I’ve been browsing this year’s crop of authors on the Virginia Festival of the Book’s webpage, and the list makes me proud to live in Charlottesville. Yes, C-Ville already has bragging rights for being home to the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and that after-hours diner that serves a hamburger with a fried egg on it, but we are also cool enough to entice TWO Tantric sex experts (who I’m pretty sure are having sex with each other), a former Black Panther, and an authority on American swimming pools to come to town for the world’s best book festival.
And this year I do not have to love the luminaries from afar because I. . .am attending. . .the Authors. . .Reception! In fact, anyone with $25 is attending the Authors Reception, but I plan to make a powerful impression. I have been studying the headshots and bios of the Festival participants so I will be able to approach them confidently at the party:
Me to Famous Author – Hello, aren’t you so-and-so who wrote such-and-such, my favorite book of all time?
Famous Author – Why yes! Aren’t you lovely! Here, have a book contract. [In my fantasy, authors give each other book contracts and cash advances.]
Me to Another Famous Author – Hello, aren’t you so-and-so who wrote such-and-such, my favorite book of all time?
Other Famous Author – Send your novel manuscript to my Manhattan office right away. Let’s get you a book contract!
I have bookmarked a few people who I am most looking forward to accosting at the reception. Here is an abbreviated list:
1) Taylor Atrium, author of The Headmaster Ritual. He’s adorable. He’ll probably be hitting on me all over the place. And I will humor his advances because he got his MFA from Virginia.
2) Nathan Englander, Author of The Ministry of Special Causes. I plan to review his novel on my website. This will be a special treat for all those who have not been lucky enough to read my college English papers, in which I analyzed every book through the lens of either masturbation or cannibalism.
3) Colm Toibin, author of Mothers and Sons. I gave this book of short stories to my grandmother (who has EIGHT sons) after falling in love with the author on NPR. She found it depressing, so I am sure to find it invigorating.
4) George Garrett. I probably won’t get a chance to talk to him since he will most likely be occupying a golden throne hoisted by underprivileged child poets.
5) Vigen Guroian, because he’s a professor at Loyola Baltimore where my baby brother plays (Division 1!) lacrosse. I want to convince Guroian to keep an eye on my brother and make sure he gets enough to eat.
6) The Tantra people
7) Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist, even though virtually every book critic’s response to this book was “No, Proust wasn’t.” This guy is only a breath over 18 and he has already taught at Oxford and written a bestseller.
8 ) Lisa Russ Spaar, poet and UVA professor. I just think she’s really nice and also talented. I will probably share my hors d’oeuvres with her.
So I think we’re all pretty psyched now for the Virginia Festival of the Book. Authors, try to psych your way into getting out your checkbooks, drafting our contracts, and/or preparing your laudatory jacket blurbs for my debut novel. In return, I will try not to stalk you after the reception is over.