Missing the reading
Eileen Gunn let me know the other day that Nicola Griffith was going to be reading from her new novel Stay at Booksmith in San Francisco tonight at 7. I was interested in going, but had made other plans for this evening.
But then, sadly, those other plans fell through, and I decided to go after all.
Unfortunately, I didn't allot nearly enough time to get to the bookstore, which is in the heart of the Haight. I considered leaving here at 5 p.m., but at 5 I was still trying to iron out WisCon travel plans (I finally bought plane tickets today, which meant I paid much more for them than I would've if I'd bought 'em two months ago when I first planned to, sigh); I didn't get shaved and showered and ready to go 'til 6, and then I realized that if I didn't eat something before the reading I'd be grumpy all evening. My bread was moldy, so I heated something up in the microwave, and then I rushed out the door without my cellphone and had to rush back for it, and what with one thing and another it was after 6:15 by the time I hit the road.
At which point I remembered that just 'cause I'm not working doesn't mean nobody else is; in particular, that it was the peak of rush hour, and that nobody was gonna be getting to SF anytime soon.
But I figured I'd try it anyway. I took 280 instead of 101, and had reasonably good luck with traffic all the way. I expected 19th Street in SF to take half an hour, but again had reasonably good luck; and parking only took 10 minutes instead of the 20 I'd expected; and in the end I arrived at the bookstore at 7:30. Given that on a normal weekday at that time of day it probably should've taken me an hour and 45 minutes, I was quite content with it only taking an hour and a quarter.
I took up a place at the back of the reading area just in time to hear the final sentence or two of Nicola's reading. Oops. But as I'd hoped, there was a Q&A session, so I didn't miss everything.
Someone sitting near the back of the room was handing out postcards for "Writers with Drinks spoken word variety show." After the Q&A, I took a closer look at the card and realized that this was a show put together by Charles Anders (author of, among many other things, "Not to Mention Jack"); just then, the person who'd been handing out cards stood up, revealing that he was wearing a dress, and I became pretty sure that it was Charles. So I introduced myself, and it was in fact Charles, so we chatted a bit. The show sounds interesting; once a month five to six writers read from their work at Cafe du Nord, all proceeds going to local queer nonprofits. The writers involved span genres: poetry, erotica, literary fiction, stand-up comedy, romance, sf, horror, and rants. John Shirley, M. Christian, Simon Sheppard, Richard Kadrey, Rudy Rucker, Carol Queen, et alia. Cory Doctorow in June, I think.
Back to Nicola's reading. Others in the audience included Eileen and Lyn P. and Debbie Notkin and Alan (all of whom I'd more or less expected), and Nalo Hopkinson (who I didn't expect but was very happy to see). Also Matt A. and Janet L. (I'm sure I had met them before, probably at Potlatch and maybe at Kelly Link's recent reading, but somehow didn't recognize them) (Matt is a Tiptree juror this year). After Nicola'd finished signing books, a bunch of us went to dinner at a pub down the block.
Good dinner, good company. Too many people for everyone to converse together at once, of course, which ended up meaning that I didn't really get to talk with Eileen or Nalo at all, unfortunately. On the other hand, I ended up sitting by Nicola and Kelley. Somehow I had not realized that this Kelley was Kelley Eskridge, author of the excellent story "And Salome Danced," which can be found in Flying Cups and Saucers. I felt a little bad about monopolizing their dinner conversation when there were people who they actually knew who were sitting too far away to talk with them, but each of them got up and wandered over to talk with other folks for a while at various points, so I think that was fine. (And there were other people sitting near us who talked with them as well, of course.) And though I'd have done better with an extrovert on hand, I think I managed to ask enough of the right sort of questions to be a not-entirely-uninteresting dinner companion. They were both charming and entertaining despite having spent the past several days in a grueling reading schedule.
And Kelley, it turns out, has just finished her first novel, Solitaire (and btw, Nalo has also just finished a novel!), due out in September from HarperCollins Eos; Kelley has also been creating a Web site (see above link) where all of her short fiction to date is now available for free PDF download! I'm looking forward to reading it. She wasn't the only one there who was braving the wilds of the Web for the first time; I wonder if workshops for writers on creating their own Web pages would be a good con activity. (Though actually I seem to recall that some cons have done this recently, though I don't remember whether I know how well that's gone.)
Anyway, a very nice evening, despite having missed the reading proper.
Tomorrow: socialize all day. (With two different people at different times.) Saturday: socialize all day. (With one person.) Sunday: socialize all day. (With three different people at different times, plus a group of people in the evening.) Monday: collapse in a heap and rest up from the weekend.