Flying back from AWP on JetBlue during the Super Bowl meant that I kept being startled out of my copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a giveaway item at the Houghton Mifflin booth!) as groans or cheers rippled through the plane.  I also spent some time with headphones on, clicking through channels and, as usual, finding almost nothing I wanted to watch except the one-hour program that kept repeating on the Times On Air channel (this month it includes interviews with Tom Stoppard and Steve Martin as well as a tiny segment on the National Book Awards that shows Robert Hass accepting his).  Oh, and I caught the last half of Legally Blonde, which I’d never seen before, and which was really fun.  I also saw Rob Sheffield, author of the affecting memoir Love is a Mix Tape, discussing the Beastie Boys on a program that seemed to be exclusively devoted to the cultural impact of the song “(You’ve Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party).” 

The speakers on our panel were wonderful.  I am so grateful that they agreed to participate.  Although we didn’t coordinate this ahead of time, their talks intersected and resonated with one another in wonderful ways.  Maybe at some point they can be published together so that more people can benefit from hearing them.