As is typical for atypical me, I didn’t follow up after the Schomburg event right after it happened, but it was a very fun day. I sold some books, had some great conversations with readers, fellow indie and self-published writers and students of writing, got some sales help from Ed and my dear Vassar friend Elizabeth, and I connected with out-of-town cousins who were attending and just happened to stroll by. Vendors had to stay at their tables, so I wasn’t able to hear the speakers, but I felt the vibe and saw Walter Mosley from afar. My neighbor and fellow Buddhist Dolly urged me to give Edwidge Danticat a copy of my book, and she took a picture of us together. I introduced myself and said that I was Paule Marshall’s niece, and she told me that they would be having an event to honor her at NYU in the fall. Paule was one of Ms. Danticat’s mentors as was Toni Morrison, and after their deaths, she wrote a piece about their influence on her that appeared in the New Yorker on August 17, 2019, entitled “The Ancestral Blessings of Toni Morrison and Paule Marshall.” Ms. Danticat e-mailed me and thanked me for the book and said she would invite me to the event.
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