Went to the book signing last night for my friend  Delaune Michel’s first novel,  Aftermath of Dreaming, at Borders in Westwood.  Not to say that that’s just not inspirational in and of itself -  I always have book lust so I envy the tome - having read an early draft, to see it in print, to hear Delaune reading it so voice  came through her voice so clearly.   A real joy.

And even more inspirational was what proceeded her reading.   Delaune had founded a program called Spoken Interludes when she lived here in LA (has since moved back east, lucky girl) an evening of short stories and dinners.   And then she founded Spoken Interludes Next which teaches boys in a juvenile facility writing.  These kids got up and blew us away with the frankness and the magic their writing created.   Some were funny, some were confessional in tone, all a glimpse into a life that so not our lives.   They dominated Delaune’s Q&A and I could see that in them all are artists and good men in training if they can continue this way.   Is there anything better than having one of these kids tell you you know how to write about love?…I’ll have to ask her.

We brought Julia - figuring she’d want to wander around the kids section with Mike for most of the time.  Instead she was glued to the guys reading on stage - and wouldn’t be taken out. Having not realized the violence coming in the stories the guys were reading (the day the oven blew up and someone lost an eye, for example) we each finally got her away for a few minutes before Delaune took the stage.  Then Julia - who brought the book of princess stories she’s been dictating to me - was desperate to show them to Delaune and the woman who ran the evening, Lita (sp?), the goddess of Borders booksignings.   She’s been promised her own book signing some time in the not so distant future….

In the car on the way home she told me she wanted to be an author.   Then about 6 minutes later said “What’s an author?”