Brushes With Fame
I went down to the University of Miami tonight to see Dave Barry and his wife Michelle Kaufman (a sports writer for the Miami Herald) speaking at my old dorm. It was a lot of fun. I even spoke with Dave Barry a bit. He called me a shrew bitch. Actually, he told me that Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs Of A Geisha, had called me a shrew bitch. Being that this was Dave Barry, I’m pretty sure he was joking.
This came about because I briefly mentioned that when Arthur Golden came to speak at my high school shortly after Geisha was published, I sort of questioned him about the believability of the ending. Afterwards I realized that was probably really rude, but he was exceptionally nice about it, and even sent me a personally inscribed hardcover, since I told him I didn’t have a copy of the book for him to sign (I had borrowed my English teacher’s copy the previous day so I could read the book before her came.) That remains one of my nicest encounters with an author, aside from Tamora Pierce.
But anyway, Dave Barry and Michelle Kaufman were both quite interesting, and I enjoyed the talk. It was almost worth driving on the Palmetto to go see it, except nothing is worth driving the Palmetto.