After a drink with Patti and her husband Phil in the Belgian beer place on South Street, we headed back to catch the Ross MacDonald panel with Tom Nolan and Jeff Wong and a whole host of images including personal photos and memorabilia. Really fascinating and sometime sad, as there were a lot of problems with their daughter being involved in a major accident and the fallout from it. We writers are always curious about other writers’ lives, I think.

Then it was time for the Three Minutes of Terror, AKA speed reading. Joe Samuel Starnes
 kept us all to our time limit with a flashlight and a toy chainsaw. Because he’d come the furthest of the readers, Richard went first and read a bit from Meaningful Conversations (which I’ve reviewed), kicking us off in style. A wide range of readers and texts, including Patti and myself. I read the bathtub scene from Extricate which was just about the right length and seemed to please. It’s a challenge to choose something for such a short slot, but I’ve been well-trained by 2nd Sundays at the Arts Center.

Then we headed back to the hotel to change for the Halloween party. Absolutely*Kate took on the mantle of carpool organiser for the weekend and had everyone down in the lobby at the appropriate time and Christa Faust whipped us all into shape, so we hopped into a string of cabs and headed to the gig hosted by Soho Press. Fuminori Nakamura and Stuart Neville gave the event an international flair. Nakamura is a rising star from Japan (more on him later) and Neville writes of the mean streets of Northern Ireland. Soho really seems to be picking the talent and it was great to have a couple of brief readings before the showing of Get Carter, which I admit I skipped because I know it well and love it and was having a nice chat and some good beer and besides there were the birds!

And Absolutely*Kate and me — see, I did wear a costume. Thanks for the orange scarf, Byron! But my picture of Poe and his raven was a bit too dark to show up.

Next part: onward to Saturday — maybe I can cover a whole day in one post…