Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Sometimes, the word “interesting” isn’t enough.

This weekend past, as well as being sad, stressful, productive, lazy, and maddening, was also interesting.

It was the 31st anniversary of my wedding. It was the yahrzeit of the death of my wife’s mother. It was a weekend of plans, and of disrupted plans. It was a weekend with three reservations to the same restaurant, each one made and canceled in daily succession. It was a weekend of editing, rereading and rewriting my latest short story (“The Book of Solomon”), proofing it, polishing it, and then sending it off to a paying market.

It was also the weekend when I got an email from the Senior Librarian in Sumner, WA, asking if I’d be interested in participating in a panel, this October.

Yeah, “interesting” doesn’t really cover it.

I’m not keen on public speaking. Like most writers, I’m the solitary, introverted sort, and the idea of getting up on a dais and speaking to strangers, well, to paraphrase Coleridge, it thicks this man’s blood with cold. It’s the primary reason I don’t go to writers’ conventions (the second being the unadulterated rudeness I’ve experienced at same).

But this invitation intrigued me.

It was obvious that the Senior Librarian had a passing familiarity with my work, as he named a few works and their appropriateness to his topic. This unusual in itself, but was even more so because the topic of the panel seemed tailor-made:

How do authors create a sense of time and place in their work?

That couldn’t have been more apt had I written it myself.

So, despite my inner misgivings, I accepted the invitation, and now await further details.

What I know now about the event is this:

October 4, 2014
12:30PM – 4PM
Sumner Pierce County Library
1116 Fryar Ave. • Sumner, WA 98390

 More details as they arrive.

k