We would be back where we started, me not feeling him, and him feeling blue.

Thursday I went to the Litblog Co-op party and saw my sweet Timothy Schaffert (his new book Devils in the Sugar Shop just came out) visiting from Omaha and also breath-of-fresh-airs Kevin Sampsell (there to promote Powell's and the new Gary Lutz book) and Barb visiting from Portland and then a shitload of litbloggers, my favorite of whom was the loud and delightful Ed Champion. (I read that whole Marisha Pessl interview gone bad thing on his site and I can't say I'd stand up too well to him either, but I mean that in a good way.) Also I saw Lizzie Skurnick (elegant and brilliant as always) and her friend who is a producer at Talk of the Nation. They were happy to see each other, which was sweet. I asked her why she was at BEA and she told me she walked around getting pitches on books.

"Well I know my book isn't right for Talk of the Nation," I said.

"I love that you just said that," she said.

"It's true," I said. "It's a novel, for starters."

"Go on, pitch me," she said.

So I told her what the book was about and she said, "You're right. But it sounds awesome and I'm going to buy it anyway."

Ka-ching!

One NPR producer down, a few thousand more to go.

I hung out with Kevin and Barb the last few nights. I talked their ears off about the new book I've been working on and it made me realize I still love it and that I'm making progress. We made a stop at Blake Nelson's going-away/triumphant return from Cannes party in Greenpoint. I got to gush to him about how much I loved Girl back in 90s. (I even liked the movie, the first and last time Tara Reid was ever interesting.) It turns out they are re-releasing it as a new paperback and I'm going to bet it still holds up today. It's one of those borderline YA/Adult novels, so it should be interesting to see how it does.

After that we decided to go get donuts. I could not promise Kevin anything along the lines of Portland's fabulous Voodoo Donuts, where they always take me when I'm in town. I could, however, take them to the donut shop that was the loose inspiration for The Donut Girls, a story Kevin edited for his issue of Spork, a version of which is one of the chapters of The Kept Man. (God I can't wait till it's up on Amazon so I can start linking to it because then, for some reason, it will feel real. Riverhead added my name to their list of author sites on their website though, which made me feel nice. I'm first, right above Shalom Auslander.)

The donut shop wasn't all that, but they gave it to us cheap because they would just throw them away in the morning. It was pretty gritty in there, but they tasted good anyway. Donuts at midnight, there ain't nothing like it.

(06/03/07)