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Okay want to hear an uplifting story as we head into Round 3 of Covid Deluxe Plus and a wannabe autocrat attempting to undermine the peaceful transition of power? Here is an uplifting story. (1/several)
Once upon a time in 2012 author Sumbul Ali Karamali (not on twitter) and I were invited to speak at a library in Los Gatos CA. Apparently we had gotten some kind of threat (delivered to the organizers, so I never saw it) serious enough to get police involved.
I get threats all the time, but most of them are nonsense and I've become fairly emotionally inured. But this one had people spooked. So Sumbul and I show up at this eventand are assigned 2 officers each, and taken inside via a circuitous pre-cleared route thru the back entrance.
What's odd about getting a threat this serious is that you feel guilty. When you're being led around by armed security it feels like YOU have done something wrong. (I was also newly pregnant with Pickle but didn't know it yet. If I had I probably would have backed out.)
Anyway we get to the auditorium and they've cleared the first 7 rows (which is a lot) so that, presumably, no one could get a clean shot at us. Apparently there were issues at the front entrance as well, but I didn't see them. The event itself went okay but was heavily moderated
By the end, when we were sitting down to sign books, I was feeling thoroughly demoralized. People in the signing lines were being asked to stand 10 feet back+come up one at a time, with nothing in their hands but a max of 2 books.
This sucks because I love the chatty intimacy of signing lines; it's a chance to talk to people one on one and hear stories they're not comfortable volunteering in front of a larger audience. So it was really depressing.
Then this guy shows up--the last one in line--and he comes up carrying this massive, heavy canvas bag. The officer, in this "are you kidding me?" voice, told him to back up, put the bag down, and unpack it slowly.
I was like "this is it. This is how I go out. That's going to be a bomb or something." I was literally reciting various things in my head so I would be mentally prepared. But this guy sheepishly unpacks the bag, which contains...every single thing I have ever written.
One shots, shorts in anthologies, single issues, and on and on. And the poor guy, who is really embarrassed now, says I don't have to sign it all; he brought it just in case he got a chance to say hi.
I told him no problem, I will sign every single thing in that bag. Which I did. We chatted for about fifteen minutes; everybody else had left by that point. Beneath all the terrifying stuff, your community is always there. The reason you do what you do is always there.
I regard that guy as having saved my life. By virtue of not being an armed extremist, but also in a more ephemeral way. I feel a duty of care toward every reader I meet now, bc it's really only these relationships--w strangers to whom we are connected by an idea--between us+chaos
