Our upperclassman colleague takes the Prairie Lights stage at 8 p.m. to read from her second novel, Baker Towers, a chapter of which I remember from Ethan's workshop. I saw her last time around, and although I have yet to follow up by actually sitting down with my signed first edition of Mrs. Kimble, her reading from it was masterful, I thought.
6 comments:
Sadly, I have to miss Jennifer's reading; I teach on Tuesday evenings. Does anyone know who might be hosting the post?
According the Jan, there is "no planned party" after the reading.
According to, that would be
Jennifer was very good again. The section she read was a fallen-woman-meets-trad-values-immigrant-mother-in-law scene that evoked a few laughs from the audience. She handled Julie gracefully and patiently and fielded yer typical questions. The audience itself, though... sheez, where were people last night? School's in session, it was a balmy 30 degrees on a Tuesday. She's on the friggin' NYT bestseller list, IC-ers! Maybe 25-20 people. I was mortified. Aferward, TLB, Brando, and Grendel joined the apparently unruffled Ms. Haigh at Atlas for a drinkypoo, where it was revealed that, although near and dear to her heart, the IC is a small link in a mighty chain -- a 40-city tour for this book, ladies and gentlemen. She bid us goodnight and strolled off to the Sheraton for 40 well-deserved winks, resting up for her early flight. Oh: at one point, she said, "Our class was awful. Scary people. I liked your class."
For the record, I was at sewing class at Northwest Junior High (where, incidentally, there is a painting of SpongeBob on the wall - apparently, they either have not heard of or are down with his homosexual agenda).
I did catch the very last of the Q&A on my drive home. JH referred to the fact that people don't read anymore, something which (a) seems obvious based on anecdotal evidence and (b) was in a widely publicized study released in mid-late 2004. Of course, JH's claim struck JE as astonishing and perhaps mad, and she grilled JH along the lines of WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS? HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? Classic JE.
And she also said, "Who's reading all these books then?" and looked a little exasperated.
Post a Comment