My evening with Stephen King, John Irving and J.K. Rowling

When I say my evening I mean me and 6,000 others, at the absolutely gorgeous Radio City Music Hall (first time I've ever gone!). After looking forward to this benefit-reading for several months, the night finally happened this past Tuesday, and it was AWESOME!

Let me first make a disclaimer that this is all from memory, so any quotes/paraphrases I write may not be 100% accurate. I was having way too much fun to bother taking notes.

There were some surprise announcers, which added to the excitement. Whoopi Goldberg started off the evening, and then later some other famous types announced the authors, like Kathy Bates and the hilarious Jon Stewart, who mentioned that Mel Gibson would be sure to say he had such nachas…

It was by far the most elaborate reading I've been to. Each author read a selection atop a rather dramatic mini-set/platform. Stephen King looked like he was sitting on a lawn chair in a backyard, complete with wheelbarrow, John Irving sat in an arm-chair in an old-fashioned study, while J.K. Rowling looked like she was sitting on some tall, Dumbledore-type throne. And there was a pretty backdrop of a night sky.

Stephen King was fun, you could tell he was having a good time. He even got up and walked around the stage as he read. And he made a lot of entertaining remarks. As he was about to go into the gross details of the pie-eating contest in his story he broke off, "Who writes this stuff?" Later in the q and a session when asked what he's scared of he answered, quite simply, "Everything." The number of books and movies this supposedly scared man has been involved in is still hard for me to comprehend (to get some idea, check out this crazy list on imdb).

John Irving was a great reader. I was the least familiar with his works, but recognized what he read from a movie I saw many years back- Simon Birch. Whenever his tiny protagonist talked, he used this high pitched, squeaky voice, which completely cracked me and many others up. His characters were all so real and the casting of the Christmas pageant he read about so comical...it was a nice introduction to his writing.

And last but not least, and in all honesty the major reason why I came, like many others judging from the roar of the crowd, was the incredible J.K. Rowling. She read from her last book, and then said some very interesting things in the q and a session that followed [and if you're one of those muggles who's not a Harry Potter fan now is the time to skip to the next paragraph], like she believes all her characters - except Voldemort, who's a total psychopath - can be redeemed, and that includes Malfoy, who would never have killed that person who he had set out to kill (she specifically didn't mention the name to not be a spoiler). Another thing she mentioned was that if Hermione could look into the mirror of Erised now, she would see everyone safely back from where they're setting out to, and with a certain somebody, and you should all know who she's talking about [lots of shrieks and claps here].

When asked what kept her going in the face of rejection, she said something like, "I never stopped believing in my story." To me that was so inspiring. A few times, as she was speaking, I actually looked at the huge monitors (kindly installed for us people in the nosebleed section) and thought, "Thank you." And I know that's ridiculous, as I was nothing more than a speck to her from that throne, but I couldn't help it. I don't think I would've thought of Enchantia without reading Harry Potter. That's not to say my book is a rip-off of Harry Potter- Enchantia is just an imaginary world, whereas Harry's is all too real, and there are many other differences. But still, the inspiration for throwing kids and magic together, even if in imaginary form, had a lot to do with JKR's books. Regardless of whether it gets published I'll always feel grateful to her for the role she's played in this whole incredible writing journey. Oh wow, did that sound cheesy or what?

I think the real question is am I going on or what? This may be my longest post so far in the history of Forever Enchanted. Have a great weekend, you all.