Being a writer may be one of the most humiliating jobs. I only like to give readings in bars ’cause when I do it’s usually for some event and I have an accidental audience that’s been drinking and it’s dark and I’ve been drinking as well so I’m a little more chillaxed. Reading in a bookstore is awful. In my case, no one comes except the homeless, librarians who thought I was going to be a man, and bloggers who pretend to be nice then later you read “she looked and acted like a seventeen-year-old.” WhatEVerrrr. I just accumulated more humiliations this past weekend to fuel my writing life, but I figure the fuel is a kind of alternative energy. Five authors and I spoke and read to kids ages10-18. It was a reading festival and they were all supposed to have read our books. I came thinking it was going to be a day spent with the nerd herd, those eager beaver readers who spent their days reading Twilight and playing with swords, but no. It was clear from the look of the children in the auditorium that they were not readers. This looked like they were in detention and I felt like Molly Ringwald in the Breakfast Club. I switched gears. Instead of reading about the young girl playing on the reef I’d read about a teen girl and her dad, a Hawaiian marijuana grower. It’s a story from House of Thieves (you can buy used on Amazon for one cent. It’s currently out of print and has never gone into paperback–yet another humiliation to add to my belt. Fuck!) that I initially wrote when I was nineteen-ish so I figured it would be more accessible. Even though the character talks about Dickens, class, and race she also talked about 40’s, Easy E, weed and jail. That shut the kids up. After the readings the kids chose an author to speak with in a classroom. All the authors had TONS of kids. My reading must have acted as a kind of cheesecloth, holding the cream and squeezing out the rest, which were very few. There were adults in the room, too (4 of em)–there for my “craft talk.” The adults would ask questions and the kids would laugh and holler and talk to one another and shout. Should I be like one of those teachers who stands on a desk and raps or recites poetry? I could change their lives like Michelle Pheiffer! Instead I asked, after frequent disruptions, “Why are you here?”
“Extra credit.”
“You were cooler than the others.”
“Um.”
“Well do you have any questions about being a writer or anything? Ask whatever.”
“How many books have you wrote?”
“How much money do you make?”
“Why you write books?”
I answered their questions, preferring them to the ones I usually get about inspiration and identity. An adult asked a smarmy question and I gave a sassy answer and all the kids were like, “Ho snap! Whoop woo!” and from there on out I think I earned a little more respect, or maybe it had an opposite effect and the kids just felt more comfortable being even more “candid.” One kid said, “You’re like not even a woman. You’re like a whoa, man!” then he made this oogling expression, making me feel like Mary Kay Letourneau. Another boy asked if he could get my digits so he could text me. After the talk a girl came up to me and held her fingers to her lips, pretending she was smoking. “You like?”
“Um, no,” I forced myself to say. But all in all, I suppose I can’t classify this incident as humiliating. It was for a little while, but I loved those kids! They made my day.

That’s all.