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Vancouver International Writers Festival
Oct. 19th, 2006 06:41 amYesterday I volunteered and sold books at the Vancouver International Writers Festival. The event was "Grand Openings", which featured readings by Jon McGregor, Damon Galgut, Lynn Coady, Wayne Johnston, Tash Aw, Kate Grenville and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I hadn't really heard of any of these authors except for Coady and Johnston. Apparently Grenville's book won the Orange Prize and Aw's book won the Whitbread. It was quite the international event; Aw is from Malaysia/London, McGregor is British, Grenville is Australian, Adichie is Nigerian and Galgut is from South Africa.Coady and Johnston are both Canadians. When I saw Tash Aw, I started kicking myself because I was offered the opportunity to interview him and I turned it down. I thought he was really hot and I had a brief fantasy of conducting the interview in a hotel room naked. Damn.
I was quite happy to hear Coady read from "Mean Boy", which I absolutely loved. I'm also looking forward to reading Johnston's new book, since I loved "The Colony of Unrequited dreams" and his new book "The Custodian of Paradise" sounds really funny.
An added bonus of the night was that I got to talk to Gautam Malkani, author of "Londonstani." The British South Asian author came into the reading with his wife and I recognized him immediately and said, "I really liked your book." He smiled and thanked me. Once he and his wife found their seats, he came back and thanked me again and we chatted a bit. He asked, "What do you do?" I blushed bright red and told him I was a writer and that my first book of poetry was coming out in the spring. He congratulated me and asked if he would see me around at future events. I blushed again, and thought in my head that I would like to see him naked at future events, but instead I said that I was volunteering, but I wasn't sure if I would be at any of the events that he was reading at. We talked about his schedule and I told him that I thought his book was quite innovative. We also talked about the "Trainspotting" comparison and he said that it had come up multiple times and that the comparison was a huge compliment. He also mentioned that he did a lot of research before writing "Londonstani" and had conducted interviews with a lot of kids before writing the book.
In conclusion- Gautam Malkani. Hot. Gracious and Humble. Married.
I was quite happy to hear Coady read from "Mean Boy", which I absolutely loved. I'm also looking forward to reading Johnston's new book, since I loved "The Colony of Unrequited dreams" and his new book "The Custodian of Paradise" sounds really funny.
An added bonus of the night was that I got to talk to Gautam Malkani, author of "Londonstani." The British South Asian author came into the reading with his wife and I recognized him immediately and said, "I really liked your book." He smiled and thanked me. Once he and his wife found their seats, he came back and thanked me again and we chatted a bit. He asked, "What do you do?" I blushed bright red and told him I was a writer and that my first book of poetry was coming out in the spring. He congratulated me and asked if he would see me around at future events. I blushed again, and thought in my head that I would like to see him naked at future events, but instead I said that I was volunteering, but I wasn't sure if I would be at any of the events that he was reading at. We talked about his schedule and I told him that I thought his book was quite innovative. We also talked about the "Trainspotting" comparison and he said that it had come up multiple times and that the comparison was a huge compliment. He also mentioned that he did a lot of research before writing "Londonstani" and had conducted interviews with a lot of kids before writing the book.
In conclusion- Gautam Malkani. Hot. Gracious and Humble. Married.
