DAY ONE: Signing in

Today, in a sun-drenched suite on the 34th floor of the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, I did something I've been dreaming of doing for probably twenty years. I autographed my first book. As a part of the registration process, all authors have to sign a bunch of their books, which then become a part of the Harboufront Centre's permanent literature archive. But the first book in the pile is for one person in particular, Geoffrey Taylor, IFOA's director and basically the guy we have to thank for being invited in the first place (OK, some of us have Ben McNally to thank as well, and others owe Colm Toibin, the guest curator this year, a pint or three. But without Geoff, nada.). So, the first signed copy of The Riverbones goes to Mr. Taylor's personal library. Maybe someday I'll visit said library and see all the other signed works. Or maybe Geoff keeps them in a secret vault somewhere under the York Quay Centre.

Anyway, I had no idea I'd be signing any books. Nobody had told me. And as my pen hovered over the first book, opened to the title page, I realized I had no idea what to do. I've probably practiced my signature 10,000 times in preparation for this very moment, and now I couldn't remember which siggie I'd settled on. Was it my full name? Was it just my first initial and full last? Was it just two initials, which together make something of an ebony mountain range with a slash struck through it?

Or perhaps I should do something more beguiling. Perhaps I should draw something, a smirking happy face, an androgynous stick figure pleading with the heavens, or a farm animal, a different one in each book, maybe, the fecund farmyard of my mind spread across all the title pages of all the books I sign from now until I die.

I eventually settled on the mountain range, much to the relief of the woman who was holding the book open to the proper page the entire time I was sweating the decision. Things have got off to a strange, exciting, perspirational start. I am officially signed in.