bubbles
One of my favorite parts of the year, Before, was Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, at the LA Times Festival of Books. The Festival is massive, and even though it happens in late April, it's somehow always baking hot on USC's campus. Writers come from all over the country, which means friends I don't normally get to see just land in my lap. We spend two days going to panels and walking around and talking work, talking art, talking shit. My job, which so often feels imaginary and abstract, tumbles out of my laptop and into real life.
Plus for which, I am talent. I wear a lanyard. I often use it as an excuse to buy a special outfit, or at least some new lipstick. Anyway, it's fun but also exhausting, and on Sunday at five all the panels are over and we're done with stage fright, done with prep work, done with having to be professional. We gather in the green room and get a glass of wine. The weather that felt oppressive a few hours earlier, hurrying from one thing to another, turns sweet and suggestive, full of open possibility. Spring, and then summer: the days opening themselves up, longer and longer and longer.
The work of writing is never done but for a moment it feels like the beginning of vacation (even though it is, in point of fact, the end of the weekend). I didn't understand how much I valued that moment, that cheers, that sip of wine, that sense of being able to (hah) close the book on something until April of 2020, when I finished my last panel for the spring and closed my laptop and then continued to sit in my room, alone. I had a book that was freshly out but I'd never signed a copy or seen it in a store. It was and continues to be the most minor tragedy. It still fucking sucked.
The last few years have been very hard, publishing-wise. Who am I kidding-- my whole career has been hard, publishing-wise. I keep waiting for something to break my way but the climb stays so slow it's hard to even call it steady. I keep thinking why am I doing this and then continuing to do it anyway, because Capricorn, because Taurus, because stubborn and glutton for punishment. (My therapist would say, because you an artist, but I'm never really ready to claim that one.)
Anyway. Anyway. The Festival is happening this year. I'm moderating two panels, both outdoors at the YA Stage. I'm going to sign stock at PRH's booth, to see a whole stack of Looks ready to find their readers. And at five pm on Sunday I will be with friends who are just as tired and wired as I am, and together, we will drink a glass of something cold and sweet.
-
Those panels are: Classic Tales Re-Spun, which is Saturday at 3pm, and Friendship, Family, and Finding Yourself on Sunday at noon.
I also got to interview my pal & one of my favorite writers, Elissa Sussman, about her new book, Funny You Should Ask, for Shondaland.
And I'm teaching again! Probably the last public offering for a while, so get it while the getting's good:
Plus for which, I am talent. I wear a lanyard. I often use it as an excuse to buy a special outfit, or at least some new lipstick. Anyway, it's fun but also exhausting, and on Sunday at five all the panels are over and we're done with stage fright, done with prep work, done with having to be professional. We gather in the green room and get a glass of wine. The weather that felt oppressive a few hours earlier, hurrying from one thing to another, turns sweet and suggestive, full of open possibility. Spring, and then summer: the days opening themselves up, longer and longer and longer.
The work of writing is never done but for a moment it feels like the beginning of vacation (even though it is, in point of fact, the end of the weekend). I didn't understand how much I valued that moment, that cheers, that sip of wine, that sense of being able to (hah) close the book on something until April of 2020, when I finished my last panel for the spring and closed my laptop and then continued to sit in my room, alone. I had a book that was freshly out but I'd never signed a copy or seen it in a store. It was and continues to be the most minor tragedy. It still fucking sucked.
The last few years have been very hard, publishing-wise. Who am I kidding-- my whole career has been hard, publishing-wise. I keep waiting for something to break my way but the climb stays so slow it's hard to even call it steady. I keep thinking why am I doing this and then continuing to do it anyway, because Capricorn, because Taurus, because stubborn and glutton for punishment. (My therapist would say, because you an artist, but I'm never really ready to claim that one.)
Anyway. Anyway. The Festival is happening this year. I'm moderating two panels, both outdoors at the YA Stage. I'm going to sign stock at PRH's booth, to see a whole stack of Looks ready to find their readers. And at five pm on Sunday I will be with friends who are just as tired and wired as I am, and together, we will drink a glass of something cold and sweet.
-
Those panels are: Classic Tales Re-Spun, which is Saturday at 3pm, and Friendship, Family, and Finding Yourself on Sunday at noon.
I also got to interview my pal & one of my favorite writers, Elissa Sussman, about her new book, Funny You Should Ask, for Shondaland.
And I'm teaching again! Probably the last public offering for a while, so get it while the getting's good:
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