November 18, 2009

Who's Your Daddy? @ Miami Book Fair International: Redux

Geoffrey Philp, Dylan Landis & Marc Fitten
I’d sent out dozens of invitations via Facebook, but I didn't expect to see so many friends on Saturday at the Weekend Author Sessions, Miami Book Fair International 2009

The event got off to a great start after the introduction by Professor McKnight-Samms. I read one of my favorite stories, "My Jamaican Touch,"  which was first published on this blog. The audience loved it and laughed in all the right places. Even my mother-in-law, the antagonist in the story, laughed when I read, “She feels I have led her daughter away from the true Church, which according to her is "Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic!"

Next, Dylan Landis read from Normal People Don't Live Like This, the story of a troubled young girl and her relationship with her equally disturbed companions. Dylan captured all of the Sturm und Drang of a precocious teen growing up on the Upper West Side during the seventies.

We rounded out the event with Marc Fitten’s Valeria’s Last Stand about an elderly Hungarian widow’s attempts to cope with political and romantic changes in her life. If the first chapters are any indication of the rest of the book, then Valeria’s Last Stand will definitely be on my list for Christmas.

Give thanks to the organizers for putting together such an Irie reading for the Weekend Author Sessions. It was a pleasure to meet and read with Marc Fitten and Dylan Landis. But what was really heartwarming was to see all the friends who promised to come to the event and showed up!

So, the Events app. on Facebook works. Hallelujah.


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For more photos of the event, please follow this link: Miami Book Fair International 2009 @ Flickr

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