Shannon Lynn Fox – Author

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Bookish Memories. These aren’t all technically about books, so much as memories about literature events AND books. There are sooo many, but here are some of my top picks.

1) I got asked to prom with a book.

– For my senior prom, the guy that asked me gave me a book in which he’d written on the inside cover, to go to prom with him. I still have that book.

2) The Release of the sixth Harry Potter book.

-The day after the sixth Harry Potter book got released, I went out to the barn. One of my favorite memories is seeing all the girls huddled up in the lounge, passing the copy on to each other as they got up to go ride in their lessons. 4 girls, literally sharing one book, in one of their favorite places ever.

3) The Blabbermouth Open Mic series

-Not technically bookish, but this is an on-going open mic series at UCSD. I’m currently the host. I’ve always loved this event because for me, it meant getting to spend time with my lit friends outside of class.

4) The reading of Versed by Rae Armentrout in downtown San Diego

-This is essentially the reason my ex and I got together. We initially made plans to go and see her read her from her book of poetry, that one the Pulitzer Prize that year. Rae Armentrout is a professor of poetry at UCSD.

5) Reading Wuthering Heights on my trip to London

-I started reading this book on the plane ride over to London. It was my first trip to Europe and my first trip outside the country without my parents. I went with my high school band and orchestra over winter break in 2005. We were there for New Years.

6) Getting to listen to Aimee Bender talk

-UCSD hosts a New Writing Series. We’d been studying some of Aimee Bender’s short stories in my fiction class. The next week, she was at UCSD and reading from some of her work.

7) My paper on Lolita

-I got to analyze the book and the original film side-by-side. This is one of my favorite things. I really enjoy analyzing multiple adaptations of the same work and how they inform our readings of the other.

8) My book and film analysis of Farewell to the Master

-For my sci-fi class, I analyzed the short story Farewell to the Master, which is the text the two films of The Day the Earth Stood Still were based upon. This was in fall quarter. Over winter break I was talking to my neighbor, who actually knew the director of the more recent film, Scott Derrickson, because they’d gone to school together. He forwarded my paper to Derrickson and he read it and enjoyed it. I may have only gotten a B+ on the paper, but hell, that’s so much better!

9) The poetry readings at The Museum of the Modern Artist in San Diego

I went to see a reading by Ilya Kaminsky and his wife, Katie Ferris. It was one of the last times I got to hang out with a big group of my lit friends, as we went down to the reading, drank wine, ate food, and looked at art, all while in Balboa Park.

10) I can’t wait to find out what the future holds!