Literary Event: the Reading of "Just Like That"

For my first literary even I went to Patricia Ann Mcnair''s reading of "Just Like That" a short story from her book The Temple of Air. I love how she portrays the cicadas as making an electric buzzing I know exactly what she meant when she said it after having to try and sleep through that same incessant buzzing for over a year in the time that I lived in Tennessee. I could never quite figure out how to describe that sound before when trying to explain it to friends who lived back here in California but now I can thanks to Mcnair's depiction of it. I could picture the tornado sirens and the indoor halls of a high school back east so easily as she described the sound of the wind. These are things I remember from my own high school experience in Tennessee. I love how she was able to capture the narrative voice of such a young character so well and how the dialogue played so well into the plot line. I appreciate the enthusiasm with which she read the story and how she actually acted out the character's voices and seemed to bring them to life for us as listeners instead if just doing a monotone reading of the words on the page. Even more than that I really appreciate the honesty in the answers she gave to questions asked of her about her writing techniques like how she DOES have to struggle with things like being able to find the right words for her dialogues to fit the age of the character and the era that the speaker is living in. It was also comforting to know that as such a great writer still has to struggle with her writing like the rest of us and that before she ever gets to the point that she is content with her work, she can go through up to even thirty drafts. There were several parts of her story that intrigued me too. Skitching was something I'd never heard of before but now that I have it's something I decided is going on my bucket list of things to do before I die. There is something about the simplicity of her writing that is truly beautiful and relateable to me. I really enjoyed having been able to go to this event!