The Scrawl

I have a little saying around my desk that goes, “Thinking about writing isn’t writing. Writing is writing. So write.” I didn’t take my advice very well this year and ended up thinking about writing a lot more than actually doing it. Here are ten examples of how I could have written more here. These are missed opportunities, folks, learn from my mistakes.

10. I didn’t finish blogging about the Chicago Improv Festival.

I had grand intentions of reviewing the shows I saw (most were great), reminiscing about the fun times I had with friends (there were plenty), and doing a little self-critique of my own show (it went pretty well, if I do say so myself). If you think that’s bad, I didn’t touch upon my headlining at the Milwaukee Comedy Festival one bit. That was one of the best shows of my life.

9. I didn’t follow up on my reading list for the summer.

Mostly because I only read about half of what I intended to read. I can’t say I’m surprised.

8. I didn’t follow up on my summer writing plan.

See above.

7. I didn’t tell you what I thought of Road Dogs.

This book is great and deserves a review. I want to make that happen.

6. I didn’t finish blogging about LYFE Camp.

This one’s a real bummer because I receive more comments from readers on these blogs than anything else I write. On those days when I feel like I’m writing in a vacuum I could do worse than to remember that when I actually know I have readers I’d best give them something to read.

5. I didn’t post the “retro posts” I said I would put up.

Like numbers eight and nine, I can’t say I’m surprised. They’re still on my dashboard, half-written and waiting for my return.

4. I apparently choose to quit blogging the day I turned thirty.

Here’s where the truth comes out – I’ve had a tremendous year of stress. I’ve often used writing to get me through stress. Instead, I turned my back on it and the result is a near five-month stretch of radio silence.

3. I didn’t write about teaching.

This one was a difficult decision but I made it on purpose. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to write about my classroom experiences while teaching though now that I think of it, I certainly could have written about which texts I was using and other technical issues. Perhaps my reflections on teaching will crop up in the future here.

2. I didn’t write about getting laid off.

I taught for one full academic year outside of my MFA as a temporary part-time instructor and got an email that I wouldn’t have any classes to teach in the fall five days after my wife was in a serious car accident. I really didn’t tell anybody about this and for the last nine months or so I’ve seen surprised face after surprised face as I casually mentioned that I wasn’t teaching anymore. Can I just say that no matter how noble it is to support one’s partner and let the support others give them be at the forefront of how you handle their bad luck, it’s completely okay to acknowledge your own simultaneous bad luck. Kelly would be the first to agree with me, and it’s a lesson learned.

1. I didn’t write about enrolling in seminary.

I’m a first-year Master of Divinity student at United Theological Seminary and a candidate for ordination in the United Methodist Church. Those who read this blog with regularity in 2009 – not that there was a lot of regular blog posts in 2009, but whatever – probably put two and two together with mission trip stories, LYFE Camp tales, and church men’s book club selections that this was on the horizon. I’ll give this one more attention in 2010.

I’m not down on myself for any of this and don’t think this post a pity party. Rather, this is me acknowledging how I could have come up with some great writing and I just didn’t do it. I was stressed, I was busy, I was overwhelmed. Was writing there for me? Certainly. But for some reason I resigned myself to letting go of it for a while. I hope you don’t do what I did. If you have, write to me and let me know about it. And if you haven’t, kudos to you, dear reader.

If anything, it’s made me hungry to stop thinking about writing and to just plain write.

I hope to see you in 2010.

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A great man named Merlin Dewing passed away this morning at the age of seventy-four. I was shocked and stunned, as Merlin was as young as they get, full of life and an interest in bettering the lives of others. There is a mix of grief and gratitude in me this week. Grief for his death and gratitude for a chance to get to know him in this last year of his life.

I met Merlin at Excelsior United Methodist Church where I’ve worked the past five years. My being assigned to youth and young adults, our paths didn’t cross all that much and so I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know Merlin until I started the church’s Men’s Book Club in February, 2009. When I started the group, I didn’t know who would show up or who would show up consistently or who would enjoy it. It was my first program aimed exclusively at adult men and I was nervous at whether or not it would succeed. Since its inception in February, attendance has been low, not everyone who comes one month continues to the next month, and there’s still a struggle to discover what’s needed to make this club grow.

Merlin was the only man who showed up from day one and who had never missed a meeting. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.

When he showed up the first night, I honestly had to play the, “I Know Your Name, I’m Just Not Going to Say It” Game. It’s the game I sometimes play with adults who I recognize at church but don’t know very well. My constituency, the youth group, is downstairs while the adults are upstairs and to make connections outside of youth and their parents, I have to make a concerted effort. So here came a man who I recognized by face but not name and as our first book discussion unfolded I not only learned his name but it soon became clear I’d been depriving myself of an excellent connection for years.

Merlin contributed so much to the Men’s Book Club. In order to be a close reader, I’m (unfortunately) a slow reader and I admired Merlin’s ability to read so quickly and yet simultaneously savor the story. At our meetings, he always had something of substance to say about the books we read. He recognized writers’ stylistic choices, how stories connected to other pieces of literature, and embraced new stories without hesitation (I’ll never forget how excited he was to finally read his first Stephen King novel, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and the way he was impressed by King’s writing and how it went against every stereotype he’d heard of the man’s macabre storytelling). Most importantly, Merlin knew how to connect the story on the written page to the stories of our lives.

While our reason to gather was to talk about books, I must admit a major contributor to my personal enjoyment of attempting to pull a handful of men together every third Tuesday of the month was my getting to hear a slew of fascinating personal stories from Merlin. The man had a million of them, never a dull one and always pertinent to the discussion at-hand. There were stories about business and tales of the military, stories of overcoming hardship and lore of local history, great jokes with great timing and touching love stories. When I was told Merlin passed away, I was upset with myself in the same way as was I was told my Grandma Phyllis died (the day before our first Men’s Book Club meeting back in February, to tie things together a little more tightly).

For years I’d meant to get Grandma’s stories down on paper or tape and barely scratched the surface on this goal. It was a missed opportunity I’ll never get back and not having her stories and the story of her life recorded as completely as possible – straight from her lips – is the pain I try to avoid most when I think of her these days. This feeling rose in me as I learned of Merlin’s passing because I remember clearly, every month, sitting there with a kid’s grin on my face as Merlin recounted story after story and thinking to myself, “I have to get with this man and write everything he says down.”  I didn’t do that and it’s a regret I’ll carry with me.

Merlin chose last month’s book club selection, The Sweet Season: A Sportswriter Rediscovers Football, Family, and a Bit of Faith at Minnesota’s St. John’s University by Austin Murphy. He’ read it before and had high hopes this locally-focused pigskin tale smackdab in the middle of the football season would bring in more members and though we didn’t have a large group show up, Merlin lead the discussion with ease and enthusiasm. He chose Murphy’s book because he admired Gagliarti’s leadership style and we had a long talk about what it means to stand out from the crowd as a leader. Through an online search to read his obituary, I came across a business website Merlin was involved in and saw this quote from him splashed across the top of the page:

“Leaders should be measured not by how much they lead, but by how little they have to lead. Their success comes from knowing how to select and develop gifted people.”
~ Merlin Dewing

This attitude was reflected in how Merlin saw Gagliarti as coach in the book and in how Merlin contributed not only to what I personally witnessed in Men’s Book Club but also in what I saw in how he interacted with his church family, entreprenuership opportunities, and his marriage. Reading his obituary it was clear he was well-loved and well-respected with many accomplishments under his belt that I never heard about. Maybe that’s because I was downstairs with the youth group. But more likely, it’s because Merlin was humble and sought to build up others before he built up himself. I anticipate learning even more about him at his funeral this Saturday and while I’m grieving, this impending time of celebrating Merlin’s life leaves me with gratitude to have known him at all.

(Postscript – At Merlin’s funeral, there were indeed tales of his being humble and for as many wonderful stories as he told me about other people in his life, it was an absolute joy to hear so many wonderful stories about him. The man has done so much, including playing an integral part in keeping the Twins in Minnesota in the early 1980s, not that one would have heard about it from him.)

On December 15 the Men’s Book Club discusses The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Knowing how quickly Merlin could get through a book, our group will be left wondering if he finished, what he thought of Sebold’s style, and especially how he viewed the portrayal of the afterlife. I would have loved to hear what new stories he’d be able to relate to the novel, and I wonder if I would have finally made time to work with him on writing them all down.

Merlin Dewing was a man of character and he enriched the story of my life.

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I have an ambitious reading list for this summer. Just like my dedication of two hours to write a day (or ten hours per week), I’m challenging myself to read for ninety minutes a day on Monday thru Wednesday plus Friday, or six hour a week. I tend to read 40 pages in an hour, 50 when I’m really feeling it, so if we take my optimistic number and combine it with six hours that’s 300 pages per week. Starting this week through the end of August, that’s fifteen weeks or 4500 pages. …That seems like a lot. I may have to re-think this. In the meantime, let’s get a little ambitious this morning!

All of these are selections I’ve never read before, so I have a completely fresh slate of stories awaiting me. Here they are in no particular order:

Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard (fiction novel, 272 pages)

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry (fiction novel, 288 pages) * Excelsior UMC Men’s Book Club selection

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (nonfiction novel, 307 pages) * Excelsior UMC Men’s Book Club selection

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (nonfiction novel, 274 pages) * Excelsior UMC Men’s Book Club selection

The View From the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockemeier (short story collection, 288 pages)

Tin House #39 (short stories and poetry, 200 pages)

I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Diana Joseph (nonfiction short story collection, 208 pages)

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (nonfiction, 320 pages)

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (fiction, 528 pages… I can’t find the abridged version, which the Ron Book Team has decided is just fine for our summer reading) * Ron Book Team selection

How to Think Theologically by Howard W. Stone & James O. Duke (textbook, 126 pages)

Best American Short Stories 2008 (short story collection, 384 pages)

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (fiction novel, 272 pages)

I also have the following to “read” on audio, all of which are re-reads for me:

On Writing by Stephen King (nonfiction novel)

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (short story collection)

Up in Honey’s Room by Elmore Leonard (fiction novel)

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman (kinda-sorta-not-really nonfiction novel)

From a Buick 8 by Stephen King (fiction novel)

That’s only 2235 pages – a far cry from the 4500 pages I calculated above. I think I’m going to be reading a lot slower than at my 50-pages per hour clip. I’ll be reading short stories and each one of those deserves to be digested slowly like little meals unto themselves. Some of the novels are for Men’s Book Club and I want to slow down and annotate them so I can better lead discussion sessions. And others I hope are so good I’ll need to slow down and savor them (Road Dogs). I’ll keep you posted as I finish different stories.

Right now, Kelly and I are almost finished with the audio version of From a Buick 8 and I’m about forty pages into The Last Picture Show and really enjoying it. I hope to finish it before I go to camp and start on a new book by then, too (that’s June 13, for readers who aren’t in the know).

What are you reading this summer?

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This post is mostly for my readers who are men in the Twin Cities, but if you’re having fun with a book club where you live, dear reader, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.

For the last three months, I’ve been leading a new men’s book club at my local church and what follows is my Craigslist ad. Email me if you want to join.

* * *

Our new men’s book club is growing and we’re inviting you to join us. Our members are currently men between the ages of 29 and 75 who enjoy getting together for coffee, snacks, and good discussion of great books. We’ve set up our summer reading list and schedule and hope you’ll contact us.

Join us on the third Monday evening of the month at 7:00pm at Excelsior United Methodist Church (881 3rd Ave. Excelsior, MN 55331). Any man ages 18 and up is welcome to join us whether they’re reading their first or their fiftieth novel, and regardless of whether they’re members of the church or not.

Our Summer Reading List:

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
Discussion on Monday, June 22 @ 7:00pm

On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Discussion on Monday, July 20 @ 7:00pm

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Discussion on Monday, August 17 @ 7:00pm

Our Past Selections:
May, 2009 – Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
April, 2009 – The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
March, 2009 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Please email me to let me know if you plan to attend or if you need a copy of the books ($10 apiece).

-nm

Steady readers of this blog know I’m a nut for western-turned-crime writer Elmore Leonard. If you visit my LibraryThing profile, you’ll see that I own more Elmore Leonard books than I do any other author. This isn’t saying much because it’s easy to have a whole shelf full of his writings, considering the man has written forty-three novels in his eighty-four years (not counting his short stories, essays, and fun and practical craft guide, 10 Rules of Writing). Still, I’m excited to add my 23rd Elmore Leonard novel to my shelf: Road Dogs.

Road Dogs was released on Tuesday and my copy arrives in the mail today. I can’t wait to crack it open after finals week calms down. I wrote part of my MFA comprehensive exam on my favorite Leonard novel, Out of Sight, and Road Dogs continues the adventures of Out of Sight’s lead character, Jack Foley. The story was compelling and Foley as a character is so fun to read. He’s a bank robber, sure, but he’s one of the coolest, most suave men you’ll ever meet. The plot of Road Dogs, with Foley falling for the wife of a friend he made in prison, has the sort of criminals-in-a-love triangle story that feels familiar on the surface (Revenge starring Anthony Quinn and a young Kevin Costner springs to mind, as does the Jeff Bridges-starring Against All Odds, which is itself a remake of the Robert Mitchum film noir vehicle, Out of the Past). Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned to expect from Leonard’s writing it’s that relationships like a love triangle are never that simple, implying that if one thinks a love triangle is complicated to begin with, they haven’t seen anything until Leonard gets his hands on such a relationship.

I take that back. Really, if there’s one thing I’ve learned to expect from Leonard’s writing it’s character is at the heart of story. His dialogue is real and feeds the story’s tone at all times, bouncing back and forth between tense drama and raucous comedy. His characters are memorable and unique and their relationships build through interactions woven so tightly one scarcely believe Leonard rarely (if ever) plots his novels. When writing, he’s daring: he likes creating characters and see how they interact. Lucky for us, we as readers get to join him on this ride of story surprise.

The film adaptation of Out of Sight came out in 1998 and had great talent behind the camera: it was directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven) and written by superb screen scribe Scott Frank (Little Man Tate, Minority Report, and who also adapted Leonard’s Get Shorty for Barry Sonnenfeld). Starring George Clooney as Jack Foley and Jennifer Lopez in her acting prime, the film version is excellent and there’s a part of me that hopes Road Dogs lends itself to film adaptation, too. Of course, the combination of Soderbergh / Clooney / Frank definitely did their part in making the film version of Out of Sight a success, and their reunion would definitely make for yet another interesting film project.

I’ll update you with a review as soon as possible. I may choose to re-read Out of Sight before I dive into Road Dogs so I don’t have a timeline for you, but you can trust you’ll read all about it.

-nm

Merry Christmas, dear reader.

Books I received as gifts:

Best American Short Stories 2008 guest edited by Salman Rushdie

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Books I gave as Christmas gifts:

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

1957 by Pradt & Dexter

1954 by Pradt & Dexter

21 Dirty Trick at Work by Phipps & Gautrey

Multiple Blessings by Jon & Kate Gosselin

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King on audio book

Barrelhouse Magazine – Roller Derby edition (for my wife)

I’ve never owned my own copy of O’Brien’s book, though I’ve read it, and will enjoy having a copy I can annotate at my leisure. As for the latest Best American edition, I’m excited to see some great writers: T.C. Boyle, Alice Munro, Toby Wolff, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Lethem, and – hooray, hooray! – Kevin Brockmeier. This last author’s story is tops to be read first.

What books did you give / did you receive for Christmas?

-nm

The number one way to fail at reading is to fall out of practice. That’s the number one way to fail at anything, by the way.

Ever give up on a sport? A diet? A relationship? Knitting? Writing? Blogging? Not everything is like riding a bike. Sometimes one can lose many of the skills they once held dear or at least tried with all their might to achieve. And I think this pertains to 1. the enjoyment of reading, 2. the ability to be a careful reader, and 3. remembering, after a long absence from reading, that reading is a good thing.

I understand reading isn’t for everyone just like spearfishing isn’t for everyone or parenthood isn’t for everyone or combining peanut butter with chocolate isn’t for eveyone. That said, reading has been around for a long time. A few billion people throughout history have said it’s not only good but downright important. People have died so that others might read (don’t believe me? Read about Avorres and his allies or watch the Arabic language film, Destiny). I’m not sure those are attributes to be taken lightly.

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir. If you’re reading my blog, you likely enjoy reading. And if you like me teaching reading, you too hope to put the right book in the hands of a non-reader and open their eyes. All right, all right, I won’t get too sappy here, but this is important to me. Important enough for me to write about five books for boys tomorrow as the latest Your Friday Recommendation.
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Yesterday I wrote about reading a young friend’s Facebook profile and discovering their immense hatred of reading. Today I press forward to take a look at some more Facebook-based reading hate.

The thing about Facebook is most everything one types into their profile becomes a link to search for other people with similar interests, and by clicking the “F*** Reading” in one person’s profile, I found 46 people in my two Minnesota-based “networks” who included some variant of F Reading under the section “Books” in their Facebook profile. Here are the results:

27 Peope who outright say F*** Reading:

F*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

F*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

F*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading

f*** reading lol

F*** reading!!!!!!!!!!

f*** reading…it sucks

yeah, f*** reading

F*** reading. Yes i can i just choose not too!

f*** reading (Their About Me section: “im 5 11 dirty blonde hair. great looking. and i like to f*** around alot so yeah.)

F*** ReAdInG (1st of 3 females)

F*** reading. I got other b*****s to read for me. (2nd of 3 females)

i started reading a book once, and then it came out on dvd, so i said f*** it!

11 People who appear to enjoy at least some aspect of reading:
Magazines f*** reading

F*** reading unless its a magazine or shopping catalog!

f*** reading, unless i have to for school (I’m not sure he means he likes his school books, but that’s certainly what he wrote.)

F*** books (It’s possible they like other forms of reading.)

rolling stone… car and driver, the five people you meet in heaven, me and hank, f*** harry potter im not reading that bull * * * * , chronicles of narnia

jaws would have to b my favorite book but other than that. F * * * READING!!!

F*** Reading lol naw but -The Outsiders & Night

F*** reading, but there are a few good books I know of. “I Hope They Server Beer In Hell” by Tucker Max. “The Alphabet of Manliness” by Maddox and “Piercing the Darkness”

Thousand Splended Suns, Opium Season, and 1 fish 2 fish…f*** reading I wanna go fishing.

f*** reading, (Goosebumps?) (<- Is that a question?)

2 People who may or may not enjoy reading:

YAY!!! Reading Rainbow!!!!…..haha f * * * !

f * * * reading. numbers rule (I guess he prefers math.)

1 Person who isn’t going to lie and who has no time for reading:

BOOKS??? what the F * * * are books??? nah, just playin, id have to go with the NOTEBOOK! lol RIIIIIIIIGHT! the notebook, what the f * * * ! Not goin to lie, no time for reading, id rather be drinkin and hoofin it or sleeping!

1 Person who has a question for you:

who the f*** really enjoys reading?!!!

3 People who feel reading is synonymous with sexual orientation and want you to understand they are clearly of one sexual orientation and not another:

reading is g** as f***

f*** reading its g** as f***!!!!!!!

reading is for f * * * ing f * * s (Favorite Activities include: “PARTTYYYYY!!!! otherstuff…”)

1 Person who uses the words F * * * and reading in their profile but who actually reads for enjoyment:

All time favorite book: The Great Gatsby, by: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Other favorite authors: Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, Richard Wright… There’s this book Ishmael by: Daniel Quinn…I recommend it to all who are reading this…it will f * * * up your mind, but you’ll be okay… I love to read, love literacy, love writing…if you know of good books…put me on!! I’ll put you on…we’ll have a grand ol’ time. (3rd of 3 females)

This is already a pretty unscientific sampling, so I hasten to include stats on, for example, how many of these people list themselves as liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, single or in a relationship, in high school or out of high school, are drinking in their profile photo, use the F-Bomb at least one other time in their profile, or how many of them aren’t wearing a shirt so they can show off their grill in their profile photo (okay, there is one guy who did this, FYI). Those sorts of statistics have their place in some sort of actual, factual research that requires a grant, not my fifteen minutes writing up this post.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Part III “How to fail at reading” and this week’s Your Friday Recommendation – “Five Books For Boys.”

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I have met a lot of teenagers who don’t like reading, some of them outright hating it. They were forced to read a novel they considered boring or had too much reading homework for comfort or just didn’t understand the significance of Oedipus no matter how much their English teacher tried to explain, and so on.

This morning I was on Facebook and in under “Books” in the profile of a teenage friend (I know this person, I’m not a stalker), they have written, “F*** Reading,” only spelled out in its entirety. Sorry, I won’t pretend the F-Bomb doesn’t exist but I’m not interested in having it appear in my blog (you can send me an email about the hypocrisy of self-censorship later, dear reader). I know this person doesn’t like to read – they and I have spoken about it – and while they can’t pinpoint what made them decide reading wasn’t for them I was surprised by their volatile, public (yes, Facebook is pretty public, no matter how private you think it is) proclamation against reading.

I’m concerned for two reasons. First, much of what I write is aimed at teenage boys, often considered the most difficult demographic to get to pick up a book on their own for the sheer joy of reading. Second, in my anecdotal experience, it appears if a young man dislikes reading, they really, really hate reading and it often takes a grand and profound experience for them to be open to reading ever again.

All of this has lead me to believe a radical new proposal that will shift how America conducts its public education system is in order. Maybe instead of pushing reading or English class altogether they could replace that curriculum with classes about drugs, swearing, sex, and all the other things parents don’t want their teens doing and let the classes cover every single detail, no matter how “obscene.” Maybe this way the youth of America will stop wanting to have unprotected sex and start sneaking away to read copies of Charlotte’s Web in the closet or jump in the back seat with a special someone to analyze Walt Whitman poetry or get together with a group of friends in someone’s basement when their parents are out of town to have dirty, nasty group book club meetings.

What do you think? Will my new educational platform fly, or have I doomed my chances of ever running for office against someone who doesn’t understand satire? Do you know anyone who hates to read and do they tell you why?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Part II (“F” Reading) and Thursday’s Part III (“How to fail at reading”) and this week’s installment of Your Friday Recommendation – “Five Books For Boys.”

-nm

Due to a hectic schedule this week, I’m only one-third of the way through Neil Gaiman’s latest, The Graveyard Book, yet I feel pretty confident recommending it.

A toddler who comes to be named Nobody Owens wanders out of his home and into a graveyard on the night his family is slain by a mysterious man. A community of ghosts, led by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, elect to grant the boy ‘freedom of the graveyard’ and harbor him to both raise him and keep him safe. The story feels unique to me and Gaiman’s language is a sensory delight. He manages to keep the tale visually and viscerally appealing with descriptive language while keeping the story moving, and that’s besides the stylish, haunting illustrations by long-time Gaiman collaborator, Dave McKean.

The Graveyard Book is perfect for me because it’s a YA book following a boy’s life in which every chapter is its own complete short story and yet connect to each other in an overall arching storyline. That’s precisely the project I worked on during my MFA days, aside from the whole ‘being raised by ghosts’ bit. I’ve found each story I’ve read so far to truly feel self-contained while also feeding into the stories that came before it, every one adding to the story. There’s enough mystery in the first few stories to keep me interested in seeing what ultimately happens to young Nobody Owens, and I hope to finish the novel next week if my likely-just-as-hectic schedule permits.

Minnesota Public Radio ran a wonderful piece on Neil Gaiman this week and the author wrapped up his book tour for The Graveyard Book in St. Paul on Wednesday night. Unfortunately for me, I work most every Wednesday evening (except next week. Pity, off by just one week!), but hopefully you made it to one of his readings. Don’t feel too bad for me, however; I’ve met the man at least nine or ten times, and at the fifth meeting he called me an official stalker.

-nm