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Dec. 11th, 2009 11:28 amI'm feeling much better than I did earlier this week. Last night, I went to a terrific reading/event. I generally go to these things alone, but end up knowing a few people, so I usually have people to sit with. Last night I sat with one of Mari's friends, Lisa and ended up meeting a few more neat people too.
The event was the Literary Saloon. It's a new reading series created by novelists Lynn Coady and Marina Endicott. They wanted to have a prose reading series in town and feature an out of town guest and local readers. The theme of the night was "Ink." Marina, Lynn and local novelist Greg Hollingshead read some excerpts from new work. Then Ted Bishop took the floor to talk about pens. He is currently working on a biography about the history of ink so he told us all about the history of the ball point pens and some of the incredibly weird characters involved with its design and promotion. He showed us vintage pens, pen posters and played us some old commercials including one called, "Is that a rocket in your pocket?" (The pens were called rockets and the ads were quite sexual.)
This was followed by a reading from out of town guest Annabel Lyon, who read us a passage from her award winning book, "The Golden mean."
Following this, Lynn and Marina organized a book SMELLING contest. Three volunteers from the audience were blind folded and assisted by celebrity judges. The volunteers had to identify, "Mastering the art of French cooking", "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", "Gulliver's travels", a new book called "The Incident Report" and a book by Michael Ignatieff. The celebrity guests (Ted Bishop, Greg Hollingshead, and Annabel Lyon) were allowed to give hints as to the nature of the book. Two of the volunteers did okay, but one was absolutely amazing and he could identify the books mainly by smell. Weird, but fun.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Edmonton Journal book fair. One of the writers decided to host a fair celebrating the many published authors at the Edmonton Journal. Then I'm going to a friend's holiday party that night.
My schedule right now is nice and open, but I'm already looking at the end of January, which will be insane. I'll be going to conferences and working A LOT.
The event was the Literary Saloon. It's a new reading series created by novelists Lynn Coady and Marina Endicott. They wanted to have a prose reading series in town and feature an out of town guest and local readers. The theme of the night was "Ink." Marina, Lynn and local novelist Greg Hollingshead read some excerpts from new work. Then Ted Bishop took the floor to talk about pens. He is currently working on a biography about the history of ink so he told us all about the history of the ball point pens and some of the incredibly weird characters involved with its design and promotion. He showed us vintage pens, pen posters and played us some old commercials including one called, "Is that a rocket in your pocket?" (The pens were called rockets and the ads were quite sexual.)
This was followed by a reading from out of town guest Annabel Lyon, who read us a passage from her award winning book, "The Golden mean."
Following this, Lynn and Marina organized a book SMELLING contest. Three volunteers from the audience were blind folded and assisted by celebrity judges. The volunteers had to identify, "Mastering the art of French cooking", "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", "Gulliver's travels", a new book called "The Incident Report" and a book by Michael Ignatieff. The celebrity guests (Ted Bishop, Greg Hollingshead, and Annabel Lyon) were allowed to give hints as to the nature of the book. Two of the volunteers did okay, but one was absolutely amazing and he could identify the books mainly by smell. Weird, but fun.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Edmonton Journal book fair. One of the writers decided to host a fair celebrating the many published authors at the Edmonton Journal. Then I'm going to a friend's holiday party that night.
My schedule right now is nice and open, but I'm already looking at the end of January, which will be insane. I'll be going to conferences and working A LOT.
