A few years ago one of my publishers was cool enough to send me up some forever elevator in New York to get a full day of some much-needed media training. Just in case. It was excellent, too; got to watch myself on a big screen over and over and over, and have every stupid thing I kept doing pointed out, the idea being of course that once I’d said, Yeah, that’s pretty ridiculous, obviously, c’mon, that maybe it’d click that I should stop doing that. I’d guess that training stuck for a good six months, anyway. Which is something like a record with me. And I only think of this now when listening to pieces of this recording (scroll down a touch, click the grey arrow . . . ) of the reading I did March 1st, and how I seem to crutch through every half-sentence with a pretty predictable ‘um.’ Which is supposed to have been conditioned out of me (along with lilting my sentences up into a running series of questions). But oh well. Maybe I can be like Mel Tillis: I only get mired in that kind of stuff in the commentary. At least in what I listened to of the story reading, there’s no umming.
[audio:https://www.demontheory.net/wp-admin/excl/stephen_graham_jones_03-01-07.mp3]
Also, as for specifics of this reading: first time to ever read aloud from Demon Theory; first time to read somebody else’s prose to an audience (Christopher Moore); first time I actually had the stuff I was reading in order, instead of just bringing forty pieces up there and pulling stories out at random. Also, the first time I wore two mics instead of one. Kind of cool. There was somebody official in the back of the room too, with a high-powered digital-type videocamera. I did a no eye-contact interview with them afterwards (I suck at the eye contact part of being grown up — which is to say I’m always guilty, yeah), too, so, when/if that shows up one some server, and I hear about it, I’ll post it here.
Too, related to this reading, the university paper did a write-up.
And I’m just now realizing I didn’t post anything about the UCBoulder reading: it was a ball. A very cool little auditorium, with the kind of acoustics where my quiet-talking self didn’t even need a microphone. Got to meet some cool people too, and, on the way, listen to an audio novel, Steve Berry’s The Templar Legacy, which is very cool, and highly recommended.
Think that’s it, except that I’m currently 6.75/7th’s done with that novel LEDFEATHER, talked about a lot more here. And, I was going to say that THE ABANDONED was the scariest movie since SESSION 9, but then, on Mike Bracken‘s recommend, I watched THE WICKSBORO INCIDENT, and, man, it’s why I’m posting this deep into the stupid hours.
Anyway, if you come back to this post anytime and there’s suddenly a picture with it, that means I found one.
( too, in case anybody recognizes the introducer from some voice line-up or crank call, it’s Fernando Benavidez )
is the NYT bestselling author of 35 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More