Meeting a famous author

Sorry, I'm going to seem a bit, ummm, starstruck I guess with this entry. I have met authors before back in college, but I wasn't actually getting anywhere with my own writing at the time, so this just feels different. And very cool. I belong to this book club--a group of us guys get together about once a month or so at a local microbrewery and discuss the book we chose over beers. We take turns with who selects the next book, though we bring a variety for people to choose from. One of the guys mentions often that his high school teacher was Connie Willis, and every time it's his turn he brings one of her books. The others in the group never go for it. This last time he said that if we chose her book (Dooms Day Book) he'd try to get her to come join us. It was a close one, and I think those of us pulling for her fudged the voting a little bit so that we chose her book.

And now she's coming to join us tonight. Just a casual, hang out with the author and talk about her book time, nothing formal. It'll probably be a little strange discussing it with her there--I get the impression that some of the others in the group weren't terribly impressed with the book--they were the ones voting for some nonfiction book instead (and it didn't even look like a good nonfiction book to me). But I think it'll be fun. And I'll get to mention that my first story is coming out from JWP on August 2. I just saw that on our authors forum.

It's also my turn to bring suggestions for our next book...but given the reaction they have to the SF, I'm choosing mostly mainstream books this time: Cloud Atlas by Callanan (not to be confused with Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which I just finished reading), Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, Hollow Ground, Codex, Baron in the Trees and True Notebooks. If anyone has any major plugs for any of these (or warnings that they're not good), let me know soon and I'll leave it behind. My backpack will be plenty heavy even with one fewer book. True Notebooks is probably the one I least want chosen, but I feel obligated to bring one non-fiction. Codex strikes me as possibly over-hyped, trying to cash in on Da Vinci Code's popularity. Oh, and Hollow Ground takes place in Tennessee--why would anyone be interested in Tennesee (Celina)? Curious Incident and Codex are probably the fastest reads, which is a strong selling point for some people in the group.

Well, all of them have been on my list of books to read for a while. I only wish I might have time to read them all before they're due at the library (the only one I own is Baron in the Trees). Next time it's my turn, I'll bring all speculative fiction and see what happens.

Comments

While you hang out with Connie Willis, I'll be sitting here seething with jealousy and eating coffee-flavored ice cream to make myself feel better.
Daniel Ausema said…
did the ice cream work? :)

It was fun--very laid-back. And I got to pass out postcards for JWP. And we're reading The Baron in the Trees next, which I really wanted to read, but wasn't sure I'd be able to convince the others.
Celina Summers said…
name dropper. :p
Lol. Seems the ice cream wasn't enough. I had to have more tonight.
Daniel Ausema said…
Mmmmm, ice cream!