story time for adults

This is how I described the Northern Arizona Book Festival to my son this past weekend, when he asked where I was going.

Billy Collins was there, and stole the show. After his (far too brief - I could have listened to him read for hours) reading, Lemony Snicket took the stage. Or rather, some guy whose job it was to explain Mr. Snicket's unfortunate demise (via a too-hideous-for-words creature at a picnic) took the stage. That guy was quite funny. I suspect he may have actually been Mr. Snicket in disguise, but one never knows. The whole thing was very mysterious and unfortunate.

I didn't get to devote as much volunteer time to the festival as I would have liked, though I did spend several hours (some of it with the husband's help) updating their address list. Those school board secretary skills have to come in handy somewhere.

In other news, we've got a whole lotta truck love going on at Brackett Villa. Herewith:

oh yeah.

that's what I'm talkin' about

uh huh.

come on, baby - bring it.

Let me hear ya TESTIFY!

I loved my trusty Chevy S-10, which has carried me and the children around faithfully for the past couple of years (and that's saying a lot, coming from a Ford woman).

But Mama's big truckin' again, and that means life is GOOD.

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can't wait, can't wait, can't wait...

The Northern Arizona Book Festival is coming up. I'm so glad they've changed it to April. For the first several years it was held in January, which is an irksome time to be walking from event to event in downtown Flagstaff because the streets are sometimes a windy, snowy, slippery outdoor skating rink at this time of year.

Let's see...one year I went to the festival hugely pregnant and met up with my former office mate from NAU grad school days. Tammy's first excellent novel, Breathing Water, had just been published, and it wasn't pregnancy nausea making me green. That was also the festival at which I met a well-respected agent who requested that I send her the manuscript I'd recently finished polishing. Even though she ultimately rejected it (can totally understand why when I re-read the thing now), it felt like an important step at the time. Then there was the year when Anne Lamott came to read (to a packed house at the old Orpheum theater), and I was so happy to see a fellow Marinite in Flagstaff that, afterward (I hesitate to even admit this), I went up and gave her this HUGE groupie hug. (My enthusiasm was dampened somewhat when, as we chatted, I mentioned that I was born and raised in Marin but had lived in Flag for several years. She looked sort of disgusted and, in the most stereotypically elitist tone possible, said simply, "Why?") Two years ago, when I last attended the Bookfest, Annie Proulx was the big featured speaker. It was right around the time Brokeback Mountain was released in theaters, so you'd think she'd be all rarin' to go, but she looked pretty worn out and unhappy when I saw her.

Is it the altitude? C'mon, people, Flagstaff rocks! Fortunately, most Bookfest authors seem to realize this and are super enthusiasic. This year I hope to apply some of my own regional enthusiam to volunteering, so we'll see if they can utilize my talents despite my funky hours of availability. Having been a school board secretary for a few years, I am ALL OVER the whole collating/stapling/mailing thing.Follow @nicole_mcinnes