Attending Author Events: George Saunders

On November 1, I traveled to Santa Cruz to meet up with lifelong friends and attended a book launch event for George Saunders’ latest collection of short fiction, Liberation Day. Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit” and “Smarter Faster Better” interviewed Saunders. I had a wonderful time at the event in Santa Cruz! I’d had to reschedule a writing group in order to go. I was worried about messing up people’s schedules, but they just said “Have fun! Send photos!” Believing we would have our books signed, I told my friends to take a photo of me when I did. But, as a COVID precaution, the books were pre-signed and everyone was masked. After the interview, Saunders answered some questions from the audience.

Author Events: My Stumbles

I didn’t ask a question. In some way, maybe it was better for me not to. I have a history of being overcome with emotion at author signings. Previously at a Bookshop Santa Cruz event, I heard Billy Collins reading poems. He made a little joke about how bad his adolescent poetry was, so when I had my book signed, I said something like, “I teach in a high school where we have contests so students can write those awful poems.” I thought it was sort of funny, but he looked at me like I was from Mars. I quickly shuffled to the side, where my friend Nance took my photo.

Another time, I was at a writers’ conference. I believe it was a Writers’ Digest Novel Writers’ Conference. Neal Shusterman is an author of YA fiction, and I admire his work. At the signing I—high school librarian— was telling him how much his work meant to my students, and I started to cry. I believe he thought I was insane. (My review of Challenger Deep, Bruiser, and Unwind over at School Library Lady if you’d like to read about Shusterman’s work.)

Author Event Happiness

Even though there would be no in-the-moment book signing, I was sitting on the aisle, and Saunders happened to walk by. I thought to snap his photo. He leaned into the picture, which made me smile. It seemed in tune with his personality in Story Club, his Substack group. (FYI—Story Club is a great group to join if you are writing short fiction or just love to read it.)

Saunders’ Advice for Story Writers

This interview with Stephen Colbert occurred a week later. Although there’s nothing like seeing someone in person, I think a few of the same ideas came out. An important reminder Saunders mentioned in both venues, one he attributed to Albert Einstein: No problem is ever solved on the plane of its original conception. And one more: If you’ve gotten in touch with your own vision process, then you never plot, you just type some crap . . You tune it up . . . Hundreds, maybe even thousands of times.”  Through revision, “Somehow the story gets smarter than you are, it gets wiser, it gets kinder, it gets funnier.”

Santa Cruz Happiness

I’ve spent the last several months in a pretty epic battle with the Noonday Demon, so getting to spend a few more days in Santa Cruz helped a lot, if only in a transitory way. My friends and I did fun stuff: easy hikes through stands of redwoods where we saw a red-shouldered hawk perched ten feet away; we went to Natural Bridges State Park where the monarch butterflies are wintering in the eucalyptus trees. It rained a few times while we were out and about. Each time this happened, we three hopped in the car at an ocean lookout point, read from Liberation Day, and then talked about the story we’d just experienced. And that was wonderful Story Club time, too. 🙂

It’s not true that Santa Cruz is perfect. When we pulled into the hotel parking lot, an apparently unhoused man was defecating there, trying to hide in the shrubbery-boxed area containing a gas meter. That’s an incredibly difficult life. In the hotel parking lot, someone got into my friend’s car overnight and stole some money, tossed a lot of stuff around. Still, Santa Cruz has a hell of a lot to offer.

Just for fun, here are some photos of the other parts of the trip.

For thoughts on local literary scenes and local book launches, check these posts.