Awesome Women, Awesome Time

A (Rare) Rainy Weekend in Pasadena

You know how married couples who have been together a long time start doing the same thing without realizing it, like ordering the same dish at dinner or liking the same movies?  Well, I’m starting to think Kim and I have spent too much time together because last week I said to her, “We’re spending Friday night in Pasadena, no kids,” and she said, “We’re spending Friday night in Pasadena, no kids,” and I said, “We’re staying at the Langham,” and she said, “We’re staying at the Langham.”  Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world . . .

Kim of course scored a much better upgrade than we did, and somehow ended up with a fireplace and patio.  Good luck for her with using the latter: it rained steadily all weekend, prompting me to say with faux naivete to my husband, “Wow, Pasadena is such a rainy town.”   On the plus side, I got to write off our hotel room because I was in Pasadena to WORK.

As Kim mentioned in an earlier post, I was one of four female authors invited to speak at the Pasadena Literary Festival.  Proceeds benefited the Pasadena Senior Center which was also where the event took place—and a warm and inviting place it is.  As a speaker, I expected to spend the entire event–when not on stage–squirming in my seat with nerves, screaming inside my own head because I hadn’t written a speech or prepared notes or even bounced much of anything off of my husband beforehand.

Instead I found myself far too fascinated by the other speakers to do anything but listen.

These three women were amazing.  Four women, come to think of it, because the moderator was Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey who blew me away by being brilliant, funny, charming and the author of the bestselling A Woman of Independent Means, which was made into a television mini-series starring Sally Fields and the title of which was seared onto my memory.  I wanted to bow down to her in reverence, but instead found myself chatting with her for a good part of lunchtime because, well . . . I could.

The other three authors were equally mind-blowingly awesome.  First up was Marisa Silver.  Let me tell you how I first heard about Marisa Silver: last year, Kim and I threw a literary luncheon to benefit our kids’ school.  We asked each woman who signed up for the lunch to please bring her favorite book to share with someone else.  I think three out of the seven women who came brought Marisa’s novel The God of War. They all told me I had to read it and the only reason I haven’t is because there’s a young boy with autism in it and it’s very hard for me to read books like that. (Similar for me to books about the Holocaust, which I also can’t read, as Kim mentioned in another post.)

Anyway, Marisa gave a wonderful speech about the Salton Sea–something I knew nothing about–and what made her decide to set a book in the surrounding land there.  She’s the author of two novels, a published collection of short stories–with another one soon to be published–and her stories have been in the New Yorker. She also had a successful career as a film maker before she decided that writing gave her more creative freedom.  I was glad I didn’t have to follow her speech because I am nowhere near as accomplished.

I expected the next speaker, Reyna Grande, to be kind of serious and quiet–she had seemed both serious and quiet in person.  Good, I thought–she’ll be easier to follow.  Then she took the stage.  Within a minute or two, she had the entire audience eating out of her hand.  She was funny and moving by turns, eloquent and honest as she described what drove her to write her first novel: the desire to write the kind of book she wanted to read but hadn’t been able to find anywhere, which was the story of her family’s immigration to the United States, with all its hardships. She’s written two widely-praised novels, Across a Hundred Mountains and Dancing with Butterflies, and speaks as well as she writes.  At one point she had the entire audience bent over double with laughter; at another, everyone’s eyes were filled with tears.  That’s a good speaker.

I was up next.  Nothing much to say about that except a) I felt like a loser following the other two brilliant and talented authors, b) I realized I have GOT to get out of the house more–nothing more boring than a suburban housewife who grew up and went to school in the suburbs and never leaves the house except to go to Trader Joe’s or Starbucks, and c) they started serving lunch during my speech so I wrapped it up quickly.  I forgot to plug my novels.  I always forget to plug my novels.  (P.S. read my novels.)

After lunch, our fourth novelist spoke, the wildly fascinating Nicole Mones who fell in love with China back in the seventies when she first ran a business exporting textiles from there and who started writing novels based on her acquired knowledge of the country many years later.  Her novels have won numerous awards, including a “World Gourmand Award” for the most recent one, The Last Chinese Chef, which describes authentic Chinese food in such precise detail that it could function as a cookbook as well as fiction.  Pretty impressive, no?   Her stories about how she first fought her way into China are riveting–and I’m guessing her books are, as well.

I was honored to be included with these truly incredible women authors and also to spend time with the committee members of the literary festival who were–to a woman–beautiful, brilliant, and dedicated.  It’s hard for me to cling to my cynical and deeply seated belief that the world is a horrible place when I spend a weekend with people who inspire and delight me like this.   I went home with copies of each woman’s books and can’t wait to plunge into them.  And guess who sold the books we all signed at the Festival?  The very same Vroman’s Bookstore which Kim visited that weekend.  When she was in Pasadena.  Just like me.