The early days of music videos taught us a number of things, but one of the biggest lessons I took was that musicians cannot necessarily act. The first corollary is that bad acting spoils an otherwise good video. The second is that a bad video takes some of the joy out of a good song.
Stretching a bit more: find video of Irving Berlin, playing piano and singing. Perhaps the worst singer capable of carrying a tune in all history.
But one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Public reading is a special skill. Not all authors have it.
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Tonight I’ll be reading excerpts from my books in public for the very first time. I haven’t avoided it, it’s just never come up before.
With 45 years of training and experience in public speaking, with a heavy focus on reading aloud, I don’t anticipate any crashing or burning. Instead, we’ll be having fun reading under the stars and I might meet, or make, a fan or two.