I'll be doing a signing in Bellingham this Saturday, at the Barnes and Noble from 12-4. Details can be found here. Please come out and hang.

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I haven't read James Ellroy's new novel Perfidia. It's at the top of my ever-increasing stack. But I've read just about everything else he's done. My Dark Places, The Black Dahlia, White Jazz and American Tabloid are all seminal novels for me, as are the films he's been associated with, L.A. Confidential and Dark Blue. I think he's the most fearless living writer, and living proof that the Nobel committee is out to lunch.

So getting to meet him yesterday at the Writers Fest was great. His talk was a combination of his 'demon dog' schtick, a reading from Perfidia (which made me want to whip through the book I'm reading right now* to get to it), and questions. 

I'd met Ellroy before when I went to Seattle to see him hype his last book, Blood's A Rover. He is the most comfortable and eloquent reader of his own writing. And, channelling my inner Chris Farley, Ellroy seems like a cool guy.

As someone still finding his way as a public speaker, I look to Ellroy as the gold standard. Funny, insightful, able to quote poetry by heart, and can improvise when someone throws him a dumb question. I've done a few readings now and I think I'm getting better, but the only part I'm totally comfortable with is the Q&A. Ellroy gives me something to shoot for--if you could be that good, and have something new to say every time you come through town, you'd be on to something.

And of course I got him to sign my copy of Perfidia. His inscription: "To Sam: FEAR THIS BOOK."

Two masters of the written word.

*Joe Laurinaitis's biography. He's Animal from the Road Warriors/Legion of Doom. It's a really good book. And yes, I'm aware I probably won't get to Nicholas Nickelby or Middlemarch in this lifetime, due to the many pro wrestling biographies I've consumed. Let's not judge each other too harshly.