So this trip to Moshi has taken a turn for the tax deductible.  It all started with a botched meet up with a friend of a friend.  I wound up spending some time in a closed bar and hitting it off with the owner.  To be fair, hitting it off with this guy is like hitting a t-ball…everyone’s his pal.  When he found out that I was a writer, he put me to work, giving me all of the copy from his website to re-write and setting me up as a guest speaker at a secondary school for the following day. 

And sure enough, the next day a teacher came to pick me up for my book talk at the school.  I was barely prepared without a single copy of my book and no time to practice and had to read to a group of about 40 girls from a very early version of the Hot Mess manuscript I had on my laptop.  The girls spoke English fluently, but weren’t all that well versed in teen American speak, so I lost them after the first Pete Wentz reference.  But, the following Q&A was great with way different questions than what I normally get.  Two of my faves were “What is the biggest problem facing American writers today?” and “Did you tell your parents that you write?”  Afterward, the teacher gave me the overwhelmingly positive feedback of “That went better than I thought it would.”  I took this to mean that I can officially consider myself an international phenomenon.  I won’t forget the little people though…you guys pop up on my Facebook feed anyway, so I couldn’t even if I tried.