A group reading with Ivy authors
Last night, as part of the Out Ivy Authors Reading Series, I read with Philip Galanes (Father’s Day), David Ebershoff (The Danish Girl) and Andrew Solomon (A Stone Boat) at Therapy lounge in midtown Manhattan. It was a smart, eager crowd (the room was packed, thanks in part to a snarky listing in the Observer‘s Eight Day Week) that remained attentive despite the noisy music coming from the lounge downstairs. The four of us gamely answered questions after reading; David and I had both read passages that dealt with transgendered people (albeit in very different ways), so we spoke about the ways in which we approached those characters. David asked Andrew “What’s it like to win the National Book Award?” (for The Noonday Demon in 2001) to which Andrew replied, “When you’ve been depressed, and you’ve written a book about depression, winning the National Book Award pretty much gets you out of that depression.”