| 9:30a |
The "Ozark Writers Live!" gig...
Yesterday's "Ozark Writers Live!" gig turned out to be just plain wonderful.
First, there was the setting -- the new Fayetteville, Arkansas Public Library. It was the first time I'd ever been there, and I was amazed; that library is a spectacular place, and if you're ever anywhere near it I suggest that you go take a look. It's the fanciest library I have ever seen in my life. It has big luxurious meeting rooms with excellent sound systems and ample comfortable seating; it has a cafe; it has state-of-the-art computer rooms, including a big one for kids [and a separate special one for tiny kids, where the big kids won't get in their way]; it has lots of everything-automatic-and-spotless restrooms; it has vast expanses of glass looking out over Fayetteville and over the mountains; it has gardens and courts and sculptures and art and a huge free underground parking garage and a dedicated expert staff. I can't praise it enough. It also has many thousands of books and audiobooks and CDs and DVDs, and all those computers that provide access to many thousands more. It has story hours; it hosts all sorts of clubs and meetings and conferences and classes for all ages ... there's no end to its marvels. [I was hoping that its website would have some good photos that I could give you links for, but that seems to be something they haven't had time to get to yet; they've been busy.] It was a perfect setting for a writers' event.
I had been worried, as you know, and fretting, that no one would come to my "Science Fiction Poetry and the Ozark Storytelling Tradition" presentation because I was on at the same time as Donald Harington. I would have understood that perfectly, since I too would have loved to hear Harington's talk. But it didn't turn out that way at all. I had a wonderful audience -- thirty enthusiastic people, including several who had come all the way from Oklahoma. Thirty people for a science fiction poetry reading and discussion? Bliss.
And to my amazement, a good third of those people were teenagers. Roughly a dozen teenagers, there to hear me read science fiction poems from Twenty-One Novel Poems and talk about them, who stayed the whole fifty-five minutes and gave me their undivided attention the entire time. I appreciated every single person there, of every age and kind -- if you were among them, I thank you wholeheartedly for being there and listening to me -- but the teenagers were a bonus, and an honor, that I hadn't expected.
We sold a lot of books at our sales table, which is always a help to my small business. And the Arkansas University Press sales table -- right next to ours -- had a tall stack of copies of my Ozark Trilogy this time, bless them.
When it was all over I was tired, and George was tired. But we were one hundred percent satisfied with the day and very glad we'd had the opportunity to be part of it. Nary a glitch, from beginning to end... |