Emily Liebert
"Facebook Fairytales presents twenty-five true stories emanating from the world's most popular social networking site. These tales will surprise, amuse, touch and inspire anyone who has regained a lost friend or been touched by the kindness of a stranger.
...Whether it's a story of Barack Obama using Facebook to win the presidency or an aid worker in Mumbai reaching out to friends and family during a terrorist attack, this unique anthology illustrates how lives can be altered through social networking. It reminds all of us that the resilience of the human spirit is truly powerful, even online."
Facebook Fairytales
Expat Women's Interview With with Emily
Expat Women: Emily, why Facebook? What is it about this particular social networking site that is making it both so contagious and so powerful in connecting people?
Emily: I will tell you exactly what Facebook CEO/Founder, Mark Zuckerberg, told me: "Because everything is so real." Mark pointed out that there are various social networking sites where people share information, but none of them is as authentic as Facebook. Your profile represents you and when you receive a message from someone or view their wall post, their picture is right there next to it. As Mark said, "That makes it human."
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Another reason Facebook has been so contagious and so powerful in connecting people is because they have been very focused on constantly making the site easier and easier for people to use.
Lastly, I think Facebook is so contagious because it is generally a "happy place" where people support each other, offer thumbs up and share good news. I know when I log onto Facebook that it is a time when I can escape from my work or other stressors in my life and just enjoy the benefits of learning about what my friends and family are up to. |
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Expat Women: What I found intriguing in your stories was the growing phenomenon for people to check their Facebook account more than their email account. What is it about Facebook that is igniting this trend? |
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Emily: Again, I think Facebook is a "happy place," whereas regular e-mail inboxes can be jam-packed with pressure-inducing messages. I have found in my experiences with Facebook that when someone reaches out to me through the site, it is generally for a positive reason and there is typically an upbeat tone to the message.
Also, I think Facebook streamlines everything into one simple go-to outlet – email, photos, events, contacts and so on. It seems that in today's society, everyone is always "super-busy" or "swamped" so to have one site that structures everything efficiently for you is very appealing. |
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Expat Women: Please share with our readers a few of the heart-warming, real-life stories profiled in Facebook Fairytales. |
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Emily: One of the most powerful stories, in my opinion, introduces Beth, a young mother from Scarsdale, NY who received a kidney from a stranger named Cathy – a young mother from Tallahassee, Florida – thanks to a mutual friend's status update. The update simply read:
"I have a friend named Beth who needs a kidney donor.
If you have type-O blood, please visit her website."
Beth was dying. She had exhausted a dozen possible donors who matched her blood type but who still were not compatible and her prospects were growing dim. Cathy was so touched by Beth's plight and, further, felt that the fact that they both had daughters named Olivia meant it was kismet, that she saved Beth's life for no other reason than sheer generosity of heart and soul.
Another story is about a couple – Seth and Melissa – who adopted a baby via Facebook. They had been trying to conceive for years, had experienced a tragic stillbirth of twins, and had undergone multiple cycles of IVF. Melissa's sister had even acted as a surrogate, being implanted with Seth and Melissa's genetic material. But nothing had worked, so they decided to pursue adoption, which can be a very long process, not to mention expensive. One night, Seth posted an adoption flyer they had made to his Facebook wall and through a social networking domino effect, two months later they took home a healthy baby boy.
The last story I will mention, which I hold near and dear to my heart, is about a family in Alabama who lost their teenage daughter, Jessica, very suddenly to meningitis. Not only were they able to create a Facebook cause page to raise money and awareness for meningitis, but Jessica's father used Facebook as a means of coping with his grief. Every day for the past two years, he's written her a personal Facebook note. It has been his way of communicating with her. He also keeps in touch with her friends through Facebook. While this may not seem like a fairytale or the most traditional use for the site, I think that is the beauty of Facebook: you never know how or when it is going to help you or impact your life in a positive way. |
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Expat Women: What sparked your idea for Facebook Fairytales and how did you locate all of the people in your tales? |
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Emily: My inspiration for writing this book was my fascination with Facebook and how it is revolutionizing modern society. I joined in the summer of 2008 and, at first, my intentions were purely voyeuristic. I read other people's posts but never updated my own status. Then, like everyone else, I got sucked in and really started thinking about the cultural impact of social networking. And, in doing so, it occurred to me that there had to be some amazing stories evolving from these hundreds of millions of connections.
So, one night, I went on Amazon.com to see if there had been any books already written along these lines and there had not, so I posted a query to my Facebook wall saying that I was looking to write this book and asking my friends to repost the query to their walls. I did end up getting a few stories via this method, but not all of them.
My next steps were to reach out to Facebook's press department and to see if Facebook would be willing to support the book. As you can imagine, they get tens of thousands of book proposals and, of all of these requests, they have only ever supported two books. I submitted my proposal and, to my surprise, got a call a few weeks later giving me the green light! They said they would support the book by feeding me user stories and granting an interview with Facebook Founder & CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. The other stories I found through my own online research. As a long-time journalist, who has had to track down many sources through the years, the beauty of this process was that all of these sources were on Facebook and were, therefore, relatively easy to find. |
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Expat Women: Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg rarely gives interviews. How difficult was it for you to meet with him? |
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Emily: Mark is, indeed, very press-shy, which I knew going into this. But I am a firm believer in asking for what you want, no matter the size of the request, so I approached Facebook for stories and I asked to interview the elusive Mark. As you can imagine, he is a very busy guy, but he was really excited about the concept for this book. Therefore, he was willing to give me a substantial chunk of time in which to glean his thoughts on Facebook's rampant popularity and the future of the company. Since I am in New York and he is in California, we did not get to meet in person, but I look forward to doing so in the coming months when I visit Facebook HQ. |
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| Expat Women: What was Mark like and what did you learn from him? |
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Emily: During our phone interview, Mark was unbelievably gracious, and he is obviously brilliant. It is easy to forget he is only 25 years old and running a multi-billion-dollar company. What I learned from Mark is that he is not interested in designations, like being named the 'Top Entrepreneur' by some magazine, or in having his face splashed all over TV. What he is interested in is building Facebook, connecting people all over the world, and making the site as user-friendly as possible.
One of the main things Mark communicated in our interview was that 400 million members is good progress, but closer to the beginning than the end. Within the next decade, he expects that Facebook will be as ubiquitous as email or a Web browser, such as Google. And I could not agree more. |
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Expat Women: Emily, congratulations on Facebook Fairytales. We wish you great success with the book (released this month by Skyhorse Publishing) and we look forward to a possible follow-up volume, filled with even more inspiring tales and feel-good endings. |
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Emily Liebert is an award-winning, internationally published author, writer and editor. She edited Kerry Kennedy's New York Times bestseller Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning (Crown/Random House 2008). She's written for magazines such as Elite Traveler and Cottages & Gardens. Emily was editor-in-chief of The WAG magazine and worked for Peter Jennings Reporting. Emily is soon to release her debut novel, Conversations with Friends and is working on a sequel to Facebook Fairytales. Please visit http://www.emilyliebert.com for more information or to contact Emily.
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| Click Here to read Facebook Fairytales' Book Extract "Healing Hearts" |
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April 2010 |
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