I settled in for my flight across the pond with my packet of workshop stories and my journal, prepared to work and studiously ignore the person in the seat next to me. People don’t like to be bothered, and neither do I. After an hour or so of my seatmate typing diligently on his Mac, and me jotting in my journal, I went to the loo and left my books in my seat. When I returned, he said, “That’s a nice journal,” or words to that effect, and so I told him where it came from and we started talking. He was nice enough, and so I yammered on about my MFA, and about my program, and my writing, and when I finally stopped talking about myself and asked him what was working on, he mentioned that he was, you know, preparing for his interview on Fresh Air because his second book just came out. I squealed (politely), crawled into his lap, and asked if he would consider taking me to the studio with him and introducing me to Terry Gross. “I’m pretty sure she’d like to meet me,” I told him, “Because I’m planning to be a famous author some day, and she’d probably like to make my acquaintance, now, before my interview.”
Okay, not really. But I did question him about everything from Kentucky stud horses to word processing for the rest of the flight. His name is Kevin Conley, and you can find his work in the pages of The New Yorker, Men’s Vogue, and GQ.
He was so terribly interesting, and honestly, how often is it that you get to corner someone truly interesting and talk to them for oh, say, 7 hours? He showed me a picture of himself on fire on his laptop. That particular picture graces the book jacket of his latest book, The Full Burn, so you should probably go run out to your local independent bookstore right this minute and buy it. Kevin also promised he would visit my blog, and my feeling about this is, when a guy that’s lit himself on fire comes to call, you have to make an effort.
So, in my limited computer time, here’s a couple more strangers, for Kevin:
Robert
Hear him school me in London geography: [audio http://texasgurl1.fileave.com/11-robert.mp3]
And also Paul, who looks a bit suspicious of me.
[audio http://texasgurl1.fileave.com/9-paul.mp3]
5 Responses
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Great flight. And I’m sure you told him about this great writer who lives across the street, right?
LOL. Have a fantastic time. Thanks for the photos - gorgeous pics.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
And you told him how you didn’t really care that much about writing but that what you really cared about was ME?!?
Right? Right. I have to wonder if he read your journal while you were in the loo…..
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I thought you said you had no computer and still you pulled all this off! I’m flattered beyond belief to see our chat turned into blog-memoir, first of all, and, after a look around, I’m really wowed to be included in such sharp company. I toggled over to your flickr sets, too, and they’re stunning.
Anyway, I don’t usually, ever, get so lucky to wind up sitting next to a writer. The way over to London, a few days before, I sat next to nice enough guy from “the Chicago area” who wound up talking to me about a missionary speared by the Huaorani in Ecuador, which sounds like a more interesting conversation than it really was. I think he wanted to convert me somehow, if there’s anything I’ve learned as an agnostic Jewish Episcopal leftover Catholic lapsed yogi, it’s how to fend off business-class religious fanatics.
Anyway, the important stuff: Terry. I trained into NYC. The interview was in the New York NPR bureau, which, by the weirdest coincidence, is now on the 19th floor of 11 W 42nd, the very same floor of the very same building where I worked, editing arts coverage at the New Yorker for about ten years. When the producer came to get me and put on my headphones and had me talk a little about my book while she checked the sound levels, I was looking out the same window I used to look out while procrastinating for years. On the other side of the window, there’s a little ledge where I believe some joints were smoked at one or another New Yorker holiday do. I was told that the new super has locked the windows to prevent this sort of thing happening now.
Then, out of Philly comes the voice of Terry! She remembers me from last time, when I came to talk about Stud: Adventures in Breeding—her producers introduced the interview then with a snippet from the Godfather, the scene where the LA gang boss wakes up to find the bloody head of his favorite race horse beside him on the satin sheets? I think she’s hoping to pull off some more tricks like that this time out, a big kablooey that’ll let you know were not talking about the Nobel Prize here.
We launch into the interview, and she asks me about this incredibly complex sequence and I stumble around trying to get in all the details, and she very kindly says, Maybe I’ve asked about too complicated a stunt. Is there a better one we should begin with? And sure enough, everything goes a lot more smoothly after that thoughtful change. She has clearly read my book: I can tell because a couple times she asks leading questions that help get us to the next cool story nugget she too knows is out there.
The weird thing about Terry is the conversation is so intimate, even though she’s in Philly and I’m way up the eastern seaboard—something to do with sound levels and having this sexy disembodied voice right in your head—and then after an hour and a half or so of this, she just disappears, like a fairy godmother. Wait, Terry, come back! And out you go into the world again. She said it was going to run sometime next week. I’m a little disconsolate now. And of course, I’m wincing at word choices and stumblemouth answers and the whole necessary persona you have to adopt to be on radio, Professor of Stuntology in this case. I remember feeling a similar agony the first time through, and then, wow, the interview appears and Terry’s people have made it all sound so smooth and effortless. I hope the fairy godmother comes through again.
Anyway, it was great good luck to sit next to you on the flight home, as I can now see. Hope you’re well launched in the writers’ colony.
Now I must go research the right camera to give Max, the first born, for his birthday. Amy and I are trying to encourage this over the alien-killing weaponry he’d prefer to get.
Oh, and note to thematicallyfickle: no, didn’t peek at the journal, though I did observe, via sidelong glance during the abovenoted silent hour before seatmate escaped to loo, that familyoffive wrote in different colored pens, using some organizational system I couldn’t quite discern.
July 4th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I need to know where that store is
I’ve been to Forbidden Planet in London, and spent twice as much money than I planned to (on presents for others, funnily enough)
July 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
so did they carry the very special limited edition “space monkey” that accompanied Han Solo and Princess Leia on so many of their adventures?
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