The final panel I attended at the Festival of Books wasn’t a panel. It was a conversation. Or maybe an interview…I forget the official title. Anyways, it was Jane Smiley talking to S.E. Hinton. And I was going to do a full write up, but you should really just go read this Jacket Copy post, because it pretty much nails it.

A few additional observations:

Jane Smiley and S.E. Hinton were quite the odd couple. I had serious doubts for the first 10 minutes or so that anything interesting would be said.

S.E. Hinton’s husband thinks she can write soft p*rn.

She does much more thinking about her books than writing them.

And, she always has to become her narrator. Which is exhausting for her.

This ended up being quite entertaining. S.E. Hinton has a fantastic sense of humor…it took a while to make an appearance, but once she got going, this was a fascinating interview. If you ever have a chance to see S.E. Hinton, I’d highly recommend it…she is nothing at all like I imagined. The Jacket Copy post has a picture, so you can see what I mean. Realistically, I knew she wasn’t twenty, but I still expected to see an edgy young author.

So there you have it…this brings me to the end of the Festival of Books. It was a fun, exhausting, long weekend filled with books and new friends and interesting authors. I’d totally go again…but only with fellow bloggers. Seriously. That is what made the weekend so much fun. I can’t imagine facing such a horde of people without having a fellow book lover or two or three or ten by my side.

The Festival of Books continued…

On Sunday, I actually had tickets for two different panels at 11:00. One was entitled Borderlines, the other About Reading. When I realized that the moderator for Borderlines was Veronique de Turenne (the same moderator I raved about in yesterday’s post), that turned out to be the deciding factor. Borderlines featured three authors I had never read, but it turns out I at least knew who they all were. And they were…

Thrity Umrigar – author of The Space Between Us (which has been on my TBR shelf for a few months) and The Weight of Heaven (this is her newest book)

Luis Alberto Urrea – author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter and Into the Beautiful North (which is not out yet, but his publisher arranged to have copies for sale at the Festival. And yes, I bought it. Nee-neer-nee-neer-nee-neer. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Gina Nahai – again, from Saturday’s panel…she was a fill in for an author who had to go catch his flight.

This panel featured authors who were all born in (and write about) other countries. Thrity Umrigar was born in Bombay, India. Luis Alberto Urrea was born in Tijuana, Mexico (in a house on the way to the dog track). And Gina Nahai was born in Iran. One of the first questions they discussed was language. Thrity was educated entirely in English. Luis has lived in both Mexico and the US (his mother was American and did not speak Spanish)…he said he dreams in English until he returns to Mexico…then he dreams in Spanish. Gina spoke Farsi, then French (boarding school in Switzerland) then English (college in the US).

The focus of the panel was sense of place. On returning to Mexico, Luis stated “everytime I speak Spanish I go back.” For him, speaking Spanish brings back his families and memories.

Thrity was a journalist for 17 years before she started writing fiction. She says the move to fiction was “pure liberation.” She finishes a novel in about 6 months, and credits her journalism background with giving her a good work ethic. When they were discussing procrastination and the writer’s muse, she said she doesn’t have this problem and she’s never met a plumber who said “lady, I can’t fix your pipes today because I have no muse.” On the difference between non-fiction and fiction, she said “non-fiction gives facts, well done fiction gives the truth.” Although The Space Between Us is not her latest book, she did talk a bit about it. She explained that India has a vast, cheap labor pool. Therefore, you don’t have to be rich to have servants. In fact, it is very common for the middle class to have domestic servants. She said there is a very nuanced and rich relationship between a domestic servant and the mistress of the household. She witnessed it as a child. It can be easy to caricature, but the reality is so much more complicated. Her Indian editor called it the “Indian apartheid,” and this is the theme that runs through the book. It is a class issue, not caste. She waited a long time for another Indian writer to write about this…and since no one did, she decided to.

Gina has never returned to Iran. She said it is not safe. She doesn’t remember her memories of Iran until she writes. The house from her novel Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith is actually her childhood home. She also stated that Americans, in general, are not very curious about other countries or places.

Luis wants his book to read like a translation to give more of a flavor of the culture and place. He mentioned how some readers will email him all irate that he doesn’t translate the Spanish in his books (I shudder to think what that person would think of Oscar Wao!).

This was hands down my favorite panel. Again, I credit the moderator with this. But also, these three authors were so relaxed and comfortable. It was also a smaller panel. I think there is a big difference between a panel with three authors versus one with four. I think three allows for a good conversation, and with only an hour, you are also better able to hear more from each author. I left this panel much more interested in all three authors, unlike the panels from Saturday, where there always seemed to be one or two authors that I wasn’t as interested in. I now own a book by each of these three authors…and I plan on reading them fairly soon. I’d say that makes this panel not only interesting, but successful.

More on the Festival of Books…

While I was more interested in the authors on the previous panel, the final panel for Saturday ended up stealing the show (at least for Saturday…my favorite-est panel was actually on Sunday). I cannot give enough credit to the moderator, Veronique de Turenne, who, after introductions, started off by having each author read the first sentence of their latest book. From there, she encouraged dialogue between the panelists, so it ended up being less of a question and answer session and more of a conversation. Also, the authors’ personalities really came out in this panel.

So…who was there?

Gina Nahai – Gina was born in Iran, but left for boarding school in Switzerland, followed by college in California. Due to the Iranian Revolution, she has never been back. She teaches at USC (in the writing program) and has written 4 (I think) books, as well as numerous articles. She also has degrees in international relations and has worked as a consultant for the Rand Corporation. This woman is no dummy. Her latest book is Caspian Rain, and I have it on order from Powells…I can’t wait to read it!

Jean Hanff Korelitz – Jean is the author of Admission, which you may have noticed is making the rounds lately. I’m not very interested in the book, but I will admit to loving the cover…it has a large A entwined with ivy. She spoke about how she worked as an admissions reader at Princeton (I think that’s the right college…someone correct me if I’m wrong) to prepare for writing her book.

Andrew Sean Greer – author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli and The Story of a Marriage. I had never heard of Andrew prior to this panel, but he was so entertaining and funny that I later bought his book (The Story of a Marriage, not the other one). At one point, who spoke about the writing advice he had received from Janet Fitch (something along the lines of make every sentence count or have a purpose, although I know I’m saying that all wrong).

Janet Fitch – author of White Oleander and Paint It Black. I loved White Oleander, so that was the main reason I ended up at this panel. Janet Fitch teaches at USC with Gina Nahai, and it’s obvious that she knows Andrew Greer, so the interaction between the authors was so fun to watch. They were all comfortable with each other, despite their different personalities. Janet Fitch sounds (and too a certain extent acts and even dresses) like she is still in the early ‘80’s (at one point she even used the word groovy, and it was just too perfect coming out of her mouth). In contrast, Gina Nahai is very cosmopolitan and outspoken, Andrew was a bit twitchy (but still delightful) and Jean Korelitz was just going with the flow. Honestly, I had so much fun listening to them that this is the only thing I wrote down (except for notes on what books they had each written):

Janet Fitch about place:
You see what is there. You see what was there. And you see what your mom said was there.

Do you think that is true? I do. She was talking about Los Angeles, since she grew up there…that when she walks down the street, she sees the present and the past…and not just her own past, but the past that her mother has told her about. And since the rest of the hour is somewhat of a blur (no notes, end of a long day), I’ll leave you with that interesting observation.

Ti and Florinda also attended this panel, so go check out their posts to read their thoughts.

The second panel I attended at the Festival of Books was Window on the World. The authors on this panel were Lisa See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love), Jonathan Rabb (Rosa), Vanina Marsot (Foreign Tongue) and Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog). When I saw Lisa See would be at the FoB I was all “Oooh, Lisa See, I’m going to that panel.” Later, after I was lucky enough to win a copy of Foreign Tongue from Literate Housewife and realized who Vanina Marsot was I thought “Bonus!” Then, as I was sitting there waiting for the panel to start, I looked up Muriel Barbery and realized I had read her book just a few months before. D’oh! So I was actually familiar with 3 of the 4 authors. Apologies to Jonathan Rabb, but I have yet to come across a copy of your book.

I’m still not clear what this panel was about, but all of the authors have written books set in other cultures. The conversation rambled though, and the panelists talked quite a bit about film (a topic that goes right over my head). However, before they got off on that tangent, there was some talk about other cultures. Rabb’s book is set in Berlin between the two world wars and sounds pretty noir-ish. Marsot’s book is about an American living in Paris who is hired to translate a book. She stated she wanted to write a book that shows the non-Disneyland side of Paris. She also wanted to explore how languages are different and how literary translations are done. She brought up how some phrases have no translation – and even mentioned the same phrase (stop the cinema) that Literate Housewife talked about in her review (she also has a wonderful interview with the author that I urge you to read).

Lisa See discussed her soon to be released book Shanghai Girls. Of all the books she’s written, she said Shanghai Girls is “closest to her heart,” as it is the history she grew up with. For example, her great uncle took his family back to China for a visit. While there he arranged marriages for all of his sons, even the youngest who was 14. Some of these wives are still alive 70 years later and speak maybe 10 words of English. They’ve lived very insular lives in China City, the China Town created in LA (by the same person who thought up Olvera St.) and built with leftover props from the movie The Good Earth. She also heard stories from Hollywood growing up…she drew on all of these details while writing Shanghai Girls.

Muriel Barbery apologized in English for her English, and then answered all of her questions through a translator. What was interesting though is that the translator did not have to translate the English to Muriel…she only translated her French responses. At one point, she explained that she was heavily involved in the translation of her book, as it was translated to English and then given to her for review and input. I’m guessing that she actually has an excellent grasp of English, but is still unsure of her verbal skills. Since I was watching her face during the translations, I’m afraid I didn’t take too many notes. She did say that her first book (which incidentally, mentions the concierge from The Elegance of the Hedgehog) is currently being translated into English.

At some point after this the conversation detoured into film and I pretty much had no idea what anyone was talking about. So, this would be the end of my synopsis.

I’m still fascinated by the authors on this panel (well, except for Jonathan Rabb…sorry again) but I was a bit disappointed in the actual panel. The next panel, however, was a different story. Tune in tomorrow for what made the last panel on Saturday so exceptional.

So yes, like a total dork I took notes at all of the panels I attended at the Festival of Books. This is because I am so not an auditory learner, and I tend to forget things as soon as I hear them. So over the next few days I will be sharing all of my (somewhat disjointed) notes from the various panels.

First up, the Social Media panel. This was the first panel I attended on Saturday morning. Moderated by Andrew Nystrom, from the LA Times, this panel consisted of Wil Wheaton (of Star Trek fame, and who is evidently one of the hottest things on Twitter…since I’m a total rube, I was clueless not only of his fame but even of his existence), Otis Chandler (founder of Goodreads) and Sara Wolfe (dance columnist for the LA Times and a really good example of the stereotypical ditsy artsy persona).

Given the topic, there was a big push to tweet during this panel. Unfortunately, I had no internet connection, so no tweets from me. Which is okay, because I’m a lousy multitasker, anyway.

Otis Chandler started off by stating that reading is broken. He said when it comes to reading your ideas are locked in, not shared. Goodreads tries to change that…he sees it as the equivalent of discussing American Idol at work the next day. He wants to create social peer pressure to read.

Wil Wheaton responded to the idea that social media contributes to dumbing down and short attention spans. He sees Twitter as a communication tool…it’s like instant messaging, but you choose what you want to read and respond to and link to. He uses social networking and self-publishing to reach more people. He also mentioned that he heard Twitter grew by 90% in March.

Sara Wolfe talked about Facebook and how she uses it to connect to the dance community. She also talked about constellations and constellating and how she really didn’t understand Twitter…at which point I’m afraid I tuned her out. Oh…except at one point she mentioned her colleague who gives tests on Twitter. Huh? Her predilection for the word constellation in various real and made up forms was too distracting. In fact, she sent our group into giggles at one point. She also talked about the dance community and dropped names as if we all knew what she was talking about. Which we didn’t. If we could have voted her off the island, she would’ve been gone.

Wil Wheaton mentioned that it is important to remember that what you put online is there “until the lights go off on Planet Earth.” I thought this was an excellent point.

Otis Chandler said he started blogging to remember what he had read, which I so identify with. He went on to say that unlike watching a movie, reading is a commitment. He sees Goodreads as an addition to social media. With the “what page are you on” feature, you can share thoughts about a particular part of a book. Wil added that as an author, he likes this feature, because then he can see what pages people are talking about in his books. You no longer have to be in the same room with someone to have a connection and share your thoughts.

Andrew Nystrom stated that it is important to listen to others on social media and remember that it is not all about you. Wil added that the users own social media, not the marketers. The people who ruin it will show up sooner or later, so it’s up to the users to block or not follow or report spam.

I really enjoyed this panel. I especially liked listening to Otis Chandler share his thoughts on Goodreads, since I use it (sporadically). Wil Wheaton was also quite entertaining; I can see why he is such a popular figure. Like I said earlier, if we could have just voted Sara Wolfe off of the island, it would have been even better.

For other notes and thoughts on this panel, check out the posts from my fellow attendees:

Lisa at Books on the Brain
Trish at Hey Lady!
Tracy at Shelf Life
Wendy at Musings of a Bookish Kitty
Natasha of Maw Books
Florinda at The 3 R’s Blog
Amy of My Friend Amy