Ballard Writers Rock
Last night I attended the 2nd Annual Ballard Writers’ Book Slam, organized by the incomparable networker / journalist / writer Peggy Sturdivant (Out of Nowhere). What a surfeit of literary talent we’ve got here. I’m not one of those feel-good guys, who says everyone is wonderful. But almost everyone was wonderful! I thought I brought a program home, but I can’t find it, so – from memory – Who’d have thought I’d love a book about Balance, but he sold it. Then there’s Urban Gardening – yuck – I don’t dig dirt, but I dug his prose. Fellow LiTFUSIAN Ann Teplick was intensely stirring, and Ingrid Rick’s Hippie Boy engaging & disturbing. Laura Cooper landed her fish, her man, and her memoir, all in one hand-over-hand yank. Corbin Lewars is always a welcome voice, and I was so touched to have inspired Alison Krupnick to drop all pretense of “quiet desperation” in favor of the writer’s life of noisy desperation & joy – www.sliceofmidlife.com. Donna Miscolta’s When the de la Cruz Family Danced is one of my wife’s faves of the year, and in my to-read pile. Then there were the new sensations – the rapping kids, the poet/novelist to Donna’s left (hello!), and my personal favorite of the newbies, Alma Garcia – look for her tentatively titled fiction of border tension, Shallow Waters, on a bookshelf near you in the coming years. Finally, the old pro (who I’m sure is younger than I am) Stephanie Kallos (Broken for You, Sing them Home) treated us to a snippet from her work in progress, and it knocked my socks off with its free flight of poetic description. Thanks to Secret Garden Books in Ballard (Christy, Suzanne) for supporting this event – shop your local bricks ‘n mortar bookshop. To those I haven’t mentioned – apologies! Don’t worry, nobody reads this blog anyway. I just like to write . . .