Thank god for ex-Good Morning America producer friends

This afternoon I read at Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn and I was incredibly lucky that my dear friend Deb Eiseman made the trek (actually, that's the wrong word...on a warm spring day it's a trek, but in today's bitter cold, it was more like a schlep) over from the isle of Manhattan on which we live to support me.

And, you know, to make sure there was at least one person in the audience.

Not only is Deb a very talented artist -- you can see her work by clicking here-- but in a past life she used to be a producer for Good Morning America and she's still got that I'm-totally-fearless-and-have-no-problem-going-up-to-anyone-and-asking-for-anything thing going on, which meant that within five minutes she had wrangled about 10 teen girls in the store to come hear me read.

I knew there was a reason I was friends with Deb. Actually, there are many reasons I'm friends with her, but now there's one more.

And I not only remembered my camera, but I remembered to take it out of my bag before I started reading which meant that she could take pictures of me in action, so that you guys wouldn't be stuck looking at a picture of the Barnes & Noble restroom or something equally random which, left to my own devices, is the kind of lame-ass picture I would take. Unfortunately, in my excitement of looking out into the audience and seeing the shining faces of -- thanks to Deb -- a gaggle of teenage girls, I forgot to take a picture of Deb.

The last picture is of my new friend Claire, who goes to Brooklyn College and wants to be a writer herself. When she asked if I had any tips, I told her than in addition to reading, reading, reading and writing, writing, writing, she had to get Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life which you can check out by clicking here. I saw Anne Lamott speak once at Royce Hall at UCLA and it took everything in me not to throw myself at her feet in gratitude and admiration.

P.S. Apparently, upon first glance, many of you thought that the picture I posted on Tuesday was of the B&N at Carle Place rather than the train station waiting room which made me think that maybe I should organize a book tour that would be held solely in the waiting areas of train stations on rainy evenings...at least I'd have a captive audience.