The Final Choice book addresses important national issue
Caralise Trayes being interviewed by Mel Homer on THREE’s The Cafe about her book, The Final Choice. End of Life Suffering: Is Assisted Dying the Answer?
“Her journey of discovery included interviews with those terminally ill, lawyers, doctors and many more. It’s a very difficult thing to write about, it’s a very layered subject as well. Caralise has managed to write it in a very personable way.”
“Come camera ready”, are words included in the run sheet you are sent days before a TV interview. And - Don’t wear green. Or black and white. Or small patterns. And no dangly jewelry.
While appearance shouldn’t be how we judge a person; just like a book and it’s cover - the fact is, we all still make first impressions.
The Cafe producers and crew certainly left good impressions - welcoming me into their converted garage studio with the aroma of chickpea meatballs. It was like walking into someone’s lounge. Someone who really liked bright lights.
I was warmed up on camera with a few stock shots - “hold your book here… look at the camera and smile and wave”...
But the reality of my first TV interview hit when the programme host recorded an introductory segment to camera: “In the studio today we have journalist and author Caralise Trayes…”
The book that was just an idea only a few months earlier was now being featured by the media. A bit of a dream come true.
I was invited to a stool at the table with Mel and we were immediately into it - questions asked and answers rolling. The beauty of pre-recorded interviews is you can trust a producer to make it a bit more racy when going to air. At times it was hard to reduce an entire journey of book writing and discovery into a couple of sentences - but at least there was a fair amount of mystery remaining for readers to discover when they pick the book up themselves.
The director was happy and the job was done. The show’s resident doctor who was featuring next quickly approached me, reinforcing this was indeed a very important topic and congratulations on addressing it in the form of a book.