Oh. I know. Who the hell is Willy, right? Well, if you go back to March of 2010 (when I was just a baby first year in University – says she, now a more seasoned and wiser third year) I wrote a blog post about a surprise visiting writer we had the pleasure of spending seven minutes in heaven 72 minutes of class with.
His name was Willy Vlautin. I was dreaming and drooling over him for weeks after. Major major crush. Good thing I married a guy just like him or I’d still be dreaming of the day when Willie would come back to Galway and ask me to run away with him.
Well, back in Galway he is for the Galway Arts Festival and thanks to one of my friends from college, who phoned last week to say ‘keep Tuesday night free, I already bought the tickets’, I got to swoon sigh drool see him again tonight at the Hotel Meyrick where he did a reading and participated in a Q & A chat with none other than Roddy Doyle himself. Can you say dream team or what?
Willie must have gotten wind that I was well and happily married, hence the fact that he has not asked me to run away with him, and I am reluctantly coming to terms with that. Although the Chef does not read the blog, he is well aware of my Willy crush and thankfully indulges my fixations. He is a good husband.
Now, I am sure you have read Roddy Doyles work and seen plenty of Roddy Doyles movies, but how many times have you heard him read a piece of his own work or heard him offer advice to a room full of budding writers?
This blog post started out as another huge droolfest over my crush-on-Willy but truth be told, Irish man Roddy swooped in and stole the show. Of course he did.
Both read from their work with such ease and eloquence that you were transported into the lives of their characters within seconds. Roddy, reading a short story called ‘Animals’ laughed at his own work whilst reading to us. We laughed too. He injects humor into his work so stylistically and never misses the opportunity to send a poignant message in the last gasp of the story that hits you in the gut. A craftsman for sure. Hats off Roddy Doyle. This was my first time seeing him ‘live’ and I am sure it will not be my last.
Willy read a few pages of his newest book ‘Lean on Pete‘ and although I had heard him read before, I was probably too caught up in having a crush on him to have really listened to what he was really saying. Willy writes about ordinary people, living ordinary working class lives, in America. There is such a lovely familiarity to his soft voice. I could listen to him all day long talking about pick up trucks and road trips across America. But, and I think I mentioned this last time I wrote about him, it is the humbleness of this author that I am drawn to. He is great. He can write. Roddy Doyle likes his writings and loves his music. Yet Willy just sits back in his armchair and never for one moment expects a rousing round of applause. The audience loved him. My hands hurt from clapping and my sides hurt from laughing and my face aches with the strain of smiling all night.
The last question of the Q & A part of the evening came from a young school teacher who posed the question to the duo about how to encourage the youth of today (esp. young teens) to become voracious readers with the hopes that we will breed another generation of great writers.
I thought this was an excellent question and even grasped from her tone that she was (perhaps rightly so) very concerned about the fact that kids today are not reading enough and playing computer games and messing about with all the social media tools and games too much. I was dying to hear the response.
‘Bring back corporal punishment’ said Roddy Doyle. The crowd went wild in response to this one!
After the laughter had subsided ‘Nothing to worry about at all’ said Roddy. Imagine that! He reckons that kids are reading, maybe not with book in hand, but they are reading on the internet, and keeping abreast of the happenings of the world without ever reading a newspaper.
New generations bring new ways of learning.
Willy could not match Roddy’s response and just shyly said ‘I’m moving in’ to Roddy and the audience gave them a rousing round of applause which brought the evening to a close.
Have you bought tickets for any of the events at the Galway Arts Festival? It is not too late! Have a look at their website and get out there and support the Arts!
Those are all the WiseWords I have for today,
WiseMóna
P.S. This is my 295th post.
WordPress keeps telling me that hitting the 300th post is a big thing so I plan on celebrating a little with a bunch of giveaways. A few things shiny, a few things pretty and a few nice surprises. So, if you are not already signed up to receive WiseWords via email (enter your email address in the little box on the top RIGHT hand side of the page) you might want to do so now to be in with a chance to win something! AND if you want to double your chances then ‘like’ the Facebook page for WiseWords.
I am signed up to receive via email and so hope I win. But then I’m also hoping the prize is a trip to visit you. 🙂
Thanks Barb. You can come visit anytime you want! Lots of room here at Chez Wise.
We read Lean On pete in our bloggers book club last year and it was the only book I missed, reading this has made me decide to definitely read it 🙂
Lorna – if he ever comes to dinner you are soooo invited!
I love his style …
That event sounds like a great time! I will have to check out these authors…my book pile from the library is dwindling…
(also i had no idea about that e-mail option! i’ll have to go through and do it for all my wordpress friends!)
O… hmm, never heard of the guy but it sounds like a fun event Mona… And I didn’t know that 300 was such a big deal… I went back and checked on mine and I’m on 368… Does that mean I am doomed now… not having celebrated the 300th post…lol
You know, I did not know that 300 was such a big deal either but every time I open WordPress a little thing pops up tell me how close I am to this ‘milestone’
so I guess it is a big deal. And no Simone, I would hardly say you are doomed dear. Powerblogger you are!
Don’t know Willy, Mona, but I’m going to look him up as you speak so highly of him. I love Roddy Doyle – so glad he gave up the teaching and became a writer. Sorry I missed this great session. Sounds like you got loads out of it as well as an evening’s entertainment.
What’s funny is that I hit 300 then in cleaning up my blog I somehow ended up back down to about 294.. so I get to hit 300 twice! Congrats to you, darling and I just signed up for email alerts so I don’t miss a one! xo
I learned from experience a few things: you can’t force kids to read; when parents are avid readers (such as we are) either the kids will copy them and read themselves or completely reject in in their desire to be as unlike their parents as possible; some things count as reading (comics, etc) that we don’t think of reading. How did we handle non-reading sons (mostly they never read because of the change of languages when we moved from Italy to France)? We bought great films that told interesting stories with a rich vocabulary. They may not have read any great books, no classics, but they loved the movie versions and that is something!
Jamie. Thank you so much for this. I need words of encouragement from other Mom’s that like to read.
It is a struggle, and sometimes I feel like giving up but as they are just learning to read I feel compelled to encourage them.
You are right it is so hard to force anyone to love what you love. I guess, I will be thrilled if they love to cook! Thank you so much though.
I mean it. Mom-toMom :0)