A quick note from Chicago:
A. I did not pack enough sweaters, mittens, or snow boots for this trip. Ice on the ground yesterday. Brrrrr! Record-breaking snowfall the day of my reading.
B. Chicago is a beautiful city. Architecture, museums, parks. Art Institute still wonderful. Although the fab Chagall stained glass was in storage. Got to go to a “Chocolate, Cheese and wine bar.” I think this trend should catch on.
C. The Bookslut Reading was crowded (although poor Ander Monson got snowed in, so it was just fictionist and poet Catherynne M. Valente and me) and I thought went pretty well. Catherynne read stepmother and Rapunzel poems, and stories about a princes on quests to kill monsters. So, of course, a good reading partner for me! A charming audience in attendance.
D. Poor husband G has finally caught my evil bronchitis, so the poor sweetie has been sick the whole trip. I’m still on antibiotics, now he is too!
E. Uneven internet connections are frustrating. Especially for people who almost exclusively use e-mail to communicate with others.
More when I get home Saturday…Hope you are all warmer than I!
Where I’ll be: The Windy City – Chicago
Here’s what I’ll be doing:
http://www.bookslut.com/readings.html
Reading at the Hopleaf 2nd floor
5148 N Clark Street
7:30 PM Wednesday the 11th
with Ander Monson and Catherynne M. Valente
Come by, say hi, and all that good stuff! Wish me luck!
Be back next week!
A bit under the weather here with a lung infection that I am being dosed up with antibiotics for (OmniCef, this time – doesn’t that sound like a bank? or a hotel?) I keep falling asleep for no reason, even on 24-hour decongestents, which usually kick off an energetic phase. So, not the most productive of times.
On the plus side, instead of doing all the fun social things I was going to do this weekend (like seeing Jenifer Lawrence read from her new book at Elliot Bay, or going to the Comicon where the artists from Buffy’s newest comic and the artist who does the future-telling art from Heroes were going to be, or hanging out with friends at the local jazz place) I am reading. I just finished Charles Jensen’s Living Things chapbook (which reminded me, in its restraint and solemnity, a little of Louise Gluck) and re-read a book of Japanese fairy tales. I finished up a review of Kate Greenstreet’s case sensitive for The Pedestal. And I finally got to read the “season eight” Buffy comic, which has a beautifully drawn cover.
Speaking of beautiful covers, Bookslut is using Michaela’s work to advertise the upcoming reading in Chicago with myself, Ander Monson and Catherynne Valente. I’m excited about the reading – and the people I’m reading with – and hope I get to run into some Chicago friends while I’m there. I love that city!
April, my birthday month, is almost here. Seattle is being sulky and sullen and hanging around the fifty-degree point, even though the cherry blossoms have already started to fall.
