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| How do you get to Book Soup? Practice! |
Since I first heard of its existence back in 1975, I've wanted to get to Book Soup. Located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, it's been the hip home of the literati for nearly half a century. So when I got a message from Larry Upshaw, the founder of Ageless Authors, that he planned a reading and signing of Dang! I Wish I Hadn't Done That! for four Southern California contributors and one of the Ageless Authors judges, I agreed to show up. For me it felt like making it to Carnegie Hall.
I've done dozens of readings in the past fifteen years since I've been writing about my life's adventures, but never one at a venue quite so chic with a group of authors quite so enthusiastic.
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| The area where we read our stories. |
Larry Upshaw, from Dallas, introduced us as enormously talented writers. Not a single one of us raised a hand to object to this lofty praise. Larry already had staged readings in Dallas and Albuquerque, so by now he knew how to get the authors to look cheerful.
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| Larry begins the intros...Geoffrey at right. |
My fellow contributors at this reading included Geoffrey Graves of Laguna, Brenda Mutchnick of Beverly Hills, and Gered Beeby of Encinitas. Candice Kelsey of Los Angeles, a literature teacher at a private girls high school in the vicinity and an Ageless Authors judge, also read several poems from a collection she's about to publish.
Book Soup, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with some of the most memorable books ever written, proved distracting. I'd have loved to have bought more books there...saw so many I want to read. But I already have stacks piled up in the corners of my tiny apartment, so steeled myself to resist. But I know I'll return to Book Soup.
The next afternoon the same group assembled at Barnes & Noble, Irvine Spectrum. Again, we enjoyed chatting with the audience members who came up for autographs...but it wasn't quite like Carnegie Hall, er....Book Soup! Dang! I'm glad we did this.
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| L-R, Gered, Terri, Candice, Brenda, Larry |
Thanks to Myrna Beeby, Gered's wife, for taking the photos of the authors.
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Dang! You just keep on going with those publication credits. So proud of you!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't so sure that Book Soup would be right for our group, but the night was magical, the audience small but engaged, the assembled authors terrific. That place is special. The young woman who worked with us said she considers the store, with its floor-to-ceiling books and other contents, a living scrapbook. Dang I wish I had thought of that.
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