Last night’s reading at Borderlands Bookshop Cafe for LitCrawl, the final event in the massive, week-long San Francisco LitQuake festival, was simply amazing. The room was packed out the door, and yet the audience was absolutely silent and attentive. I’ve never seen an audience that size be so focused at a reading. These people are serious about their literaychur.
I got some wonderful compliments and signed some books. I especially enjoyed hearing Tim Pratt read at the event. I haven’t read him before, and the breadth of gonzo imagination in his work, along with the lushness of his prose, was an absolute delight. The fact that he is a personable reader who is very comfortable in front of an audience made it even better. I’m looking forward to reading more of his stuff.
I recorded the gig but am not going to put it up because a wonderful woman named Susan Tunis videotaped it and says she will have it online tomorrow. I’ll certainly post it when it’s up! Beyond a few short clips I’ve never actually seen video of me doing a reading and I’m curious. I’m a fairly fidgety boy, and I was wired as hell before the Borderlands reading. I get nervous before any performance — reading, DJ gig, sometimes even convention panels — but lately I’m even more nervous before readings in particular, because I’ve taken to doing them from memory, and that’s just plain nerve-wracking when you get up there in front of a bunch of people.
I think I channel nervous energy in a fairly positive way, though, so in a sense that nervousness works to my benefit. There are times when I haven’t been nervous before some performance and I’ve just blown it. Maybe overconfidence makes me less focused. I dunno.