By any objective standard, I think you'd have to say that Wednesday's reading was a success. In fact, the consensus seems to be that I rocked the house.
█████ and I went out with Tor editor Jim Minz for a drink beforehand. I intended to drink only club soda, but Jim advised something stronger to calm my nerves. Before long I'd finished two beers.
█████ was even more nervous than I, and she was impatient to get to KGB. When we arrived, at about 6:35 pm, the place was already crowded—mostly with friends I'd invited. Several of them were wearing my T-shirts. Forty minutes early, they already occupied nearly every chair in the place.
I sat at a table near the front of the bar with Ellen Datlow, Terry Bisson, and Kelly Link and Gavin Grant. Terry is moving to California, so Gavin is taking over as co-curator of the reading series. When China Miéville—a tremendously pleasant fellow—arrived, he and I decided between ourselves that I would go first and he would go second, which suited us both fine.
The place continued to fill up, and by the time Gavin introduced me it was standing room only. People were spilling out the door and down the stairs, in fact. Several people have sent email to tell me they were there and heard me read, even though they were standing in the hall or on the stairs. Among the other writers in attendance, there were Jeffrey Ford and Richard Bowes, both of whom I hold in high esteem.
My reading went over quite well. I was nervous, but folks said they couldn't tell. (Perhaps I owe that to the Guinness that Jim Minz forced on me.) The audience laughed in all the right places, and I received quite an ovation at the end. When China stood up to read, he remarked that he might have made a strategic error in letting me go first. Then he read three gorgeous and rich passages from his new novel The Scar.
After the reading, while China signed a ream of autographs, several strangers asked me when Missionary Man would be coming out. I had to tell them it was still unsold. One of these strangers, however, turned out to be an editor from a division of St. Martin's Press, and when she learned the manuscript was still available, she told me she was very interested in seeing it. I was able to steer her across the room to my agent, Shawna McCarthy, who was there as well, and the two of them are going to chat about the book over lunch this week.
Everyone wanted to meet me afterward, it seemed—even the owner of the bar, to whom Ellen introduced me, and who gave me a free big bottle of a delicious dark Ukrainian beer which I can't identify for you because the label was in Cyrillic characters.
Jim Freund recorded the reading for broadcast; I'll post the date as soon as I know. (It won't be the same week that I'm a guest on his show.) Also, he promised to burn me a copy or two of the recording to CD, and when he does I'll see about digitizing it and posted the MP3 to the web site.
All in all, a very successful evening, which turned out to be everything I could have hoped for. And best of all, █████ was there for it all. She called it the best party she never threw.
Below are a few pictures from the reading. There are more posted in the Photo Album section of the site, and you can click these to see larger versions.
Packed house—standing room only
The reading itself
