Wild Iris, Wild Goose, and other untamed experiences on book tour

So I’m back from the road. “Book tour” was the word that Peterson and I used to describe our two week trip to Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Kentucky; Cookville, Tennessee; Gainesville, Florida; and Pittsboro, North Carolina. But given the news media’s complete indifference all the interviews my publicist and I proposed, it ended up feeling more like a road trip, with book events on the side.

I wasn’t chatting to radio hosts—I was floating down the Ichetucknee River in Florida, in a rubber tube, past live oaks and great white herons. I was catching up with old friends. Not maybe the best for book sales, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

Book-wise, my best event by far was at Eastern Kentucky University, where a crowd of twenty or so old friends and colleagues came out to see me read at the Crabbe Library. They were thrilled, enthusiastic, and bought lots of books. This response reminded me of the book marketing adage that there’s nothing quite like “connection” to bring people out to an event.

But the other, smaller events were interesting, too. At Westminster-Thurber retirement home in Columbus, a circle of about twelve or so old folks seemed entranced to hear my memories of lions and elephants. At Wild Iris Bookstore in Gainesville—apparently one of only thirteen remaining feminist bookstores in the US—I met Erica Merrell. She instantly became a hero to me because of her work trying to keep literary culture alive in the age of Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook. Who are these people, who love books so much they are willing to work for almost nothing to keep selling books, getting them out into the world? And at the Columbus Barnes and Noble, I met Stjepan, a retired gentleman who now spends most of his waking hours reading—and buying—quality literary fiction and nonfiction. He had read The Jack Bank based on its review in Publishers Weekly. I felt like I’d encountered a kindred spirit.

Then it was off to Wild Goose, the progressive Christian arts festival held near Pittsboro, NC. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never been to Greenbelt, the European festival that served as inspiration for this one. But I wanted to support Peterson in his performance, and I was excited about sharing my story with a new audience—that of “emergent Christians” with an interest in social justice.

About thirty people showed up for my reading, and I read the scene from The Jack Bank where I make my deposit in prefect John’s accounting notebook, where he records our beatings and offers us interest. I was a bit worried about freaking out my listeners with these recollections of mad sadomasochism, but they truly seemed fascinated, and I really loved reading it aloud and re-experiencing all the horror, love, and sadness I felt writing those. This section of The Jack Bank is really the “theological” core of my book, where I meditate on how easily and naturally evil comes to human beings. In other words, how deeply we always are implicated in the things we recoil from. I was hoping this piece would speak to an audience concerned with the big questions about life.

I think it did. They asked great questions about reconciliation in South Africa—I am more cautious in my support than most people imagine. They asked about the role of spirituality in my life journey. I wish they’d bought more copies of The Jack Bank, but I do understand that there was a great deal of competition for their book dollars that weekend, from people who are living legends in this movement. Folks like Richard Rohr and Peter Rollins, fabulous speakers, both.

I discovered new music at Wild Goose. I thought Christian music was supposed to be corny? But two new favorites, from the festival night stage: the moody, angry, charismatic Derek Webb, and the sublimely meditative David Bazan.

This week I teach creative writing summer camp at Susquehanna University. Next week I read at Friends General Conference in Grinnell. If I have another chance to blog this week, I’ll weigh in on the big controversy among my friends at Wild Goose, namely: By including gay and lesbian speakers like me and Peterson in a Christian festival, did Wild Goose strike a blow against what is arguably THE cardinal religious sin of our time, homophobia? Or did the effort to include everyone on this issue—from people who believed homosexuality was a sin all the way through to out-and-proud gay people—make a mockery of the festival’s proclaimed commitment to social justice, at least around the issue of sexuality?

Media events list, for the record

Peterson pointed out to me yesterday that I don't actually have links to my major media appearances--a violation of the cardinal rule of author blogs! For the record, almost all the media work I've done is on my web page under "Interviews and Articles." But for the record, I'm collecting some links here, too:

Here is PBS television's feature on my book and travel writing course. That made me feel like a small scale celebrity!

Here is the radio interview I did with WVIA Artscene with Erika Funk in Scranton. Erika was lots of fun, but I think I talked too much and for too long.

I have done a number of interviews that appeared in print, but some of my favorites were talking to Oronte Churm at InsideHighered and shooting the breeze with Nina Herzog at Lambda Literary.

Most of my reviews are, again, on my web page. Here is one of my favorites, though, that I haven't added there yet.

Last but not least, one of the most entertaining things I've ever recorded is this audio essay about taking middle-class American creative writing students to a rural African village.

Will keep all of you posted--quite literally!

Readings, and the road less travelled.

I've done a bunch of readings from The Jack Bank by now--five, to be precise, with more coming up. See my schedule on my web page. I love reading aloud from my book, and the interaction with readers is wonderful. I know this is going to sound schmaltzy, but I was almost moved to tears yesterday, when something like 70 people, most of them strangers, showed up yesterday to Congregation Beth-El synagogue in Sunbury to hear me. I felt just really honored and grateful.



But the experience of doing all these readings is getting me thinking about we writers, and how we try to connect with audiences. For most literary authors, readings mean bookshops and universities, period. And, fact is, I've loved visiting Virginia Tech, reading at my home institution of Susquehanna University, and reading at bookshops like Midtown Scholar and Atomic Books.

But so far, some of my favorite performances have been in "alternative" settings, especially religious congregations. There's a different flavor to this kind of visit. In bookstores--and, to a lesser extent, colleges--there's a certain sophistication mixed with literary jadedness. So many books, so many visiting authors, so little time! Whereas churches and synagogues are a bit like trading books for eggs at the Sunbury Farmers Market . One is visiting a group of people who don't read literature as a lifestyle, and as a result, I always feel specially privileged--and I feel that, if I make a connection with a reader, I'll perhaps be making a much bigger impact than I would in a traditional venue.

So, for example, at a Susquehanna reading, it's rare I read a visiting author's book within 24 hours of buying it. Yet since yesterday I've already received several emails from people at Beth-El who have finished reading my book and are recommending it to other people. Talk about a dream publicity gig!

This summer, I'm visiting Eastern Kentucky University, Barnes and Noble, and Wild Iris Books. But I'm also reading at Wild Goose Festival, Friends General Conference, and possibly some retirement homes. I'll keep you posted about how all of this goes, but right now, I'm betting that while most of all this will be tremendously enjoyable, some of the most distinctive memories I'll bring back from this book tour will be from places that don't usually get to hear from literary memoirists.

Don't make me a celebrity! Please, make me a celebrity!

It was one of the first things I noticed upon coming to the USA--celebrity culture. Not that the South Africa of my youth lacked magazines devoted to "uncovering" Rock Hudson's skinny-dipping locales and speculating about how he got HIV. Or less gloomily, counting Liz Taylor's diamond necklaces. But the trend was magnified on this side of the Atlantic. What I noticed was the sheer number of prime-time TV shows dedicated to Hollywood, not to mention trashy rags at the checkout counter.

And then there was the cult of personality about Nelson Mandela.

In the "struggle," we just saw Mandela as our "Comrade Leader." The battle to defeat apartheid was collective--the only thing we had on our side was force of numbers. But here, Mandela was seen as a charismatic Beowulf-style hero who'd single-handedly slain an evil monster. I remember Charlene Hunter Gault interviewing him on PBS, and Madiba telling her off several times for assuming democracy in South Africa was "his" victory. This difference seemed to epitomize a culture steeped in adversity, which promotes community, versus a more prosperous, individualized one geared more to mass entertainment.

But whether it's Jesus, Buddha, Prince William, or the Biebs, we seem to need people to exalt above ourselves. Today, South Africa is almost as celebrity-obsessed as North America. When it comes to Lady Gaga or Zac Efron, the amount of money and attention we pour on celebrities is staggering. Did you know that Beyonce made $ 84 million in 2009?

Which brings me to the current focus of this blog--the experience of publishing a first book. My publicist at my press told me the day he met me: "It's only celebrity memoirs that we try to get onto the big radio and TV shows." A friend--also a book publicist--explained, "If you want to sell books, frankly, the goal is to try to make yourself, as much as possible, into a celebrity." Of course, what she was saying was entirely relative. Even the biggest celebrity literary authors, like Dave Eggers, are ultimately small fry. But I think her point was that if I want people to read my words and get my message--if I want an audience for the stories which I worked so hard to produce--I need to be able in some modest way, to play the celebrity game.

Yesterday, WITF--the public broadcasting TV station in Harrisburg, PA--came to our Writers Institute building to interview me about my book and about the Travel Writing in South Africa course. In the big universe of celebrity-hood, it was nothing at all. Tomorrow, at 8 pm, a small news magazine program will broadcast a couple of minutes about me and my students to a central Pennsylvania audience. But still, the camera guy and anchor added a touch a glamor to our bookish surroundings. There were photo lamps; reflective umbrellas. It was fun to talk about teaching and writing, and as is so often the case, I was proud as can be of the Susquehanna University students when they got in front of the camera.

My friends, students, and colleagues didn't lose the chance to tease me about it, though.

"You're a celebrity now!" they said. "A hot shot! Obama will be inviting you to the White House!"

'No," I wanted to reply, echoing my erstwhile President, back in 1994. "I'm just an author!" Half my brain was going, "Shit, yeah! Barack and me, natural buddies." The other half, "Don't you dare call me that dirty c-word!" And of course, it doesn't need to be said that the whole idea was completely ridiculous.

I suppose the ultimate point to these ramblings on the topic of celebrity culture is that I'll take every little thing the world is willing to throw at me, in order to be able to live my dream. That dream is simply to create truth and beauty--emotional, formal, and linguistic --on the page. That's the passion that made me want to be a writer. That's my vocation, what the Italian essayist Natalia Ginsburg called--I'm quoting roughly from memory here--the thing that "burns away everything inessential."

If someone hands me $84 million--thanks so much! I'll buy a nice island and tower off the South African West Coast and use the beautiful solitude to read and write more. I'll donate the surplus to end corrective rape and support the education of young South African writers. Not that I'm holding my breath--but I'm just saying.


If the world hands me nothing at all, I'll write in whatever time I can carve aside.

Either way, writing and love of the people in my life--family, friends, students, colleagues, neighbors--are the two things I care most about.

I don't even think I'm kidding myself on this point. All of this book publicity stuff--successful or unsuccessful--is just a means to an end. All the rest is meaningless.

Miming memories and signing Kindles

It has begun... Readings galore! Two weeks ago, I read at Virginia Tech's creative writing program, at the invitation of Fred D'Aguiar. Then, last week, I read at Susquehanna University, where I work as a professor. Last Saturday I read at the beautiful, excellent Midtown Scholar bookstore in Harrisburg.

Many of the visiting authors we get at SU seem to struggle with performing their poems, essays, and stories. They write exquisite sentences, but struggle to voice them with the same feeling that went into them. I've always thought this had to do with writers being generally shy and introspective individuals, more comfortable alone with words than in front of a crowd.

Perhaps I missed my true vocation as an actor/performer, like my partner, Peterson Toscano? I doubt I have a shy bone in my body. This is probably an essential character trait for someone like me--an exhibitionist, er, I mean, memoirist! For whatever reason, though, I've always intensely enjoyed reading my work.

On stage I forget myself and get into acting out my story. At the SU reading, at one point I knocked on the podium to imitate a friend in the story knocking on my window. At another I mimed hunting through an invisible garbage can for tuna cans. I've always felt a bit self-conscious about how crazy I can get doing a reading. I feel clownish. Somehow serious literature should be more subdued, more dignified, shouldn't it? And I feel a bit like a fake. I won't say I prefer reading my sentences to struggling with them in my solitary study. Yet I do find reading much easier than writing, which is often an intensely pleasurable-painful struggle.

Do I lose points as a writer for laying it on thick from the podium? For not suffering from social anxiety disorder?

Then again, I love listening to audiobooks, and I have to say there's nothing like a skilled reader to bring out the beauty of, say, Eliot's Middlemarch. Also, according to my editor Elizabeth Beier, writers need to learn how to become better performers if they want to sell books through readings. Most authors sell very few books at such events.

The thing that most amused me at the three readings I did this week, though, is how apologetic several people were about me to sign their books. Are you kidding me? You shelled out $16 or more for my book, and you're embarrassed to ask for a signature? To me, being able to sign books is a tremendous privilege.

At the Harrisburg reading, I even signed a Kindle, using a special kind of glo-pen... it was "virtually" as good as signing a hard copy, with the smell of ink and paper and the heft of pages in one's hands.

This blog, a statistical improbability

What a sweetheart he is! Cross-posting Peterson Toscano today, for reasons that will become apparent:

Two are Better than One–Art, Love, & Partnership

April 25, 2011 by p2son

Since finally coming out gay in my early 30′s (after 17 years of self-imposed therapies to de-gay myself) I was never that keen on finding a partner. Sure I dated, and I met some great guys, but first off I knew I had a ton of gunk to work through. One cannot go to war against one’s sexuality and personality the way I did without needing serious recovery. The Ex-Gay Movement with all the faulty oppressive teaching “ministers” and “therapists” served up with a warm loving touch did a number on me. Honestly I never thought I could ever be partner material.

Although “change” was not possible (as the ex-gays vaguely promised) recovery has been. Not that I have everything sorted out. Sadly I believe I will live with some of the negative effects of ex-gay treatment for the rest of my life. But not only does life go on for me, I have been able to reclaim much of my life, my art, my hope, and my sanity. With a handful of thoughtful, faithful, loving friends, I was prepared and content to live single the rest of my life.

In regards to romance and partnership, I hate it when people say things like, “Once you stop looking, that’s when you will find love.” Perhaps anecdotal evidence supports this claim, and unfortunately my own romantic situation plops me into the data pool of those who found love when not looking. Surely most people who find a partner have been looking for said partner. These folks don’t just drop out of the sky.

Glen Retief in Lesotho

Still, my partner did, in a matter of speaking, dropped from the sky. In 2008 I attended the Friends General Conference, an annual gathering of North American Quakers. We met that year on a college campus in Johnston, PA, and I roomed with my conference buddy, Dennis, a 65 year old+ scientist and dancer from Denver. We roomed in a wing of the dorm where many of the LGBTQ folks clustered (you get to request what cluster you prefer when you register.) The dorm rooms were such that two rooms shared a bathroom. When I heard someone on the other side of the two bathroom walls, I thought that we should meet and devise a protocol so that we do not inadvertently barge in on each other.

Just as I cracked open my bathroom door, the stranger in the next room burst in. Tall, gorgeous, and wearing only his underwear, he practically ran into me. I quickly explained, “Um, yeah, so, like, I guess we share a bathroom, so maybe we need to knock or do something before we enter.” Although he was the near naked one, he did not seem flustered one bit. “Yes, I did not realize.” he said with a lilting foreign-accent that sounded a mash-up of British and German. “My name is Glen.”

And that dear friends, is how I met my partner–in the bathroom at a religious conference. Glen, Dennis, and I spent much of the week together going to meals, talks, and Quaker worship. I was a bit harried as I co-led a daily workshop for teens and was scheduled to offer a plenary address to the 1000+ Quakers at the end of the weekend. Glen told me months later that at the time he did not know if Dennis and I were just friends or something more, and he hoped I was available.

I struggled with a sore throat the whole week. I obsessed so much that I would not be able to speak by the time I did my presentation, The Re-Education of George W. Bush, that I paid little attention to Glen. He did catch my attention after one of the plenary addresses when he expressed his strong, thoughtful opinion contrary to my own about something the speaker said. I found this to be extremely alluring. At one point he told me that he was a writer, and inwardly I remarked, “Yeah, right, everyone is a writer these days.”

He saw my play and although he did not say so at the time, he was struck by my ability as an artist–not just another pretty face He then emailed me a chapter of a book he had begun, something about growing up in South Africa which I promised to read when I had some quiet time away from all the wild Quakers with all their many activities. Then we abruptly parted ways. He left a little early because he was concerned for the welfare of his cats, and I hurried back to Hartford to catch a plane to London to speak at the Lambeth Conference.

I meet so many people. I like many of them and stay in touch, but I felt something different about Glen, and found myself thinking of him and speaking about him to friends in the UK. “I met this really nice guy…but I’m sure it is nothing.” Then on a train going up North to visit friends in Wakefield I cracked open the email that held the attachment of Glen’s memoir excerpt. The prose was gorgeous. The story deeply moving. I concluded, “He really is a writer–not just another pretty face.”

And as they say, the rest is history. Of course we took other steps to get to know each other before we literally fell in love while hiking in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. We also each found the other to be freakishly compatible. We are both odd ducks in our own ways, and to find another that fits so well, is well, nothing short of miraculous–a statistical improbability. We compliment each other in multiple ways. We enjoy ourselves together immensely and we help each other to become better artists and better people. We intellectually spar, we comfort each other, we cook for each other, look out for each other, we partner in every aspect of our lives–personally, professionally, spiritually, domestically.

Glen Retief and Peterson Toscano

Next month in Washington, DC we will appeared together to present our work. Glen will read from his memoir, The Jack Bank, and I will perform scenes from my plays, I Can See Sarah Palin from my Window and Transfigurations (a play about transgender Bible characters.”

Glen and I often quote a favorite passage from the book of Ecclesiastes, a text used in many wedding ceremonies. It can easily apply to all sorts of couples, but the text appears to be speaking directly about two males (at least in the English translations I have read. I will have to check in on the Hebrew one of these days.)

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

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Wanna check us out?

Tuesday, April 26, 11:00 AM Radio Interview with Glen about his book. WVIA’s ArtScene with Erica Funke

Wednesday, April 27, 7:30 PM Reading and book signing, The Jack Bank, at Susquehanna University

Saturday, April 30, 7:00 PM Reading and book signing, The Jack Bank, at Midtown Scholar, Harrisburg, PA

Friday, Saturday May 7 and 8 Peterson will perform I Can See Sarah Palin from my Window and Transfigurations in Oslo, Norway.

Wednesday, May 25, 7:00 PM Quaker and Public Witness, a joint presentation by Peterson Toscano & Glen Retief, at the William Penn House, Washington, DC

Thursday, May 26, 700 PM An evening with Glen Retief and Susi Wyss, Atomic Books, Baltimore, MD

Friday, Saturday June 24, 25 Reading by Glen Retief, performance by Peterson Toscano at Wild Goose Festival, Shakori Hills NC

Glen will also read at the Friends General Conference and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (details to be announced)

A simple pleasure: bartering books for pears

Now, with The Jack Bank at last in bookstores, I just feel, more than anything, happy and grateful. Happy to be sending words, dreams and memories out into the world. Extraordinarily thankful to the people, most of them completely strangers, who are buying my book, reading it, reviewing it, and emailing me about it. It's a privilege, both as an author and human being, to be connecting, even for a moment, so widely and deeply with my fellow temporary passengers on this planet. It's both surreal and moving to have people care enough to pay attention in this ultra-busy life we live nowadays.

No doubt my infatuation with book publication will quickly fade and give way to the hard realities of having to raise a child, metaphorically speaking--to shepherd this literary labor into the world. Books don't keep afloat by themselves. Publicity is a lot of work. But for now I am just touched by the fact that anyone would want to read me at all.

This point was brought vividly home to me last Saturday morning, when Peterson and I went shopping at the Sunbury Farmers Market. One of the things we both love--and sometimes rail against--in our home region is how old-fashioned everything is. The clothes in the downtown stores look they come from the 1970s. The fresh Amish-grown tomatoes at the end of summer are $6 a bushel. Local entertainment includes wooden roller coasters, a drive-in cinema, and a cow-patty bingo fundraiser for the Lewisburg Public Library.

But what struck home Saturday morning is how exotic and unusual book publication is in this country town. We brought along copies to show our market trader friends, and they went beserk. Teaching creative writing at a college, and hanging out with writer types, it's easy to forget how special literature really is. But at the farmers' market, our regular salespeople all wanted copies. They didn't have much cash, so they offered to trade eggs and fruit for books. This is a literary memoir dealing with sexual oppression and liberation in South Africa; it's hardly the most logical reading for rural, religious central PA. But that didn't matter. Like the earliest readers of creative nonfiction, the folks who gobbled up Hazlitt, Shonagun, or Montaigne to get the dirt on their neighbors, these folks wanted to support me and find out about me, because they knew me.

Books--stories, words, gossip--for pears and broccoli! Hardcovers for eggs! Hard to imagine any future book sales that will satisfy me so viscerally.