Roswell Reads Luncheon

Once again it is time to fling the camera over my shoulder and take pictures to feed our ever hungry website, www.1MetroPlace.com, but my camera is broken, so words must suffice.

Today, my destination is the annual Roswell Reads Luncheon. Heidi, my neighbor and book club buddy, started the tradition of attending the event five years ago. If you are new to Roswell or have been procrastinating, don’t delay any longer, join the crowd next year. Buy your tickets early because they sell out in the first week. The Roswell Reads Luncheon is organized by the Roswell Public Library and in the current frenzy of cutting intelligent programs due to shrinking city budgets your dollar can hardly find a better job.

This year, Roswell Reads’ pick is Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall. I must say this relatively small book, some 300+ pages cost me two sleepless nights, but no hangovers.  I like exacting words, and short chapters.  I think the best works of fiction are local. Well, you may argue, Isaac Asimov wrote the greatest science fiction novels about times and places no one had been before, so how does local work for him? His local was science and humans and he knew both; he knew the drudgery to discovery, the stumbles before triumphs, he knew the language of science and humans. To me that’s local, and so is Carolyn Wall.Like a scientific experiment, Sweeping Up Glass screams a simple truth: when all else is equal, race and color don't matter.

I connect with the author on many levels. If I were a writer, I would be like her — a sponge of unfiltered life. No kidding, this woman seems to instinctively imbibe her surroundings with such precision, accuracy and immediacy that, like an oracle, her visions of the future are a natural outcome.

Surprisingly, her speech at this luncheon is more appropriate for a writing workshop; she assumes most every woman in the hall is an aspiring writer -- except for Roswell Mayor, Jerre Wood, and Carolyn Wall’s thirteen year old grandson, everyone present is of the female variety. Clairvoyant she is indeed! A wave of hope seems to turn on the light in many pairs of eyes in the hall. Maybe, just maybe, they will make it as a published author one day.   And then, Carolyn Wall offers another unexpected revelation to the audience — she doesn’t remember the names of all her characters and all the situations they get into. My book club members are confused, uncertain of what to make of it. I, on the other hand, am relieved. This is exactly how I would be, if I were a writer.

Carolyn Wall and me, Curtsey of my friend Sally

I would give birth to a story,  just  like birthing a baby,  and a few years down the road,  when the story is all grown up and told in the right words and can stand on its own, I would forget the exact details of rearing it up; I would make room for my future offspring.  Very little of what Carolyn Wall says about Sweeping Up Glass seems rehearsed, which may be the best indication for what hard work looks like when it’s over.

72 Sloan St

 I like to walk whenever I can, without a phone, to look around, take in the views and see what bloomed and what wilted and what transformed, and still the changes with my camera whenever possible. If you too would like to walk to the Roswell Adult Recreation Center, at 830 Grimes Bridge Rd, for the next Roswell Reads Luncheon, here are the three most and least expensive homes for sale within a mile radius.

1018 Taiman Dr

1069 Merrivale Chase

364 Norcross St

10175 Sway Branch Dr

329 Cestview Cir