Sunday, December 03, 2006
Hot and Heavy at the Holiday Party
Nearly 5,000 runners came out for the 5-mile race in Central Park this weekend. There were teams of spirited kids and folks donning elfin and reindeer costumes. Although I was feeling hot and heavy (Translation: overdressed and overweight) during the first three miles, once I hit Cat Hill, I was ceased by the holiday spirit and followed the conga line of runners trotting up the East Side.
This year's Independent and Small Press Book Fair gave me much food for thought. The PEN American-sponsored program on Literature of Color generated a rich dialogue about race, community, the publishing industry and writing. Panelist Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt, shared a powerful anecdote involving a solicitation from The New York Times. (If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Truong's debut novel, you must. Poignant, witty and sumptuous, the book is a fictional memoir of a Vietnamese man serving as a cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas).
This year's Independent and Small Press Book Fair gave me much food for thought. The PEN American-sponsored program on Literature of Color generated a rich dialogue about race, community, the publishing industry and writing. Panelist Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt, shared a powerful anecdote involving a solicitation from The New York Times. (If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Truong's debut novel, you must. Poignant, witty and sumptuous, the book is a fictional memoir of a Vietnamese man serving as a cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas).
