Reading the year away

I love my iPhone. It's rarely out of my sight. (Though I do leave it charging in the living room when I go to bed.) I am constantly checking Twitter, Facebook, reading articles, taking photos, texting. It's great. I can answer email wherever and whenever. I can play games on it. I can read books on it. I can track my calories and my steps. I use it to remember when I got my period last month and what the name of my blood disorder is (gun to my head right now, I could not remember the entire name).

And yet...

I've been trying to step away from it more. I've been trying to read more. Take more breaks.

This has a lot to do with the election. This has a lot to do with the state of our world. This has a lot to do with me.

In January I promised myself I'd read more books. I already read lots of articles. Lots of magazines. Lots of newspapers. But I'd found myself buying books and stacking them on the shelf and meaning to get to them and then not. Because two hours later I'd still be on Twitter. So I made myself a promise.

I've done well this year, so far. I started re-reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I read it chapter by chapter at my desk, slowly, with a pen and a highlighter, as if there will be a test. Because I think there will be. It's the future of our country, the test.

I've read a bunch of novels, which I love. When Angela was in San Jose for her STEAM conference I found myself reading all night, saving our favorite TV shows for when she got home. And I devoured two books. Just this past weekend I read an entire novel, Sweetbitter, and started another. There is nothing better than a book you don't want to put down, well maybe a book you don't want to ever end (I'm looking at you The Hate U Give).

I've also been other nonfiction, including The Sixth Extinction, which Angela and I read out loud together. We passed the book back and forth beginning the night we lost power, and read while we cooked, while we cleaned, while we drove, while we laid in bed. It was great. We had to look up words and we had to end chapters early sometimes to talk about what we'd just read. And now we know a lot about the current bat crisis in this country, among other things.

But you know what another result of reading is, besides learning about climate change and history and the drama of life in a fictional restaurant (read Sweetbitter, trust me)? Wanting to talk about what you've read. Or what you've learned. And that can be hard because despite that smartphone in my pocket, I sometimes feel disconnected.

So a couple of weekends ago I headed off to the Los Angeles Times Book Fest. I was excited to hear some of my favorite writers speak. To learn directly from them. And learn I did.

The first panel I attended was entitled "Activists on the Front Lines". Matt Pearce, reporter from the LA Times moderated (he's one of my trusted sources, I like to not just follow journalism but journalists in particular). Cleve Jones (writer of We All Rise, creator of the AIDS quilt project and so much more), Ron Kovic (Vietnam War vet, writer of Born on the Fourth of July), L.A. Kauffman (activist since the 60s), and Wesley Lowery (Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner).

During the hour they talked I was so impressed with the stories I heard. With the truths they told. I clapped, I cheered (when Jones talked about how unions helped get Senator Catherine Cortez Masto elected in November -- I phone banked for her!) and I wrote something down...

Pearce, Jones, Kauffman, Lowery & Kovic

"We have to do a better job of using popular culture" to get the word out about activism, said Cleve Jones at one point in the discussion. 

I wrote this down in my phone (another smartphone use! Notetaking!) and kept looking at it over the next week. I often struggle when I write fiction or screenplays to balance between message and story. It can be a hard tightrope to walk. But one I want to do a better job of. I want to remind people that stories have truth, and importance. They influence people. And I love that Jones brought this up.

Then I was lucky enough to grab a standby ticket to attend Congressman John Lewis' discussion. He was there to promote his graphic novel trilogy, March, about the history of civil rights in this country. Except Rep. Lewis didn't talk during his hour, he preached. What he reminded all of us in that huge auditorium was,

Congressman Lewis

"If you see something not right, not fair, you have a moral obligation to get into good trouble." 

Roxane Gay & Alexander Chee

I ended my day at the Book Fest by spending an hour listening to Roxanne Gay talk with Alexander Chee. Gay is an English professor, a nonfiction writer, a fiction writer, a screenwriter and a comic book writer among other things. I read my first collection of her work last fall and immediately became enamored. She pushes me to think critically, and to read diverse voices. That was certainly a theme for my day at the Fest. Hearing from authors who have strong, proud voices. Who have stories to tell. Who have knowledge to share.

Now, don't think I've given up watching television or movies or listening to music or anything you'll find on the home screen of my iPhone. I still fit it all in, but I'm finding the more I read, old fashioned paper books, or even pick up my old Kindle (which I carried with me to San Francisco with several books) the happier I am. The more I'm out of my own brain and into someone else's. The more I learn, the more I want to learn.

Last Friday night Angela and I found ourselves in the independent bookstore in our neighborhood. We were there to hear some of my favorite screenwriters and television creators speak about the Business. And it was a great night. But you know what made it even better? That the event took place in a bookstore. The kind where employees tack up notes next to their favorite books. The kind where people encourage you to browse by displaying books you'd never have found on Amazon. We left with a copy of a middle school-geared autobiography on Elon Musk for Angela's new STEAM program. And she got a discount because she inquired about the middle school reading club. Because they like teachers at our little bookstore.

How great is that.

Tell me what you're reading. Tell me what I should read next. Tell me what I should put on hold at the library or what I must buy right now with my Target gift certificate. Share with me. Because reading is so much more fun when we get to share about it.

An artist I saw working at the Book Fest