Her voice contained a trace of valley chick, mingling with sharp-angled academian, but she was mostly city girl.

When she read from her book, she wasn’t an author or writer, two completely different occupations. She was an actress, her tone changing for each character, the omniscient narrator maintaining a certain amount of objectivity despite the first person view.

The reading itself was okay. When I first saw her, she looked like a schoolteacher - grades one through five, not college level. When she said she was a playwright, I was surprised.

“I found an active community in theatre that I didn’t find in writing fiction or prose,” she said. “The actors involved weren’t afraid to let me know what they thought about the script because they didn’t want to look stupid when they performed.”

Well, that made sense. That also sounded like a playwright talking.

The questions flew from the audience and from submitted index cards. They were about marketing her work and about the characters of her book which had been assigned reading, about writing in general and also about publishing. She also touched on writing influences and the process of writing - yeah, didn’t I just say she talked about publishing and writing in general? Also different things, from a writer’s perspective.

She seemed open with her answers, often pausing to phrase them so they’d satisfy the questioner. Sometimes they were an answer, sometimes not. She didn’t seem nervous to be up there, either, in front of a large group of students who weren’t shy to ask her anything, being potential novelists and playwrights themselves.

She wasn’t Danielle Steel or Tami Hoag.
She was a published author.

That was reason enough to be her audience.

PS: I hope she didn’t see me yawning. I hope the applause made up for that.