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Mar. 16th, 2011 05:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spryngTucson Festival of Books was this weekend and it was awesome. We may have ended up spending pretty much all weekend there, going to workshops (which eventually we realized were mostly so shallow they were tedious - the only reason to go would be for the author herself), walking around, dodging crowds, looking at books, talking about books, buying books, finding books, delighting in everything books. I love books. XP
Speaking of books, I had dinner with both agents on Thursday and it well enough that they are letting me be their intern for at least a month. It's sort of a trial period, which I completely understand, since in such a small and competitive business you need someone who not only jives with your personality, but who can be competent and figure out what you are looking for. Because basically - as I suspected - I will be acting as the initial slushpile filter. Apparently they have grown so large that they don't have as much time as they'd like to devote to the slushpile anymore, hence needing an intern, maybe eventually an actual employee, to come on and filter it for them. So I'll be weeding out the most obvious rejections, and then kind of summarizing the rest. And by most obvious, I mean the ones were they can't hardly string a sentence together, or the idea is way too simplistic, or both, or they're arrogant/rude/et cetera. So yeah: fun.
I've been off the daily thing because things got busy around here, I got really excited about the internship, and also because it's a hard one.
Yeah, so, there are more than two amazingly interesting people I know personally and about, so I'm going to limit this to personally, and then still have to take much too long whittling that down to just two.
1) Mariolina - My second host-sister, she knows German (obv), Italian and English fluently, lived in the middle of nowhere Germany in a "town" with barely a population of 15 in the summer and an old ruined castle up top, and is one of the sweetest people I know. After being pretty much ignored by my first host-sister and family, it was a relief to actually have someone who wanted to be my friend and include me in all sorts of things. We did a lot of crazy shit and she helped make my time there into something much more beneficial. Then she went on to study abroad in Argentina and now is studying at a college in Italy. Moreover, she has the kind of optimism and zeal for life that I keep trying to emulate.
2) Doug - Oh, Doug. Another traveler, but also interesting in all sorts of other ways. She was my first year roommate and boy, I could spend weeks filling this blog with stories. She's the one who introduced me to contra-dancing. Doug plays fiddle and banjo and uke and all sorts of other stringed instruments (pretty sure guitar and flute are in there too) and has been all over the freaking world and has that "Yeah, let's do it!" attitude that continues to amaze me. With her we started the tradition of going down to the Bay every year and venting our anger over a horrible conglomeration of booze. When she was no longer my roommate, I'd still run into her strumming on a guitar or playing fiddle outside for groups of starry-eyed students. She interned in Africa, studied in S America, and spent six months in an abused/decrepit trailer in southern Texas studying big cats at a preservation on the border of Mexico. This summer she'll be teaching white-water rafting.
Speaking of books, I had dinner with both agents on Thursday and it well enough that they are letting me be their intern for at least a month. It's sort of a trial period, which I completely understand, since in such a small and competitive business you need someone who not only jives with your personality, but who can be competent and figure out what you are looking for. Because basically - as I suspected - I will be acting as the initial slushpile filter. Apparently they have grown so large that they don't have as much time as they'd like to devote to the slushpile anymore, hence needing an intern, maybe eventually an actual employee, to come on and filter it for them. So I'll be weeding out the most obvious rejections, and then kind of summarizing the rest. And by most obvious, I mean the ones were they can't hardly string a sentence together, or the idea is way too simplistic, or both, or they're arrogant/rude/et cetera. So yeah: fun.
I've been off the daily thing because things got busy around here, I got really excited about the internship, and also because it's a hard one.
Yeah, so, there are more than two amazingly interesting people I know personally and about, so I'm going to limit this to personally, and then still have to take much too long whittling that down to just two.
1) Mariolina - My second host-sister, she knows German (obv), Italian and English fluently, lived in the middle of nowhere Germany in a "town" with barely a population of 15 in the summer and an old ruined castle up top, and is one of the sweetest people I know. After being pretty much ignored by my first host-sister and family, it was a relief to actually have someone who wanted to be my friend and include me in all sorts of things. We did a lot of crazy shit and she helped make my time there into something much more beneficial. Then she went on to study abroad in Argentina and now is studying at a college in Italy. Moreover, she has the kind of optimism and zeal for life that I keep trying to emulate.
2) Doug - Oh, Doug. Another traveler, but also interesting in all sorts of other ways. She was my first year roommate and boy, I could spend weeks filling this blog with stories. She's the one who introduced me to contra-dancing. Doug plays fiddle and banjo and uke and all sorts of other stringed instruments (pretty sure guitar and flute are in there too) and has been all over the freaking world and has that "Yeah, let's do it!" attitude that continues to amaze me. With her we started the tradition of going down to the Bay every year and venting our anger over a horrible conglomeration of booze. When she was no longer my roommate, I'd still run into her strumming on a guitar or playing fiddle outside for groups of starry-eyed students. She interned in Africa, studied in S America, and spent six months in an abused/decrepit trailer in southern Texas studying big cats at a preservation on the border of Mexico. This summer she'll be teaching white-water rafting.
