Last week was very busy and this week will be too because I'm reading at the 215Festival in Philadelphia on Wednesday night (starting 10 pm) at Valanni's Restaurant (13th and Spruce) with a number of other authors and then on Thursday evening (starting at 7:00 pm) will be taking part in a forum with Christian Bauman and Kevin Smokler at Voices and Visions Books in The Bourse, 111 Independence Mall.
Tomorrow between 11 and noon, I'm back on NPR with those same authors to talk to one of my favorite hosts, WHYY's Marty Moss Coane, about books and how authors are also using other forums--theatre, music, film, blogs, etc.--to reach their audiences.
In this regard, it's quite possible you'll be able to see a stage production of A Son Called Gabriel in the future because I'm currently talking to a playwright with a view to collaborating on writing a play based on Gabriel's life. Very exciting, and I'll report more on the blog as things develop.
We've had some friends staying with us for the past five weeks from New Orleans and they leave tomorrow for that great city. As you can imagine, they're excited to go back to their home in the French Quarter, though they're also apprehensive as they don't quite know what to expect vis-a-vis the infrastructure, etc. Luckily, their home emerged unscathed from Hurricane Katrina though, as I'm sure you can imagine, they're devastated by what has happened to other New Orleans residents.
Larry and I had some friends around yesterday to say goodbye to them and, at one point, we took a walk though the fields to the site of the new French Country home we're building. It was a beautiful day because the dogwoods have now turned crimson and the sky was cloudless and cerulean. At one point, I looked up to see a hundred turkey vultures floating like black rags in the sky. It was breathtaking. Immediately, I alerted the others and all of us stood in the silence watching the drifting silhouettes. The birds were stacked at various heights like aircraft at a busy airport, some I'm convinced were more than a mile high, and it was truly spectacular. As I continued to watch the drifting birds, images of Hurricane Katrina popped into my mind, and I thought how hideous and gorgeous can be the face of Mother Nature.
[technorati: 215Festival, Kevin Smokler, Christian Bauman, NPR, WHYY,Hurricane Katrina]
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