Dirty Laundry

Calgary Wordfest - Partie Deux

A little French there in the title (because I only know a little, I’m sorry to say) in honor of the many wonderful French language authors here at Wordfest.  One of which, Francois Barcelo, spoke with me at length - about books, wine, French, among many other things - at the afternoon reception today.  He was very engaging and taught me a little bit more French.

So, here I am in Calgary, in the midst of the fabulous Wordfest, having just watched the Calgary Flames trounce my beloved Vancouver Canucks, and still I’m loving me some Calgary.  I don’t have the energy to give you all the details (or even all the salient details - which, as a writer, is a very bad example to set) because I am completely exhausted from having just finished my revision on the second book - handed in with minutes to spare yesterday.

Instead I will be haiku-like in my descriptions (though, without the very strict haiku-like syllabic limitations)

1) Calgary Wordfest rocks - the people who organize and run this incredible event deserve a standing ovation.  I will give them one now.  Please feel free to participate.

2) Calgary audiences also rock - The teens and adults who have attended my events have been AMAZING!  If I could name every single one of them I would.  You know something is going well when the audience laughs in all the right places and when the students and teachers ask tons of great questions.  I am going to track down the names of the schools who came to the readings to give them all a shout out.

3) Pages bookstore in Calgary not only rocks.  It rolls (not LITERALLY, but… well… you know what I mean).  They are handling the book sales at Wordfest and I visited their store today.  It is lovely, cozy, and inviting.  Go.  Now.  Seriously.

4) Arthur Slade, one of the authors I read with is incredibly kind, generous, talented and super fun to work with.  I hope we get to read together again some time in the future.  His new book The Hunchback Assignments is super cool.

Here we are in front of the slide he made for us. (I totally ripped this picture off from his website).

5) Hiromi Goto, the second author I read with had me on the edge of my seat with her reading.  Her book Half-World is very intense and filled with vivid details (unlike my current blog).

Okay, there’s absolutely nothing haiku-like about my blog post.  I managed to babble on AND leave out the interesting details.  But my brain is mush at the moment and so it will have to suffice.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s Love, Lattes, and Laughter presentation (I’m not sure what portion of the show I am supposed to be supplying, but if I have to serve lattes I’m completely down with that.  I’d do anything for the Wordfest people.  I love what they’re doing here).

Posted by Don Calame on 10.16.09 at 07:58 pm in Prattlings. (0) Comments