Went to the Napa Valley Writers Conference for a night and attended a reading at the Mondavi winery with Major Jackson and Ron Carlson. It was wonderful to see Major read his work, which I’ve admired for a long time, and the winery setting was just perfectly beautiful for a poetry reading. Got my copy of Hoops signed (and Major’s new book is just out from Norton, though they didn’t have copies there, unfortunately.) He read from all three books of his books, and I appreciated the references to classic and pop culture hiding in his work, and his reading style was very laid back and easy to listen to. The prose reader, Ron Carlson, also read some poetry, which ended up being funny stuff. I might sneak back in to see Brenda Hillman read tonight…

Martha Silano, my Seattle-and-Steel-Toe buddy, has won the Saturnalia book prize – so her third book will be out in 2011! A good year for books, I think…