VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
STRADAL: Pat Schultz, who was the school librarian at Tilden Elementary in Hastings, Minnesota while I was a student there, came to my reading in Edina while I was traveling through Minnesota. When I was at Tilden, I was a dreamy little kid who loved dinosaurs and writing and drawing, and Pat would take me aside and give my special projects in the library during and after school to inspire my imagination and challenge my mind. There are few other adults outside of my family who have meant more to me in terms of helping me become a writer. Through her, I understood the effect of a concerned adult on a child, and I volunteer with kids today, and have for over a decade, because of her example. I hadn’t seen her since I’d left that school after fifth grade, and I unfortunately didn’t remain in touch with her, so it was a total shock — I had no idea that she was coming. She heard about it somehow, and came all the way up from Hastings — and it blew me away to see her.
J Ryan Stradal works as the fiction editor at The Nervous Breakdown, is a an editor-at-large at Unnamed Press in Los Angeles, and volunteers for and is on the advisory board of the educational nonprofit 826LA. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest and his shorter writing has appeared in Hobart, The Guardian, and The Rumpus, among other places. He likes wine, sports, root beer, and peas.
Come see J Ryan perform at 3rdSpace in University Heights on Saturday, August 22 at 7:30pm.