Kathy Fish, the writer as rock star

Last night, as I was putting out snacks for the Kathy Fish reading, I glanced out the windows and saw something long and black and funereal pull in front of the store. What the heck, I thought, a hearse? Miss Prothero's Books is not dead yet! I moved in closer and saw that it was a limousine. Prom night, I wondered, but aren't the boys who live upstairs too old? Then the driver opened the door. One by one they stepped out, elegant women, serious women, women dressed for a reading. At the end of the line of women was Kathy Fish. Now there's somebody who knows how to treat her fans, I told myself. I wished I was serving champagne.

The reading went well. I'd requested 15 copies of A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness. All fifteen sold. This is a first for Miss Prothero's. Usually, I have to send some back to the publisher. My only complaint was that the reading was too short. But maybe that's the way of short short story writers. They always leave you wanting more.

There's a multi-tasking mime coming to a bookstore near you...

Miss Prothero's Books will host Kathy Fish on May 2. No, she is not a multi-tasking mime. Nor is she the next Stanley Kubrick, the indexer with a migraine, the little girl sent to the closet for eating glue, or the scarecrow named Prue. She is a master of the short, short story. She created all of the above characters and brought their rich complications to her chapbook Laughter, Applause, Laughter, Music (one of 4 chapbooks collected in A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness, Rose Metal Press, 2008). Well, she didn't create a multi-tasking mime. That would have been something. In her story "Unanimous", Fish makes it abundantly clear that mimes are anathema to multi-tasking. (Just imagine Marcel Marceau performing while talking on a cell phone.)

I'm looking forward to Fish's reading. I'm sure there will be laughter, applause, laughter, music after it's all over. Well, maybe not music. Unless there's a mime in the audience who wants to hum a few bars of movie music.

Matters at Hand

It's been a quiet week at Miss Prothero's Books...which is never good. Internet orders are down. Strange visitors are up.

This morning it was a tall blond with pock marked skin. He said he had a Lassie book and a book on Donatello. Copyright 1903! (The book on Donatello, that is.) I tried to be diplomatic. I told him that I'd have to see the books to make a judgment, that they could be valuable and they could be valueless. Just because a book had depreciated beyond its usual shelf life didn't mean it was appreciated by someone with money. Sometimes old is just old. He nodded, but I don't think he understood.

Then there was the young girl from Israel. She was looking for the Unity Infoshop (formerly of 1145 Santa Fe). It's gone, I told her. Where to, she asked. I shrugged my shoulders. I told her that I heard rumors, that I saw their sign go down after Christmas, that a rent sign went up in January, that the rent sign went back down again. Oh, she said, but Black Bart said it was open at 11. Perhaps somewhere, I said, but not here. Denver is such a sleepy town, she said, where are all the activists. I shrugged my shoulders, again. What kind of activism are you interested in, I asked. Oh, she said, animal rights, anarchy...If I'd given her the chance, she might have made it all the way through the alphabet. We did find the address for the Derailer Bike Collective. She was happy. I haven't seen her again, so I suppose she didn't get lost.

That's not to say some good things haven't happened:

• Manuel Ramos is coming in less than a week. I'm looking forward to looking back at The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz.
  
• I've been catching up on my reading. I finished Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. It was a fun, but no match for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. (I have a signed copy of that on sale if you're interested...Oops, I had a copy. Someone just read this and bought it!)
  
• I was visited by Debbie Knapp of Homegrown Tales. She was wondering if her group might do a reading at the store. I'm hoping we can work something out.
  
• Rose Metal Press contacted me about their new short, short collection -- A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness. Kathy Fish, one of the contributors to that collection, should be coming here to read in May.

If you have a book or event that you'd like to promote, why don't you stop by and let me know about it. Miss P's Books may be the perfect venue. And I could use some company.