FIRST PERSON QUEER event
Jan. 30th, 2008 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desayunoencamaLast night's event at the LGBT Center in NYC went well. It was a bit rainy, which always puts a damper on things, but there were 14 people, plus a whole bunch of Center volunteers and staff, plus the two readers (Karen Taylor and Josh Kilmer-Purcell).
Karen and Josh both read very well and I didn't get too nervous and ramble on TOO much (I am such a ditz when speaking in public!) and after there was some nice dialogue among the audience and the three of us.
It was also nice that a number of people came out specifically to see or meet me, either people who'd been reading me for a while (and bought books to be signed), or some contributors to other projects of mine who I'd never met. Which is always nice for the ego.
The set-up at the Center was amazing. This was my first time doing an event there, and they've really modernized things with the "new" building and all (keep in mind that I've been out of the country for 9+ years and they were in a swing space near Ganesvoort Street for a number of years before I left NY).
One had to sign a release since they document alle vents for their archive, which eventually will show up on their website (I'll post the link if they notify me of when and where it's up, they said it'd be 2 months or so before it's online).
They have a high (well, everything in NY seems expensive to me since I left nearly a decade ago and so prices are much higher than what I was used to, even though I visit from time to time, the shock doesn't wear off and the prices keep going up) donation fee ($10) but this includes an open bar staffed by the volunteers, and it opens an hour before the event starts so people can mingle.... it's a good idea, I think, because you're creating a social space not just the event, which many people might not want to pay for alone, and also this way people could start or continue dialogue about some of the things that came up in the pieces that were read or afterward.
We sold 5 books, which out of 14 people is a pretty high ratio.
Plus people also bought the copies of FAIRY TALES FOR WRITERS, THE DRAG QUEEN OF ELFLAND and THINGS INVISIBLE TO SEE I'd schlepped with me.
It's been forever since I'd done an event in NY, and the last few (at the old A Different Light store) had been quite dismal: at the penultimate one no one showed up and then at a Spanish-language one for MI NOVIO ES UN DUENDE I think I had three people.
It was disappointing that the listing for the event didn't make it into any of the local queer media, although it did feature prominently in the Center's own monthly Calendar listings catalog.
But I was pleased by how it went. A positive experience.
Karen and Josh both read very well and I didn't get too nervous and ramble on TOO much (I am such a ditz when speaking in public!) and after there was some nice dialogue among the audience and the three of us.
It was also nice that a number of people came out specifically to see or meet me, either people who'd been reading me for a while (and bought books to be signed), or some contributors to other projects of mine who I'd never met. Which is always nice for the ego.
The set-up at the Center was amazing. This was my first time doing an event there, and they've really modernized things with the "new" building and all (keep in mind that I've been out of the country for 9+ years and they were in a swing space near Ganesvoort Street for a number of years before I left NY).
One had to sign a release since they document alle vents for their archive, which eventually will show up on their website (I'll post the link if they notify me of when and where it's up, they said it'd be 2 months or so before it's online).
They have a high (well, everything in NY seems expensive to me since I left nearly a decade ago and so prices are much higher than what I was used to, even though I visit from time to time, the shock doesn't wear off and the prices keep going up) donation fee ($10) but this includes an open bar staffed by the volunteers, and it opens an hour before the event starts so people can mingle.... it's a good idea, I think, because you're creating a social space not just the event, which many people might not want to pay for alone, and also this way people could start or continue dialogue about some of the things that came up in the pieces that were read or afterward.
We sold 5 books, which out of 14 people is a pretty high ratio.
Plus people also bought the copies of FAIRY TALES FOR WRITERS, THE DRAG QUEEN OF ELFLAND and THINGS INVISIBLE TO SEE I'd schlepped with me.
It's been forever since I'd done an event in NY, and the last few (at the old A Different Light store) had been quite dismal: at the penultimate one no one showed up and then at a Spanish-language one for MI NOVIO ES UN DUENDE I think I had three people.
It was disappointing that the listing for the event didn't make it into any of the local queer media, although it did feature prominently in the Center's own monthly Calendar listings catalog.
But I was pleased by how it went. A positive experience.
