Author Visits part One

Yesterday was the day of writers and I loved it. I always enjoy listening to writers, regardless if I've read their works. They all have different methods of writing and it's interesting to hear what works for each individual. I also enjoy when authors talk on panels, especially if they have good chemistry with one another.

• The first two authors I saw were Lynda Barry and Thirty Umrigar. Lynda is a cartoonist who has written graphic novels, such as One! Hundred! Demons! and her latest book, What it Is. Thirty, on the other hand, is a former journalist, turned novelist and professor of creative writing. Her newest novel, is The Weight of Heaven, which tells the story of an American couple of moves to India after their seven year old child dies. The conversation was moderated by Barbara Hoffert, editor of Library Journal. (what a cool job she has!) Lynda was, in short, a nut. I mean that in a good way. She was very funny and clearly seems to love what she does. She made some interesting points about the term "graphic novel", stating that most cartoonists don't like the name. However, she said whatever gets a librarian or educator to justify purchasing them, then it works for her. She did make a funny comment regarding a colleague who said that he thought "graphic novels" referred to books such as Lady Chatterly's Lover. She mentioned that her comic influences were Dr. Seuss and Robert Crumb, although she joked that sometimes Crumb could get a little disturbing. She was very pleased to hear at the book signing, that Dr. Seuss was from Springfield. "Oh that explains the Cat in the Hat picture in my hotel room. I just thought the hotel was really funky." She was also asked about the rise of females in graphic novels. (oh my god, I just took a break and went on Boston.com to catch up on news from the last two days and saw that Manny Ramirez was suspended for performance enhancing drugs. Sorry, back to our regularly scheduled programming). Thirty discussed her life as a journalist and making the transition from journalism to novel writing. She mentioned how journalism is sometimes treated as "the poor cousin of literature" (I loved that line). She also discussed writing her memoir, saying that memoir writing is a subjective retelling of the truth. I asked Thirty what she thought about the future of newspapers, which started a lively discussion. (Lynda also used to write a comic strip which was published in several papers, and which has been dropped). As a wannabe journalist, I'm always interested to hear opinions from those in the field.
  The two women had such great chemistry with one another, and seemed to really enjoy what the other was saying, despite (or I think because) of their different styles. They played off each other well. One of my colleagues told them that they should teach a writing class together. I would enjoy something like that.
  
• I'll be back with part two in a few minutes. I've just been asked to take another trip to the exhibit hall to thank the various sponsors.