A few years back, we met Annabelle Gurwitch to talk about Fired!, the book (and subsequent documentary) which began by detailing her own experiences being dismissed from jobs and then expanded to incorporate the experiences of other people, including Michigan auto plant workers and Best Week Ever host Paul F. Tompkins. Since then, Gurwitch has helped launch the Planet Green cable network with the recycling-reality show Wa$ted, and, for her next foray into book publishing, she’s teaming up with her husband, Jeff Kahn for a relationship memoir called You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up!
Here’s a ten-minute video of Gurwitch and Kahn workshopping material from the book in front of an audience last month. (The language is totally safe for work, although there’s a stretch in the middle where some of the subject matter may not be appreciated by your officemates.) We’ve become increasingly convinced that the “traditional” book reading is in desperate need of an overhaul, and this performance piece—while not something every author can emulate—is a great example of an alternative approach to engaging readers by revealing your authoritative passions through storytelling.
(Don’t have ten minutes? A six-minute clip from another performance highlights the story about the Facebook fight.)
You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up! is coming in February 2010 from Crown.