Back from the Lammys

Congratulations to Minal Hajratwala, whose book Leaving India: My Family’s Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) beat out Map and three other finalists--Byron in Love: A Short Daring Life by Edna O’Brien (W. W. Norton), Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey (Alfred A. Knopf), and Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood’s Dark Dreamer by Emanuel Levy (St. Martin’s Press)--to win the 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction, and to all the other Lammy winners and finalists!  A complete list of winners is here.

My companion and I drove down to New York on Thursday afternoon, the day of the award ceremony, with enough time to check into the hotel and breathe a bit before hobnobbing with the literati.  We'd made reservations online and chosen the Hotel Chelsea primarily for its location, semi-reasonable price, and non-shared bathroom; we had a vague understanding that it was somewhat famous (it has a mix of regulary residents and hotel guests, with many artsy folks staying there over the years), but our first thrill upon checking in was that we would be staying in Janis Joplin's old apartment!  Plus there was a balcony.  And cucumber aloe vera soap (was Janis a cucumber aloe vera fan?).

The ceremony itself, at the SVA Theater, was quite an event, and I was glad to recognize some faces and reconnect with folks I'd met at the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival.  My book cover and name flashed across a giant screen for a few seconds as the names of the finalists were read, and the plush seats and excitement of being at the Oscars of GLBT books almost made up for the fact that someone else's book got the winner logo.  Nonetheless, I was glad we had decided not to attend the after party, so I could have private time for the "I guess I'm not going to be famous tomorrow" realization to sink in.

Strange, the emotions that go through your mind with chosenness and nearly-chosenness and possibilities and maybes.  On one level, a little dream dying; on another, relief; on another, just one of many pinpoints of life.  I guess I really did have a vision that Map could triumph over four books by major major publishers and land its own re-publication book deal and be launched into the spotlight overnight.  But it is a book that wants to be introduced to readers one by one, slowly but surely, whispering not thumping.

The ten floors of wrought-iron railing stairwell in the Hotel Chelsea are covered with art by current and former residents, so when we stopped back after post-ceremony dinner for warmer clothing, we decided to take a look, and that led to exploring hallways too -- collages and painted shoes hanging on walls, decorated doors, interesting sounds and smells on some of the floors that brought clearer understanding of the check-in clerk's response to our request for a non-smoking room, "we have no smoking policy." 

Friday brought relaxed ambling through the city on foot, going wherever whim brought us and ending the afternoon at the Union Square Farmer's Market, where I was most excited to find pear cider (although the drop-off compost booth was also pretty cool).  Then, with a quick stop to pick up my backpack full of books to sell, onto the LGBT Community Center for the Bi Lines reading.

I had been wanting to do a reading in New York ever since the book came out, and am much appreciative of Sheela Lambert of the Bi Writers Association for organizing this reading and inviting me to participate.  I was also SO excited that so much family and family-of-family came to hear me read... thank you all!  And thanks to everyone else who came, and to my fellow readers and performers.  Such a blast.  I only wish there was more time to spend with everyone.

We drove out of New York late enough to miss the traffic, then onto the greenery of Connecticut for a day and then the greenery of Massachusetts, spending wonderful leisure time with good company in each place, and now I'm back in Cambridge, with an open afternoon and a nap calling.

Off to New York!

Today I travel to NYC for the Lambda Literary Awards (my post on that here) and the Bi Lines reading (my post on that here).  The Lammys are basically the Oscars of the queer book world.  My fingers are crossed and I am jittery-nervous-excited.  Last night I had a dream about frantic packing and travel plans changing, and I woke up at 4:45 in the morning (why??), but the night before that, I dreamt that I actually won the Lammy Award that I'm up for, and it was absolutely wonderful.  I highly recommend this experience, despite the waking-up-at-the-end factor.  Much nicer than the awake-state where I am worried about fraying shoelaces and impending rain.


If you're reading this on Friday or thereabouts and I haven't posted an update yet, you can probably find a list of winners on the Lambda Literary website. 

Saintly Sinners

Just got back from the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans, and my mind is still spinning. Such great literary conversation, fabulous people, new writers to read, ideas ideas ideas.  I attended panels on Marketing and Social Media, Pathways to Publication, and Writing Intimacy, spoke on a panel about defeating self-doubt called Keeping the Wolves at Bay, and gave a group reading with six other Lambda Literary Award Finalists.  I also ate some tasty gelato (sweet potato pie tied with pink root beer for the most intriguing flavor), chatted with the publishers of two up-and-coming small presses (Rebel Sartori and Bywater Books), and entered a smoke-filled bar for the first time in many years (and was rewarded by a Bourbon Street cover band playing Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer).  The icing on the cake is that I'd brought a bunch of copies of Map with me to New Orleans and sold them all!  (To everyone who bought a copy, everyone who said wonderful things about my reading or panel, and everyone who took my card and is asking their library to order Map: THANK YOU!)

All the talk about social media has me re-thinking my own approach.  I have a sign on my wall, BREATHE, AUDGE.  YOU ARE ONLY ONE PERSON.  And a day job, which surprisingly seems to be more of a challenge than the self-publishing factor in terms of reaching readers.  So no matter how jazzed up I get from one of these conferences, there are limits on how many of the great ideas I can turn into reality.  But I know there's more I could be doing.  So I'm interested in hearing from you... do you want me to post more often to the blog?  Give a reading in your town?  Add some audio excerpts to the site?  Become a Twitter adoptee?  Forget about all of the above and write another book?  You tell me...

And for extra credit, if you chose "post more often to the blog," how often, and what do you want to hear about?  Writing?  Publishing?  My latest culinary experiments?  (Caramelized Beet Ice Cream is the most recent successful one... mmm!)  Recommendations of other books and authors?  What's your favorite author blog, if you have one?