Writerly Adventures

Last week Ali invited me to go with her and Elana to The King’s English for the launch of Kimberly Griffiths Little’s newly released novel, The Healing Spell. TKE is an Indy bookstore in the Avenues of Salt Lake City crammed and jam-packed full of more books than you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s the hip and trendy place for launch parties. Just walk in sometime, and you can totally see why.

*sniffs the air*

Ahhh. Can you just smell the mixture of powdery paper and leather and all things bookish? It’s better than a library, although, more expensive because you have to buy your books.

So Elana, Ali and I were hungry and feeling adventurous, so before the launch we went to Mazza—a totally charming Middle Eastern place—to eat.

We didn’t recognize a single thing on the menu—except Dr. Pepper. They did have that, to my utter relief. Elana even Googled one of the items in question. Anyway, we each picked something and ordered, but our food kept not coming and not coming, and then we needed to go to the reading, so Ali flagged down our waiter, Jody, to see if we could pay and then come back to eat in an hour later. He very kindly sent us on our way. Without paying.

Dude. We already had our drinks, so this was very trusting on his part. (Thanks Jody!)

Anyway. When we came back, we brought Jenn, Sheralyn, Suzette, and Suzy’s son Asher with us, and ended up seated outside on the softly lit patio. Dusk fell around us as we ate and laughed, and strings of tiny white lights twinkled in the shrubs nearby. Elana discovered her first fan-boy in Jody the waiter—and Suzette even took a picture to prove it—and we spent the evening talking writing and books and families and life.

If I had been on a date, I’d have called the whole evening romantic.

What do you call an experience like that when it has nothing to do with the courting process and everything to do with having a great time hanging out with friends?

Doesn’t matter. It was fun, and I came away feeling refreshed, recharged, and grateful to my supportive writer friends. Without their help, I don’t know how I’d ever survive the crazy quest for publication.