I once heard someone describe being a writer is essentially being someone who didn’t get invited to the party. And I’ve always resonated with that. There was actually a time in middle school when everyone in my class was invited to one girl’s birthday party, except me. I had no idea why. And what made it worse was my teacher, Mrs. Brookman, noticed this and spoke to the girl’s mom, and then that girl’s mother made her invite me. And I was embarrassed the whole time I was there. This is my life in a nutshell.
Luckily, the Rose/Clash Party is an open invitation with no exclusive guest list. Anyone who knew about it could attend.
It wasn’t until the final day of AWP that I woke up, finished my coverage for the day before, and said “nah” to all the events. All the promises to stop by the bookfair, to pick up some books, say hi—broke em all.
Nah.
I’m sleepy.
So I clean my father-in-law’s house and pack my suitcase until it’s time get to the first event of the day at 7:00 PM.
The location of the Cash4Gold reading is in Chinatown on Ord street—and I must say, fastest drive, cheapest parking.
I see no sign of an entrance but as I’m walking up, Brian Allen Ellis hops out of an Uber. We hug and walk to where other fellow attendees are congregating in a parking lot behind the building it says we’re supposed to be at.
A Honda CR-V rolls into the lot and stops in front of a huge metal garage door. Driver hops out, unlocks a padlock, backs his car into the garage, then closes the huge door.
“Is it in there?” I ask Brian.
“I’ll text Jon,” he says.
This is in reference to Jon Lindsey. Noted author of Body High and owner of an incredible head of hair. Its scarlet brilliance is designed in a way that I would describe as elegantly electrocuted. Two seconds after hitting send on his text, Jon pops his head out of the garage side door and shows us inside. His counterpart, Allie Rowbottom, is kindly walking around gracefully, greeting those who came in and thanking them for coming.
I get into a conversation with an MFA student with an incredible mustache, and as I do, shuffle indiscreetly as we speak until I can lean against a wall, next to the only couch in the back of the room which I was eyeing for an opening.
Tex Gresham is incognito without his signature beanie and tinted glasses. He would look incredible in a well tailored suit.
I nurse my soda, alone, taking Vlad Mag stickers off the merch table every few minutes. Christoph Paul and Erin Satterthwaite nod at one another and take off to get to the Rose Books/Clash Books party early. Which made the couch available for me.
Near 8:15 PM, Kevin Maloney walks in with two women. One with brown hair, who I knew was his fiancée and a writer. One blonde who I’d seen at the other events.
The blonde one drops on the couch beside me while Kevin takes a spot towering in front of me. I tell myself I’ll leave at 8:30 to go to the party, and I’m deciding if I should walk the distance or try to find parking. It would never be as cheap as Chinatown.
After three days of practice, I am now capable of introducing myself to people without needing to be drunk first. I hold my hand out to the little blonde woman and say hi and that I’m James and that I think we’ve met. She introduced herself as M. M. Kaufman. I knew that name, she was the managing editor at Rejection Letters.
“What’s your last name?” she asks.
“Hatfield.”
“James Hatfield. Got it.”
“Where were you guys at before this?”
“The 804, ab, um, Maudlin House thing.”
“Cool. Cool. How was that?”
“It was good. So loud.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. So, Hatfield. That’s a great last name.”
“Oh thanks.”
“Remind me your first name again.”
“It’s James.”
“James. Okay. I remember last names better than first names. I might ask you a lot.”
“You can just call me Hatfield. I don’t care.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all, I prefer it. Can I call you Kaufman?”
“Of course!”
And that’s how I met my friend Kaufman.
I stand up to leave and told Kaufman I’d see her there. Then I tap Kevin on the arm to thank him for reposting the article for my coverage of the previous day. He then introduced me to his fiancée and fellow writer Ryan-Ashley Anderson. Without delay we start exchanging techniques for getting high off hand sanitizer, liquid cement, and sharpie markers. I look back and watch Kaufman teeter on to her elbow on the couch.
The weird, sleepy, markers sniffing kids from the back of the class, now hang out at the back of the literary readings. This feels right.
“I think we’re gonna go right now,” Kevin says. “About to call a Lyft, if you wanna get in on it with us.”
It felt sort of like a slate wiped clean in my head. It took me a second to register.
I just got invited to a party. Sort of.
This is a crucial moment. All four of us stand huddled in a Chinatown garage trying to sort out a rideshare.
Do I tell them I have a car?
I did, and I don’t think I even finished offering before all three of them in unison were like, “Yeah let’s do that.”
In the car I offer clementines to everybody, I’ve had four on hand at all times during this trip to save money on food whenever I got peckish.
Kaufman was like, “Gimme That. Yes. Yes Hatfield!”
“Please don’t leave any orange peels back there, it’s my father-in-law’s car,” I say kindly.
And I feel a piece of a clementine peel hit the back of jacket.
I have been sworn to secrecy via blood oath to not reveal any of the hot tea that was spilled all over the interior of my father-in-law’s Honda. But it was extraordinarily hot. And the amount of ruckus caused by the three in my car made it painfully clear that they were all absolutely hammered.
After passing Bar Henry, the location of the party, I pull a U-turn and proceed to do the worst parallel parking job in the history of the planet. Similar to erectile dysfunction, it’s so much harder to execute when there’s an audience.
We are greeted by a smiling Chelsea Hodson at the door with Rose Books totes in hand for all attendees.
I stop by the DJ booth and pat Geoff Rickly and ask him about how the rest of the reading went the night before.
“Did it settle down?” I ask.
“Uh, kinda,” he says.
We drank a round of margaritas, mine non-alcoholic.
Then I got the second round.
Then we hit that weird, crucial point after become new friends where you are standing around and talking, but you haven’t done enough things together to have something else to talk about. You can chat all you like but at some point you have to also do things. And this is the pain of being alive.
Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you look at it—that’s when Aaron Burch arrived.
Aaron Burch decides that this convoy should mosey over to a different bar down the strip called Short Stop. Given Burch’s love of baseball, this seems fitting.
Said bar was only 10 minutes away.
There was also discussion of literary sex machine Brad Listi joining us. This never happened. But I did get a glance at him outside of Bar Henry, and I can confirm, he is sexy. I can see why he added video to the podcast.
Aaron Burch, our Moses with a broken compass, leads us. After walking, at the very least, 60 miles we came upon a blue neon mecca. The line outside couldn’t have been less than a mile long. I don’t drink, but somehow after walking this far I feel especially sober.
Here’s some quick math: A baseball themed bar in LA + Dodgers are playing = you’re not getting in.
So we double back and pit stop at a hallway of a bar and I grab an NA beer that I knew was going to be my last in LA for a while.
Julian Martinez clasps me on the shoulder and says, “Is this going in your article?” He points to his temple, “You taking notes?”
I’m like, “Oh yeah.”
I think I expected something extraordinary to happen or the night to come to a severe conclusion. But why would that need to happen? Why can’t a great night come down with a smooth landing?
I’d been anticipating the Rose/Clash party the entire week leading up to it. And I think we were there for a total of 40 minutes. And like I mentioned, it was open to whoever wanted to come (and after a certain point in the night, if you could get in).
I would say the party, for me, was that 15 minute drive down Sunset Boulevard at dusk with Kevin, Ryan-Ashley, and Kaufman.
That was the invitation.
Growing up as a military kid, you get used to making friends, then leaving them and likely never seeing them again. You get to/have to reinvent yourself over and over to hopefully not be lonely for the next five years, then you pack up once more. I’ve always felt like I was one foot in, one foot out. Never firmly planted.
My first short story was published in 2019, and it wasn’t until this night that I actually felt like a part of the community I’ve grown to love.
Ryan-Ashley ordered cauliflower bites, some people went to the bathroom and some started chatting amongst themselves. I just stood quietly. No one probably noticed, but I looked around at the people I was with and paid attention to how I was feeling. Trying put a name on it.
It was joy. Because I finally found my people.
I hugged everyone inside, except Kaufman, which I will always regret. Then I went outside, shook hands with two guys, both named Adam. Hugged Kevin. And I even hugged Aaron, because if he hadn’t drawn us away from the noise I wouldn’t have been led to this realization.
Most of us were disbanding back to our lives tomorrow. I think we exist in the reverse of “distance makes the heart grow fonder” because our community survives online. Our connections were created from a distance. And when we collect in random cities annually there is a convergence that fills the soul’s cup to the brim.
I understand the importance of AWP now. Those who have taken their writing beyond a hobby, where it is their art, know it is a meaningful, lonely, and life-giving endeavor. Walking through the world with insatiable curiosity, manic sensitivity, and love. It’s healthy to lay eyes on others who understand the life. To shake hands and hug. Make manifest the connection we attempt to make on the page.
When I shut the door to my car and pull back onto Sunset Boulevard, I felt my world opening up.
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