Reading Last Night at The Sunday Salon, Chicago

The reading last night went really well. Willy and I--along with our friend Anthony-- rolled into Chi-City around 1 PM and immediately headed to the Wicker Park/Bucktown area as we wanted to poke into some stores, and grab a bite of lunch . . . before meeting Kate Hunter four hours later for dinner. What can I say? We're foodies-deal with it. Went to Bin Cafe and Wine Bar--a place I love--and had a lovely brunch of eggs and mimosa's and just tried to relax before the reading (God knows why I get so goddamn nervous, but, unfortunately, I do). I bought a really nice bottle of Syrah to take home with me (Yes, I'm also a wine snob. Big surprise) and we hit a few stores in the area for clothes shopping. Willy and Anthony are surprisingly good shoppers--probably because they're a bunch of metrosexuals.

We hit Cafe Lula in Logan Square at a little before 5 PM and had a drink at the bar while waiting for Kate Hunter, author of The Dream Sequence--a book we are very proud of. Kate showed up with her friend Lisa, who had flown all the way from LA to see Kate read. Lisa owns a vintage clothing store in LA and is a doll. Before I go on, let me say a little about Kate Hunter: Kate, quite simply, is one of the most talented and KIND people I have ever had the privelege of meeting in my life. She never has anything but nice words for us, and she's one of those people who is just really REAL. She is the complete oppostite of the typical writerly Prima-Donna-Diva, and is grateful for everything that comes her way. She's been HIV posiitive for 19 years, so she's the very definition of a survivor. Every time I get around her I get all tongue-tied and stupid. Also, she's really pretty--but I guess that's neither here nor there . . .

We had a lovely dinner of roast chicken (though the food wasn't as fab as I remember it being--which made me cranky (the only thing that makes me crankier than bad books are bad meals--and the only thing that makes me crankier than bad meals are bad meals I have to pay for. Grrrr . . . ), but a few glasses of good wine assuaged the situation, and we headed out to the Charleston Bar for the reading. The bar was a really nice neighborhood-ey venue--lots of wood and little chairs and tables. We met Mike Zapata, who was co-hosting, and basically the reading went swimmingly. Elizabeth Crane was there, author of All This Heavenly Glory and When the Messenger is Hot (Best title ever). Elizabeth was a total sweetheart--she'd been nice enough to put Kate up for the weekend AND blurbed her book as well. She's one of those people who you begin talking to, and immediately feel at home--like you've known them for years. Now that I'm thinking about it, we really should've bought her ass a drink . . . Sorry, Elizabeth--next time, we promise!

Jessa Crispin from Bookslut showed up--specifically to see us--which absolutely blew me away. We talked to her for a while, and I was so nervous that I'm sure I began babbling incoherently like a maniac (I am a total geek when I get nervous--go figure). But, she graciously put up with our nonsense and was sweet as can be. I felt like screaming from the top of my lungs "She's not an impenetrable ice-goddess of the indie book world! She's nice! She's really nice!" Even if she has more literary power than God, it clearly hasn't gone to her head. I was so happy that she was there, but then when I got up to read I was just so NERVOUS that I kept tripping over my words. Not helping this was the fact that I was on the DARKEST stage I've ever been on in my life. I was seriously going blind. As a result, I'm sure I read like an 80 year old woman suffering from dementia.

After the reading we hung around to schmooze a bit, and then began the arduous 4 hour trip back to Iowa City--which truly sucked like nothing has ever sucked before. Thank God I wasn't driving. I fell asleep with Willy and Anthony chattering excitedly away about linguistics, of all things, in my sleeping ears.

After a lengthy hunt for the audio files, the podcast from the Impetus Press KGB reading of September 18th is now available for download. The mp3 can be downloaded here and a review of the reading (as well as a download link) should be up on the KGB Lit website before too long.

-wb

Here it is: the first post of The Impetus Blog. This will be the place to find the latest news, events and new release information from Impetus Press. And--being a blog--there will be plenty of random musings on books, publishing, movies, and life and culture in general from Jennifer Banash and Willy Blackmore, publishers at Impetus Press.

Stay tuned.