The Virginia Festival of the Book is ready to kick some ass

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.