Mitch Albom

You're 67, is that right?

You're approaching your 70s, you're approaching that age that he was.

How are you thinking about your own mortality?

Mitch, I've never been able to really tell you just how influential you've been to my life and career and how much of it just a real honor it is to be sitting here talking to you.

Yeah, I mean, it was more than that.

Like, I think I first discovered you at 11.

I would sit with my grandfather, and he'd read the paper, and he was really into all the sports, and I would read the sports section, and I fell in love with your writing.

And I had a brother typewriter, and I would rewrite your columns to learn how to write.

And I would write you, and you'd write me back these nice typed letters with your signature, which I kept.

And I was an apprentice at the Free Press in 1993.

It was their first apprenticeship program.

And the first thing I asked was the security guard, can I see Mitch Albom's desk?

And they took me up to the floor where your office was.

They said, he doesn't work out of here anymore.

He works in his home office.

But you gave me a vision for what my future could be.

Wow.

Mitch Albom, thank you so much for talking to me.

Mitch Albom's new novel is twice.

On the next Fresh Air, we remember Diane Keaton and listen back to her 1997 interview.