March 12, Wednesday afternoon -- Reading Connie Briscoe

Because her soup was too hot

Reading Big Girls Don't Cry, by Connie Briscoe ...and then, when the soup was cool enough to eat, the book was to hot, to put down, that is.

She has a friend who used to sell black books, books written by black authors, about black people. Together they'd go to conventions where she'd get to meet book dealers and her favorite authors, like J. California Cooper--a senior citizen who writes about the south--and April Sinclair--a young, modern writer with a good sense of humor--who she and her friend followed around the convention until the author turned around and said, laughing "Are you stalking me?" And that's when they got her autograph.

When she was young she used to like Stephen King. In high school she remembers reading 1984, by George Orwell, for class and still, today when she sees security cameras she thinks about Big Brother and the book. In Pinole, where she lives, an elderly couple was accosted and the husband was shot and killed, but the police were able to round up suspects because of a security camera. So, she goes back to thinking about 1984, weighing privacy versus safety.

In tenth or eleventh grade someone took a picture of her reading on the school steps and it went into the year book. After that, everyone thought she was a bookworm.....but she wasn't.

And, today, caught reading again. Big Brother with a blog. But, she is a bookworm. Shouldn't everyone know? Her bookseller friend has a huge library and she goes over and borrows new ones all the time, like this one, a story of a woman from age 11 to adulthood, going through life grappling with civil rights, love, affirmative action and family responsibility.

Do you have any experiences meeting your favorite authors?