August 2016 Meeting: The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Around this time last year I chopped it with NY Times photojournalist Michelle Agins who won a Pultizer in 2001 for a series called "How Race is Lived in America." The first thing I asked--cause I'm a clown—was what she did with the money. Her being from the Southside of the Chi, she kept it 100 with me: "I had a fish fry." It is still, to this day, the most gangsta shit I've ever heard someone do with prize money. And she didn't go to a fish market. She sent for the whole aquarium. When one of her friends asked her who was gonna eat all this food, Michelle told me she said one thing: "If I fry it, they will come." Sure enough, they did. I tell this story because it's how I've learned to run these #literaryswagbookclub meetings. Every month some curveball is being thrown—inclement weather, last minute venue changes, not having enough Martinelli's (last night)—but I'm seeing that as long as there's a book club to come to, people will come. Won't always be the same people (there's more people one month; less the next) but the importance is to just keep doing it. So thank you to the people who came through to chop it up last night, and were willing to relocate when it rained. Thank you to Nuratu for sponsoring the Martinelli's. Thank you to Dulce who came through with the snacks. And I gotta thank Eve's for not kicking us out even tho we took up a whole section and only bought $9 worth of stuff. This is the 8th meeting of the Book Club and next month marks a year since the first one so you know we gonna have to do it Christopher Wallace. Faith and commitment got us this far. I'm sure it will only take us further!