Are you a good listener?

I hope you all are having a great summer. Last week’s meltdown notwithstanding, my summer’s really been fantastic. This past weekend I went up to Albany with a bunch of friends to see my fiancé, and today I’m off with one of my girlfriends to watch a football game. 

But the thing that’s most blog-worthy since I last wrote is that my MFA program invited me back to their summer residency as their featured alumni speaker.

I’ve got to admit, it’s been an especially busy week, and I didn’t really have as much time to prepare as I’d wanted. I didn’t think I was nervous until I found myself standing in front of the mike. Then, my heart started beating like crazy and my head started to pound.

Normally I’m pretty good at speaking. I know all the tricks: Imagine the audience naked. Pretend you’re someone else (like a movie star). Or take the Paris Hilton approach and act like you’re wearing an invisible tiara. But sometimes the tricks get…tricky. I saw this picture in the window of the public library this week and I thought it was destined to be on my blog. (I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something.)

So–here’s why I’m writing about this today. I’m toying with the idea of adding a little audio clip on my Web site so people can listen to an excerpt of the new book, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. But I’m wondering, What do you think about that? There’s pros and cons to hearing an author read aloud.  

For me, reading a book is such a personal experience. When I’m reading (alone), I want the experience to be about me and the page.  There’s something that happens in the space between the story and me that’s so intimate, it feels really weird to share that private magic.

Plus, when I hear someone reading their work, it really influences the way that I hear and experience the story. I read the rest of the book in the author’s voice! I told another writer once that I love hearing writers talk about their work, but I’m a little less enthusiastic about hearing writers read their work. She disagreed.

LOVE TO READERS: What do you think? Do you like to hear authors read their work? Does it change the work for you to hear a writer read?