Twin Cities Book Fair.

This morning I woke up early to go to the TCBF with Graywolf. I love literary events. Plus, I thought I should be, um, "networking" to people. As in, hi, I work with Graywolf. How would you like to give me a job?

I didn't really network, though. I did meet some important people, or at least watched the Graywolf staff talk with important people, like the director of Milkweed. I did say "hi" to Tom Maltman, as in, introduced myself to him because we hadn't ever really met. We talked BER for a couple of minutes before he read from his new novel. I wished I was at AWP. I wished Christina and Jenny had been there, and we could've walked around to all the publishers, feeling important. Promoting the magazine.

While we were setting up, organizing the table, Mary the marketing executive tried to get me to move to New York. She was actually sort of talking me into it. She said that all interns who'd made that blind move out there found significant publishing jobs within a week. A week! It's weird because I started that conversation thinking: I'm not the kind of person who could move to New York. I'm just not that kind of person. But by the time I was done talking to Mary I was like: I could move to New York if I wanted. I could just do that. How many times does one find herself in a position where she could just go to New York if she wants to, anyway? What's keeping me here?

It's weird how quickly you go from the kind of person who doesn't do something to the kind of person who does. You don't have to actually do it, you're just the kind of person who would.

But if I went to New York, I suppose there'd be things I'd miss here. For example, I bet at New York book fairs, you don't see the sort of people you see at Twin Cities book fairs. You don't see the wide, soft women who walk around like slow-moving Thanksgiving balloons as though their bodies are filled with air, you don't see the men in their 50s that you hope your future husband will age like, who grab book after book after book and hand you their credit card. You don't hear the certain types of book pitches in New York (actually there, they might be more colorful) for books that aren't even close to what your press publishes. You probably do see the New Agey women, though, like the ones we saw at AWP in Austin, in their dyed flowing skirts. You might see the guy walking around in the homemade shirt Be Careful or I'll Put You in My Novel.

But it was good. It just felt good to sit there, listen to people talk books, feel like I was in the middle of something that I'd like to stay in the middle of for a very long time.