This week on the 10th I held a book reading here at Cascade Manor for my latest publication, Meanderings of a Bent Mind. It was set up as a lecture in the auditorium with some sixty chairs for the audience, and was set to tape on the in-house TV station. As with all my presentations I was anxious as the time drew near—I have always survived such anxiety, but every time I go through this nervousness.
The time for my talk came and went, and by 1:40 there were all of four audience members—you could hear the echoes in the hall.
I said, “Well, it looks like we’re going to be an intimate group—let’s go ahead…”
I started this time with a prepared talk about myself so my audience would know my background—It ran some twelve minutes. I then gave a little of the backstory of how the short stories in this collection came about—I ended with a word about the layout of the book with an Introduction, the stories separated into two parts, each part with an introductory prologue. The Introduction and the two prologues gave me the opportunity to discuss the workings of this Introvert’s mind.
I then read the story, Willows in the Wind, my favorite of all the twenty-four stories. We ended with me fielding questions from my intimate audience, and after we exhausted their questions, we retired to the back of the auditorium where I signed copies of Meanderings of a Bent Mind for my friends. I also had available three other books which I signed for them: Two Faces, a memoir-style novel about a ten-year-old white girl and a ten-year-old Japanese boy who are friends during World War iI; The Ultimate Book of Dad Jokes, a collection of 1000+ puns, and a companion volume, Born to Pun, a collection of 1400+ dad jokes both published by Ulysses Press out of Berkeley, CA.
This was a good session even with the small intimate group—the people were fascinated and appreciative, and I signed not only copies of Meanderings of a Bent Mind, but copies of my other publications as well. Footnote: On our way out, we met a couple who said they had just watched my presentation on the closed-circuit TV and enjoyed my talk.
Journeys of a Bent Mind 