Thursday, October 21, 2004

David Sedaris and his book tour

Last night, my book group and I went to see David Sedaris. Sedaris regularly reads his work on National Public Radio and This American Life. He writes about his large, sarcastic Greek family and also about life in Paris with his boyfriend Hugh. Most of it is darkly humorous.
The theater was sold out. It was nice to see. Sedaris stood at a podium and read aloud from manuscripts. It was very writerly.
I wish we would see more authors tour like that ... But I imagine you have to have pretty broad popularity as a writer to sell out venues and make it work from a financial standpoint.
T.S. Eliot was reputed to be very good at reading his work aloud. When he toured the United States, back in the 1950s, he would sell out stadiums.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw Tom Robbins read last weekend at the Times Festival of Reading. I was surprised that he is a Southerner with a North Carolina lilt. He talked just like he writes.-Jill