Hard to believe it’s mid-October already. Last weekend I was in Columbia, MO, for the MCB annual Celebration. I’ve talked about this before—History and Fiction: Dueling Narratives—and all I’ll add here is that the programming for the day was marvelous.
Turnout was another matter. It wasn’t embarrassing low, to be sure, but it wasn’t up where I’d hoped it would be. We have a lot to learn about proper promotions. But it was generally successful enough that there is no question about next year, which will be—
MISSOURI GENRE.
I sort of grabbed the title out of the air at the last board meeting, just so we could all start thinking about it and working toward it, and to make sure everyone understood that we have a program (even though we don’t, exactly). I’ve already enlisted three writers to appear. Katie Estill, who has two novels to her credit, the most recent one, Dahlia’s Gone, is quite a bravura piece of writing. Not genre, not exactly, although it does involve a murder. But in a way, mainstream is a genre insofar as it is recognized as distinct from all other “genres” like mystery or romance or science fiction. John Lutz, a local mystery writer of considerable reputation, who wrote the novel on which the movie Single White Female was based. And Robin Bailey, talented fantasy author and former president of SFWA. I figured having them on the bill would be a good, solid foundation on which to construct the rest of the program.
This will be the last Celebration in which I’m directly involved as a member of the board of the Missouri Center for the Book. Come April of ’11 I shall be leaving the MCB, per the by-laws. So I hope this one will nail it up good.
I really enjoy being on panels and doing presentations. I can’t claim to be exactly comfortable in front of an audience, but I like it, and occasionally I even do well. So in future I hope to be doing more of that and less planning.
Assuming, of course, I also have some new novels to promote. I’m still waiting to hear.
I’ve got another month or two of regular unemployment, then there seems to be some kind of extra rigomarole to go through to get the extensions. I have a prospect that won’t come in till January. We’ll see how that all works out.
I must say that all the presenters we had at this last Celebration were excellent. The talks were first-rate. We must solve this attendance problem, because people are missing out on some really great stuff. Tenacity. I’ve already put some things in place that I have to follow up on next year in terms of radio presence and such.
Meantime, I have one more major gig for the MCB this year—the book-to-film panel at the St. Louis International Film Festival. I have obtained a copy of the novel in question—Woe To Live On by Daniel Woodrell, which is out of print—and I need to read it beforehand and make up my list of questions. We’ll have Scott Phillips on stage to talk about converting novels to screenplays and a Civil War historian, Louis Gerteis, to do a little commentary on the subject of the novel, which is the Civil War in Missouri (which was particularly nasty). Ought to be a great event. The film is Ride With The Devil, of which a new director’s cut is being released in a couple of months. Early Toby MacGuire work. This will be on November 15th, probably at Washington University.
Then I will be immersed in my own work for the rest of the winter.
Oh, boy.