TV News Scrambles To Land Possible Jaycee Dugard Interview

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)  — The coming publication of a memoir by the California woman who was kidnapped as a girl and held for 18 years has broadcasters scrambling to become the first to get an interview with her.

Simon & Schuster announced Monday the memoir of Jaycee Dugard will go on sale July 12. Titled "A Stolen Life," it will cover Dugard's abduction and life with Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the couple who have pleaded guilty to kidnapping and rape.

Dugard has not decided yet whether she will do interviews surrounding the book, according to Nancy Seltzer, her spokeswoman.

If she does, it would break the silence she has maintained since releasing a home video to ABC News last year.

"What's conveyed on television is her emotion, the look on her face," Seltzer said of a possible network TV interview. "With great and true respect to the printed word, it's not the same."

Seltzer declined to reveal which networks were making pitches.

She is asking the journalists to provide details on what they would ask Dugard.

Dugard was kidnapped from her South Lake Tahoe home at age 11 and resurfaced in August 2009. Now 31, she has maintained her privacy while living in Northern California with her mother and her two daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido.

Seltzer said Dugard wrote "A Stolen Life" on her own, without help from a ghost writer. Along with hardcover and electronic book editions, Simon & Schuster is producing an audio book narrated by Dugard.

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