VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
MURPHY: I once saw Michael Cunningham read. He had just won the Pulitzer a few days earlier but kept his commitment to teach at the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference. We were gathered in a movie theater for the reading. People balanced buckets of popcorn and glasses of chilled white wine in their plush, theater seats. A large spray of flowers had been set up in front of the podium, which itself was in front of the velvet curtain covering the screen. It looked like were were gathered for some kind of bizarro funeral. While he was reading, the theater next door started playing a shoot-‘em-up movie. Michael Cunningham had to nearly shout to be be heard over the movie, while people sipped their wine (this was Napa, after all) and munched their popcorn. That said, I was so impressed with how down-to-earth and real he remained throughout, laughing it off and enjoying being with all of us. You can win the Pulitzer Prize, but you’re still just an author hoping to get a few people to listen to your crafted words, and grateful when they do.
Bernadette Murphy is the author of Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life. She has published three previous books of narrative nonfiction including the bestselling Zen and the Art of Knitting, is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department of Antioch University Los Angeles, and a former weekly book critic for the Los Angeles Times
Come see Bernadette read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, June 11 at 7pm.