DBF

This weekend I had Eggs Benedict across the street from where I sit now.  I'm not entirely convinced of the innate interestingness of people-watching, but that's what I was doing while waiting for my reading in the Decatur Book Festival.  Lots of people milled past; they were dusty with confectioner's sugar, eating funnel cake.  Fried dough:  that was poetry, man, whoever done thunk that up.  None for me, though, and I really only picked at the brunch I'd ordered.  I was in a bad mood.

I went to hear Natasha Trethewey read from her new memoir Beyond Katrina.  A great reading, a great audience.  I was scheduled to read in the very same spot a few hours later.  When I entered the room, my eyes scanned out over the area, checking for any potential problems with access.  There were three or four stairs up to the ramp.  No ramp.  I couldn't see an alternate way on to the stage.  I wouldn't be able to get up to the podium and microphone.

If this were the first time something like this had happened, at any reading anywhere, I would have been bemused.  But it wasn't the first time, or even the second or third.  Instead, I was just unsurprised.  When Natasha finished, I left and went back through the crush of people to the author check-in site.  I mentioned the problem.  After some repeated explanation, the organizers began rapidly iPhoning.  There was nothing they could really do at that point, I knew, but I felt compelled to speak up.

I read on the floor in front of the stage with a plastic ironing board for a podium.  No big deal.  It went just fine.

But I think I should say this to All Organizers Everywhere:

 

If you invite a disabled person to your party, make sure he can get in the house.  If you invite a disabled person for a job interview, don't be annoyed that the person really is, you know, disabled.  If you invite a disabled person to read at your campus or festival, whether he reads from a memoir about disability or not, don't ask them to read in places which act as obstacles.

I should also say that I know that running something like the Decatur Book Festival, with its hundreds of writers and tens of thousands of visitors, must be insanely difficult.  I can't even know.  The Festival was great and I encourage any writer to come if asked.  I've always had a great time and look forward to reading there again.  But, please don't forget, amidst the frantic sprawl of preparation, to ask if a person's needs are being met or if they're being forgotten.