Where & When: The Jones Room in the Woodruff Library on the campus of Emory University, Feburary 6, 2012. The reading was part of the Creative Writing Program's Reading Series.
Attendance: ~100 people with about 40 note-taking Emory creative writing students and a few mushroom aficionados since Millman is a noted author and mycologist.
Why I Went: My longtime fiance Denise is interested in the sciences and likes biology including fungi. We went at the last minute. I didn't even bring my camera.
What He Read: Millman read a couple of short pieces and then the lengthy title essay from his collection Lost in the Arctic: Explorations On the Edge. He has written 11 books.
Q & A: Several audience members asked what walrus meat and seal liver tasted like. Millman says that walrus meat – like horse meat – is a little bland, unless you “cure” it in a special way, which I believe involved burying it underground in a barrel for a few months. Seal liver according to Millman tastes like calf liver, but with a more pronounced liver taste.
Question I Was Too Timid to Ask: “How do you get your ball cap stay cocked so jauntily on your head?” Millman wore this long billed outdoors man ball cap during the reading and it stayed perfectly in place. Along with his cargo pants, it fit his image as an adventurer.
Did I Buy Something? No, but we ordered mushrooms for our takeout Farm Burgers on our way home.
Worth Mentioning: Although the reading went well over an hour Millman is a very good reader with a timely cadence. He uses short pauses to emphasize his words and bring out his sense of humor. Millman admits that collecting the stories of the Inuit Tribes of the Arctic regions has helped hone his oral storytelling abilities.
Comments