Decatur Book Festival Report

The Decatur Book Festival reading for After the Poison went well. There were 20 or 25 people listening, but it was hot as hell on the Java Monkey Coffee House patio. The temperature was hovering around 90 degrees and everyone seemed wilted by the heat. After Karen Head read selections from her forthcoming books, we walked over to the Atlanta Bread Company to grab a sandwich and get out of the heat to discover they were out of bread. We didn't stick around to ask the sullen morons working the counter how the Atlanta BREAD Company could run out of its namesake product, and walked down to Subway.

I hosted an hour-long reading (and sweated the whole way through it) featuring great readings by Mike Dockins, Travis Denton, Katie Chaple and Stephen Bluestone. Then Karen hosted an hour with Rupert Fike (who, despite the heat, was brilliant), Bob Wood, Beth Gylys and JC Reilly. Once it was over, I jumped on MARTA and came home. I felt sickly the rest of the night. 

On Sunday, I had planned to go back to DBF mid-afternoon and then stick around to hear Natasha Trethewey read during the Java Monkey Speaks open mic. As the afternoon wore on, and I grew increasingly worried about what was happening in New Orleans, I decided to just go and hear Natasha. I made the mistake of driving to Decatur and couldn't find a place to park that wasn't a hike. It was still hot as hell, and so I said "fuck it" and came home. Kodac told me today it was miserably hot and it didn't let up during the open mic. I made the right choice, but was disappointed I didn't get to see and hear more at DBF.

Many thanks to Jarrett Volinic for the photo of me reading at DBF and for his kind words about my poetry. Check out his blog, The Ranting Volinic, and his photography, including more from DBF.