Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Kevin Sampsell and Justin Taylor

Harper's Magazine writes that in a common pornography it's droll style and archaeological attentiveness to the debris of American life. The remote controls video recorders tight ends and what hit wonders of yesteryear combine the same cells talent for observing the ordinary infuse the most common incidents of growing up with wit and meaning. Kevin sim cell is the author of creamy bullets and beautiful blemish. A publisher with an independent press Future Tense books and an editor with publications such as the insomniac reader and partly in his writings have appeared in publications including opium McSweeney's and nerves. He's also employee at Powells book in Portland Oregon. So please welcome Kevin Sampson. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks everyone for coming out. This is a really nice crowd. Thanks for Harvard for hosting us. This is a weird little book because it's sort of a bunch of different little memories and stories from childhood and growing up. From my point of view and then a couple years ago after my dad

died I found out all these other weird stories from other people's points of view that were like kind of dark and disturbing. And so I blended those in with some of my stories. So it's it's kind of an odd creation at at the readings I've been doing I tend not to read the like kind of dark disturbing stuff because it doesn't really stand on it's it's hard to understand unless you read like three or four of the chapters all at once. These are more like little stand alone pieces. This first one is called records to plastic record players and a nice stack of top 40 45 were all I needed to start my own radio station. My plan was to do a pirate radio show that would broadcast to my neighborhood. Instead I just pointed my speakers out the upstairs window and hope the sound reached the corner. In fifth grade I started writing really bad pop song lyrics when I wrote something I thought to be particularly hit worthy. I cut out a piece of paper in the shape of a 45 and then

after coloring in the black wax area I put the name of the song on the label. Some of these hits were called Sound of Thunder. Rich dude and Diamond girl. The name I gave myself was Billy rivers because I thought it sounded cool. After cutting out the center hole I'd string the smash it to a hook on my ceiling. I imagined I was a megastar. Sometimes I'd even put one of them on the turntables and watch them spin. Forty five revolutions per minute. Once I put a needle on one and ruin the needle I had to go to the record store where they sold little smoking pipes and Stoner posters. Spending my entire $5 allowance on a new snap on needle. Mayfair Derren Green was one of my best friends. His grandparents lived next to us so I saw him only every few weeks when he visited them. But we became best friends and always talked about what it would be like when we got older and moved into a loft apartment together. One of our favorite things to do was go to Dairy Queen and get Sundays in those

plastic football helmets. We did that for a few football seasons trying to collect the helmets of all the teams. Another thing we did was look at dirty magazines. We discovered that the guys employee bathroom at the Mayfair market was a good place to look. Even though we lived right across the street we would sometimes use the bathroom there and we'd usually find a Playboy or Penthouse poorly hidden behind the garbage can. We were just becoming familiar with naked women since the Duncan brothers had shown us some of the hard core magazines their dad kept behind the seat of his old pickup. I'd steal candy bars for those drink and kids and in exchange they tear out pages from the magazines for me. The pictures are often of couples and those confused me more than anything. Just naked women standing by themselves were all there and I needed once at the Mayfair. I talk to Deron into stealing one of the magazines by stuffing it down his pants. On his way out of the store it slid out of his left pant leg and he was taken to the manager's office. I ran across the street and watched the store to see if you get away.

Minutes later police arrived. Then his parents. I was scared they were talking about me. Seventh grade I was a terrible seventh grader. I made no effort with schoolwork and rarely bathed. I was just one of four boys in concert choir. The reasons I join still a mystery to me. Perhaps the last fragments of popstar dream still squirmed inside my crazy one boy choir. Mike Rome was very mean to me. He pointed out when my hair was especially greasy or had dandruff flakes I started to get pimples as well. My hormones had a war with my body and slaughtered it from the inside out. On the day when Ronald Reagan was shot our class was interrupted by the announcement squawking over the intercom. Our teacher Miss half an obese woman whose body resembled one of those Weeble toys turned on our classroom television. We watched in silence as they showed the shaky footage of John Hinckley Jr. attack.

As the day wound down I secretly hoped that Reagan would die. I craved a tragedy for everyone. After the class Miss half asked me if I could stay after and finish an assignment I had no clue how to do it. She asked me why I wasn't paying attention in class. I started bawling my eyes out. She tried to console me and told me I was going through puberty and that it was a tough time. She hugged me until I stopped hyperventilating. I felt covered by her. I was disgusted and then relaxed. At the end of the school year our choir was having buttons made for everyone as a souvenir. We could have our real names or a nickname on ours. We went around the room each person saying what they'd like on their button when it came to me I blurted out desperado. The other kids grimaced my way and some of them giggled. Mike Rohm called me desperado for the next year but not in a nice way. Protestant. I went to a friend's church with him when I was 16.

It was much more exciting than the dull Catholic Church that Dad and I went to. I told dad I was thinking about switching churches not realizing it would be a big deal. He was not happy about this. My older brother Mark had gone to Mass with him before when I was a baby. But somehow I was able to get out of it eventually. I was the only family member who went to Mass with him. I used to wonder why mom didn't go either but Dad explained to me once with a dismissive wave of his hand that she wasn't religious. He thought I was having a spiritual crisis and main appointment for me to see the priest to have a talk with him at the church offices. Dad explained to me that the church I wanted to go to was a Protestant church and that the word Protestant came from protest. The Protestant church is for people who protest the Catholic Church he explained. The Catholic Church is the original faith. And Protestants were the people who left the church. The priest chided me lightly with a mixture of pity and disappointed detachment when I visited him the next

day. I looked around at the office which was down the street from the church and wondered if he lived there. There were alarming signs of normalcy. A television regular clothes draped on the arm of a chair some mystery paperbacks. I nodded and half listened to his lecture but mostly my mind wandered. I realized that the part of Mass I would miss the most was communion. For some reason that was never clear to me. I wasn't supposed to eat an hour before church started. So by the time everyone lined up for a communion wafer I was starved and ready to consume what essentially was a snack to me. In fact I thought it would be amazing to break into the church some night and steal a whole box of the things I imagined myself chomping away on them as I watch TV at home. The priest cracked my daydream by asking if I wanted to put my soul in danger by abandoning the church. I felt bad because I hadn't been listening close enough to what he'd been saying.

So I simply said No I didn't want to endanger my soul I would remain a Catholic. After church the following week the priest shook my hand and gave me his best look of forgiveness. Vibrator dad gave me a vibrator once sort of oval shaped. He gave it to me so I could wrap it and give it to Mom as a birthday present. Later they kept it in a drawer by the bed. Then shortly after they slept in separate beds. Sixty three times this is about my high school girlfriend who is kind of like my first real girlfriend when I was a senior. I went out with Pam for about nine months. She was the kind of girl who still slept with oversized teddy bears wrote in huge letters loopy cursive and whose favorite food was pancakes. I often went to her house after school and we'd make out in her room. She lived with her mom who had a

British accent for some reason and didn't seem to mind if Pam locked her bedroom door while I was there. Her younger sister lived there too and she was much more attractive than Pam. After we had sex the first time I went to school the next day feeling like a new person. The excitement of the Sex and the promise of more sex to cum made me feel like I was neon lit from the inside on the back of Pam's school photo. I took a pen and drew a mark. A few days after that another mark. I'm not sure why but I felt the need to document to count the times we did it. I never told Pam I was keeping track. Perhaps I thought I was going to keep track forever with every girlfriend every crash and burn month long failure every one night stand when other people talked about how many people they'd have sex with. I could tell them exactly how many times I'd had it once when I was at the mall with Pam we were paying for food at the Orange Julius when her photo fell out of my velcro

wallet. She noticed the marks and asked me what they were and I told her it was the number of records I had bought that year cassettes and records I had to tell her at some point. I told a friend of mine about the count. Since none of my friends liked Pam it was only a matter of time before this friend told a few others to embarrass me at any time they'd ask how many times has it been now. When my relationship with Pam ended bitterly the count was over. The final number was 63. Eventually after I started seeing other girls I felt disgusted by the number. Sometimes just to put me in my place. A friend of mine would still smile and laugh and say to me. Sixty three times. This is the last piece all read. And this is a little bit later on I moved. I grew up in Kennewick Washington. The majority of the book takes place in around Kennewick which is a little town in eastern Washington really does Rudy

and kind of depressing. And then later I eventually get out and I move to Spokane where I drop acid for the first time. Acid. I stayed in Spokane after the after the breakup and met a new friend named Vincent Price. With him I had my first acid experience. That night was so much more memorable and positive than the first time I had sex. Part of the downtown area was sectioned off and makeshift basketball courts were everywhere. We found a ball and played in the dark for a few hours laughing hysterically. Then out of nowhere some kids they seem to be about 13 years old drove up to us in two golf carts. They offered us rides and we got in and let them speed us through riverfront park. On the walking trails. The headlights weren't too strong and we almost crashed a few times before they dropped us off by our bikes. We rode to a Safeway around 5:00 in the morning and bought orange juice because events said it was quote good for visuals. We sat on the curb

outside and watched the pain of the handicap symbol on the pavement bubble and expand. It was glorious. Around 8:00 in the morning we were finally ready to sleep a little. We rode our bikes over the little bridges of downtown Spokane. Our bodies seemed to be humming a song no one else could hear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks so much Kevin that was great it's a great book for just on everything here is the best thing ever. Todd cruisin from the New York Times writes this spare sharp book Taylor's debut collection documents a deep authority on the unavoidable confusion of being a young disaffected and human it leaves us with the heavy residue of unsettling strangeness in a new voice that readers and writers too might be seeking out for decades to come. Justin Taylor has contributed to various publications such as pace magazine and post one the nation McSweeney's and the literary

blog HTL giant. He is the editor of The Apocalypse reader a coeditor of the agriculture reader and lives in Brooklyn. So please welcome Justin Taylor. Thank you. Hey everyone. Sounds good. Yeah all right. It's actually funny that you ended on that acid note I actually have an ass's story also that's been running through my head all day because it's because it's actually something with Boston but I signed this waiver to give these people the right to record this in perpetuity throughout the universe forever so I'm not going to I'm going to tell it now obviously. So if you really if you really know the story you can ask me later when the camera's off anyway. So I'm going to read I just read a short story from the book. And that's and that's it. This is the second story in the book and it is called in my heart I'm already gone. This was a long time coming. That's the first thing Uncle Danny says after he says the thing he took me aside to say that he

wants to hire me to get rid of his house cat buckles were out back he's smoking. I wouldn't mind a smoke but I don't want to ask him for one. The sun is going down into the manmade lake with something not unlike Majesty. And when I glance back toward the house pool needs a skim I can see Vicky and Amanda inside finishing cleanup. The key collects the dishes and the serving things for mother washes them in that perfect way she has. Vicki Dries and they both put them away. I have dinner with my uncle's family on Wednesday nights. They set a full table with me here we are four and sometimes I think of myself not as Vicki's cousin but as her big brother. Not quite 10 years between us. Sometimes my mother comes with me but not usually after a long day at work. She says she'd rather have the silence in the company. You're sure about this. I say to Uncle Danny I'm not surprised that he doesn't acknowledge my question. He's not a man who thinks out loud but one who broods and then takes action. He probably made up his mind about how this conversation would go

before I got here. I am tempted to raise objections just to hear the responses he's worked out but the fact is I don't object. I'm honored that he asked me. Vicki is a good girl. Her mother will tell you so. Though if Uncle Danny is in the room when you're talking about this he's likely to stay silent. He may look up from his paper but he will keep his peace. She is 15. Her dark hair streaked blonde. She cuts her own bangs a ragged diagonal like the torn hem of a nightgown. She is not allowed to date her braces. She thanks God have come off. She wears band t shirts procured for her by friends souvenirs from arena concerts she is not permitted to attend. The Watsons keep a clean house. Amanda regularly vacuums and mops but buckles sheds and sheds. There's always a thin coat of fur on the furniture toughs on the floor even some in the air a minor atmospheric condition. Sometimes you look toward a window and see a tuft headed earth or couch were caught in the slipstream

seeming almost to dance rather than fall. Buckles is locked in the guest bathroom mewling to be let out for the past few weeks. No one knows why. Buckles has become quote stressed out. That's Amanda's term. And he started to throw up his food. The vet says there's nothing wrong with him. The summer's over Vicki is in school again and Amanda is now working the cat is lonesome. Amanda says she started working because she's bored of being a housewife now that her daughter doesn't need full time mothering but the fact is Danny's business has been flagging with everyone so busy sometimes the cat vomit on the window sill or under the couch will go unnoticed for days until somebody smells something and then finds the awful little pile of dried up goo. The muted autumnal reds and browns of their brand of cat food garnished with white grey sprigs have shed for new grown mold. One time I was going to see a concert at the arena. A band that Vickie also wanted to see. This doesn't happen very often. US wanted to see the same band so I offered to take her. She

can come with me and my friends I told Danny. I'll keep an eye. It's not that we don't trust you Kyle. Uncle Danny said it's just that Amanda and I don't want Vicki exposed to that kind of influence. I see what you're saying I said but if she knows the music well enough to want to go to the concert Kyle Uncle Danny said. I had a better time without her. I'm sure just getting fucked up and enjoying myself. But afterward I told her that I had tried for her and gave her a shirt from the concert. I told her if her parents ever asked. Just say that one of her friends had gotten it for her but her shirts to her parents are just shirts vaguely offensive but not worth confiscating. They wouldn't know any one of those bands from any other even if they did bother to read the names. Always ornate silver script on black some red filtered cluster of sullen long haired guys try it on I said to her. Okay she said. But then did nothing. Only stared as if waiting for something. Just face away from me I said. If that's what's bothering you and noticed a little Orion's belt of pimples on the blade of one naked

shoulder as she changed. You're not even going to name your price. Uncle Danny says. I say I'm sure whatever you decide on will be fair. Besides this isn't business. It's family. Good Uncle Dan. He says that's good you're a good kid Kyle. He reaches into his pocket and takes out two keys on a ring. The fog is a little clown head with red circles for cheeks and a cone hat. It squeaks when I squeeze it back in the house over of an warm supermarket apple pie and bright yellow vanilla ice cream and Amanda talks about her appointment tomorrow. It won't be bad and anyway it ought to be a quick visit right. Everyone agrees. A few weeks ago she went in for a test and Danni was grim faced and Vicky went out of her way to be good. Tomorrow she goes for her results. I asked Vicki how school is going. She begins telling about some especially unreasonable teacher of an otherwise enjoyable subject then turns to Amanda. I'm really sorry mom. Her doe eyes are defined by the mascara she used to hide in her bag and put on at school. But which

Amanda has only recently convinced Danny is not inappropriate for a young lady. He still says she looks painted but he's dropped any pretense of action. She is on the verge now of radiant tears. Desperate for another subject Amanda asks me how my school is going. And I try to explain the concept of negative capability until she seems satisfied. I am pushing through the course of the solid C which could even become a B if I aced the midterm. And in my heart I'm not a student in junior college anyway. In my heart I've already left this miserable town behind for a place in future so bright with promise. I cannot look directly on it which is maybe another way of saying that though in my heart I am already gone and calling my mother on her birthday or sending a Christmas gift to Vicki. I don't know where I'll go or how I'll get there. When Vicki asks to be excused from the table Danny says he'll come to her room in a bit to check her homework toward the end of the last school year she slacked off and was not on a roll during the final quarter. She was grounded for the whole first month of her vacation. I told Danny

privately that I thought he was being too harsh. It's the summer I said and she's just a kid. My mom never grounded me for my grades. Yes he said. That's right Danny. He's still crying in there. Amanda says after Vicki is gone do you hear that it sounds like he's slamming himself into the door. OK. But it's your job to keep an eye on him. I don't work all day to spend my nights cleaning up cat puke. None of us does. Amanda says so quietly I'm not sure I really hear her so maybe Danny doesn't. Or maybe he's letting this one go. Amanda opens the door to let buckles out but he just stands there looks up at her and mules. She sees the cut on his nose smeary pinheads of cat blood on the back of the door. She starts to cry. There's vomit in the sink in the bathtub. She scoops him up and cradles him buries her face in his belly for she's sobbing and buckles de-clawed is pawing at her hair. I touch Amanda on the shoulder then the back. How

warm she is beneath her dress how feverish and soft. In a flash that passes so quickly it might not have happened. I imagine her kissing Uncle Danny in their bed with a woman's passion. Has he ever been able to equal her. Let me I say meaning clean up the vomit as I'm getting into my car. Danny has walked me out says Kyle even though he's the closest I've ever had to a father there is always something formal in the way he says my name. His inflection is a horizon. It's a wall. He hands me some folded bills I pocket them without looking so he says I suppose we'll see you in a week. Around the corner idling at a stop sign I see that Danny has given me two twenties and a ten and I have to remind myself that my uncle has always been unselfish about money from diapers to baseball gloves and dinner once a week for how long. Things must be truly tight for Danny and Amanda now. I wonder if their situation is precarious enough to be undone by something like another vet bill. And if so

what that means if Amanda turns out to be not OK. It must be this and not the thing about the vomit that led to his decision. But why isn't he taking care of it himself. Either things are so bad at his office that he can't even skip out for a long lunch or else he wants to be able to tell his family he doesn't know what happened and not be lying. Man my uncle is one crazy motherfucker. I'm telling Tyler we're having beers at McCarran because Sarah is working so they're on the house. You won't believe what he's got me doing. Sarah's over at the taps waiting for a Guinness to settle so she can finish the war. I tell him shit he says. You think you'll be able to. There are some old timers at the far end lifers. Sarah calls them. Sometimes I laugh hard at this other times. Hey I say business is business. So what do you give you. Tyler asks. Four hundred. I say. Sarah fumbles the keys out of her purse then sets about negotiating one the wrong one into the

lock. She tries another and that one works. I could use another drink she says. She only had a few before closing and then one while she cleaned up. I say I'll have one too and she eyes me deciding whether to start in on the question of whether I need another which I don't probably know. I know I don't but if she doesn't start in she doesn't I will have what I want which is different from what I need. What a surprise she gets the vodka out of the freezer and I go for glasses. Find some coffee mugs for us decide that these are good enough. Sarah cuts hers with some grapefruit juice and we clink but don't toast anything. We move to the living room sit in the ambient glow from the kitchen. It's almost not enough anymore she says breaking the silence. Should I ask what it is. No. That's clear enough. She rattles the ice in her mug. Typical. She says meaning my not answering. So I say I have to kill my uncle's cat tomorrow. Neither of us is saying what the other wants to hear.

The first time I saw Sarah naked we were teenagers. She had small breasts and I came in my pants when she rubbed against me. Sometimes we were being cute with each other she reminds me of this and I remind her that I got another one a few minutes later when she went to town on thank you. I always say laughing and we both laugh and I tell her she's still got it and she tells me to prove it to her. And then I do. We date and we break up and date and there have been others for both of us. Sometimes when there shouldn't have been. But as the years have moved our old friends away married them off put them in their graves are rediscoveries of each other have lasted longer and longer until right now finally temporarily again. We are everything to each other. When I enter the bedroom she's on her side facing away from the door covers up under her armpit and as I can see from how she's breathing still awake. I take off my shoes and slip my watch and wallet into them. I take my jeans off. I approach her side of the bed instead of my own. I take her hand and pull at her. She slides her

legs from beneath the bedclothes lets me stand her up and turn her toward me so we are face to face. She is wearing only an old pair of white underwear faded from a thousand washings and thin her pubic hair presses against the fabric. It looks like a topographic map perhaps a map of us. If we This could be less a thing than a place. I touched her speckled shoulders graze my fingers down her fleshy upper arms. The light hairs of her forearms the backs of her hands until our fingers touch tips to tips. I lean in to kiss or we kiss. I get to Denny's in the early afternoon later than he said to come. But it was a rough morning. We went out to breakfast didn't talk much. Then Sara dropped me off at McCarran so I could get my car. I'll call you. I said no you won't. She said you'll just show up here. I let myself into the house. Buckles is sprawled asleep on an arm chair the cut on his nose scabbed over taking in the full afternoon light that sets the fringes of his for a glow as if haloed already.

He stirs when I take him up into my arms but does not try to get away. I hold him close as I saw Amanda do flip the push lock on the sliding glass door and stand fixed a moment appreciating the stillness of the yard. A ghost of breeze barely troubling the surface of the lake and the blue blue pool. I step toward the edge of the water and kneel down the stippled aggregate pressing into my knees through my jeans. I can feel the little red marks that is imprinting. I slide one hand as gently as I can around the cat's neck and start to strangle him at the same time that I plunge him under. It takes maybe a minute. I hold him down another minute to be sure and then I am sure as a final act of either defiance or submission. He has pissed in my uncle Danny's pool. I watch the yellowish cloud dissipate consider pulling the chlorine bobber over the spot. Then think to myself enough already. I bring buckles back inside and lay him down in the guest bathroom shower. I wonder if his being locked in here most of yesterday was even why he was so docile. Poor fucked animal exhausted. Ready.

I decide I should check around for any final piles of vomit. I really do this right and find one in the living room which I clean up with a tissue and toss out in the kitchen garbage when I'm done up with the cat in there to put in a fresh bag and take the full one with me. Bring it to the dump or something. I checked the kitchen the dining room the hall the door to Amanda and Danny's room is closed but Vickie's is open. I examine Vickie's window sills and look under her bed. Nothing. I open her closet to see if she still has that T-shirt I got her. It's all black jeans and old kitty clothes and a couple of fancy dresses Christmas and wedding things. Probably she keeps her T-shirts in her bureau but in the top drawer all I find are socks and underwear most of which is plain though a few pieces are surprising and I'm glad the garments are all just stuffed in. If everything had been folded and neat she might notice that someone had been in here though she probably would figure it was only her parents. Spot checking for weed. There are a few Lacy pieces blacks and one red not very risque really just hard to imagine on Vicky

this thong with a leopard print front say is almost unbearably cheesy. But if she were standing in front of a boy as Sarah stood in front of me last night he would fall to his knees and worship. How could he not. And maybe you won't miss just a single pair if it's a black lacy and not the leopard print of which there is only the one I bring them to my nose of course they only smell clean. Then put them in my pocket and shut the drawer thinking it is time to finish cleaning up and get going. I turn around and there is Amanda standing in Vickie's doorway. I guess she took the whole afternoon off work and came home after her appointment. I wonder what the results were and how long she's been here. Was she here this whole time. Maybe taking a nap. She's been watching me silently and is still silent though she seems about to speak right now. It is next Wednesday and my mother is saying why aren't you over it Danny is. And I'm telling her anything or else I'm walking into McLaren's taking a seat at the far end and Sarah is ignoring me at first but then coming over rolling her eyes bringing a foaming

beer from me saying you're here early for a change and I'm giving her that same old smile the one that barely makes rent. The one that coasts into the station on fumes. It is not next Wednesday. It is still this moment and that will be true of every moment that follows. Assuming this moment ever ends which if I'm lucky it won't. Amanda filling the doorway silent facing each other like friends are like family or like lovers and eternity of silence an afternoon light. And she doesn't even know about the cat yet. I will never escape this town. Thank you. Yeah you know I think I think that a lot about the way we consume media and where we get our information about about literature from is I think it's changed a lot and obviously the Internet has brought a whole series of changes I think most of which people are pretty familiar with. And I think the one that I would I would say about it is I think people like to talk a lot about the Internet as this thing

that enables you to reach this massive audience instantly. Right and I think that's a bit misleading I don't think it necessarily does that. I think you know if you. Put a small zener you know you're a small band or God help you write a you know a book a paperback original book of short stories. This is not going to turn you into into Britney Spears overnight it doesn't change the number of people who are necessarily interested in what you're doing. What it does mean is that you have a better shot at finding them. And more importantly anybody out there with the wherewithal to be interested has the ability to find you. Right. So it's you know if there might be there's there's still a sort of upper limit I think you know interest value of any of any given thing. But the but the possibility of maximizing you know of actually hitting that upper limit of his will is a lot higher. You know what I mean and also I mean certain certainly people get turned on to things they didn't you know that they didn't know about before I think that definitely happens.

The last thing I'll say before I turn it over to to Kevin is that you know I first I first met Kevin via e-mail. Sort of funny combination of old and new media. He put out a paperback stable bound book by a woman named Susanna Breslin and I found it on a shelf in St. Mark's. You know just a physical. How many copies a book exist. Five hundred. So I found one and I thought it was this amazing looking thing in you know and so I googled the address on the back and wrote to this guy and that was probably four five five or six years ago now. So you know it's not one of the other right I mean you know nothing gets replaced it just means that if I want to find this weird little thing you know you don't you don't carry it around for 15 years like you know like a tape you find in a record store wondering what this mysterious people were. You just google it and you go where is this guy. You know let's let's get him. Yeah I think. Well I think both like Internet and print media I think are really good things and I think there's just sort of

you know improving in their own in their own ways. Obviously I run a small press and a lot of books I do. You know we print a couple hundred copies of a book maybe a couple of thousand at the most. And so and I myself am a big book reader and book buyer. I don't really believe in e-books. Yeah. Or like you know you know book readers and things like that. I don't really see that as an actual threat. I think that's still really sort of the IRA now 2050 you know still I don't know. I mean I respect that stuff and you know I understand why people want to get those things and save shelf space in their tiny apartments whatever but. Yes I believe you know in the power books of course. I do think that the Internet is a really really great tool for getting

the word out about new authors and new books and stuff like that. And I think that if you get published on a website like a popular Internet website you'll probably get more people reading that piece than you would if you got published and like an issue of even Granta or something like that and you'll probably get like a few hundred people reading it if it's in you know like a print journal. But that being said you know you don't necessarily go back and look for stuff that was printed on line and you know 10 years ago but you can pick up a book that's 10 years old and read it and stuff so. Yeah I think it's you know there's good things in both both realms. I actually had a pretty easy editor at Harper Perennial as your editors so we have the same editor at Harper Perennial and I don't know what your experience was with him but if

he did he didn't really be a religion really changed too much. In the book he had like some notes and some suggestions and he caught like some repetitions and stuff. And but I think honestly I caught I eventually caught like way more mistakes than he did. So I really like it and especially if it's somebody who's really good not necessarily somebody who's going to like you know try to change the entire style of your writing. But it's really great when people can spot these little things like oh did you know that you mentioned you know this body part you know every four pages or whatever you like. So yeah now it's good. It works really well if you have a good editor. So especially for grammar kind of stuff I'm pretty good at the grammar stuff but still every once in awhile like my small town grammar comes into my writing I want to also say that it's really great to read with just and we have a couple of

readings this week we're doing a couple things in New York and Baltimore New York just yet. And I'm sure they were flying today to New York tomorrow. Right the brand. Yeah. And and if you guys aren't familiar with the h h t m l giant I would highly recommend checking out each team of giants like my favorite website. Justin plays a big part in that. There's like a dozen or so contributors and it's all just stuff about really cool books and cool writers. They're like cultural stuff and it's just like a treasure trove of discoveries. I mean it's I would say not very close to the phrasing in my brain. You know you try to develop a voice that suits you know each story. And so there's you know there's stories in the book there's a lot of first person narrators but I think their tones are kind of different. There's some there's some in third and I am really into into it into tone and voice and I do I get it almost

exclusively by ear. Yeah Sometimes they'll even speak it out loud while I'm writing it not usually because I tend to write in fast bursts and then kind of sift through the wreckage later. But certainly that's that's sifting process is just about sitting you know sitting in my apartment with a stack of pages you know I'll type it and then print it and then read it and just cut it out and turn things around while I'm while I'm doing that and then feed the changes back in and then you read the clean one of them you know and it's just so rock tumbler something you just keep sending it through until hopefully it's in some sort of reasonable shape that you would want to be in. I'm probably just and I write really slowly and I don't like pour out a bunch of stuff and then edit it. I actually write kind of slowly and I try to get it as right as possible the first time I write it. I don't mind reading my own stuff and editing it but I just really am pretty meticulous the first time when I'm writing something and when I'm reading

out loud readings and stuff I do catch things when I'm reading it out loud and out the back of my mind I don't think I cross out that word you know so well. I also work at Powells and Portland and I host a lot of events there and so and I've been doing that for like 12 years now and I I think that they that they can work pretty effectively for some people and for some people and some books maybe not so much but especially with like you know like sort of topical nonfiction type stuff. You know you'll get you'll get pretty big crowds everywhere you go because people are talking about it the subject matter is in the news you know whether it's like the current political state or economics or the war you know then that can be pretty exciting to go on tour because it's like a town hall kind of thing in each town in each city. For like memoir or

fiction it's just really depends. It's been good for me so far like the three or four places I've been it's been really nice because I've been writing and publishing for for a pretty long time but I have I actually haven't toured that much outside of the northwest and this is the first time ever been to Boston. And it's really really cool I like it a lot. So I wish I was here longer. Yeah. So it's really it's really fun like to kind of go out and like meet people and see you know like I haven't seen Justin for a few years and you know meet new friends and people have just emailed with but never met in person. Things like that. All your Facebook friends. I don't know I mean this is this is the first out of New York date on this tour. If you want to call it that and it's I mean I'm not really touring around I may go a couple places in April

going to AWP you know they have the writing programs conference people may know when I which I went to last year with no book that was for the small arts magazine that I edit. And so this year I'm going to go again for that we're doing another issue and that's kind of what's what's bringing me and then also going to read from the book and you know so it's nice to get to fold that in and then I said I'm actually going to go out to about to pals and read there and I guess we'll see I don't know you know is it effective. You know by one you know can I tell you it's fun. It's really fun. I think it's exciting for readers and people who have read your stuff before. Like fans of your work or whatever. I think it's exciting for them to come out and actually like me you know meet us in person and never meet. You know it's exciting for me working at Powells when like somebody is coming to pals that I haven't met before in person. You know it's like super exciting. So one of the fun things that have happened before the tour

started I did my first reading at Powells where I work. And it was super fun and it was on February 2nd and at that end of the reading I proposed to my girlfriend her fiance who's here now. And and so that was a really exciting way to kick off the tour. And there's actually like an article in the Portland paper this weekend that shows has a picture of me proposing to her here. And it's like you're going to see a bunch of our friends in the audience and there's like one of our friends that has her face covered and stuff but. Oh yeah I think it's on youtube if you Google my name. Kevin Sampson proposal or something like that. You can kind of see it that I was you can kind of see at the podium kind of blocks me out when I get down on my knee. That's like the podiums kind of blocking me but you can hear me like crying and stuff like that. If you want to do that. I mean I can't get into that.

I don't really know how to be in the business center all night long. Yeah. Yeah so. Well thanks everyone for coming out this is a really great audience and the great store in a great city and we there's a bunch of books around and we'll be happy to sign books for everyone so. Yeah thank you.