The Big One
Tomorrow is the biggest event of my nascent writing career. I'll be reading from my novel at the Mineshaft Tavern in Madrid, New Mexico, on Friday May 2, 7-8 pm. Then country-rock powerhouse Hundred Year Flood will shake the stage from 8-12.
I have never read before a large audience before but I feel good about the material. And a wee nip of courage never hurt a writer. Great local press and enthusiastic boosters have grooved a fastball down the plate for me. I just need to crush it.
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About Andrew
I was born Andrew David Wice in 1974 to two Political Science professors in Pittsburgh, PA. I learned to walk in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was raised in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. In the spring of 1991, during the first Gulf War, I served as a page in...
Congratulations
What a very stylish way to introduce your book to the world! Please keep us posted on how the reading goes.
Thomas Dotson, Red Room Staff
Wonderful
Break a leg. When you know your material is good, you have all the confidence in the world.
Go get 'em, Andrew!
I can just feel the adrenaline rush you will experience-- how exciting!
Be sure to let us know how it goes.
The Mineshaft Tavern
Man oh man, Andrew, did your blog swirl up some distant memories for me. In the early '70s of the last century, my recently divorced mother would take me and her friends to dinner, music, and drinks (probably a juice of some kind or a soft drink for me as I was still a wee one) at The Mineshaft. Back then, Madrid really was a ghost town with some hippie-like squatters scattered around the hillside shacks, although I suspect it has changed a lot since my time there. Later on, when I was in high school at Santa Fe High, Madrid was the place to go to score mushrooms of the magic variety. Anyway, my Mineshaft memory is this: I'm around 5, the place is really dim, and there is some sort of Día de los Muertos-ish skeleton with a sombreo on a wall somewhere (is it still there?) . A band of five Hispanic brothers played on the stage, can't recall their collective name, but they did a version of The Beatles 'Rocky Racoon'. That was the first time I'd ever head that tune, and it wasn't until some years later that I realized the song didn't orignate for that little bar band in New Mexico. In any case, whenever I hear 'Rocky Racoon' it's The Mineshaft Tavern that springs to mind.
All right, all right, I hope you knocked them out of their boots on May 2nd. Continued success with your novel and your writing.
Yours,
Mitch Cullin
Mineshaft Tavern
Mitch,
Happy to help dust off some memories for you. Though the bar has been through some changes since you saw it last, it and Madrid have stayed pretty close to their roots. I've been here since 2001, with some stretches far away.
The artists living around here are of a startlingly high quality. The dogs still roam free and the tequila still flows at the Mineshaft.