David Gessner

I expected David Gessner’s reading to be the same or similar to the Tayari Jones reading when I originally went to the reading. Instead it was quite different. He seemed like a funny and charismatic person, but I felt that he talked about himself a little too much. The concept of the book kind of bored me too because it is not a topic that interests me. Nature interests me while I’m around it, but not while I am reading it. Though I found the topic of his book kind of boring, he did keep me interested with his witty personality. I found the making of his book to be more interesting to his actual book. He gave me insight on what actually goes on when it comes to publishing a book. My favorite part of his reading was when he was talking about how he wrote in a part of his book is his belief on what is wild and the difference between wild and wilderness. He mentioned how he wrote about what he believes is the wild and gave it to his editor and his editor gave it back to him saying pretty much “no, that’s not what you believe,” and Gessner kept having to change what he believes to fit the editors view on what he “actually” believes, turning his “I believe” into “we believe.” He also gave me insight on how the publishing industry works by telling us how his book was bought by one of the publishing companies but they kept wanting him to make changes and kept pushing back the deadline before they actually published his book. I was disappointed that there was no Question and Answer section of his reading. For Tayari Jones, that was the most interesting part of her reading. Instead of just hearing Gessner talk about himself and read from his book, a Question and Answer sections would have kept the audience more interested in what he had to say. I enjoy audience interaction because it makes me feel that whoever is the speaker cares what everyone else has to say instead of his views about his own work. Other people’s insight and questions allows the speaker and the audience get a difference perspective about the work being discussed and also gives the audience more information about the reading and a better understand of the author’s intentions and ideas of the book.