Day in the Life of an Idiot

  I meant to write up my experience reading at Dreamhaven Books & Comics sometime ago, but... honestly? I got caught up writing an action scene in my fan fic and forgot all about it. 

That's all done and dusted now, so let me tell you how it all went down.


image: darkness everywhere, a single light illuminates the store front and the snow-covered awning. 

Despite once again thinking I might be late due to Mason's schedule, I ended up at Dreamhaven with enough time to walk over to Sister Sludge Coffee and order a latte. Dreamhaven is in a very typical-of-Minneapolis stretch of road. There's huge swatches of residential houses all around, but clusters of businesses congregate around certain intersections. So, a lot of 38th is houses, but occasionally, often at a crossroads, you get a coffee shop, a convenience store, a restaurant, a brew pub/bar, or other random business.  Dreamhaven is in one of these little hubs., I noticed that some kind of high density building is being built directly behind them. I forgot to ask Greg what he thinks that will do for business.

The crowd was... not huge. In fact, I'd consider it pretty sparse, but I tell myself that not only was it cold outside, but I was also up against the Democratic debate where Bloomberg was making his debut. I'm sure a number of folks stayed home to watch that train wreck.

  
image: interior shot of a bookstore, comic book boxes on the floor, an empty table and chairs all awaiting a reading.... by me??

Since the crowd was so small, I polled people about what they were interested in hearing. I brought the first chapter of Unjust Cause, the book that will be coming out from Wizard Tower Press this spring by my alter ego, Tate Hallaway.  I also brought along a story I have always referred to as "the sad apocalypse story" that was published as "Only Gossamer, My Gown" in Apocalypse Descending - Boundary Shock Quarterly (July 2019.) Most of the people there were fans of Lyda Morehouse, so I read the sad story.  I managed to make myself cry while reading it, which is... awkward? Especially since I'm not sure anyone else was as moved as I was... oops. 

There was enough time that I also read from Unjust Cause, so that was fun... and probably a little bit of whiplash, but we won't discuss.

Afterwards, it is the tradition of the Speculations Reading Group to go out to pizza. Eric had me call the pizza place to reserve a table for the number people going, but the pizza place was like, "Yeah, no problem, we're pretty dead right now." So, I guess it wasn't just me that was having trouble getting people out.  :-)

We mostly sat around and talked about politics, because my country is currently a garbage fire with a side of fascism, so...