I never ever want to have a weekend like that again. Nearly 35 hours of work over four days. I thought helping to plan a wedding was stressful, but that was nothing compared to helping organize a literary festival.

Volunteers decided not to show up. Equipment people were late dropping off tables or picking up tarps. Rooms were locked when they were supposed to be unlocked. Authors who were contracted to sign books for forty-five minutes left after five because no one showed up; then when someone arrived twenty minutes later, the author was of course gone. It was unseasonably warm.

That's getting all the bad stuff out of the way. That's all the minutiae that the general public wouldn't have known about. And as much as I bitch and moan, the festival was pretty much a success. Almost all the events were well-attended. There wasn't a rain cloud in the sky. The audio/video equipment in the rooms all worked fine (mostly; there was occasionally a high whine or hiss from the speakers). Both the NCSU bookstores and the Library used book sale sold a lot of books.

I knew going into it that some volunteers were going to cancel, not show up, or generally eff up all my hard-wrought plans. But it was still disappointing and frustrating to be undermanned (especially on Sunday), and instead of being able to send a volunteer to do something, I'd have to do it myself.

Janet was an absolute angel. She came with me early on Saturday morning, and even when she wasn't scheduled to work, she'd stick around and help. She took charge of merchandise sales, and stayed on top of things. She was freaking awesome. As I told her this weekend, if I didn't love her before, I sure as hell would now. As it is, there's no humanly way for me to appropriately express my gratitude toward my wonderful wife.

So anyway, down to the nitty and the gritty. Thursday night was Alice Walker's kickoff lecture, and she just didn't seem to want to stop talking; she went forty minutes over. She read from the first chapter of her new novel, some poetry, and some weird little oddments, then answered a bunch of audience-written questions. After she was done, the reception started upstairs in a nicely furnished and catered room where the tables were all covered with purple cloth (a coincidence, and not meant as a connection to The Color Purple, though it was a nice bit of synchronicity). I stuck around until she came up and went inside, then I went home.

Friday, I got here at noon and, along with five other volunteers, put signs up all over campus to direct people to the different buildings in which we would have the readings and panel discussions. It was tired and sweaty work, but we got it all done. We also had signs to hang up in the volunteer, children's, and author hospitality tents. After finishing, I took my bus to my car, then drove back over to the student center for Dennis Lehane's keynote address. He was introduced by Michael Malone (another mystery writer, and, I found out, the sole writer on Days of Our Lives right now), and talked a bit about the experience of writing Mystic River and the cordial attitude of Clint Eastwood on inviting him to the set of the movie, and then he read from the first chapter of his new novel, which starts with a baseball strike in 1918 where Babe Ruth amuses himself by stealing his teammates' hats on the train to a game. It was extremely funny and well-written, and makes me want to read his stuff now. I stayed for the reception that night, getting to actually eat something; while I was at the buffet table, Lehane was standing right in front of me, and I told him how much I enjoyed the reading and appreciated him coming here. He said, "Thanks, I was glad to come here, Jason," which took me by surprise for a moment until I realized I was wearing a name tag. He signed some books, and we had a silent auction, and I got to shmooze a little bit. I talked to Sonny Brewer -- owner of Over the Transom Bookshop in Alabama and editor of the acclaimed Southern anthology series Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe -- and he told me to send him a story for the anthology's next installment. Yay, a solicitation! It's the second I've ever gotten, the first being from Andy Duncan for his and Brett Cox's Crossroads antho.

Saturday morning, Janet and I got to the Brickyard (the brick-covered plaza in front of D.H. Hill Library) around 7:30, and as the equipment people hadn't yet taken down the tarps that enclosed the tents, we had to do it. Volunteers started trickling in, things got set up, and the day began. It was pretty much mass chaos until 11:00, when I escorted the skiffy writers to what John Kessel dubbed "The New Strange" panel. Richard sums it up fairly well, as does Jamie. The New Strange (not to be confused with the New Weird) was John's term for this recent slipstream/interstitial/ Amorphous Blob movement, and they discussed its relation to the magic realism of Borges and Marquez, as well as its presence in both genre and mainstream venues. The panel was very well attended, to my pleasant surprise, and I ran into Andreas, Luna, and Jamie there. I got to introduce Janet to Dale, Richard, Barb, Andy and Kelly. After the panel was over, I tried to herd the authors back over to the booksigning area.

Then, there was some crisis over at the NCLF tent (the weekend was mostly a series of crises, interspersed with brief moments of sitting down), so I headed over there and took care of it. Janet and I managed to find some time to get lunch, then I realized I had to substitute as a session host for a volunteer who didn't show up. So I hauled ass over to Witherspoon Theater (on the other side of campus), made sure they had enough water, and found out that they were signing books there, which meant I didn't have to escort them back to the Brickyard. So since they no longer needed me, I hauled ass again to hear Karen read from The Jane Austen Book Club and a recent essay in The Believer. (Unfortunately, the bookstore wasn't able to get the new novel to sell this weekend. One of the people in charge of ordering told me that Putnam refused to send copies, but Karen told me that Putnam said they were all too happy to send them but had never been contacted. Someone isn't telling the truth here. I was really disappointed at this, because Karen is one of my Clarion teachers, and a great person, and she got screwed over. But, in eight days she's going to be reading at The Regulator in Durham, and the book will definitely be there.) After her reading, we headed back to the Brickyard, and I was there on the walkie-talkie, putting out fires, and trying to make sure the day finished off all right.

At 5:00, Janet and I went home and rested for a bit, and I took a much-needed shower. Then we headed back to campus for Daniel Wallace's talk. He signed books for an hour beforehand, and we talked a bit; there was a steady stream of people getting books signed, so we talked in the spaces inbetween. I had emailed him a little before the festival, and had asked him some questions, so I then asked him on Saturday night if he'd a agree to an interview, and he said yes. So once the semester is over, and once I've finished interviewing Zoran, I'll interview Wallace. I pitched the idea to Strange Horizons, and hopefully they'll bite. Wallace showed me some pictures of him on the set of Big Fish, and signed my hardcover Algonquin copies of Big Fish and Ray in Reverse. I introduced him to Wilton Barnhardt, who was introducing him that evening, and then we went inside. Wallace is a charming, funny guy, and he won over the crowd in the first five minutes. He talked about writing, and having your book turned into a movie, and relating to his father. When he was done, Janet and I left, because we were simply too exhausted to stay and watch Big Fish in the theater.

Sunday was more of the same, with even more volunteers not showing up, and us scrambling to get everything done, but they got done. When the day was over, we helped break stuff down, then went home. I asked for Monday off, and my boss said I certainly deserved it. That night, Janet said, "All we're going to do tomorrow is relax," and I agreed, though it didn't quite happen.

Yesterday morning, I was so wiped from the weekend that I didn't get out of bed until noon, and it was to being awakened by Janet jumping on the bed and yelling, "My stuff is here!" The packages she had shipped over had just arrived, almost ten weeks after she sent them from Singapore. They were all wrapped up in what looked like shrink-wrapped black garbage bags, strapped to a wooden pallet and delivered to our door. We cut away the shrink wrap and unpacked a few of the boxes (they were heavy). Janet's butterfly chest was also in the grouping, and when she opened it up, it smelled just like her house back in Singapore, something I couldn't quite identify, but full of spices. We got everything inside and did some redecorating, moving the chest to one side of the sofa, and the square table to the other. It's starting to feel like it's our apartment instead of just my apartment.

We did a few errands, like depositing Janet's checks for winning two Strange Horizons Reader's Choice Awards, and putting a few chapbooks in the mail to nice people. We also found out that a box Janet had sent through surface mail also arrived, which means that everything she sent is now here. Woo! Last night, she made chicken curry and rice, and we watched volume one of the feel-good movie of the year on DVD, in preparation for watching volume two in the theater this coming weekend.

Man, what a crazy weekend. I'd like to be able to recover and sleep, but I still have two more weeks of classes, and three major papers to write. No rest for the weary.

Janet also has written about this past weekend in her journal, in backwards form, and fills in all the stuff I missed.

Now Reading:
Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama

Stories Out to Publishers:
7

Books Read This Year:
25

Zines/Chapbooks/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
7