WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WRITING*

READINGS AND BOOK SIGNINGS

I’ll be launching my new book, Three Tides:Writing at the Edge of Being  starting this month, with more appearances scheduled in October and November as follows:

Berkeley Public Library

2090 Kittredge Street
Saturday, September  24,  2 - 3:30 PM   

               
San Rafael Litquake

  Riley Street Arts Supply, 1138 4th St. 
San Rafael
Saturday, October 8, 3 - 4:15 PM  

 

Berkeley Fellowship

Cedar at Milvia

Saturday, November 19,  4 – 5:30 PM   

 

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WRITING*

Yesterday afternoon I took my latest book, Three Tides: Writing at the Edge of Being out for a spin.  I had a good time and the audience did too. What is it like to take a new book out for a spin?  It’s fun. Especially if you discover that there are new ways to talk about a book—especially if it happens to be yours.

When all is said and done, audiences like stories.  They help relax things, let a bit of air into some occasionally airtight spaces.  Stories are signals to audiences that there are points of entry for them, too.  They awaken the mind of story in other minds. 

Yes, we say. Yes, everyone has stories, and they’re fun to tell, and fun to listen to.

Talking about Three Tides, I pulled some stories out of the hat: Each one has a title, and each title has a direct relationship to what we talk about when we talk about writing.

Story One: What do you do all day? (or what do you as a writer do with all that free time while other people are really working). That allows me to open up a whole can of worms. I have two main sub-occupations it turns out, and one doesn’t even involve writing directly. (Hint: It’s making sure you NEVER have to write for hire. Free to tell it like you see it, and damn the torpedoes—or the editors, or the conglomerates which now decide what gets published and what doesn’t.)

Story Two: The punch line is wool gathering. The question is not What do you do all day, but What is all you do all day really like?

Story Three: Are you Inside? or Are You Outside? You might have to go as far as India to find out. I certainly did. But I am saving that one because if you are in the Bay Area, Saturday, September 24 and free to travel, please come to the Berkeley Public Library conference room, at 2090 Kittredge Street just two blocks south of the Downtown Berkeley BART station at 2 PM sharp to remind me to tell it in case I forget. Just say “Mr. Bihari.” The guy will let you in.

And hopefully you won’t disappoint because you’ll have an amazing question to throw into the discussion pot.

*Raymond Carver’s famous story, “What We Talk About When we Talk About Love” was loved to death by his editor Gordon Lish. But it was published posthumously exactly as Carver intended it to be.