I didn't just go to another author lecture at Books & Books, the premier bookstore in town.
I had the awesome luck to hear Patti Smith -- the rock star godmother, a literary legend and deeply wise soul -- read and sing at the Miami Book Fair International. (The annual event is basically a huge 8-day literary party.)
She spoke just days after she won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids. It deals with her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and living in the Chelsea Hotel in the 1960s.
She read excerpts, carefully marked with scraps of paper, about leaving home, how she met Allen Ginsberg and other very cool stuff.
And she rocked, first on an acoustic guitar and then at the end, singing a cappella Because the Night, with the crowd.
She was so inspiring and so wise - telling us about how she wrote that hit waiting for a phone call from her then boyfriend, later husband; how she thinks about her readers/listeners when writing music or prose or poetry; how fame is fleeting.
To listen to Patti read from her book, check this out at NPR.
