Today I'm hitting the road, heading from backwoods New Hampshire down to the Big Apple, NYC, to see Neil Gaiman at The Town Hall reading from Norse Mythology. Now I know that Deadheads followed The Dead all around the country, and I've heard people talk about traveling to see other singers--Bruce Springsteen, Phish, folks like that.
But a writer? You bet! I'd drive across states to see J.K. Rowling, Barbara Kingsolver, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman--and in a perfect world, Madeleine L'Engle, Louisa May Alcott, and Jane Austen--for one reason: they are GOOD STORYTELLERS, in a world that sometimes seems to have forgotten how to tell a good story. I don't need my emotions manipulated or my politics confirmed. Murky non-endings that are supposed to reflect the meaninglessness of it all just leave me bored. Give me a good story, with fascinating characters, and let me make up my own mind about what the story means to me.
So fill up the tank, grab an extra bottle of maple syrup for the road, and look out, New York, here I come!