It’s been a busy week. How can I tell it’s been a busy week? One way is that I went to New York to read at the KGB Bar on Wednesday night, and I’m only just telling you about it on Saturday!

I got to Manhattan early that morning, and until I needed to head downtown in the evening, I spent my time in meetings with my boss. (Not, not Liz Lemon. And no, not Jack Donaghy, either.) The first person I spotted when I got to the bar was my partner in crime that night, Jack Ketchum, who was standing outside catching a smoke. Here we are inside in a photo taken by the evening’s co-host Ellen Datlow.

(For more photos, check out Ellen Datlow’s flickr stream.)

I was glad to see my tribe outside of the usual convention circuit venues. If I lived in NY, I guess I’d be doing it all the time, but for me it was a rare experience to see my friends in something other than a strange hotel.

I read about 85% of the title story from my collection What Will Come After, shortening it so I could fit it into the time allotted. I’d originally been thinking of reading a shorter, lighter story in its entirely, but I was thankful that Ellen and her co-host Matt Kressel thought I should do otherwise. “What Will Come After” is me at my best, and even though I was getting so emotional reading it I almost lost it a couple of times, I’m glad that’s the side of me I got to show off.

There’s a lot more I could share about the trip, including my amazing Thursday lunch at Shopsin’s, which was almost (but not quite) enough to cause me to move back to New York, but I’ll have to leave all that for another time. Yes, I’m that busy.