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Ok so one time @AmyBloomBooks came to give a reading in my town. I’d taken a workshop with her the previous summer and it was incredible. She was astute and generous...and I was also a little scared of her. https://twitter.com/emdashphillips/status/1345767253493637120
Like, her mind. Absolutely incredible and also terrifying. So I’m preparing for this reading and I’m excited and a little nervous, like when you’re queuing for a rollercoaster. I have an old paperback copy of Love Invents Us that I bought used, and it is literally falling apart.
So I buy a nicer hardback (also used) online. It comes and I don’t even flip through it, I just take it to the reading. The day of, she reads from Lucky Us and just kills it, the q&a rules, etc.
Since I’d had workshop with her, we exchange a wave. Later, I’m standing in line to get my book signed and I open to the title page to stick in the post-it with my name. The book is already signed. My soul leaves my body.
I can’t leave, because she saw me get in line and that would be weird. But I feel like a dope asking her to sign a book that is already signed. I’m already an anxious person, and this whole thing has me sweating. Finally, I get up to the table.
She says, “Hey, nice to see you again.” And opens the book. She looks at her signature. She looks at me. I say nothing and she just stares at me intently for a long moment. Then she shrugs, kind of rolls her eyes, and writes something in the book. I am too embarrassed to look.
She hands the book back to me and I flee. When I get outside, I crack it open. This is what it says:
“For Stephanie, For Real”
The moral of this story is that you can try, but you’ll never be as smart or cool or kind as Amy Bloom. The end.
