ZZ Packer Book Party at Housing Works

On the night Barack Obama formally accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States of America (and just before I high-tailed it to B. Smith's to watch the speech) I went to the Housing Works Bookstore in Soho for a book party celebrating the release of a new anthology edited by ZZ Packer called New Stories From The South: The Year's Best 2008.  ZZ is the author of one of my favorite short story collections, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.  It was a fun night and I got to see people already knew like "The Other Nichelle" - Nichelle Stephens and meet a lot of cool new people like ZZ herself and Maud Newton, who hosted the event which benefited KARES - Katrina Arts Relief and Emergency Support.  I also finally met an online pal in the flesh, critically-acclaimed author Tayari Jones.  That's Tayari and I with ZZ in the opening picture borrowed from Tayari's Flickr set.  Tayari is the author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling and she teaches at Rutger's University MFA program in Newark.

The signing was great, but of course food made it even better and we were all just falling over the bread pudding and the crawfish cheesecake from Mara's Homemade. Think crawfish, andouille sausage, cheese... absolutely amazing.  I saw Tayari with a plate and I said, "Girl, what is that???" You know it's serious if I have to start with "Girl..."

I would have never made it home in time to watch Obama's acceptance speech, so I'm glad that I remembered my friend's email about a watch party at B. Smith's.  It worked out well because you could hear a pin drop.  Almost as good as being home.