Highlights from New Yorker Festival

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get out to some New Yorker Festival events for GalleyCat, but there was a lot I missed... Luckily, video from five of the weekend's events has been posted to the magazine's website, including a lecture by Malcolm Gladwell, a conversation between Steve Martin and Roz Chast, and a reading by Gary Shteyngart and George Saunders (at left). I wish it were downloadable onto my iPod, so I could watch it on the suubway, but I'll take what I can get.

Karen Spears Zacharias Tours Mississippi

I hadn't gotten a tour dispatch from Karen Spears Zacharias for a while, but a few weeks back she let me know about her travels in support of the latest anthology in Macadam/Cage's Blue Moon Café series, A Cast of Characters and Other Stories. As always, she's got some great anecdotes to share...enjoy!

They still play the Bee Gees, Frank Sinatra and Chicago on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi. And you don't even have to switch the dial. That was the mix I heard Saturday morning on the drive from my hotel to the vibrant and always-hopping Lemuria Bookstore.

I saw Sonny Brewer pull out of the parking garage right ahead of me, so I knew I wasn't going to be late for the stock signing of A Cast of Characters and Other Stories—Sonny's the editor of the series. Jack Pendarvis introduced us at the Southern Literature Festival in Nashville last year. Or as Sonny put it, "Jack was going around acting like he was Karen's agent." It was Jack who passed along my piece, "When Jesus Lost His Head," that appears in the new collection.

Turns out I was late to the stock signing. I'd stopped to get a coffee, spilled it, had to clean it up and get another. By the time I arrived, nearly all of the other authors in the anthology were sitting dutifully at the tables: Howard Bahr, Stuart Bloodworth, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Tom Franklin, Frank Turner Hollon, Chip Livingston, Thomas McGuane, L. A. Hoffer, and James Whorton Jr. (Only Ron Rash, Rick Bragg, and William Gay weren't there.) I took the only seat left, the one next to crusty Howard Bahr, who kept calling me "ma'am", until I wore him down and convinced him that "honey" was much more to my liking.

"Is that a navy tattoo?" I asked, pointing to a blue-mottled mark on his forearm.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Vietnam?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What years?"

"65-67."

"Aren't you impressed that I'm a girl and knew that was a Navy tattoo?" I said, smiling.

"I am," Bahr replied.

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Karen Spears Zacharias @ Wordstock

I always love to hear from Karen Spears Zacharias when she's out at the book festivals. This time, she's hanging out at Portland, Oregon's Wordstock...

DAY ONE: I could've used a sail today as I headed west through the Columbia River Gorge. It was the perfect windsurfer day. Frothy-white caps breaking and rolling to  the earth's pulse. I was tempted to pull off Interstate 84 to watch the Tidewater barge push upriver or maybe to take a hike to the top of a broken ridge. But I didn't have time to dilly-dally around: Book TV was waiting.

My only stop was at Cousin's Restaurant in The Dalles. I didn't drop in for their colossal-sized cinnamon rolls, although that’s as good a reason as any. I had something else in mind. Every time a person walks through the door at Cousin's a cow moos, making it impossible to carry out a discreet mission. But I quickly find a stall and leave a copy of After the Flag Has Been Folded on the back of a toilet, inscribed with these words: "The author has left this book for you. If you find it, please read it and then pass it along to another reader. Then drop me a line and let me know who you are, so we can follow the journey this book makes." (I hope that journey doesn't involve a sewer drain.)

C-Span's Book TV bus was parked catawampus at Pioneer Square, across Broadway from Nordstrom's, and the kindly book people reported that they had met all sorts of interesting characters throughout the day. There's no better place for a character study than people-watching in Portland. The interview involved a few technical glitches, followed by some stammering around on my behalf. No matter how well-prepared I am, it never seems be enough.

Jennie Shortridge (Eating Heaven) met me at the nearby Starbucks, which was too crowded for a relaxing visit, so we found a quiet spot around the corner. Jennie, who’d driven down from her Seattle home, led a Wordstock workshop for teachers. It was well-attended and she even got paid for the gig, always a good thing.

Jennie and I first met at the Pulpwood Queens event in Jefferson, Texas. We both agreed that the best thing about the Pulpwood weekend was the friends we made, which is after all, how Kathy Patrick promotes it. Speaking of friends, ran into a couple in the lobby of the stately Benson Hotel. Cassandra King (The Same Sweet Girls) and Ron Rash (The World Made Straight). King has just returned from a trip to Africa, with her husband, Pat Conroy. She mentioned something about miserable heat. Rash and King were on a panel together Saturday, while I shared a stage with Debra Dean (The Madonnas of Leningrad).

Folks around these parts say the best thing about Oregon is that there's something for everyone here—beaches, mountains, deserts; hiking, skiing, windsurfing. The line-up for Wordstock reflects some of that same diversity: Kathleen Dean Moore, Kim Stafford, John Rember, Yusef Komunyakaa, & Carole Radziwill. Talk about eating cake.

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Karen Spears Zacharias @ Miami

Karen's last appearance on Beatrice was just over a week ago, when she interviewed Jack Pendarvis. Since then, she's gone down to the Miami Book Fair, where she filed this report...

It's Monday in Miami. At noon, two burly guys wheel cases of leftover cola out of the hospitality suite of the Biscayne Bay Marriott. Threatening black clouds pass over the bay quicker than a car driven by Tony Stewart, but Tropical Gamma turned out to be all huff & puff. Half-a-dozen people are lounging around the pool, glinting at the sun.

All the AV-equipment has been returned to its rightful place at Miami-Dade College. And the only remaining signs on campus of the Miami Book Fair International are the punctuating posters of a woman frolicking along the beach in a red dress patterned with crescent-moons, caffé latte and book in hand. "I spent the last 358 days preparing for this seven-day event," one woman remarked as she reached for a ringing phone.

Kudos and hour-long massages to all those gracious people in Miami who worked their hineys bare, hustling authors, moderators, booksellers, escorts, media, and all those thousands of faithful, passionate readers.

I didn't arrive in Miami in time to hear Joan Didion, Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Kozol, John Hope Franklin, Marilynne Robinson, Lorenzo Garcia Vega, Amy Tan or most of the hundreds of other notable authors, poets, and musicians. But I was able to make the New Orleans-themed dinner party, hosted by Mitch Kaplan and his crew at Books & Books. My friend Julia Reed, a New Orleans resident and Queen of Mighty-Fine Cuisine, would have handed out blue ribbons for the jambalaya, beignets and chicory.

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Jackie K. Cooper @ SEBA

You may recognize Jackie K. Cooper from his appearance on this site back in June, when he was a contender for the Georgia Author of the Year Awards. A while back, he sent me a letter about his trip to the annual Southeastern Bookseller's Association meeting--soon to become the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance meeting--and now that I've gotten back into the blogging groove, here it is!

I went to the Southeastern Bookseller's Association (SEBA) meeting in Winston Salem, North Carolina. This is a gathering of book publishers and bookstore owners, with a smattering of authors thrown in. It is a time for meeting and greeting, as well as schmoozing and signing. It is a chance to see and be seen, and it is all a lot of fun.

The driving force behind this event is a lady named Wanda Jewell. I learned this when I first got there and met a lady who was looking at the Mercer University Press display (where I was hanging out). I introduced myself and she told me who she was and added, "I am Wanda's assistant."
 
I then showed my complete ignorance by asking "Who's Wanda?' That is when I learned the lady of the day is Wanda Jewell. Later when Paula Millen, of the South Carolina Book Fest Millens, and I were walking around we ran into Wanda Jewell, and Paula introduced us. Wanda is as down to earth as anyone you would ever want to meet. Not at all as formidable as I expected.

Looming over the aisles at SEBA was my picture. I had brought a big poster with me that I sat up on an easel to try to draw people to my books. I don't know if it sold any books for me but it sure did get people's attention. As my friend Jackie White always tells me - that big-a** picture is worth its weight in gold.

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N.M. Kelby @ Sewanee

N.M. Kelby is always a welcome guest here at Beatrice, and in her latest dispatch she takes us behind the scenes at the Sewanee Writers' Conference:

For more than a decade, I have returned to this conference, to this part of Tennessee where it is said that angels walk the streets. If angels do roam here, during mid-July they probably stop by Stirling's coffeehouse for some sweet tea and a chat with Barry Hannah. It's a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon.

The great Southern writer Peter Taylor is buried in Sewanee. His grave sits atop the Cumberland Plateau overlooking what he called "the long green hinterland that is Tennessee." His heart was always in Sewanee, and now always will be.

Sometimes, I feel my heart is here, too. It is a fertile landscape.

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Mindy Friddle Meets the Pulpwood Queens

South Carolina native Mindy Friddle's first novel just came out in paperback, and among all the other things she's doing to promote it, she was recently invited to meet up with one of the country's most unusual--and increasingly influential--book groups. I got her to send Beatrice the following report...

I kicked off the paperback tour for my novel,The Garden Angel, with a visit to Beauty and the Book in Jefferson, Texas--the only combined hair salon and book store in the country. Owner Kathy Patrick is also founder of the Pulpwood Queens, a book group franchise with more than sixty chapters spread across the United States. The motto? "Tiaras are mandatory and reading good books is the rule!" Each chapter has a "head queen" who runs the group. Men are "timber guys" and "head kings."

Kathy's store, book group, and successful author events have received national attention, including appearances on Good Morning America. A profile in The Los Angeles Times called Kathy's book clubs "one part Empire of Oprah, one part Steel Magnolias, and one part Walt Whitman standing on the street corner hawking Leaves of Grass."

Pulpwood Queens selections have included books by Linda Bloodworth Thomason and Rebecca Wells, and an event still in the works will feature author and musician Kinky Friedman--who happens to be running for governor in Texas with an irresistible slogan: "Let's get Kinky in the governor's mansion." But Kathy also takes pride in including a number of debut novels in her selections. Hallelujah!

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Karen Spears Zacharias @ New Orleans, pt. 2

(The second of two dispatches from the author of Hero Mama on her latest literary excursion, the New Orleans Writers' Conference...)

I passed up the opportunity to have my palm, tealeaves and tarot cards read, figuring that the element of surprise is the most pleasurable part of writing and the writer's life. But the New Orleans Writers Conference was a good place to learn some techniques about how to prepare oneself for the unexpected, like that moment when some editor asks to see a completed manuscript.

That happened to attendee Robert Foote. He pitched his idea to an editor, who read and loved the first fifteen pages then asked to see the completed work. Equipped with more than just an idea for a book, Robert happened to have an entire manuscript, which he'd fortuitously packed along.

Tom Reiss, author of The Orientalist, said he had been preparing to write his book ever since he decided at age seven that he wanted to be a writer. Tom grew up hearing his mother's stories about World War II, and how it had left his French-born and bred mother a war orphan. There is really no scripted way to prepare oneself to be a writer, noted Tom Piazza, author of My Cold War. Piazza said that while some writers rely on outlines, or know ahead of time where the plot will lead them, he relies on the characters to lead him. He added that to him, shoving characters into a constructed plot felt like an act of violence.

The common tourist ailment known as overeating could lead to an act of violence upon the digestive tract. While the menu at Mr. B's was tempting, I settled for a bowl of gumbo soup Roy Blount Jr. entertained me and Piazza's partner, Mary, with his sardonic wit while trying to come up with something witty for a commencement speech he was due to give. (i suggested the best thing would be to deliver his speech in blog format.) Following dinner, a street quartet serenaded Mary, with the soulful "Only You."

(Editor's note before we go on: I can personally attest to the enjoyability of The Orientalist, and I've been looking forward to My Cold War for a while now...OK, back to Karen.)

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ New Orleans, pt. 2

Karen Spears Zacharias @ New Orleans, pt. 1

(Karen Spears Zacharias shares her experiences discussing her memoir, Hero Mama, on the literary festival trail with Beatrice readers once more, this time from the New Orleans Writers' Conference...)

People told me that I wouldn't like it here. That it's a nasty town, full of whores and drunkards. But as far as I can tell most of the unsavory folks are tourists. They come from Des Moines and Detroit, Salem and Selma. They come here under the guise of conference attendees but they use their anonymity to act the fool.

The locals I've met are decent, hard-working, and gracious. Good papas and mamas and good neighbors. This city is laden with warm weather and warm people. It's my favorite kind of town. I called my husband in Oregon and told him I wanted to move here, right away. A native Oregonian, he balked at the idea, but he did promise to come for a visit sometime.

I ate lunch at Mother's. A local favorite, where the help shout out orders of biscuits and ham, and fill tall glasses of ice with tea or diet coke. Portraits of veterans from all generations hang willy-nilly along the walls, covered in dust, many of them personally autographed. Mother's is an old Marine hangout, the guy with the swollen belly sitting by the front door explained. The manager, Sammy, was a Marine in Vietnam. Send him down, I said. I've got a story to tell 'em.

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ New Orleans, pt. 1

More Diana Abu-Jaber On the Road

Here's the scoop on the second leg of Diana Abu-Jaber's west coast tour, earlier this week...

April 24th: Between the cabs and the running around, it was hard for me to absorb the full fabulosity of the LA Times Book Festival. I stumbled around in circles for a while before someone took me by the hand and led me to the so-called VIP Room. The VIP Room was filled with some very hungry looking writers all buzzarding away on a great groaning board of banquet food. Out on the crowded patio I saw: my friend and brilliant writer Michelle Huneven, Colm Toibin, T.C. Boyle, agents Betsy Amster and Bonnie Nadell, and a guy that I'd swear was one of the drummers for The Grateful Dead (apparently this is what happens when I go to the West coast, I see The Grateful Dead everywhere). Science writer Jonathan Weiner plunked down next to me and said, "Whad you write?" He'd never heard of me, I'd never heard of him, but we shared our sun umbrella very happily.

My panel was called "Memoirs: Family Matters" and surprisingly, it seems to have been the only memoir panel at the festival. It was me and Debra Ginsberg, Michael Datcher, Louise Steinman, and Karen Stabiner. The place was jam-packed--loads of people in the audience wanting to write their own memoirs, it seemed. I was surprised by the recurring theme of truthtelling in memoir that came up on the panel and in the audience. I, for one, have never believed in altering a perfectly good story merely to serve the "truth," ha ha. But I suppose that's the novelist in me, since I also feel that there's a powerful emotional truth that exists independently from the things we call "facts." A man in the audience asked me what we needed to do to change the negative stereotyping of Arabs in the media (since I write a lot about my Arab heritage) and I said I think we need "My Big Fat Arab Wedding." I also asked if anyone there knew Tom Hanks or Rita Wilson, but nobody came running forward. Oh well.

Continue reading More Diana Abu-Jaber On the Road

Somehow I Became an Expert
On "Literature and the Web"

Despite downing way too many vodka martinis the night before, I managed to wake up on Wendi Kaufman's couch in reasonably good shape, so after a brief stop for hot drinks and bagels, her husband drove the two of us out to the Writer's Center of Bethesda, Maryland. I was one of the guest speakers for a panel on "literature and the web," while Wendi was moderating all of us. Of course, we knew Reb Livingston, the co-editor of the poetry journal No Tell Motel, because we'd been out drinking with her the night before (although she'd very wisely made her way home after just one round of martinis). But I was placed at the opposite end of the dais from them, situated between Jeannie Smith and Andrew Lundwall of Poetic Inhalation and Michael Neff of Web del Sol.

The first part of the session went easily enough; each of us gave a little spiel about how we'd gotten started and what our aims were in publishing online. I blushed a bit at the enthusiasm with which Wendi touted my audience of 100,000 monthly readers--at least, that's what it'll be if everything goes right this week--because, as I told one woman who asked if we felt like we were some sort of underground subculture, "I'm just amazed to get up in the morning and have people care what I have to say about literature." (And for the record, I don't look at myself as being in a subculture, and I'm not out to challenge the supremacy of print; I'm glad to have found a space where my writing is well received, and I'm hoping to carve out a similar space in other venues in the months and years to come.) That was one of the more exciting questions from the second half of the discussion; another interesting digression concerned the death and resurrection of Foetry (note to future program directors: do not get Michael Neff started on the subject of poetry grants and/or contests). A lot of the queries had to do with whether we could make any money publishing online and why we bothered if we couldn't. The main advantage, to my mind, was summed up in an exchange between one audience member and Reb:

Q: What will I get out of publishing my poems in an online journal like yours that I won't get from a print magazine?

A: Readers.

My Mid-Atlantic Literary Excursion

Amanda Hill (left) didn't have any trouble finding me at Washington's Union Station, where we'd agreed to meet for lunch soon after my train rolled into town from New York. She joked that I was probably the only man she'd ever spot carrying around a well-thumbed copy of her novel, Love Like That, which has just been published by Red Dress Ink--one of the leading purveyors of chick lit. I'd asked her out to lunch because I knew I had the entire afternoon free in D.C. and wanted to hang out with some local writers, but if I'd known she'd just flown in that morning on a redeye from Vegas, where she'd spent two weeks researching her next book, I might have let her catch up on her sleep. In any event, we had a great conversation about how we'd both been trying to write fiction since we were teenagers and how hard it was for us to find the right voice for a story. She told me about some crucial guidance she'd gotten from novelist Jane Stanton Hitchcock, and recommended I track down a copy of Social Crimes. Then we bonded over one of my favorite aspects of Love Like That: the fact that Dalton, the novel's narrator, rebels against the chick-lit goody-two-shoes stereotype by being an unapologetically foul-mouthed drinker and smoker. "Right," Amanda laughed, "instead of just having one cigarette when she's feeling rebellious or really stressed out." As a result, the novel feels a bit more "Brat Pack" than "chick lit," sort of reminding me a bit of early Mark Lindquist.

My next date was for afternoon tea with Mary Kay Zuravleff, and walking to her house after getting off the Metro took me past independent bookshop Politics and Prose (which appears to be the place for visiting authors to read at, based on the signs in their front windows). When I arrived, she offered me some tea--pau d'arco, which neither one of us really knew what it was. (It turned out, she told me later, to be bark from the taheebo tree, and purportedly good for the immune system.) One of the things I love about Mary Kay's most recent novel, The Bowl Is Already Broken, is that she's figured out the art of being funny without forcing the jokes, which led us to discuss the current critical distinction between social comedy and satire--since, like Francine Prose, Mary Kay isn't entirely sure about having her fiction placed in the latter camp, citing her commitment to realism. (You'll hear more about her and her novel here soon--she's coming to New York's Rubin Museum of Art next week to read and talk about the novel's focus on ancient Chinese art.)

I made my way back towards the center of the city to hook up with fellow blogger Sam Jones, who drove me out to suburban Virginia so we could go drinking with the Happy Booker and her writing group, which included Dallas Hudgens, author of the recently published debut novel Drive Like Hell, and PEN/Faulkner co-founder Stephen Goodwin, who kindly signed a copy of Breaking Her Fall for me (and one for Sam). Scott Berg ("not A. Scott Berg, but the Scott Berg," as I quipped much later) dropped by even though he had less than two weeks to turn in his biography of D.C. urban planner Pierre L'Enfant, while I blew an opportunity to pick up some fantasy baseball tips from Tim Wendel. Late in the evening, I stepped out to the patio so I could enjoy a cigar, and was joined by Robyn Wright and Corrine Gormont, who both had short stories in the new issue of Five Points. Later still, Robyn introduced me to GWU writing professor Christy Zink, making sure I knew what a fantastic editor Christy is. And, lest I forget, Reb Livingston had joined us for the first half of the evening; but then Reb and I were to spend more time together on Saturday morning...

Diana Abu-Jaber On the Road

Diana Abu-Jaber emailed me a brief account of the first leg of her West Coast tour to promote The Language of Baklava. (I hope we'll get to hear more about the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, but in the meantime, The Elegant Variation gave its readers excellent live coverage of the weekend's events.)

April 20th: On the (unending) flight from Miami to Seattle I sat next to a guy who was perfectly nice but looked like a cross between Chris Elliott (There's Something About Mary) and Paul Giamatti (Sideways). This made me uneasy. Also the flight attendent was fawning over him--turns out that on his previous flight into Miami, he'd inexplicably passed out on board. They'd given him oxygen and strapped him into a jump seat; medics met him when he came off the plane. He said he felt like a movie star. He said he was fine now. It happened that we had the same flight crew and they were falling all over themselves to give him glasses of wine and plates of cheese. He was the Ashton Kutcher of American Airlines flight 17. He asked me why I was going to Seattle. "Book tour," I said eagerly. "Oh, uh hunh," he said. Then he got distracted-- the flight crew had brought him warm cashews. Note to self--if writing doesn't work out, look into fainting on airplanes.

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Karen Spears Zacharias @ Bowling Green, pt. 2

The second of two dispatches Karen sent from southern Kentucky this weekend. She'll be doing another book festival next month in New Orleans, and I hope we'll get to hear about it...

If dogwoods are the lace of God then Kentucky is God's Belgium.

Silas House said his wife told him this morning that the dogwoods are blooming along their river bed. It's difficult to sit at a table in a huge conference room hawking books on days like this. It's even more discouraging when only a couple of people turn out to hear you read and only a few buy your books, as was my experience and that of others at the Southern Kentucky Bookfest.

But every festival has its strength and Southern Kentucky's is the associations one makes. First thing this morning, Silas introduced me to one of his personal favorites, the poet Jane Hicks of East Tennessee. Since my father was an East Tennesse native, Silas figured Jane and I to be practically cousins. I've been collecting poetry and was quick to pick up her Blood & Bone Remember. The colorful cover depicts a handstitched quilt. Silas said he'd wanted to use it for his Parchment of Leaves cover but since that didn't happen, Jane used it for her own collection.

Her "Spring 1991: Reunion" tugged at my ragged seams.

"Thirteen small flags at the head of the table
for country boys who forgot the lessons
of our grammar school days, duck
and cover, safe routes homes …"

Jane said that's how many of her classmates were killed in Vietnam. This from a rural school in remote east Tennessee. My father was such a man.

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ Bowling Green, pt. 2

Karen Spears Zacharias @ Bowling Green, pt. 1

I enjoyed the field reports Karen Spears Zacharias sent Beatrice from Jacksonville so much, I sent her right back out to the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books...Well, okay, I didn't have to send her; she was already going there to talk about her memoir, Hero Mama. But it was fun to pretend, wasn't it?

Here's the three things I've learned about Bowling Green. The streetlights are numbered, so those of us who grew up painting by numbers can easily maneuver around this town. There's a large Bosnian community, which results in some very good ethnic cuisine. And growing up in the Bible belt, hearing poetry and parables, is undoubtedly the reason why Kentucky is home to so many gifted word weavers.

I was standing outside the Holiday Inn Plaza, leaning on my suitcase, when who should drive up but the good-to-the-bone author, Silas House. "What'd they do, lock you outta of your room?" he asked.

Truth is, I was loitering for sunshine.

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ Bowling Green, pt. 1

First Fiction Tour: That's a Wrap

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Marya Hornbacher, Matthew Carnahan and Ed Schwarzschild in a photo taken by Karen Ducey for a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article about the tour. Miranda's back in Brooklyn, with one more story to tell us...

I'm so sad it's over. And I'm surprised at how sad I am; it snuck up on me yesterday morning as I awoke in Austin and realized that Marya, Matthew and Ed were already homeward bound. My flight didn't leave until 3:00 p.m., so I had some time to sit around, mope and reflect.

Austin was fantastic. None of us had ever been there and we were thrilled by the heat; it was a good 80 degrees when we landed yesterday afternoon. As I mentioned in my last installment, Ed finally lucked out in the hotel game by nabbing a room at the gorgeous Hotel San Jose, while the rest of us stayed in what may have been the most depressing hotel in the world: the Doubletree Club. I don't want to talk about it. I spent the afternoon wandering around Austin while everyone else took naps and generally relaxed. I spent a long time sitting by the river and realizing how right everyone is who decides to move to Austin.

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The First Fiction Tour @ Los Angeles

Another dispatch from Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, on the road with three debut novelists...

We had a blast in Los Angeles. Marya Hornbacher and I were picked up by Ken Wilson, our media escort, who has been doing this for nigh on 24 years. He immediately took us to In-n-Out Burger for some cheap, fast food, before we headed to Van Nuys for a taping with a lady named Connie Martinson, who has a book show that's syndicated across the country. When we got there, her crew was way behind schedule (though we did get to glimpse John Sayles doing his interview), so we went to an Encino Barnes & Noble to sign stock. Ah, the glamorous life of the authoress.

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First Fiction Tour @ Seattle

It's been a while since we last heard from Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, but after a weekend of downtime the First Fiction Tour is back in action...

Seattle, Seattle, how we love thee. We had the best time! Over a hundred people came to the Sunset Tavern last night, and though some of them were family (we each had at least one blood relative in attendance), there were many more faces we did not recognize. The setting was just perfect, what we had been imagining all along: a relaxed, chill bar with good beer and great questions. It's funny, because last week when we were bummed out at the turnouts in Ann Arbor and Iowa City, we all had a feeling that Seattle was going to be great. This has led to a larger discussion between the four of us: is the east/midwest really suited for this kind of thing? It seemed that in Massachusetts, Michigan and Iowa, audiences didn't really know what to do with us. One wonders if this has to do with cultural differences between a more laidback, music-based bar scene in the west and a more socially-based bar scene in the east where, if you're performing, you better be on stage (see our first night at Jimmy Tingles Off Broadway Theater). Though we may have just ended up in the wrong places at the wrong times; there are a bunch of places in my hometown of Brooklyn where I know this kind of thing would rock.

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First Fiction Tour @ Iowa City

The latest from Miranda Beverly-Whittemore and her fellow debut novelists, making their way across America...

We got to Iowa City after a very early morning flight (see the last installment, which was nearly incomprehensible!) and were picked up by David, who graduated from the Iowa Writer's Workshop last year. He drove us around town, which took about 4 1/2 minutes, pointing out the main sights: Prairie Lights Bookstore (our sponsor for the evening), the Sheraton (our luxurious abode), and "the best diner in town," a replica of which was apparently on a recent episode of The West Wing (and the food really was delicious). In any case, over the course of this short and lovely little drive, Matthew mentioned that he'd spent time playing in the Third World Softball league with Frank Conroy in Nantucket, and asked after him. None of us had heard the news that he was sick, so we were all quite saddened. Then David dropped us off at the hotel and we each went to our rooms and crashed out for the better part of the day.

It was with total shock that we learned just before our reading that Frank Conroy had passed away. The day before we'd spent a long time talking about Saul Bellow and his influence on all of us, only to wake up to learn that he, too, had passed. Now, I'm not saying that the First Fiction Tour is in any way cursed, and I'm certainly not going to take credit for the deaths of two of the great writers of our time. But I am going to say that in addition to it being quite sad it was also a tad, well, spooky.

Conroy's death meant that Iowa City was in a state of mourning; even the storm clouds moved in and cracked open over what had been a lovely, clear day. So our crowd at the Sanctuary was damper than usual in more than one sense of the word, and we did not get the big audience we'd been hoping for. But those who did come were very enthusiastic and supportive, and Conroy's name, and the names of Bellow, Thompson, Creeley, and even the Pope and Prince Ranier were all mentioned. It was agreed upon that Conroy would have wanted us to go on with the reading, so we did, but with no small amount of sorrow.

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First Fiction Tour, from Ann Arbor to Iowa City

The latest report from Miranda Beverly-Whittemore in her cross-country tour with three other debut novelists...

So tired. So very tired.

It's 2:30 p.m. and I'm sitting on my bed in Iowa City after a very early flight this morning from Detroit, one to which we arrived the full, responsible two hours in advance. Ugh. We were in Michigan for a mere 15 hours, giving the First Fiction Tour a touch of the surreal. We read last night at the Arbor Brewing Company in Ann Arbor to a smaller crowd than we'd hoped, but our introductions from Shaman Drum Bookshop's Ray McDaniel were funny, smart and just generally fantastic. He'd actually read the books!

So here are some strange things about doing a book tour that are much more fun to do as a team than by yourself:

• Walking into bookstores and presumptuously stating that you are "here to sign stock." Which is embarrassing if they don't have your book, but equally just kind of weird if they do. Poor Ed Schwarzchild's book, Responsible Men, doesn't officially pub until April 8th, so he's gotten the short end of the stick on this, but he's being a great sport about it.
  
• Being met at the airport and driven around by a "media escort"--almost always a middle-aged woman with a Lexus--with whom you have to make small talk when all you want to do is sleep. We take turns in the front seat.
  
• Eating. Just about any meal is more fun with other people.
  
• Reading. It actually is really fun to read from your own work when there are other people next to you, reading from theirs. Tonight we read here in Iowa City at The Sanctuary, a local watering hole
  

First Fiction Tour '05: Boston

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore sends the first in a series of dispatches from her six-city tour with three other first-time novelists...

So here's the (perhaps disappointingly) good news: everyone is incredibly nice. Like, we're talking very, very nice people. Not a diva among them. I know. I was kinda hoping for some good gossip too.

My husband and I flew in on Sunday afternoon, and took a swift cab to the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. Dinner was had with local family, and then Matthew Carnahan called and we met at the trying-very-hard hotel bar, Noir, for a drink. And though the setting was cheesy, the conversation was not. Matthew Carnahan is very funny, articulate and smart. We talked about family, politics (guess who we didn't vote for), and barely about the book world. It was refreshing.

Continue reading First Fiction Tour '05: Boston

Karen Spears Zacharias @ Much Ado About Books, conclusion

In which Karen, having done some local events in Jacksonville, gets down to the conferencing portion of the festival, where she gets to talk about her memoir, Hero Mama...

Remember the three must dos of life? You must live. You must die. And in-between you must pay taxes.

Well, all y'all authors out there ought to add Jacksonville's Much Ado About Books to your list of must dos. I've attended a slew of book conferences over the years; very few of which have offered the level of professionalism and hospitality I discovered at Much Ado. The entire Jacksonville crew gets a hearty round of Yee-Haws from me.

On Saturday, authors were bused from the hotel lobby to the Prime Osborn Convention Center at 8 a.m. (Prime is really a man's name, not a grade of beef). Once at the center, we were paraded past easel boards featuring our book covers, a very heady experience to see poster-sized covers of The Schooling of Claybird Catts by Janis Owen or Gullah Cooking the Daufuskie Way by Sallie Ann Robinson, or my personal favorite cover, The Greyhound God by Keith Lee Morris.

Once our egos were fully stroked, our gracious hosts then guided us to the VIP room where they fueled us with steaming java and iced pastries before herding us off to various panel presentations. I was paired on the first panel with the refreshingly candid Geralyn Lucas, author of Why I Wore Lipstick (to My Mastectomy). Our topic? Courage.

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ Much Ado About Books, conclusion

Karen Spears Zacharias @ Much Ado About Books, pt. 2

Another report from Jacksonville, as Karen's book festival activities begin...

I don't have the foggiest idea what the headlines in Jacksonville's paper were on Friday. I intended to read it, lazily, over a cup of coffee, prior to heading out to speak at a couple of schools. But those plans were interrupted when Mildred, the ever-diligent escort assigned by the Literary Guild, showed up half-an-hour early. She wanted to make sure I arrived at the high school with plenty of time to spare.

Even so, we were 15 minutes late. It seems Mildred only thought she knew where she was going. Although she's lived in Jacksonville since 1949, and was a school principal prior to retirement, Mildred didn't really know where the beach high school was located. I was due at the school at 8:30 a.m. At 8:40, Mildred stomped on the brakes, several feet beyond the crosswalk, at a red light. The crossing guard made her back the car up, out of the walking lane, then directed her to the nearest high school. After a few more herky-jerky turns and stops, Mildred nosed the car into a handicapped space at Fletcher High School.

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ Much Ado About Books, pt. 2

Karen Spears Zacharias @ Much Ado About Books, pt. 1

Karen Spears Zacharias is the latest author to send Beatrice her notes from the road, as she spends this weekend at the Much Ado About Books festival in Jacksonville, Florida. Ms. Zacharias is the author of Hero Mama, a memoir about the single mother who raised her and two siblings after her father was killed in Vietnam.

Cassandra King (The Same Sweet Girls) and I crossed touring paths in Columbus, Georgia on Wednesday. We’ve both been on the road promoting our books since late January. Sandra said she knew it was time to wind down the tour when a librarian asked her, “What does your husband do, Vanessa?” (Her husband is author Pat Conroy.) Sandra and I commiserated over the talk show host in Cincinnati who had called me Helen Zacharias and my book Hello Mama. Not once, but twice during the 15 minute interview.

A sense of humor is one of the first things an author needs to pack for touring; the other is a good map.

Continue reading Karen Spears Zacharias @ Much Ado About Books, pt. 1

The Four R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Rock-n-Roll

(Miranda Beverly-Whittemore is one of four authors taking part in this year's First Fiction Tour. She volunteered to send us dispatches from the road; you can follow the itinerary--or find out if the Tour's coming to your town, if you haven't seen the posters designed by Mike King of Voodoo Catbox--on her events page. The two-week, six-city roadshow begins next week, so she sent a preliminary note to introduce us to everybody...)

Far from the pristine, quiet bookstore, we read in bars with drink specials and young crowds, and the rumor is that most of the writers don't stay all that sober. In the fall, when Cindy Dach of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona (who founded and organized First Fiction Fall 2004) extended an invitation to me, I was thrilled and terrified. My novel had been chosen on its own merits (flattering, to say the least), but I had also been chosen, in part, for my "rock star" essence, which really made me giggle. I wondered if perhaps she wasn't talking about some other Miranda Beverly-Whittemore.

Since then, my debut novel, The Effects of Light, has been in the world for nearly two months, and I've gained a little more sense of self. I still wouldn't call myself a rock star, but I think that's for the best. I've done nine readings by myself, and one group reading (New Voices 2005 up at Misty Valley Books in Chester, Vermont) and my favorite part of all of these events has been the sense of community that a reading can create; I feel this in sharp contrast to the lonely intimacy of writing a book.

I've never done anything like the First Fiction Tour, and I have no idea what to expect, but I hope it will create a similar sense of community, both between the writers and with those folks in Boston, Ann Arbor, Iowa City, Seattle, Los Angeles and Austin, who come out to see us read.

So who are we? I've only met myself, but I've read everyone's book, and studied their author photos, dissected their bios, Googled them, obsessively checked all of our Amazon ratings, and here's what I know so far...

Continue reading The Four R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Rock-n-Roll

Pearl Abraham @ Festival of the Book, Conclusion

(Pearl's account of the Virginia Festival of the Book winds down with a wrap-up of her final day in Charlottesville...)

Sunday morning, Alix Strauss, Steve Stern, and I breakfasted at The Nook. I ordered the southern special, complete with grits and plenty of coffee. Back at the hotel, it was check out time and as it turned out, about ten of us were taking the same plane to La Guardia. I said goodbye to Steve, who was headed back home via Philadelphia, and wasn’t due at the airport until twelve. And just before I left, I met Barbara Feinberg (Welcome to Lizard Motel), a Sarah Lawrence graduate, who was reading that afternoon at the Old Dominion Bookshop on the mall. And wonderful Razel Solow came by to say goodbye to all of us.

Saskia drove Alix, Jonathan Safran Foer, and I to the Charlottesville airport, and once we checked in, had our laptops and backpacks x-rayed, removed our shoes, belts, and jackets, and put them all on again, we re-congregrated at gate 5. Boarding the plane were: Alix, Jonathan, M.J. Rose (Lip Service), Kate Walbert (Our Kind), and I, plus A.J. Jacobs, his wife Julie, and one-year-old son Jasper (who gives babies a good name), and a writer named Mike, whose last name I didn’t catch and haven't been able to find, though he informed me that he definitely isn't Mike McFadden, another excellent UVA Festival organizer, and more. Once aboard, we authors settled into our seats, to sleep or read, and return to our private, often desperate, writing lives.

In conclusion, an anecdote from Bella Stander (Book Promotion 101), one of the UVA Festival’s excellent moderators who read our books, invited us, advised, and communicated with us, and hoped that we remembered to do what was best for ourselves, our audiences, and our books:

"For the 2001 fest, I'd informed all the authors on my Saturday 10:00 a.m. panel weeks before that they were to give a 5-minute reading. Met a couple of them for breakfast. After we paid the check--at this point it was 9:40 & we were supposed to be at the city council chambers in 10 minutes--"Jane" started leafing through her book, looking for a passage to read. She made it to the program just before 10, read poorly, and a dull passage to boot. While another panelist was reading, her cell phone rang. She said, "Oh, it must be my kids," and walked offstage, crouched in the wings, and talked on the phone to said kids, a conversation we all heard (it didn't sound like her house was on fire or that anyone was bleeding; and anyway, her husband was home with them). I don't think she sold many books afterwards. Needless to say, she was not invited back. Come to think of it, I don't think she's come out with another book, either."

So it seems we indeed need those rules and regulations to keep us in order. Bella offers book promotion workshops for those who want/need extra preparation.

Finally, it’s been fun to do this, and I hope it amuses more than it embarrasses, and that, even after this, the Festival will want to have me back. I apologize for the errors (grammar and otherwise) that remained uncorrected. These dispatches were written away from my desk, after late nights, or too early in the morning, after too many glasses of wine, or not enough coffee.

Disclosure: I (Ron) have taken Bella's Book Promotion 101 seminar; I highly recommend it for any about-to-be or recently published author as a wake-up call to just how much more work you've got ahead of you.

Pearl Abraham @ Festival of the Book, pt. 3

(Another dispatch from Pearl Abraham, living the literary life in Charlottesville, Virginia...)

Saturday morning, at the early hour of 7:30 a.m., Steve Stern (The Angel of Forgetfulness) brought me a super-size cup of coffee from the Mudhouse, and I promised to meet him in the hotel lobby within half an hour since he had been awake since 5:00 A.M. and was ready for breakfast. However, the lobby, when I arrived, seemed to have been occupied by the local millennial association, with posters for books titled The Power of the Gospel Revealed, The Bishop's Prophecy and Dianetics.

I finally found Steve waylaid by the author of The Alzheimer’s Widow and learned that these were self-published authors associated with Infinity Publishing, a partner in the UVA Festival of the Book. A multitude of flyers and postcards made their way into our hands though we didn’t ask for them, and then there were no garbage receptacles anywhere in the lobby, therefore we really did take the printed matter with us to our rooms. With so much pitching and selling going on, it was not easy finding your volunteer driver scheduled to take you to your scheduled panel, but amazingly every writer eventually wound up where he or she was expected.

We breakfasted at Cubano Café, which serves the best coffee I've had, along
with excellent eggs with salsa and tortillas. Then we visited the used book stores on the Mall, easily a "best of Charlottesville" feature, among many bests. At Blue Whale Books, I found a beautiful 1955 edition of Isaac Babel's Collected Stories, complete with Lionel Trilling's introduction, and Steve and I agreed we couldn't leave it there. Since he already owned a similar edition, I purchased it (it was only twelve dollars), and added to the weight of my already book-crammed, carry-on suitcase.

After which we were due to meet Razel Solow, our Uber-moderator, to talk for a few minutes about our upcoming panel, "Odysseys, Illuminations, and Forbidden Tales: Fantasy in Jewish Literature." We talked, we agreed to be way earlier than on time since a huge crowd was expected (Jonathan Safran Foer was on our panel), and then went to catch Meg Wolitzer (The Position), A.J. Jacobs (The Know-it-All), and Matthew Friedman (Moving) talk about the how-tos of screenwriting. This panel took place in the Omni Ballroom which seats at least 200, and there weren't any empty seats. The organizers of the festival clearly know what the audience wants. I admire Meg's and A.J.'s writing, I don’t know Matthew's, but I think they would all agree: This discussion about the nitty-gritty of getting your book onto the screen was not worthy of them; I left after fifteen minutes.

I hurried upstairs to change my shirt and get my book, met the others in the lobby, and we were on our way. Traffic was slow, the parking lot, the largest one in all of Charlottesville, was full, but we were still half an hour early. We checked in with Razel and went around the corner for coffee. I believe Steve was on his tenth cup of the day.

There were no seats left, and no standing room, and no aisle space. We couldn't see all of our audience and many of them couldn't see us, but they could hear us, thanks to a good PA system. We read, we kibitzed, we answered questions, including some difficult ones. When I was asked about my inclination in The Seventh Beggar to break down the language to alphabetic parts, I found myself talking (with Steve's help) about Kabbalah's (and literary theory's) idea of the destruction before creation, of God's contraction or held breath, which started all the trouble. So your yoga teacher is right: breathe in and out. Steve convinced the audience that he was not Jewish at all, but Lutheran, since he was confirmed and not bar-mitzvahed in a Reform synagogue. Jonathan, well, though he really didn't have to do anything at all to sell his books, he agreed to disagree with one of his fans.

Steve and I signed some books and then went to have drinks with his friends, and mine now as well, John Bensko (Sea Dogs) and Cary Holladay (Mercury), both of them from the University of Memphis. We left Jonathan to tend to his long line of fans, and promised to meet up with him later, at the authors' reception at the UVA President's house.

The sun went down and it was a beautiful Charlottesville evening, just cool enough to remind us that it wasn’t spring yet. We drove and walked through the lovely campus and listened to Cary's sing-song drawl pointing out the sights (Edgar Allan Poe's house), the daffodils. We were greeted rather grandly at the entrance of the President’s House by the hosts, Tony Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic) and Nancy Damon, the Director of this impressive festival. As soon as we found the buffet, we realized that we were weak with hunger. We filled our plates with poached trout, grilled vegetables, and rice, and went to find a place at the long formal dining room table.

Two hours later, we were all exhausted, but Jonathan and Esmeralda Santiago (draped in a shawl to avoid a chill), still had work to do, a reading at the Culbreth Theatre. Since the event already had an audience of 200, Steve and I made our way back to the hotel, settled onto stools at the hotel bar, ordered drinks, and talked about Yiddish literature, the one question Razel had promised but didn’t get to. We tried to stay up for Jonathan, but finally couldn’t. And we found we were hungry again. We stepped outside to Christiana's and joined the collegiate crowd, ordered a slice each, and ate gratefully. After which sleep, but sleep doesn't come so easily, and I didn’t get there until 2:30 a.m.

Pearl Abraham @ Festival of the Book, pt. 2

(Pearl Abraham sends another dispatch from Charlottesville...)

The Omni, official hotel for the UVA Festival, is right beside an outdoor mall, a long brick-paved avenue lined with used book stores, coffee houses, and restaurants. UVA students in bare legs and flip flops line up at Christiana’s pizza and Mudhouse. Checking in at the desk in the Omni, I found Melvin Bukiet (Nothing Makes You Free), waiting for the volunteer to arrive and take him to the airport. He had an hour to spare and we went to Miller’s for a chef’s salad for me, wine for him. We sat in the sun and watched the scene. Alix Strauss (The Joy of Funerals), another writer/survivor on my delayed flight, walked by and waved. The scoop on the festival from Melvin: There are real audiences here. More than a hundred people attended the panel he shared with Aryeh Stollman (Dialogues of Time and Entropy) and Tova Mirvis (The Outside World, and, miracle of miracles, they even sold books.

I was due at the UVA bookstore for my first panel (Found in Translation) an hour later and since traffic in sunny Charlottesville was said to have come to a standstill, we got going early. On the way, I met my co-panelists: hot pink (see yesterday's dispatch) Vyvyane Loh (Breaking the Tongue) and Esmeralda Santiago (The Turkish Lover), who wouldn’t shake my hand. As it turned out, she thought she had a flu and a cough and worried that she wouldn’t be able to read, but she was determined to be there. The event went off without a hitch, um, cough. Attendees with Asian interests lined up for Vyvyane’s books, Spanish speakers lined up for Esmeralda’s, and, what can I say, there weren’t many in the audience interested in Yiddish, which was declared a dead language even when I.B. Singer was writing in it. One, a student at Smith and member of an Amish family, took pity and purchased a copy of The Seventh Beggar.

Vyvyane and I (Esmeralda went out with a local friend) made it back to the Omni, thanks to Saskia, our volunteer driver. Alix Strauss was back from her event as well, and she reported that they too had attracted a good-sized audience. And then, there was Steve Stern (The Angel of Forgetfulness), just in from Saratoga Springs, getting advice on real estate decisions from his friend E. Ethelbert Miller (How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love). Seeing as this poet had advice to give, I asked for some as well. How to sell books? It’s all in the packaging, he declared. We promised to try and get to his panel (Books in the Garden).

Steve Stern and I cruised the mall, looking for a place to eat. We were famished, but one place was too pricey, the next too noisy, the third too family-oriented; we finally settled on Blue Light Grill, which turned out to be perfect since they served fish and chips and a local ale. We stayed late. And talked and talked. Steve is very anxious about his excellent reviews due Sunday in The New York Times and The Washington Post, proof that a writer’s anxiety is, well, a permanent feature.

(Editor's Note: Looks like WaPo put the review off for now, but here's last week's equally enthusiastic take from The Los Angeles Times.)

Pearl Abraham @ Festival of the Book

(Pearl Abraham is sending emails from the Virginia Festival of the Book. I so wish I was down there this weekend; maybe next year, since I'll actually be a published author then... Here's her first report--oh, and before I forget, Pearl will also be doing an Author2Author dialogue with Naama Goldstein the week of March 28th-April 1st; look for it!)

Weeks (or was it months) before the festival, emails from panel moderators, travel agents and subagents, all working hard to make certain everyone knew where and when they were going or ought to be going, filled the inboxes of all participants. Some gems culled from these emails:

Rules and Regulations: IMPORTANT:

• Be sure to PRACTICE and TIME your reading beforehand. If you go longer than 5 minutes, I will start making horrible coughing sounds.
  
• Also practice PROJECTING your voice, in case there are inadequate microphones.
  
• Ladies: Wear pants or skirt that look good when you're sitting down, as we'll be on chairs directly facing the audience (i.e., no "modesty panel").
  

After which Steve Stern (The Angel of Forgetfulness) advised the anti-Sharon-Stone look, pants, skirt, and afghan over it. Indeed, Vyvyane Loh arrived to one of my panels (Found in Translation) looking hot in a pink mini-skirt, and carrying a matching afghan for legs.

Earlier that day, I arrived at La Guardia with plenty of time to spare. First stop: the screen listing the departures, where I learned that the USAir flight into Charlottesville would be leaving half an hour late. With only a twang of anxiety (it was only half an hour), I recalled that USAir just about went out of business this past fall, but the festival organization determined to reserve all the author flights anyway, thereby keeping USAir in business. I checked in and went to have a slow breakfast, with the newspaper and my cellphone, not vastly different than regular mornings, except that on my daily schedule, the news doesn’t figure until late afternoon. I read until I realized that it was 9:45, time to board, then hurried to the gate where I was informed that the gate had been reassigned a while ago and that the plane was in any case delayed in Charlottesville, due to a maintenance issue. At the reassigned gate, I met author A. J. Jacobs (The Know-It-All),who was also wondering whether he would make it to his panel on time. As it turned out, his co-panelist, Sara Nelson (So Many Books, So Little Time, and the head of PW) was also booked on the flight, therefore the panel scheduled for 2:00 couldn’t start without him.

The toy tractor engine with maintenance issues lifting us into the air was not reassuring, although we were, as A.J. Jacobs put it, “probably the most literary flight in the air.” Would a goodly portion of Western literature be reduced to a skid mark over the NorthEast coast? After a rough start, and an equally rrough landing (our stomachs needed plenty of settling), we emerged into sunny, 60-degree Charlottesville, and that made all the difference...

photo: Marilynn K. Yee/NYT