Short Post About Being Away And Coming Home

wexler-littleitalyBeing true to the spirit of this blog, I should just say, I’m back, with, at most, a photographic accompaniment, and let the reader infer that I must have been somewhere. Instead, I’ll amble along for a few more words, perhaps even an entire paragraph. (And, are there partial paragraphs, isn’t any group of words followed by a line break considered to be a paragraph? But I digress.)

I went to New York and read a section of my roughly-completed short novel, The Silverberg Business, at the New York Review of Science Fiction reading series on March 11, and the next night I appeared on WBAI’s Hour of the Wolf radio program, with host and elocutionist Jim Freund. That bit of fun was in the 1–3am time-slot (not my favorite time to be awake). I read a classic Wexlerian story, “Tales of the Golden Legend,” available on my website here.

The NYRSF event was with Chandler Klang Smith, author of Goldenland Past Dark, which I’m looking forward to reading. She read from a cool-sounding novel-in-progress. It was a fun time, attended by a good-sized group that included old friends and a lot of strangers.

My reading was on the third anniversary of Jack Hardy’s death, so on the show the next night Jim played a couple of his songs and Jack of Hearts,a tribute song by Tim Robinson. The Hour of the Wolf show is archived and stream-able for two weeks from the date of the show (March 13).

Aside from reading, I ate. That shouldn’t be surprising. Ate brilliantly-spicy stuff at a newish place called Hot Kitchen, and also Xi’an Famous Food, and others.

I walked a lot. I bought bagels to take home. I saw friends. I didn’t see one friend because I went to the wrong place and didn’t have his phone number, didn’t even know if he had a phone (I blame that on being exhausted by staying up late for the radio show.).

I also found out after it happened, that my friend Mike Laureanno came in from Providence to perform at the same time as my reading. There’s a video of it here.

And came home.

(note: I selected writing as one of the tags for this post because whenever I use that tag I get multiple likes by people who appear magically and probably don’t read the post or have any idea who I am.)

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Emporium Reading

I have a couple of readings coming up, this Saturday and in March, both in Yellow Springs. The first is at Emporium Wines/Underdog Cafe, 4pm Sat. Jan. 9. I’ll be accompanied by Brady Burkett of Starfolk on electric guitar. We did a couple of these in October and plan to schedule more soon. I’ve worked out sections of chapters 1, 2, and 4 from The Painting and the City that work well, and are fun for me to read. I’ll have some books for sale, and Brady will have the first Starkfolk album on cd and vinyl, and the second on cd. I expect there’ll be some wine, too.

World Fantasy Wrap-up

Anyone expecting a convention report from me during or even right after a convention should look at my never-quite-caught-up New York trip report here. Immediate reporting is not the forte of the department of laconic writing. I’m still trying to figure out what to say about J.G. Ballard’s death in April.

World Fantasy 2009 PR 2_FINAL_WEB

I hadn’t been to World Fantasy in three years. It’s a convention that I always enjoy, but this year’s felt larger and less comfortable than I remembered, maybe because the hotel floor that housed the events was a confusing labyrinth, and also because my getting there was difficult and I never felt caught up on sleep.  There were people I knew would be there and had even communicated with ahead of time, but never saw them.  But I did see a lot of old friends, including people from my Clarion West ’97 class, with whom I can always slip into easy familiarity. As usual, I spent much of my time sitting around talking to people about writing.

The highlight was meeting Zoran Zivkovic in person, after having corresponded via email for several years. I also got to meet Jill Roberts, from Tachyon, for whom I did interior design and layout for Carol Emshwiller’s novel, The Secret City.

The book bag contained some gems, including Leigh Brackett’s Sword of Rhiannon (which was the perfect read for the long flight home), and Tom Disch’s The Wall of America and The Word of God, from Tachyon. And some less desired objects, which I donated to the discard table.

My only scheduled event was a reading Friday morning. I read from The Painting and the City, a shorter version what I’ve been reading. I missed having Brady’s guitar-playing, but maybe next year in Columbus he can accompany me.

My friend Ben, from Texas, who’s now living in San Francisco and whom I hadn’t seen in five years, came over to San Jose for the evening on Friday; we had mediocre fish and chips with jazz combo at a place near the hotel. There was a small Vietnamese neighborhood a few blocks away with several excellent restaurants, which I unfortunately didn’t discover till Saturday afternoon.

And next year’s World Fantasy is an hour’s drive from my house.

Reading Tonight

I’m reading this evening, 6:30 pm, at the Dayton Metro Library in New Lebanon, OH, 715 W. Main St., New Lebanon (937/496-8948).  This is a low-key world premier multimedia experiment of words and music.  I’ll read from The Painting and the City, accompanied by Brady Burkett on electric guitar.

And we’ll do it again later in the month, Saturday, October 24, 4 pm, at the Dayton Visual Art Center (DVAC), 118 N. Jefferson Street, Dayton, OH.