“Recently I was sitting with a male writer at a reading after a reading he gave. We were chatting, flirting a bit. It made me feel warm inside. Then I noticed three young women standing at the bar, staring longingly at the author. “You’ve got some groupies,” I said to him. “I hope so,” he said. “That’s the only reason why I write.” He craned his head back and scanned the women, then rose and walked over to the book sale table. He stood there casually until one of the girls sashayed across the room, picked up one of his books, and asked him to sign it.

“First I was impressed. Then I was kind of grossed out. Finally I was jealous.

“I would like to tell you that this kind of scenario applies to women writers too, that we are able to pick up young aspiring male writers in every brightly lit bookstore/darkened reading series we visit across the country. But it’s just not the case.”

Jami Attenberg on what she gets out of book touring.

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