On giving readings

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Since arriving in San Miguel de Allende — in addition to catching up with friends and getting resettled — I prepared for a talk/reading.

I had planned to give the same reading I had given in Toronto in the spring, but realized that I really needed to revise it, make it current.

Of course this meant endless revisions and print-outs in addition to talking it out, timing it, and then, ultimately, practicing it in front of a mirror.

As a rule of thumb, I try to talk it through three times on the day of the event, the last one as close to the event as possible. Consequently, my voice was hoarse!

I like very much my new system of printing out the talk -- every word, including the selections from the book -- on 8.5 x 11 paper. I print it out in big, bold type that is easy to read, giving each sentence its own paragraph. I make sure to dog-ear the pages so that they are easy to turn. I use an elegant black binder to read from.

The talk went exceptionally well — so many people! The one thing I learned from it, however, is to make sure that the mike is working well for the audience. Some mikes you talk into — others you talk over. This was a talk-over kind, and sometimes — on a "t" sound, for example — I later learned that it spit the sound out at the audience. (I've seen one author who travels with her own mike, and I can understand why.)

The second reader of the evening — Barbara Levine, author of the amazing book Finding Frida Kahlo — had trouble with the low lighting. It was hard for her to see the text of her book. It occurred to me that a clip-on night-reader might be a handy thing to have on hand.

(Photo: the jardin at night in San Miguel de Allende. This is such a beautiful, vibrant and peaceful town, it pains me that visitors have been frightened away by the press north of the border.)


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