Fun with our Reading Series

Three fun things that happened last night.

Fun Thing No. 1:  A Name!  A Name!

My co-curator, Heather Bouwman, named our reading series!  (Drumroll, please... Pull the curtain... and...)

Yep!  The Second Story Reading Series.  Perfect (if a little blurry).

Here's why:  It has two meanings.  The Loft's performance hall is on the second story of the Open Book building (hence the staircase in the pix above), and of course, our reading series is designed to feature two writers: an emerging and an established author, so there is always a second story.

Fun Thing No. 2:  Our Chilling Reading

Last night, we featured chilling tales on a chilly night. Even though the temperature hovered around zero degrees and the snow/ice was thick on the roads, we had a large turn out for Patrick Jones and NY Times Bestselling Lisa McMann.  We even had to add seats.

  Patrick kicked us off. He was great, moving around the space, connecting with the audience, and hitting notes (when imitating teen girls) that I didn't think was in his register.

Then, Lisa treated us all to a selection of her upcoming book, Gone. Always fun to get a sneak peek.  And when we revealed that Lisa would give out her copy of Gone, at least half the audience (the half that hadn't signed up for the giveaway already) beat it to the lobby for the grand prize.

After a Q and A and our final giveaways, our audience got their books signed and munched on Monster cookies in honor of Patrick's book The Tear Collector ("You're a monster!" "Cody, there are no such thing as monsters") and Orange Dreamsicle Cake in honor of Lisa's book Wake ("Your dreams are not your own").



Fun Thing No. 3:  Seat at the Grown Ups Table


Split is coming out in less than two months. (59 days, but whose counting?)  And even though I have held an ARC in my hands, it still feels surreal.  But I got another grounding experience last night after the reading.  Lisa generously took Heather Bouwman, Erin Downing Kurtis Scaletta, Charlotte Sullivan (radio host on KFAI and will-be-published-someday author) and me out to a tasty dinner. It was something to have literally a seat at the table with four other published authors. We discussed things all things inscrutable to writers: contract prices, NY Times Bestseller lists v. Bookscan numbers, why publishers select certain authors for events.  It was a conversation that only authors would have and it was great to be speculating amongst them.