Sebastian Junger

I'm a good wife.

The Aspen Writers' Foundation has a series every year called Winter Words, a series of "singular events (which) feature award winning and bestselling authors who bring their books to life during readings and talks."

Last year, Rachel and I went to see Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

This year, among others, Sebastian Junger and Richard Russo are appearing, Richard Russo being one of Steve's favorite authors.

So, being that I'm such a good wife, I bought Steve tickets, two tickets for each of the two aforementioned authors and told him he could invite whomever he wanted.

Last night, for the Sebastian Junger event, whomever he wanted was me.

It was very interesting. Steve and I lucked into front row seats in a rather small auditorium. Junger was fresh from Afghanistan where's he's shadowing a unit and writing articles for Vanity Fair. He did a short reading from his next, yet to be published, yet to be submitted article which painted quite a vivid picture of the circumstances these soldiers are facing.

He also talked about getting started as a journalist and an author. He has a similar story to Steve, in that he was working as an arborist and accidentally put a chainsaw to his leg. He got a bit too detailed in his description of his injury for my comfort and I was very close to passing out right in front of him. Of course, it doesn't take much detail at all to get me to that point.

Junger has an intriguing journalistic philosophy, which boils down to describing what he sees as accurately as possible. He repeats it like a mantra, using it to refocus himself when he gets bogged down. I enjoyed hearing him speak about that, about fear and about the process of choosing his book subjects.

He's quite personable and speaks well extemporaneously, as was well-evidenced during the question and answer session.

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