Categories 
Wiccan Potlucks, Literary Basketball
At 826 Valencia’s Creative Non-Fiction writing seminar, Beth Lisick talked about her decision to write her new book Helping Me Help Myself, which is a humorous take on trying to live by various self-help books. Of San Francisco, she said:
“You go to the park and there’s like two Wiccan potlucks — the alternative world. So the mainstream world did seem sort of exotic and interesting to me.”
Stephen Elliot introduced Po Bronson by noting that he meets other writers in a clandestine location for an occasional “big literary basketball game.”
Because most writers I know began writing in part to assuage the pain of always being picked last at kickball, my immediate mental image of “literary basketball” is a tangle of flailing arms and pasty middle-age guys yelling, “I’m open! Dude, Beckett! I’m OPEN!”
826 Valencia…Stephen Elliott…McSweeney’s… I almost wish I lived in San Francisco.
Alas, Portland will have to do.
Alas, poor Yorick. I dunked on him, Horatio.
I knew there would be some writing seminars happening somewhere in the world. I just can’t flippin’ find any!
Yay for 826 Valencia!! Arrrrrr!
That was exactly the image I had of literary basketball, too.
Over here!