Category: Events

Thank you so much to everyone who attended my first “author event” at City Lit Books Thursday evening. It’s been a tremendous source of joy to discover that people take an active interest in books — that I can schedule an event to talk about my book and people actually walk away GLAD they went. That this is a phenomenon I can participate in just bowls me over, and makes me feel like I’ve finally found my voice.

I was especially touched that Tina, whom my wife and I just met recently while having a truly remarkable dinner at Elizabeth Restaurant, drove in from the suburbs for the reading, and even convinced her son, her cousin, and her cousin’s son to come along.  Tina, you’re a woman of your word, and you made my night.

We also had a Seattle contingent attending via Skype, from just about the best place I can imagine a reading has ever been attending: Saké Nomi, easily one of the nation’s best sake bars (and retail shop).  Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I now have this fun photo of me reading in Chicago, simulcast on the TV over the bar:

Discussing Upload at City Lit, in Chicago… simulcast on the TV at Saké Nomi in Seattle.  Photo by Jimmy Grisham.

The best part of the evening, for me, was the Q&A that followed the reading.  Everyone asked great questions, and the questions just kept coming… and I actually felt like I knew what the hell I was talking about!  When I started my software development career, almost twenty years ago, I often felt like a fake.  I felt like four years of college wasn’t enough, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel comfortable claiming expertise.  I think a lot of people starting a new endeavor feel this way — are you really qualified to be doing what you’re doing?  I expected to feel the same way at my first author event.  But I didn’t.  I absolutely suck at bullshitting my way through pretty much anything… and I didn’t have to.  There were a few times where I scrambled for coherent responses, but I felt like the answers were coming from honest reflection, not from some sense of what I “should” say, what a real author would say.  This was a huge confidence boost for me, and makes me eager to step into the role of “author” as public speaker, not just the person behind the printed words.  I wasn’t scared, I didn’t feel like I was faking my way through; I felt like I had something to say, I could say it with a fair degree of authority, and I could have fun doing it.  And best of all, people actually wanted to hear it.  Wow.

I’m so excited for my 40th birthday party at the Century Guild Chicago pop-up gallery, TOMORROW, which my wife and I decided to make a double whammy: 40th Birthday + Book Release Party.  Thanks in advance to Nancy, for making it happen and being relentlessly awesome, to Jerry Suqi, for graciously offering his beautiful gallery space, to Tracy Kellner and Provenance Food & Wine for what will no doubt be a fabulous spread of wine and nummies, to Teresa Kirschbraun and City Lit Books for being on-hand to sell “Upload” (and for being the first brick-and-mortar store to carry my book!), and to all my friends who will be helping me celebrate two major life landmarks.

It’s no coincidence that the two events are being celebrated together.  It was the fact that Forty was looming so near that inspired me to make the final push to publish.  In a sense, I’m celebrating mortality’s success in forcing me to outwit trepidation.