I don’t get out much, but next Thursday night I’ll be one of four writers (including Heather Fowler!) reading at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego’s Balboa Park.
Besides the readings, there will also be two short films.
Details can be found here.
… but then at some point you realize, yes, OK, sure, maybe it’s about that, but it’s also really about something else, something you weren’t aware of (not consciously).
A while back I had the realization that, to a large degree, my novel is about forgiveness. Forgiving others. Forgiving yourself. Forgiving the past as well as the present.
Today I was reading this review of Ethel Rohan’s Hard to Say (a fantastic book, by the way) and I came across this quote from Peter Ustinov: “Love is an act of endless forgiveness.”
I almost fell out of my chair. My god. That’s what my book is really about.
Yesterday would have been David Foster Wallace’s 50th birthday.
With that in mind, here are a few things DFW-related:
Also, I was extremely happy to see that Roxane Gay will have a short story in the Best American Short Stories 2012. The story (“North Country”) appeared in Hobart 12.
Roxane is one of my favorite writers. I try to read everything she writes. You should too.
…and the reading was outdoors, in a park, during the day, bright and sunny, people sitting on the grass and waiting for DeLillo to arrive.
Suddenly he was there. The reading was for a book that hasn’t been published. The book was a long one (not like his recent short novels). It had a colorful cover (yellow, black, red).
DeLillo said he needed a podium or stand or something. I offered the cardboard box I was sitting on. (Why was I sitting on a cardboard box? Good question. Dreams, you know.)
He sat down and placed the book on the cardboard box and started to read and everyone listened.
