Politics and Prose, Washington DC
October 3rd, 2006 | Uncategorized
Politics and Prose is an amazing bookstore. I entered through the buzzing café, passed a room where a big book group was meeting, then went upstairs to the large and well-stocked store proper. It was kind of like a reading factory.
Here I am with Virginia Harabin, who works there. She gave me an introduction that almost made me weep, and which perhaps set the tone for the audience, who were so attentive it was disconcerting. I worked hard to try and live up to their expectations.
It was a great crowd. A whole mess of women from off our backs showed up. My comic strip has been running in that paper continuously since 1985. And there were lots of regular people who’d never read a graphic novel before. And a professor who’s teaching Fun Home in his class, and some of his students. A lovely evening.
Now I’m trying to finish the presentation I have to do at Oberlin College tomorrow. Soon I leave DC for Cleveland. I’m so psyched because I just found out Harvey Pekar is introducing me tonight at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. 7pm. Come!
5 Responses to “Politics and Prose, Washington DC”
wow, what is the title of the class that the professor teaching Fun Home in? What a compliment! You should get to grade any essays students write about your work : )
Thanks for the great reading.
A few more DC pics here.
Wow, Alison, you should have waited before posting that Vanessa strip. You’ve totally upstaged yourself!
Alison: I’m so sorry I missed your presentation at P & P
I have every one of your books and look forward to the next Dykes to Watch Out For… I imagine Fun Home was not easy to write. Thank you for doing it. Each person’s life is so complex — like your father’s and yours. We are all on a journey to be who we are and sometimes pressures from society’s taboos and a whole set of ideas of what is right and wrong deform and shape us…
Thank you and continue your good and important work.
Virginia Harabin. She wrote an absolutely stunning story first published in OC’s Plum Creek Review — I had a poem in there — and later in Paris Review. Protagonist named Vera, with lips of “hot wax and jam.” A truly brilliant story, just unforgettable.
Alison, I’ve reread Fun Home so many times, it’s embarrassing.
Anne
Oberlin 1984-86 (left the cornfields for NYC, but always an Obie at heart)