Tough Act to Follow

I mentioned before that I suffer a little bit from stage fright. I realize that’s a silly reason not to do something, and so I’m not going to let it stop me.

Here’s an even sillier reason to be nervous: This story I will be reading was written for an essay contest at the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference. It had the good fortune of winning the grand prize there. There are two aspects to the prize. The most major one is that you get a substantial financial credit with an airline ticket consolidator; I used mine to get me to and from Asia last summer.

The other part of the prize is that the winning story gets read out loud at the closing ceremony. Traditionally the winner does not read it. Instead, Don George, the conference chairman, does it.

If you’ve ever seen Don read, you know that he’s a big man with a big, booming voice. It was pretty surreal hearing my story, which had been knocking around in my head for more than 10 years, make its public debut in baritone.

But it did and now I’ve somehow got to top that act. Plus, since his version is the original, it’s now as if I’m a cover artist on my own piece. Oh, and one reading is actually at Book Passage, the bookstore that hosted the conference. There's a nice full-circle quality to that situation, but it's a little daunting, too.