reading series

Novelist Tom Perrotta visited the University of New Hampshire in Durham as part of its Writers Series on an early March afternoon that was sunny enough for New Englanders to shed their wool caps and warm enough for the giant sand-filled snow banks that lined the roads to recede ever so slightly.

On a sultry Friday night, amid the thumping bass notes from cruising cars and the occasional thunder of the elevated J train, a wonderfully distinctive literary event took place in the dim white rooms of a studio space in northeast Brooklyn.

This is the first installment in a series of Postcards written by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott, coauthors of Which Brings Me to You (Algonquin Books, 2006), while on tour to promote their book.

Ah, springtime in New York City! That ineluctable smell! What is it, exactly? Curry and fish sauce, garbage, perfume, rotten eggs, fresh bread, urine, incense, stale tailpipe, shish kebab, body odor. (I am estimating.)

Why is Portland, Oregon, my favorite city in which to read? Let me count the ways.

Another day, another strange encounter in an airport. This one with Charles D’Ambrosio, who wound up on the same flight as ours from Portland to Seattle.