Still Getting the Hang of this Reading/Interviewing Thing

This past weekend I packed in three Powder Necklace-associated events.

On Friday, I went up to my alma mater Vassar College to join two fellow alums in reading from our recently published works. Torrey Maldonado was to read from his book Secret Saturdays a gripping and vulnerable account of boyhood in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Tanikka Price was to read from her book of soulful and heartfelt letters Love Letter: A Black Girl Song and I was to read from my book. But first we had to present our works to the audience of Professors, Financial Aid Counselors, Desk Attendants, and others who knew us back when. There were a few students in the room who opted to skip the sun-soaked pre-Founders Day campus parties, but it was the Faculty in the room who had sweat trickling under the festive red buubuu I was wearing. I felt like I was doing my thesis defense all over again. LOL Of course, it was all in my head as my favorite professors sat beaming at us with pride and support as we each took turns explaining how they helped us each "navigate the duality" of being a person of color and modest means on a mostly white and wealthy campus. In the end my anxiety was for naught. It went really well. In between saying a gazillion "thank yous" I managed to articulate what inspired my book and read an excerpt. Books were signed and sold, and reconnections were made. Fun!

But back to excerpt reading for a sec. I never know how long is too long or short. On Saturday, I read at the Borders in Glendale, Queens. It was a pretty intimate audience of Laptop Tappers, studying kids, and people deciding on which book in their collected stack they wanted to read with their water/coffee/juice so I read two chapters. They were short chapters, but as I crossed one chapter and moved into the next I wondered if I was being self-indulgent. Thankfully, when I looked up, no one was sleeping on me. :-)

On Sunday, I went up to HueMan in Harlem to be interviewed on Urban Literary Review TV. Two authors were being interviewed before me so I watched them for inspiration on how to conduct myself on camera. Both Carmen M. Colon and Candi Sparks kept it easy and natural in front of the camera, alternately laughing and answering questions about their books. When I came on I was tense. An actor I recognized but couldn't quite place as far as which show/movie I'd seen him on, stopped to watch us tape at the precise time I took my seat opposite the camera. Nerve racking! But whatevs, I think I did my thing.