Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
An Author's Reading In One Short Act
By Summer Block

CAST OF CHARACTERS:
THE AUTHOR: in her mid-thirties, with wavy hair and a shy voice
THE MEDIATOR: in her sixties, wearing mismatched florals and pink pumps
THE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTER: a plump woman with large glass earrings
THE DESPERATE SEEKER: wearing a windbreaker and corduroy pants, unevenly worn
THE DOGGED LITERALIST: a serious man with small square glasses
THE SINGLE-ISSUE ADVOCATE: an attractive woman with gently graying hair
THE SPECIALIST: a thin woman with a severe, lined face
THE WILD CARD: a balding man with a soft, ageless face, wearing sweatpants

SETTING: An independent bookstore on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Fifteen middle-aged adults are seated in front of a podium in metal folding chairs in the kids' reading section. A popular mid-list author is finishing an excerpt of her latest novel.

THE AUTHOR: . . . and so he turned around and left her standing in the subway station, and he never saw her again.

(A hush.)

THE MEDIATOR: Thank you, that was lovely. Now, I think we have some time—we have time for a few questions. Please, raise your hand and I'll just pass around this microphone—

(The microphone lets out a sudden screech. She hands it, puzzled, to the Dogged Literalist.)

THE DOGGED LITERALIST: (peering over his notes) You mentioned in your introduction that you didn't read a lot as a child, but that you were very influenced by cinema.

AUTHOR: Yes, my parents didn't have very much formal education and so there weren't very many books in our homes, though I did enjoy many fine movies. Later, in college, I devoured a lot of books. But I do joke that I had an "illiterate" childhood—I was addicted to movies.

D.L.: How were you able to write a book, when you were illiterate as a child?

AUTHOR: I wasn't illiterate, I just didn't own that many books when I was a young child. So really, it was only a joke. Later, I read quite a bit in high school and in college, from the public library.

MEDIATOR: I think I see a hand over there?

(Another screech: The MEDIATOR is baffled; she looks blankly at the microphone in her hand, then passes it to the SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTER.)

THE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTER (standing): Yes, thank you for an excellent book. I had just one question: I recently published a short story I had been working on, it's a sort of sketch for a longer work about the role of jazz in rural American consciousness. The short story was published in the New Haven Review; the book will be called Satchmo's Suffering. It's structured around a series of recollections, diary entries and letters between an elderly jazz session pianist and his young grand-nephew, an organic farmer near Cedar Rapids.

(Pause.)

AUTHOR: Oh?

MEDIATOR: Yes, a hand?

D.L.: Many critics have commented on your very lovely, poetic prose, and you certainly have a very impressive vocabulary. How did you acquire this vocabulary, after being raised in an illiterate household and being unable to read until adulthood?

AUTHOR: I wasn't—I was joking earlier, I shouldn't have—I didn't mean to mislead anyone—

MEDIATOR: Yes, sir?

(She passes the microphone to THE WILD CARD; a reverberating screech.)

THE WILD CARD: What nineteenth century novelist, would you say, you are most intimidated by?

AUTHOR: Oh—well, I don't know, really. I mean, there are many fine novelists—but I wouldn't say intimidated exactly…

W.C.: Do you have an opinion on Bartleby the Scrivener?

AUTHOR: I'm sorry I'm not really that familiar with Bartleby the Scrivener—

(MEDIATOR interrupts, removes the microphone and passes it to THE SPECIALIST.)

THE SPECIALIST: I just wanted to thank you for an excellent reading, it was a lovely passage. (Removing a subject divided notebook from a blue Jansport backpack) Now, I teach Early French Poetics at the State University, and I had a question. While you were reading, I couldn't help but think of the Tristan poems.

AUTHOR: Really?

SPECIALIST: Could you comment on that connection?

AUTHOR: Well, it wasn't a connection I was honestly aware of. New York Modern, of course, is in prose, in English, and really concerns young modern artists in New York and their lives.

THE SINGLE-ISSUE ADVOCATE (raising her hand as she speaks, without a microphone): Hello, I'm from the Women's Rental Rights Board, and I'd like to talk about the female characters in New York Modern and the rights and obligations of landlords pursuant to New York City housing codes.

AUTHOR: I just don't think—yes?

(She indicates a mild, unkempt man in corduroys, unevenly worn.)

THE DESPERATE SEEKER: You said that you started out as a high school teacher before publishing your first novel. How did you transition from a teacher to a novelist?

AUTHOR: Well, I've always been interesting in writing and teaching literature. I majored in Creative Writing in school and later taught writing to high school students as part of a community program—

D.S.: Yes, and then you wrote a novel. How did you do that?

AUTHOR: Well, I became interested in mid-century New York after reading a series of articles in Artforum, and I began to imagine a sort of romance that was contemporary to the organic modernism movement. So I started researching some of those artists and reading about their lives and it turned into the basis for New York Modern.

D.S.: And how did you do that?

AUTHOR: How did I do what?

D.S.: How did you write the novel?

AUTHOR: How did I write the novel?

D.S.: Yes, specifically how. (a desperate pause) How do you write a novel?

AUTHOR: My working style is pretty typical. I try to write every day, usually in the mornings when my son is in kindergarten, and—

D.S.: But how? How do you do it? (standing up) Please just explain how you write a novel. Where do you get your ideas? And then what do you do with them? How do you write it? How exactly do you write it?

W.C. (interrupting): It says on the book jacket that you were born in Maryland. Do you feel you are at odds, in that sense, with Edgar Allen Poe?

MEDIATOR (reaching for the microphone; a final screech): I think we're running out of time. Please feel free to enjoy the rest of the cheese and crackers and finish up the wine, and the author will be signing books in the back for those who are interested.

(Characters disperse. The SINGLE-ISSUE ADVOCATE is first in the book signing line carrying a canvas PBS pledge drive tote bag filled with 11 hardcover books ready to be signed. She has brought her own pen.)

(Close curtain.)

——

Summer Block believes that most questions are stupid questions.

Read more from Summer Block.

Read more from Fiction.