features editor Rebecca Fox recently conducted an interview with Adrian Nicole LeBlanc so expansive we had to run a second installment to fit it all in. The conversation centers around how the recently appointed MacArthur “genius” created “The Ground We Lived On,” an aural documentary based on more than 40 hours of taped conversations with her dying father. (Fox also spoke with the documentary’s co-producer, Sarah Kramer.) “I think he always secretly wanted me to devote myself to writing about him at some point,” LeBlanc recalls.
“We always thought we’d get around to it—it was never spoken, but we both sort of knew it. He was totally game. I think he would’ve done anything for me, in general—he was supportive. When we started, he never even said, “Why?” I think he understood that I needed to do it, I wanted to do it—he sort of wanted to do it. I think he liked to think about his life in our conversations. When I used to go home and visit, we would always get up really early and go out to breakfast. I would always ask questions, and he would talk.”