[APPLAUSE]
I haven't thought about that old website in a long time.
So that was a treat.
[LAUGHTER]
Sort of.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm so pleased to be here in Tucson
to introduce Ander Monson.
Can you all hear me?
Am I using this correctly?
Yes.
OK.
I've been working with Ander since 2006,
when he won Graywolf's Non-fiction prize
for his first book of essays, Neck
Deep and Other Predicaments.
His next nonfiction project, Vanishing Point,
which had the adamant subtitle, Not a Memoir,
was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics
Circle Award for Criticism.
And his latest book, Letter to a Future Lover,
which he'll read from tonight, will be published next month.
So this is a sneak preview.
The books for sale here are here semi-illegally,
pre-publication.
One of the things that I love about all of Ander's work
is the way that he relentlessly pushes and investigates
his obsessions, delving into them in the nerdiest way
and enthusiastically bringing the reader along
for an intellectually thrilling and emotional ride.
However much you might have thought
you cared about Doritos, or Dungeons and Dragons, or snow
in northern Michigan, or Predator,
as I found out tonight, A "Letter to a Future Lover"
grew out of Ander's love of libraries and the 60
some-- is that right?
I always mess it up.
There's way more.
Way more, the way more brief essays in it
go straight to the heart of any lover of reading and books.
Each piece was inspired by a piece
of ephemera found in a library.
And the book as a whole is a tribute to the shared reading
experience that libraries allow us.
I'll let Ander tell you more about the project
and explain how his ideal form for the book
wasn't a book at all, but a box.
Ander teaches in the MFA program here
at the University of Arizona.
In addition to his Graywolf books,
he's the author of a book of fiction, Other Electricities,
and two books of poetry, The Available World and Vacation
Land.
He is the founder and editor of Diagram,
an online literary journal, as well as New Michigan Press.
And his website, otherelectricities.com,
is so much more than an author website.
It's a wormhole into endless other wormholes.
And you should go there often and look at it in the Wayback
Machine, I guess.
You see what else used to be there.
But now let's enjoy Ander in person.
Ander Monson.
[APPLAUSE]