As the 2015/2016 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series continues tonight with a sold out reading by Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie and a long book signing line expected to follow, Houston writer Sam Dinger gives us his take on how he prepares for the magical moment when he gets to meet one of his favorite authors.

I just rushed out the back of the room to get a good spot in the book signing line. I’m holding a clean, new copy of the new book. There is paperdust on the edges of the pages. There are something like a million of us in this line and it’s looking like I won’t have the chance I hoped  to have a meaningful interaction with this writer I love, or want to love, or, let’s face it, whom I want to love me. But all hope isn’t lost. I remember that there are things I can do. I have a plan.

In the many book signing lines that I’ve stood in, I’ve developed a list of things that I do to up my chances for any of the above hopes–that is, for the chance of a meaningful interaction. Some of them are simple and small, others require a little something more.

1. Flap the book.

This means taking the flap on the dust jacket and marking the title page, where the author pretty much always signs. If you’ve been in a book signing line at an Inprint reading or a Brazos Bookstore one, you’ve probably had someone come up to you and do this. Maybe they stuck a sticky note on that page, with the correct spelling of your name. All this does is make it easier on everyone. And it frees up the writer to be able to talk to you. You’re standing in the line, after all, so you’ve got the time.

2. Come up with something interesting and specific to say.

This is more difficult-sounding, but if you really like the writer’s work, it won’t be hard. Questions are better than comments here, too, since you want them to talk, not just work up enough patience to listen to you, say thanks, and then look up to the next person in line. Depending on the writer, they may have heard just about every question there is. So, get real specific, or even odd. A canned response that you hear and then remember hearing on the author’s Fresh Air interview is a disappointment, but it is, in the end, your responsibility to avoid. Your experience, since it’s all yours, is a good place to start. When Richard Ford came to town, I found myself talking to him about mysterious Mississippi–which he hardly writes about–and not his new book, since I spent my boyhood there and he’s a Mississippian.

3. Stand at the back of the line.

I was thinking about saying don’t worry about the people behind you in line but if you’re there to have a meaningful interaction and nobody is behind you, you’re not rushed except for a few people–the organizer, the venue closer, the writer–who usually want people to be smiling at the writer and asking her good questions and showing that it was a good idea to bring her to town. Sometimes you’ll get up to the table and realize that your favorite writer looks like a corpse for how tired they are (maybe their father just died, or maybe their plane got routed through Anchorage, or maybe they’re narcoleptic, or maybe the baby kept them up all night, or maybe they’re just tired). Just take this loss and roll with it. After you get your book signed, that is.

4. Forget that the stakes are high. They’re actually not. This is a person. Just like you.

In the very few times that I’ve had people simply tell me they liked my work, I didn’t know what to say but thanks. And by now I don’t remember who paid me the compliments. It’s very kind to praise someone’s hard work, and this will likely be part of the interesting thing you say to the person (see #2), but this does not, under most circumstances, constitute a meaningful interaction. Ask them one of the questions you’ve been thumbing in your pocket since you read their book. You’d ask another regular person a good question. Why not this regular person?

5. But don’t forget all the way.

While you’re getting up the nerve to discuss something interesting with the writer, don’t come up with enough nerve that you are able to make yourself walk behind the table and, say, give them a noogie. This could very well find its way into the “meaningful interaction” category, you might be thinking to yourself. But it’s not the meaningful that I’m encouraging. This will probably get the object of your affection to drop everything and catch a cab to the airport from the curb right outside.

6. Remember that knowing a good writer won’t make you a good writer.

One of the things that has motivated me to try to have conversations and get the contact information of and try to correspond with the writers I love is the illusion that knowing a good writer will turn me into a good writer. This, I’ve come to realize, is dumb. So, for the most part, I’ve come to think of these social interactions as chances for me to get something out of this person. A piece of information. A new angle on a story I’ve been chewing on for a year. You have their book in your hand. You just bought it at indy bookstore prices. You like them. Remember that and then see if they can help you like yourself a little more. And like your work a little more. And get you more interested in it. And that might turn you into a better writer.

The post Jockeying the Book-Signing Line first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.

__________

Using the time-honored tradition of exaggeration to combat the notion that only quiet, studious things happen at bookstores

Here at Brazos, we do many quiet things. We take books off shelves, we put books on shelves, we carry books in our arms, we sit and read books old and new, we take out the trash (usually not full of books), we drink water, we whisper to well-mannered customers about Jonathan Franzen and Alice Munro…

But then, sometimes, the store literally explodes (clarification: not literally) with excitement—and by sometimes, I mean this happens always, all the damn time. Consider October, for example, when we’ll host Houston’s own neuroscience rock star David Eagleman (10/8); a poetry night with Nick Flynn, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and Gregory Pardlo (10/19); and other mind-altering literary luminaries like Sloane Crosley (10/16), Eileen Myles (10/24), and Richard Ford (10/26). Plus, we’ll have works of literary horror on display leading up to Halloween. (If you stare at the display for long enough and say “Brazos Bookstore” three times…well…look out behind you.)

But, as they say on infomercials, wait—there’s more! Here are three highlights of our October programming sure to literally blow your mind, literally (see earlier clarification re: use of the word “literally”).

***Geraldine Brooks? What? In Houston???

“King David meets Game of Thrones!”

If I were a big shot New York publicist, I would make sure the above phrase was used alongside every mention of Geraldine Brooks’ The Secret Chord, her new retelling of the life of King David. Alas, I’m no big city publicist (yet), so I’ll have to use this opportunity to shout my literary one-liner from the Inprint mountaintop. So here goes: The Secret Chord is like King David meets Game of Thrones, with enough bloody battles and political machinations to chill Cersei Lannister’s heart. But, you know, it’s still Biblical.

Brooks has played with history like this before, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for March. That novel filled in a gap in Little Women, telling the story of a character’s time in the Civil War. In that book, Brooks made you smell the various putrid scents of the 1860s, from the musket smoke to the gore and bile on the ground—made you smell all that with her words (and also with the scratch-and-sniff text included in the book’s limited edition first printing). In The Secret Chord, she’s up to the same thing all over again.

So how does Brooks write such convincing historical portraits? Well, here’s a secret: she’s actually a time-traveler. Yeah, she told me so herself. So ask her all about her Quantum Leap-style adventures (or, on second thought, maybe don’t ask her about that) when she visits Christ Church Cathedral, Episcopal, on October 9 at 8pm.

***Gulf Coast and Brazos Bookstore Reunite!

Yeah, this is big. Like, Jude Law making it back to his lost love, Nicole Kidman, after struggling through the horrors of war (or whatever happens in Cold Mountain; I never actually saw/read it). See, back before the Gulf Coast Reading Series happened each month at Rudyard’s, Brazos Bookstore used to be Gulf Coast’s everything—its best friend, its lover, its soul mate. Well, what happens when two old flames try to rekindle that old passion? Find out when the two reunite for a pair of October in-store events.

First, on October 13 at 7pm, Gulf Coast and Brazos Bookstore co-present young authors Sarah Gerard and Colin Winnette, whose 2015 novels—Binary Star and Haints Stay, both published by Two Dollar Radio—were popular bookstore titles. Also reading with these two is University of Houston MFA student Sam Dinger, who has the voice of an angel—and, come to think of it, might be an actual angel (I have no evidence to the contrary). I promise this will be the most angelic reading you’ve ever been to. If it’s not, take it up with Sam “Angel” Dinger.

And then? AND THEN? The Gulf Coast Reading Series returns to Brazos! Will they be able to keep their hands off each other? Find out while listening to student writers Shane Lake, Meghan Martin, and Jeni McFarland, and featured author Wendy S. Walters, whose Multiply/Divide came out from Sarabande Books earlier this year. Check this event out on October 30 at 7pm.

So how about Gulf Coast and Brazos Bookstore, two youngsters with twinkles in their eyes? Will these romantics be able to pick up right where they left off, lo those many years ago? At the very least, there’ll be sexual tension a-plenty.

***As Lewis Carroll once wrote, “Ain’t No Party Like an Alice In Wonderland-themed Costume Party!”

You may think you know Jeremy Ellis, our general manager at Brazos…but here’s a secret: he’s actually Lewis Carroll reincarnated. Don’t believe me? Watch this video. How else would he be able to spit these “Jabberwocky” rhymes so well?

Before Lewis Carroll was Jeremy, he wrote Alice in Wonderland and published it 150 years ago. For this reason, we’re hosting a pair of Alice-themed parties in store this Halloween! (Coincidentally, this is also the 150th anniversary of Halloween, but don’t fact-check me on that, just take me as my word, as hopefully you’ve done throughout this entire blog entry.)

So, on October 31, bring your kids to our Mad Hatter Tea Party at 10:30am for story time, crafts, and treats—and, yes, costumes recommended. Then, at 6pm, the Caterpillar’s Costume Ball makes Brazos a tad more swanky and surreal than usual. What can you do at the Caterpillar’s Costume Ball, you may ask? Well, what can’t you do? But seriously, there is a finite number of things you can do, which include: consuming Eat Me Cakes and Drink Me Potions, playing Alice-themed games, and dressing up for our costume contest. Don’t worry—you’ll be seeing caterpillars that speak in precisely enunciated English all night long!

This is but a sampling of what we have going on at Brazos in October. For our full schedule, check out our website. All hyperbole aside, our happenings here are monumental—the bookstore equivalent of the moon landing over and over again.

The post Ben’s Hyperbolic Brazos Bulletin first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.