New Ink; Next Gig; Spokane Notes; Coronado, North Central, and Barker High Schools

FIRST OF ALL, here are links to a couple of new things out there:

• My longest and most in depth interview so far: Authorlink Interview


• Another, different, interview: ETC Interview


• More good ink: South Florida Sun-Sentinal Teenlink Review

NEXT GIG:

• My fall micro-tour is over, but I'm doing one more event in town before the close of the year:
  
  
  
  • Barnes and Noble @ the Citadel, on Academy Blvd.
    
    
    
    • December 15, Saturday @ 1:30-3:30ish.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• I hope to see some of the new friends I met today in Chapman's creative writing class at Coronado High School. What a great class. You guys really know how to make an author feel good: laugh a lot and at the right places and say, "Read more!" It was also fantastic to see old friends Mr. "Stay Black" Ken, Tiffany, Kara, and Emily. Love you all.

WASHINGTON NOTES:

Spokane was amazing--what a cool city. But it helps to hang out with the best people:

• My incredible friend Sam Ligon, author of the great novel Safe in Heaven Dead and editor of Willow Springs

• Sam's wife, Kim, and kids Jane and Paul, who are all brilliant.


• His friends, Kelly Chadwick, who introduced me to some fantastic wine, and


• poet Renee Rohl, who introduced me to her students at Barker Center.


• Other friends, novelist Jess Walter and his wife


• Ann, who used to live in my fair city and write for our hometown newspaper The Gazette. (Both she and Jess worked for the Spokane Spokesman-Review until former Gazette editor Stevie Smith came on board and began running ruining it.)

I had a great day visiting with creative writing students at Barker with Renee's class and also with Jim Creason's groups at North Central High School. Special thanks to Dylan, Pauline, Cassie, and (your dad-burned name slips my mind, but you're the best) who I met in class and who actually came out to the reading that night at Auntie's Books.

This event was a little different for me, with the reading showcased up front and with microphone, even, which made the power of the poet's voice truly tremendous.

Then it was a weekend of hanging out with my daughter who is the same age as Sam's girl, Jane. Or the girls spent time together, mostly, and Sam and I stayed up until three or four every night listening to music and talking. And talking. And talking. It's funny to think that I'm still friends with the guy I pulled a desk out from under in Mr. Johnson's actor's workshop class when we were in high school. But that he's still the most brilliant person I've ever met is no surprise.