We had a cross-over of family blogs yesterday when Amy and I attended an event at the Beverly Hills Public Library in which actors read various short stories from cousin Tod Goldberg's new, critically-acclaimed short-story anthology, Simplify. Tod's stories are powerful, touching, creepy and unsettling -- even more so when read and interpreted by live readers who can act.
One odd thing about having readers in the family, however: little parts of your own life keep floating to the surface in their fiction, in odd ways. The first Tod story read was "Disappear Me"; and in the middle of this magical-realist story about a teen in San Francisco who seems to have become invisible, the main character reminisced about the basement of his Nana and Papa Dave's house. "Nana" is, and the late "Papa Dave" was, Tod's maternal grandparents, whom I know as Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Dave. And, yes, I had been in their basement at their house in Walla Walla. Tod mentioned he hadn't read the story in a while, and had forgotten the family reference.
On Sunday, Tod is having an autograph party/reading at Border's Books on Westwood Boulevard. I plan to be there. Tod's siblings are scheduled to be there too, leading to a massive blog crossover. Can the blogosphere survive?
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