Last night I went to the ceremony for The Story Prize. Larry Dark, who brilliantly organizes the event, was fantastic as he interviewed the writers as if they were on Charlie Rose or The Actors’ Circle. And the hall at the New School was packed, SRO. The best part was that I actually settled down and enjoyed the readings. I have this disease called author-readingitis. It’s an occupational hazard. The symptoms are: extreme fidgeting, scalp and lower leg itchiness, cuticles complaining, and deregulation of body temperature. Of course, all this is about my own writerly frustrations. But last night I was able to actually listen and enjoy the readings and interviews. I think in part it was because it was damn heartening to see such an enormous crowd gathered together for short stories. And also because the quality of the work was first rate. Oh, the finalist were Jhumpa Lahiri, Joe Meno and Tobias Wolff. Wolff won.

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I had lunch today with my client, Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, a book that has been ten years in the making. This has been one of the most challenging projects I have ever worked on — it is also one I am deeply proud of. It’s an astonishing piece of reportage, an in-depth portrait of the killers, a hearbreaking depiction of the community. The structure is a beautiful piece of architecture. The portraits are indelible. Ten years. To thank me for my work, Dave gave me a beautiful Waterman pen with one word inscribed: Stronger.

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1) He wears a tie with images of a craniotome (tool for drilling holes in the skull); 2) He’s sixty; 3)Atonement has sold over 4 millions copies (that’s a lot of fish and chips); 4) According to McEwan, “Narrative fiction is primarily about withholding information.” 5) He likes to take long walks. 6) He was in a Friday lunch club over which Martin Amis presided. 7) He “hunted for scorpions in the desert with a jam jar and roughhoused in the Mediterranean” with his domineering and temperamental father. *Thanks to Daniel Zalewski’s 2/23/09 New Yorker Profile

P.S. My favorite quote in the article, “McEwan is a connoisseur of dread, performing the literary equivalent of turning on the tub faucet and leaving the room; the flood is foreseeable, but it still shocks when the water rushes over the edge.” I think that’s a great description of suspense. P.S.S. Wearing a novelty tie under any circumstances is not acceptable unless you are pediatric oncologist.

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