Every once in a while a day comes up when you feel like you might really be doing this author thing right. I had a day like this a couple of weeks ago when I had the opportunity to read in London at an event sponsored by the incredible Daunt Books at The Stag in Hampstead. I shared the stage (not really a stage but a comfy sofa next to a fireplace upstairs in a lovely British pub) with Adam Marek, D. W. Wilson, and K. J. Orr, three short story writers who are taking the UK by storm and reinvigorating the country’s interest in the short story. The event was one of the highlights of my book tour (as it is, working it in around my day job) and I can’t tell you how gratifying it was to read to such an engaged, thoughtful, and curious audience–each who actually paid 5 pounds to be there, and in many cases sit on the floor! I made many great long-distance friends in that way you can now with social media, and I will never forget the evening.
Today is shaping up to be another of these great days in the life of a writer, I think. Tonight I get to read at Tuesday Funk, a very fine Chicago reading series at the remarkable Hopleaf in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. I get to read with a number of very interesting writers, among them, Jody Lynn Nye, a woman I went to high school with and was in plays with (I was in the secretarial-pool chorus and she was a sexy, hip-swinging secretary in How to Succeed in Business…)
And this morning, I will be on 848, Chicago’s news and events program on its local NPR affiliate WBEZ. Recently I was interviewed by the show’s smart and funny Alison Cuddy, and we had a nice chat about The Temple of Air. I had heard about other radio interviews for other shows that writers have done, ones in which authors felt as though the interviewer had never really read their books, and in some cases, didn’t even get their names right. This interview, with Alison Cuddy, I am glad to tell you, was nothing like that. A more thoughtful reader I can’t imagine having. Her questions and thoughts about the book were insightful and reassuring, the sort of thing that makes me glad to have written the 
book so that someone like Alison might read it.
So that’s the way the day is shaping up. Oh, and work. That. In between interview and reading, I get to go to school and spend time reading student stories. Not a day, really. Not a bad life, when you think about it.
→Thanks for reading! PMc←
Alison Cuddy
Patricia Ann McNair 
Thanks so much for the updates. You do a marvelous job of sharing your very exciting and interesting life.
Thanks Jo Anne. You, too, have a rather exciting life. How are things? Are you in France now? Hope to see you sometime soon. P
I am in France, having arrived on November 18th. It was just in time to celebrate Thanksgiving here with ex-pat friends and then a birthday party with 23 friends to celebrate my 75h! All of which says, I have my little “view from the keyboard” corner, but the muse hasn’t yet visited. Happy Holidays.
Oh enjoy yourself, Patty! Party. I am so glad you had a good time when you were over here and was very sorry not to be able to get to your Hampstead reading – I’d have loved to hear you read, then when I am re-visiting ‘Temple’ I could hear your voice at play. Glad you met a couple of friends of mine – the amazing writers Adam M who of course already has a stunning collection out, and K J Orr, who I think is at the start of a rather exciting journey.
We work hard for years in darkened rooms, and recover in more darkened rooms. It’s nice when someone comes along and flicks the lights on for a second, even if it does leave us blinking like rabbits. (Speaking for self…!)
x
Blinking in the light. I love that Vanessa. And I am so excited about your novel and the high marks it is getting over there. It will here, too, no doubt. So exciting! P