I went to the (fabulous!) PEN/Faulkner reading on Friday: Dorothy Allison (author of Bastard Out of Carolina) read from a work in progress, and Ron Rash read the opening story of his new collection Burning Bright. Both were accomplished readers, and the stories were riveting and suspenseful. Plus, kudos always to anyone who reads from work in progress.
Topping off a great evening, I found out a bit of a scoop about next year’s line-up of readers…okay, there should probably be about a thousand warnings of “nothing’s final until it’s printed on a brochure or something,” but among the PEN/Faulkner visitors next year are:
Gary Shteyngart
and
EMMA DONOGHUE!!!!!! I can’t tell you how thrilled I am! ROOM was one of my favorite books last year, and I’d love to see her read from it. I would like to say that I’d love to chat with her, but I fear I would just stand there slack-jawed in admiration.
Learn more about PEN/Faulkner here: http://www.penfaulkner.org/
I’ve written previously about ROOM here:
On meeting someone who came upon the book at random:
http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2010/10/work-in-progress-how-readers-find-books.html
On reading the book:
http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2010/11/recommended-room-and-lets-take-long-way.html
On getting an email from Emma Donoghue after sending her a fan note:
http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2010/12/work-in-progress-how-hard-is-it-to-say.html
On my favorite books of last year:
http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-five-favorite-books-of-2010.html
Stalking? Not me!
