My favorite part of the publishing life (aside from writing sentences) is the book tour.
There was a time when I was too frightened of my own voice to even talk in seminar; it was an excruciating ordeal to give talks or present academic work. I thought that I had a phobia about public speaking.
But apparently I just disliked talking about policy analysis. This might have something to do with my impatience with people who fail to grasp simple concepts like, oh, the necessity of civil rights laws.
When I started reading pieces of my books to audiences I was surprised to find that instead of cringing I felt a rush of pleasure. People who met me on the road back then were always puzzled by my demeanor – whether they knew me in real life or via the work they expected the somber and wary person I had always been.
Instead they found me giddy, laughing, even if I had just read a piece that made the audience cry.
When I’m interviewed journalists routinely ask if writing Taxidermy was cathartic; the answer is no. I do not believe in the book-as-therapy model. Writing it the first time was painful. Writing it again after the theft was actively destructive. The winter I ran off to Gabriel’s family homestead to work on the manuscript stands out as the lowest point of my entire adult life.
I finished it, and went through the rather grueling process of getting it published in the states, because I had a political agenda (refer back to early career in disability civil rights implementation).
Performing, on the other hand, is a tonic. Standing in front of an audience I found that I could say things I would never even whisper to the closest friend.
Travel for endless weeks telling strangers shocking stories about poverty, violence, and cancer? Fun!
I like the actual performance; it is brilliant to hear an audience laugh. But I also like traveling. It is no burden at all to be on the road, passing through towns so fast you don’t even know where you are, driving too much, flying too often, skipping from anonymous hotel rooms to borrowed couches, sleep deprivation, odd meals at strange times, meeting scores of new people, visiting old friends.
One major difference between the U.S. and the U.K. in terms of publishing is the fact that the culture of touring is different here. There are occasional events and lots of festivals – but the stateside model of fifteen readings in seventeen days spanning two coasts with a stopover in the Midwest is not the done thing.
I feel deprived of a special treat!