see it bigger

Here are my notes from one of my favorite writers, Tom Perrotta, in conversation with John Pierson during a Master Class at UT. Thanks to John for inviting me.

Some words of wisdom: The enemy of good caricature is fear of what your subject might think of the results. (I drew Tom at the Texas Book Festival in 2007.) Lucky for me, Tom’s a really nice guy…

If you want some good reading, go buy some of his books!

Yesterday Meg and I went to the Texas Book Festival. We were hoping to catch Shalom Auslander at the book signing tent, but he didn’t show up, so we walked downtown and got some Jimmy Johns and ate it on the lawn of the capital. Beautiful day. We finished up lunch and went to the House Chamber (which is pimped out beyond belief with the most comfortable leather chairs I’ve ever sat in) to listen to Tom Perrotta read:

After that, we went to see the always-fantastic-certified-genius George Saunders:

That last panel is a response to a (kinda lengthy) question I asked in the Q & A: “You’ve written about Charles Schulz and Peanuts before. David Michaelis’s new biography questions whether Schulz was as good of a family man as we’ve been led to believe. You strike me as a genuine family man, and I detect the great theme of work vs. family in your writing. So what do you think is the relation between being a good artist and being a great family man, and which do you think is more important?”

That night, we walked downtown to see a screening of Little Children at the newly-reopened Alamo Ritz. I love Tom Perrotta, but he really seemed uncomfortable in the setting:

All in all, it was a great day.