I gave a reading yesterday at ArtFete, a fundraising event for ArtSFest, which celebrates and showcases a wide range of arts in the Bay Area. Also reading was Jeff Greenwald, author of several books about travel. Greenwald read a wonderful piece about dawn-diving off Australia
from The Size of the World. You can read an excerpt from The Size of the World here. Greenwald did a fetching impression of a moray eel, described the ethereal, cocoon-encased slumber of the parrot fish, and quoted something Arthur C. Clarke said to him in a private conversation a long time ago, when Greenwald was dreaming of being an astronaut: If you can’t make it into space, become a scuba diver. Greenwald said that the advice was sound: to be suspended beneath the sea feels, he said, a lot like floating in space. Greenwald’s excellent blog is here. Joan Gelfand arranged the literary portion of the event. Her poetry collection, Seeking Center, is available at Bookshop West Portal, Green Apple, Book Passage, and other independent stores.