LitMinds Blog and Interviews

We have some pretty amazing people who have joined the LitMinds community including professors and teachers, bookstore owners & employees, literary bloggers, power readers,...

Lewis Klausner, the events organizer at Black Oak Books, actually fits more than one of those descriptions. We were introduced to Lewis via Persis Karim, a professor, author and Berkeley local herself, who told us that Lewis does a "bang up job" (paraphrasing) hosting author events at Black Oak Books (located in North Berkeley, California). He goes beyond the usual author talk by engaging the author in a discussion (Lewis reads the books of all the authors he hosts!), and has been know to bring in a music band, other subject experts, and strives to make each evening a truly special event.

Lewis took some time out of his busy event planning schedule to participate in this interview with LitMinds -- thanks Lewis!

1. Tell us a little about your background and how you came to Black Oak Books?

I wrote a dissertation on Robert Frost and modern poetry at Yale where I took my PhD. in English in 1988. I taught literature for 9 years at Yale University, Connecticut College, the University of Utah, and the University of San Francisco before settling down in Berkeley. My first job outside of academe was as a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton in San Francisco where I was responsible for the accuracy and coherence of documents and detailed summaries of meetings. I had been an occasional customer at Black Oak Books when I saw a sign in the window saying that the store was hiring. When I presented my resume, the owners asked if I would be willing to introduce authors at readings in the store as well as work the cash register, help people find books, do some shelving, and answer the phone. That was back in 1999. Over the years the whole range of reading series jobs devolved toward me -- scheduling the authors, ordering their books, writing the calendar, publicizing events, and hosting and introducing the authors.

2. What does your job as the event organizer involve?

Beyond the things I've already mentioned-- scheduling the dates, ordering the books, writing the calendar, managaing the publicity, and hosting the authors-- I've tried to synthesize more complex events. Sometimes I have brought speakers together in panels or in debate, added film or recorded musical components to the events, coordinated food or live music as parts of some events. I've tried to find partners to help publicize more effectively and to bring together different parts of the community. I've had contact with churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and meditation groups. I've partnered with university departments, music schools, student groups, political groups, restaurants, and wine merchants. I've discovered people and organizations I would never had met were I not doing this job. I've learned to think about events from a business point of view as well as from educational or social ones. Besides putting on an interesting event, I've got to find ways to make the events financially viable, such as negotiating book discounts and shipping costs.

3. What's the favorite part of the job for you?

There are several wonderful parts of the job. I like to invent an event or invite an author that no one else has thought of. I like to get suggestions for events from customers and co-workers. But the best part of the job is the events themselves, getting to hear and to talk with the speakers, getting to listen in and sometimes participate in the question and answer segments of the events. I also like introducing the authors. I get a quick three or four minutes to express my own thoughts to an audience-- that's about as much time as I want these days of standing at a lectern. Sometimes I've been asked to review a book, so I get to do a little writing too.

4. What makes your events different than author readings at other bookstores?

The standard bookstore series is about getting nationally and internationally known authors to read for twenty minutes from their latest book, take a few questions, and sign books. We have been open to a more open-minded approach to events, more local authors, more topic-oriented discussions, demonstrations of breathing techniques or tai-chi stances, even concerts. While the store supports itself financially from selling books, we've tried to also be a community center in a broader way. I think we are especially good at making authors and audiences feel comfortable, feel that we care about them as guests. I think we have been more personal in our hospitality than most bookstores.

5. Tell us about a recent event that you enjoyed conducting?

There have been so many great events: I had a ball collaborating with Robert Greenfield on the integration of a film montage I made to go along with his talk about the Rolling Stones. Colson Whitehead gave a fabulous taste of a new novel he's writing about kids in suburbia who talk in hip-hop lingo. He had a chart showing people how to put together hip-hop phrases. Robert Olen Butler read us an unpublished story that accounts for the missing 18 minutes of Nixon's Oval Office tapes. Jane Hischfield's elegy for Milosz read under his photograph on the wall was terribly moving. Lynn Freed reading her essay on sleeping with a snorer. Martha Nussbaum and Catherine McKinnon on social justice. Cindy Sheehan talking against the war in Iraq. Daniel Levitan explaining the neurophysiology and cognitive science of listening to music.

My favorite and ultimately saddest event was when W.G. Sebald came to read from his last novel, Austerlitz. It was a mesmerizing reading and a most thoughtful question and answer session. I was lucky enough to talk with him for a half hour before, and again for a half hour after his talk-- a remarkable conversation. When he left I was thinking "I wonder what that man will do next." He was killed in an auto accident two months later. A terrible tragedy. I feel fortunate to have met him.

6. What do you like about the LitMinds community?

I've long thought that the natural extention of a reading series would be an on-line conversation in which people could continue to respond to each other's responses to books and to authors. We tried to do this on the Black Oak website, but didn't figure out how to make it work. I love the idea that people might be able to keep their conversations about books going on LitMinds.

You can find Lewis's LitMinds profile here.