Time is a funny thing. I remember the anticipation I felt as 2015 loomed with my debut novel coming out in April. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like and now here we are eight months later and I’m looking back in hindsight, filled with a lot of gratitude. Thank you to all the readers who wrote to me, to everyone who came to the readings, to all the book clubs who made The Memory Painter one of their picks for this year (I Skyped, Facetimed, e-chatted, drove, lunched, and I loved every minute), thank you to the booksellers, bloggers and reviewers for spreading the word, to the libraries, bookstores, conferences and festivals that invited me to come, and to the fellow writers I met along the way. And a huge thank you to my agent, editor, and publishing team at Picador as well as my family and friends for their support. It’s been a fantastic first year.
Looking ahead to 2016, I’ll be busy working on a new story that I’m very excited about. Also, the paperback for The Memory Painter will be out on 7/5 as well as some other foreign editions. I have some book events scheduled too I’m looking forward to as well. (Note to self: Update calendar)
But right now as the New Year turns, I wanted to end with a poem I have been meaning to share. When I was in Austin for the Texas Book Festival in October I encountered a group of poets writing on vintage typewriters and composing poems on the fly (and for free) for anyone and everyone. They call themselves Typewriter Rodeo and I could not have been more taken. At the festival I stood in line to get a poem, and I chose a poet named David who was wearing a cool Fedora, Clark Kent glasses and had a pencil tucked behind his ear. He asked me what I wanted it to be about and I said: Time.
I watched him write this poem and now it’s my 2015 keepsake:
A Poem On the Subject of Time (For Gwen)
My favorite thing about it may be
That like so many
of my favorite things
It doesn’t really exist
It’s a product of perception
A trick of the light
Physics has proven
that it looks the same
forwards and backwards
And everything that can exist
Does
So take a step back
Consider a human life, viewed
from an extra-temporal
perspective
It’s like a long, fleshy worm
Twining around all the places we’ve ever been
Or will go
With two fixed endpoints
And no decisions to be made
It’s a beautiful thing,
If you look at it right
If you can afford
To take the time.
~~~~~~~~~
Happy New Year everyone!
Peace & Love,
Gwen