DC Fencers
I had no idea where Silver Springs was and how far it was from the conference center I was staying at. But I made it to the evening open épée fencing at the DC Fencer’s Club with a half hour to spare. It always pays to leave early (and take a cab).
The head coach, Janusz Smolenski, sat down with me in between students and let me pitch him the book. He was very
interested in the fencing but even more so in my last name, recognizing both the Lithuanian and Polish influences. Then he invited me to fence. I told him I had not brought my gear and before I could say any more he suited me up with gear from the salle and paired me up with my first opponent. I fenced for two hours with a short break to talk to the whole group that Janusz organized when some twenty students had filled the room. Now I thought the room was filled but he told me their six strips (it is a big salle!) are packed with sixty plus students in the fall when everyone is back from vacation. I had way too much fun fencing – getting beaten by a young man and finding some equal matches against others my age and younger. Soaked from my workout I got a ride to the metro from a fencer named Jay, who also happens to be a journalist and a budding novelist.
I left them two copies of Open Wounds and a lot of perspiration. The only problem was that I had so much fun fencing I forgot to take any photos. I had the camera but it never made it out of the bag. The photos are curtesy of their website!
Thank you Jay and Janusz. I hope to be back in the fall for other events. Only next time I’ll have my own equipment.
Politics and Prose in DC
Politics & Prose Bookstore in DC
Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington DC is one of the best independent bookstores I’ve ever seen. It had three characteristics that, for me, make a bookstore rock.
- The inside is well laid out, with a unique look that makes it different from the chain stores and specific to the architecture of the store and space. I love it when the store has its own look and character. The three Tattered Cover Bookstores in Denver each utilize their space so well, some with hidden rooms and desk space, others with wide open space and a good use of floor displays and tables. P&P has books everywhere but doesn’t feel crowded. The books are well-organized. The shelves are neat. There is a coffee shop downstairs along with another room with a long table for important life or death meetings, book club events, or reading. The YA section is well stocked and clearly laid out. There’s a space upstairs for readings with folding chairs and a podium. This place is great. Did I mention the purple awning over the front and the purple lettering?
- The staff is friendly, helpful, and knowledgable about their subject areas. I came twice to the store, walking the fifteen minutes from the metro in 100 degree heat. I was soaked each time. The first time the people I needed to see weren’t there – I missed them by a couple of hours, ugh – the staff at the front desk took down all the pertinent information and promised to pass it on to the individuals I needed to see and helped me to make an appointment for the next day. When I returned I spoke to Heide the children’s book section manager. She took twenty minutes out of her day to listen to my pitch about Open Wounds, asked questions, and really seemed enthusiastic about the book. Mostly what I liked was the attention she paid to what I said. She was present and interested. I then heard one of her staff Silas, talking to a customer about fantasy novels and he really seemed to know what he was talking about. When he finished with them I asked him for some suggestions for my son, Max, who loves fantasy novels. I gave him the lowdown on what he’d read, his age, and what he liked so far and without blinking he pulled out from three different sections of the shelves books I’d never heard of or seen before. Max has read one of the books and loved it,while I’ve started another… This guy knows his stuff.
- The place has to have a certain feeling to it – like I’ll want to stay there, hang out, and look at books all day. Maybe 1 and 2 above lead into three. I don’t know – but this quality a book store either has or doesn’t. P&P does.
P & P Inside of First Floor
Photo’s from ALA
It took me all this time to download them after I got back late last night. Met some great librarians, great writers and had a blast with Allison, Jonathan, and Irv at the New Orleans Fencer’s Club tournament!
Picture with a Fan at ALA WestSide Books Book Signing
SCARS Author cheryl Rainfield Signing at WestSide Booth with Publisher Evelyn Fazio
Allison from the New Orleans Fencing Club with her copy of Open Wounds
Octavia Books in the Garden District - Wonderful Independant Store
Checked out 4-club competition at New Orleans Fencer's Club
Hanging Our With Ed Yamada from WestSide Sales
Book Signing 101 - Colpire Senza Essere Colpito
ALA books I put in my suitcase…
Here’s my list. In no particular order:
- Stick, by Andrew Smith (for me of course!)
- Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath, by Alexis Fajardo (for my son but I’m reading it too! Signed by Alexis. How could I resist – it’s a graphic novel.)
- Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland, by Alexis Fajardo (for my son but I’m reading it too! book two in the series.)
- The White Assassin, By Hilary Wagner (for my son a fantasy series – it’s the second book in a series but I couldn’t find the first so I picked it up anyway – nice cover.)
- Almost Perfect, By Brian Katcher (for me – met the author at coffee klatch speed dating and he signed the book for me!)
- Bronxwood, by Coe Booth (urban YA looks gritty – for me)
Philli MAGPI Redux
So here’s what happened at University of Penn, at ten in the morning on Wednesday last week. Well… I have to back up. After putting together my Powerpoint for the workshop, going over it with my actor/choreographer friend Dave, reading lines of my book, and getting everything ready to be able to leave at 4:15 am – I got into the car and… the battery was dead. So… after wracking my tired brain for ten minutes and trying everything I could think of (turn the key on and off, open the hood and shut the hood, try turning the lights on again and again and again) I gave up and went back upstairs to tell my wife I would have to take the other car. Of course that meant, 1) I woke up the dogs (Spike and Gracie) and 2) I woke up my wife (I didn’t know where the other car was parked and this is Queens so it could be anywhere so… I had to wake her up) – neither of which were happy. Okay the dogs were happy because they thought they were going out but that’s another story.
Fifteen minutes later and I was off to the Verrazano Bridge and Staten Island where Dave was now checking his watch and waiting for me. Behind me were an unhappy, awake wife and two smiling dogs.
We spent an hour on the Jersey Turnpike heading south and west.
We made it to the MAGPI studio, after breakfast at COSI (not bad – didn’t know they had breakfast) by 9am, as required, to check in and go over the distance learning machinery. Michael Knight, the technician arrived and showed us around, then set us up. It was a small TV studio with four cameras and two big plasma screens on the wall that we could see the remote sites on. The cover of my book which I’d embedded on four slides, had disappeared. They needed the originals to show up. I didn’t understand what happened to the images but they were gone. Michael found the pics on my website and after twenty minutes of transfer attempts and switching laptops, and statements like, “you used a mac didn’t you?” and “Sometimes this happens,” he made the presentation whole. with fifteen minutes to spare we were ready to go.
Three schools checked in from Ohio, all high school English classes. One large picture and two small pictures appeared of the classes on the plasma screen. A picture of me and Dave appeared on the other screen. My Powerpoint appeared behind us and our picture got smaller. I taught a writing workshop on “How to Write Action Scenes,” presumably because Open Wounds has a lot of action scenes in it and I therefore had some expertise in this area. Dave (a real actor as opposed to me who is an amateur) was terrific as all the characters, especially Lefty (my crippled, English, WWI vet) and I played Cid and narrated. Dave’s a good director so he dragged some semblance of character and pace out of me while providing four different voices for the various other characters. We demonstrated some physicalization of fencing moves – ie: here’s how I worked out the fight we just read before I wrote it. The kids did a writing exercise and one student from each school read their piece out loud. They asked questions like, “Why do you like to write fight scenes? How do you write realistic dialog?” and “Why do you write?” Sixty minutes came and went.
What I learned about distance learning systems:
- It’s very hard to call on kids when they raise their hands. “The boy in the black shirt (they’re all wearing black shirts) in the top screen (they don’t know which screen they’re on), yes that one over there (I point ridiculously at one screen or the other). I finally figured out to say things like, “The boy next to the teacher wearing a yellow shirt (so glad the teachers were wearing something other than black).” What I’ll need to do next time (will there be a next time?) is write down which school is in which frame and call out the school and a description of location (boy in the middle at Ohio High). It will be better than my automatic response of pointing which, of course they could not figure out at all because of the perspective they had of me … well… pointing.
- Michael Knight, the technician, used to be a stage, sound, lighting, expert on the road for all kinds of entertainers and bands and easily gets points for telling the best stories about the stars he’s worked with. He’s tops in Dave and my book.
- I’ve got a shiny forehead. Yes, I do.
- Powerpoint is good and always helps. It creates structure for any presentation and is a nice counterpoint to my shiny forehead.
- There’s no instant feedback on jokes because of the distance and lack of mikes being on at each site. They are all mute and have to un-mute to speak. So it was like talking to a silent audience – always a tough performance and difficult to get a read on how you’re doing.
Lunievicz 