<\/p>\n
I’ve done hundreds of talks and readings from my books across the U.S. and in Canada, and in Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, and Israel.<\/p>\n
When I’m picked up on tour at a train station or airport, one of the most frequent questions is a rhetorical one: “This must be pretty exciting, right?”<\/p>\n
It is.\u00a0 I’m an extrovert.\u00a0 I love meeting new people and speaking to new groups.\u00a0 I prepare extensively for every gig I do: finding out as much as I can about the audience and venue in advance, then writing talking points, studying and rehearsing those, and practicing my reading to get it right.<\/p>\n
It helps that I did so much theater in college, and that I’ve taught for many years as well and feel comfortable as a performer of my own work–and my own life.\u00a0 And yet there’s always a trace of sadness, too, that’s unrelated to being away from home.<\/p>\n
I was recently in Marquette, Michigan, a picturesque town of about nine thousand, and my days there typify being a tourist author. I did five different talks starting with a keynote at the beautiful interfaith Holocaust memorial ceremony.\u00a0 My time there was more intense than a typical tourist’s would be.<\/p>\n
I got to see the area from the local standpoint because I met so many natives and so many people who’d moved there either from elsewhere in the Midwest and around the country.\u00a0 I saw the beautiful tiny synagogue in tiny Ishpeming, which has remarkable stained glass windows and feels like a spiritual jewel\u00a0 box.\u00a0 Members told me about the area’s Jewish migration patterns and gave me an in-depth look at local sites and drives.\u00a0 The beautiful downtown with its late 19th century stone buildings and churches was especially impressive.<\/p>\n
And I had what I always have, whatever the city or country: intense talks with people I’ll probably never see again.\u00a0 I was lucky to be there three nights, because it’s rare to spend more than one or two days on tour as an author.<\/p>\n
The whole experience is intense, and wonderful, and fulfilling–and then it’s over way too soon. That dynamic repeats itself over and over and over.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s one thing I never expected when I launched my career as writer many years ago: the miles it would put on me, the smiles, too, but also the sadness of random, lovely contacts that fade away–until the next tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve done hundreds of talks and readings from my books across the U.S. and in Canada, and in Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, and Israel. When I’m picked up on tour at a train station or airport, one of the most frequent questions is a rhetorical one: “This must be pretty exciting, right?” It … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,63,60,32,24,61,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-book-tours","category-fans","category-promotion","category-publicity","category-readings","category-touring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5428,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/5428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}