Larry Benjamin's Blog: Larry Benjamin's blog - This Writer's Life - Posts Tagged "lambda-literary-award"

I talk a lot about always feeling other, always feeling alien. For the most part this feeling of otherness is something that envelopes me like my skin. I tend not to think about it unless something irritates me, sort of how we tend not to think too much about the skin we’re in until a blemish erupts, or a mosquito makes a meal of us.

Tuesday night I had the great honor of participating in the Lammy Finalist Reading at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York (Yes, Virginia there is such a thing, and if you haven’t been there I urge you to go check it out.) It would be the first time I ever read in public and I admit I was a tad nervous—okay more than a tad. Also New York itself unnerves me: all those people, all that crackling energy, all that movement. My brother met me at Penn Station and we went to a diner for lunch. And then it was 5:15 and we were walking into the museum. I was the first reader to arrive. They were setting up a display of finalists’ books for sale and there it was—on the left at the front—Unbroken. My Unbroken. I stepped back. Was this really happening? I pulled out my phone and took a picture in case it all suddenly disappeared like a dream.
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