Salman Rushdie and the Art of Allusion

November 23, 2015, by

Rushdie at the podium - Inprint 11.9.15Best known for The Satanic Verses and the Booker Prize-winning Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie charmed the audience at his sold-out Inprint reading on November 9th as he read from his new novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights.

It was a full house in the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Center, a night that was not exactly cold, but not so hot and humid.  You could walk through the city all night if you wanted, but once the lights dimmed, you were happy to be waiting for Rushdie to come out, and he disarmed everyone immediately by waving at the audience.  It made you feel like he was happy to be in Houston, a place he has been before, including the day before 9-11.

Rich Levy, executive director of Inprint reminded us of how many awards Rushdie has won—and the list is long.  It is his third appearance with Inprint, and Levy explained that he was born in Mumbai before the partition of India, but when he speaks, Rushdie seems like a Londoner to me, more like Cambridge than anywhere else.  Now, he lives in New York.  It is amusing and inspiring when Levy reports that Rushdie started out as a copy writer for the famous advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather.

Ibn Rushd, the hero of his new novel, is a scholar committed to recovering the legacy of Aristotle, so right away the fusion of the east and the west is established in a way that winds itself through the entire novel. The allusion hovering over the narrative is to A Thousand and One Nights, a work Levy tells us prompted this response from Rushdie in a 2006 interview: Continue reading

Jockeying the Book-Signing Line

November 9, 2015, by

11.. Line for book signing at Danticat & Woodrell reading RM2_2877
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. Continue reading

In her 90s, Tonja Koeppel publishes The Bell File

December 4, 2012, by

Through my work at Inprint, I have been very fortunate, as have many Houstonians, to meet some of the greatest writers of our times—John Updike, Carlos Fuentes, Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie, Gary Shteyngart, Junot Diaz, the list goes on. My friends often joke about the seemingly glamorous nature of my job. In all honesty, as exciting as it is to meet a writer you have admired for many years, what inspires me the most about my work at Inprint is the opportunity to engage with all the talented local writers I get the chance to meet, writers from all walks of life who share their imaginative fiction and poetry with us while residing in our beloved city.

Earlier this fall, I had the privilege of meeting a fascinating local writer, Tonja Koeppel, who in her 90s, just published her third novel, The Bell File. Genuine, graceful, and very sharp, Tonja came to creative writing later in her life. She began her career by working as a science writer for newspapers and magazines in Switzerland where she was born and grew up. When she came to the United States, she taught chemistry at a university in New Jersey. After she retired, she signed up for a writing course at Rice University which then launched her writing life.  Her other novels include Astral Twin and Secret of Adamant House. The Bell File is her first self-published novel through Amazon.  Continue reading

An Open Book is now open

March 5, 2012, by

Welcome to Inprint’s new blog An Open Book. For close to three decades Inprint has been lucky enough to provide Houston with readings, writing workshops, fellowships for emerging writers at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, and much more. We’ve witnessed other literary initiatives take root and flourish, and we’ve seen Houston develop into a great city for readers and writers. So much is happening in Houston’s literary scene, we can barely keep up ourselves.

Not only is there exciting local news, but Houston’s literary community has a synergistic relationship with national literary events and trends. We’re influenced by what is happening nationally, but Houston writers and our events are having a direct impact on shaping the global literary scene too, and that is something we are very proud of. We are part of it, not just a result of it. Continue reading