Drunk Monks and Mountain Climbing

Last Saturday, I went to Julie Lilienkamp’s reading of Clips in Time: Emotionally Powerful, Organic, Adventure-Essays and Epic Poetry at Auntie’s Bookstore. I hadn’t actually read her work at that point, so I didn’t know what to expect.

I’m (perhaps unfairly) skeptical of unfamiliar authors who write about their own real experiences. I feel this way for the same reason I am periodically annoyed with Facebook, or people who try to strike up a conversation while standing in line at the grocery store: Many people either

1.) Just don’t have many stories that are interesting to people who don’t already know them.

or

2.) They aren’t very good at telling their interesting stories.

In Ms. Lilienkamp’s case, I need not have worried. She has had the kind of life that leads to tales worth telling. (The adventurous sort.) I also have to give props to anyone brilliant enough to take the experience of climbing a mountain and seeing a monk who’d had too much to drink that morning, (Yes, that morning.) and think to write a poem about it. I bought a copy right away and asked her to sign it. (Which she did, with a very thoughtful personal inscription.)

She also allowed me to take a picture, so I wouldn’t have a repeat of the Patrick McManus reading. (Neither of us was really photo ready, so please judge- or don’t- accordingly. I’m the tall geeky one with the glasses.)

The only negative thing I can say about this book is that I wish I’d written it myself, but I don’t climb mountains. I stay home and type. That’s why I mostly write fiction.