Dear All,
This is the latest episode of Don’t Press That Button, a newsletter about books and music and movies and cats and baseball and whatnot. As the name would indicate, we are very cautious about buttons around here. Buttons are tempting, but so are a lot of things.
Luckily, the button below is safe. All it will do is subscribe you to this newsletter.
A few thoughts on readings
I recently participated in an email interview that tweaked a memory. I’ve already forgotten the exact wording, but there was a question along the lines of, “What was your most memorable bookstore reading experience?”
My answer for this is one that some of you may have heard me mention before. When I was touring for Double Feature1, I did a reading in Portland, Maine. Now, I usually have two or three passages from any given book that I read — well, I used to, more on that in a sec — but for Double Feature I really favored a particular passage that was, well, for adults. It’s a pretty ridiculous phone sex scene and it was good for a few laughs and, more broadly, demonstrated the tone and mood of the novel as a whole.
Before beginning, I always prefaced my reading by saying something like, “What I am going to read is for adults. It’s a sex scene. If that makes you uncomfortable, I am incredibly sorry, but the novel is honestly pretty filthy throughout, and it wouldn’t be fair to pretend otherwise.” At this particular reading, I observed a woman standing near the front. I don’t know why she caught my eye, but I picked up an anxious vibe, and I had a premonition that she was not going to love what I read. But there was nothing I could do. I had to go ahead.
I started reading and, well, right around the time Sam, the main character of my novel, begins to use some super bubbly shampoo as a masturbation aid, she dashed from the store like she was being chased. I glanced up at the sound of her steps and locked eyes with F. Lee Bailey, the legendary defense attorney, who was standing close beside the door she had just pushed through.
F. Lee grinned wolfishly at me.
It seemed like he was enjoying the reading, so that was good, but was he even real? Had I suffered a stroke? I somehow carried on, finished, answered some questions, and discovered afterward that, yes, that was F. Lee Bailey, and he was corporeal. I exchanged a few words with him that I can’t recall at all, and that was that. The mystery of how he slipped into the bookstore like the fucking Shadow without me noticing in the first place remains.
I’ve never gotten around to developing much of an opinion about F. Lee Bailey — things keep coming up — but upon reflecting on the experience, what seems important is that I did not crack in the middle of the reading. My sanity held.
These days, readings seem to be rarer. I toured as much for The Curator as I did for Double Feature, and I only read from it maybe two or three times. My general sense is that bookstores have come to feel that the preferable scenario is one where the writer with the new book is paired with an interlocutor who potentially draws in a few extra attendees, and you just have a nice chat about your novel and writing fiction in general. While I’m neither here nor there on this because I like both formats, readings can be an incredible treat, and if you are a writer, you still may be asked to give one some time.
With that in mind, here is…
My Unsolicited Advice for Giving Readings
Practice. I believe that the key reason I passed The F. Lee Bailey Test was because I had read that passage from Double Feature so many times that I could just about recite it from memory.
Edit your chosen passage with an eye toward clarity. There may be references to earlier narrative events, for instance. You need to either cut those or add in an explanatory sentence or two.
Keep your reading to fifteen minutes or less. Even fifteen minutes is pushing it. I once miscalculated on a reading and went long. It is a deeply embarrassing memory. I have also sat for a handful of readings that stretched on into the hour range and, unless the reading takes place in a theater with comfortable seats and is fully mesmerizing, it starts to feel like you’ve been taken hostage.
Choose a passage to read that requires a minimum of set up. The scene I read from Double Feature, for example, sets up the nature of the romantic relationship between the two characters, moves into their sexual interaction over the phone, and closes out abruptly in a way that demonstrates a lot of why (spoiler alert) they aren’t actually a great match. There’s not much, if anything, that’s hanging off the edges of the piece that might confuse listeners. It’s about seven pages long in the hardcover, and probably a bit less with various cuts I made for performance.
If possible, read something that’s a little comedic. If you invite the audience to laugh a bit, they will almost certainly take the invitation.
You may stumble over a word, or lose your place, or get asked a question that you need to consider for a second or two. Don’t freak out. People don’t go to readings very often. In fact, it’s not unlikely that some members of the audience have never been to one before. They may not know what to expect, but they definitely don’t want you to fail. They came because they like your writing, or are at least intrigued by your writing, and they are rooting for you.
Dress is a super personal thing. It makes me a tad anxious. I’m not confident in my looks, or my fashion sense. I just try to be presentable and comfortable. Someone might take a photo of you and put it on the Internet, so factor that in. I usually opt for a dress shirt, or a sweater, sometimes a sport coat. Whenever I wear a sport coat, I am reminded of the classic Mick Jagger song “Evening Gown” — so beautifully covered here by Alejandro Escovedo — that has the line where he confesses to wearing his sports clothes way too loud, and I feel Mick-like, and therefore boosted. Whatever makes you feel in charge to wear — wear that.
Mick’s sport coat isn’t too loud at all. He looks terrific. During Q&As certain questions come up a lot. This will be the case whether you did a reading or just had a chat with an interviewer. Here’s a few I receive frequently that you might consider in advance: “What was the inspiration for the book?” “What is your writing process?” “Who do you imagine in the roles of the major characters in a movie adaptation?” “Is there someone who gives you feedback on your rough drafts?” “How did you get your agent?” “How much did your book change during the editing process?” “How did you know the book was done?”
It’s not wildly uncommon for someone to ask a deeply strange and/or jarring question. For instance, a gentleman who came to one of my readings was intent on extracting my thoughts on the issue of Area 51.2 On the one hand, it might feel off-putting to be pressed on a matter that’s outside your expertise; on the other, most people don’t mean any harm, and if you are nice about it — “Gosh, I haven’t thought about that!” — usually you can quickly move on.
I’ve read for crowds as small as four. I would read to a crowd of one. If a single person is interested in hearing you read, that is awesome, and you should take pride in it. Read them your story.
The latest
I had the honor of reviewing a very strong and very dark new novel by a giant of letters, Joyce Carol Oates3.
In our last newsletter we unleashed the first ever DPTB raffle, and the response has been outstanding. Thank you to everyone who jumped in. We feel loved and inspired to write more stories about tricky criminals and insane people with pet panthers. The raffle is not over yet, though!
If you’re new here, a quick recap:
We invited everyone who has bought the Self Help graphic novel, or all five issues, or taken the graphic novel out from the library to email our special raffle email address for a chance to win the following: 1) A superb inked portrait by artist Marianna Ignazzi of two of our favorite characters from the series, Michelle and Amelia 2) A signed Owen King book 3) A signed Jesse Kellerman4 book 4) Probably other stuff!
If you want in, you still have time, but not too much time, so don’t hesitate. The drawing will take place on 7/1/25.
Pertinent details are as follows:
You are eligible if you bought issues 1-5 of Self Help or the graphic novel, or if you borrowed the issues or the graphic novel from the library and read it that way, and live in the United States. Paper or digital, either is legitimate. Honor system.
Our friends and family are not eligible.
Email hellodayren at gmail dot com and say that you want in.
Give us a handle to put in the spinner wheel. If your name is Bob Jorgenson this could be “Bob J,” but it would be a lot more fun and in keeping with our comic about grifting if you come up with a fun alias — i.e., “Super Chill Ove,” “Danny Smooth,” “The Seeing Eye,” etc.
We will not use your email for anything other than this raffle, ever.
We will randomly select the winner on 7/1/25 and that person will get all the stuff.
If we screw up somehow, we will try to make amends, but you can’t be angry at us.
You agree to send us a picture of you and the artwork, or your cat and the artwork, or, if necessary, a friend’s cat and the artwork, so that we can show everyone who enters that we weren’t scamming.
You can now enjoy a Self Help playlist! I feel good about it, but suggestions are always welcome if you feel like it’s missing something. Jen, official DPTB copy editor and Keeper of the Tunes, has kindly posted it on Spotify here.
I am excited to be attending Terrificon at Monhegan Sun August 8-10. It’s going to be cool! What a lineup: Charles Soule, Kevin Eastman, Louise Simonson, John Romita Jr., and many, many others. More details on that as it approaches, but please come say hello if you’re there.
For the Psychic Benefits, I hit the Paranoid Style with an unusually important question and they need more time to craft an answer. It’s a doozy! Please stand by for that in the next newsletter.
Recommendations
This has been a rather extensive post by DPTB standards, so I’ll keep this one brief.
See Ballerina! It’s a worthy addition to the John Wick canon. Crazy, violent, funny, inventive.
Read The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City by Kevin Baker! When it comes to baseball books, this one just shot to the head of the class to take a place beside The Glory of Their Times. The baseball part is incredibly fun and informative, but the way that Baker uses the sport to tell roughly a hundred years of New York City history is simply superb.
Listen to this titanic tune by Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band.
As ever, if you have a question or a comment or just want to say hi, if you reply to the email, I will see it. I also have a chat here on Substack, and some chatting has taken place. I’m over on Bluesky and Threads and Instagram, too, if you’d like to follow along at any of those places, although I’m not super active. Thank you for subscribing.
All Best,
Owen
Just peeked inside the book for the first time in…five years? This is a subject for another newsletter, but my experience of writing books is that I live inside them for however many years, they mean the world and more to me, they come out, and I promote them on and off for about a year after that, and…I hardly ever think of them again. Some of it is that there are inevitably two or three small elements or details that I decide after the fact that I’m not happy with, and some of it is that — I think — what drove the project has been exorcised. In a good way. Again, maybe we’ll dig into this further another time.
I do have an opinion about Area 51 and space aliens, but I was certain the man would not like it. For a host of reasons, the main one being that, like a lot of people, I don’t understand why space aliens capable of traveling gazillions of miles from their home planets to Earth would play peekaboo with humanity when they undoubtedly have the technology to surveil us in a manner that we would be incapable of noticing, my opinion is that it’s all bullshit.
DPTB long-timers may recall the Science Episode, wherein I put on my lab coat and treated a lovely edition of her novel The Mysteries of Winterthurn to remove a musty smell.
After a battle of many years, Mark Zuckerberg still refuses to give Jesse back his Facebook page, so Jesse has started a new one. In related news, Mark Zuckerberg is also ineligible for our raffle.