Radio Manu, Papa Tzango.

How you doing? Welcome to another edition of Ten Genshili speaking. I'm Christopher Ryan,

your host, coming to you from my little office in Barcelona, Spain. I'm standing in the spot

right now where I wrote Sexiton while Cassie was away at work every day. It's this little office

that my buddy Viram and I built on the terrace. Viram who is in two episodes of this podcast. So

if you want to hear Viram's story, the amazing story of walking with a donkey through Pakistani

landslides, check out the archives for Viram VIRAM, RAM, AM. Anyway, he came and visited us and

was kind enough to... Well, I was going to say help me build this office, but really I helped him build

the office. It's like a little wooden cabin plucked out of the forest and sat down on an urban

terrace in Barcelona, Spain. Anyway, while we were gone on the west coast of the U.S., there was a

leak in the roof and it sort of rotted the wood. And when we got back, we realized the whole roof

had to be replaced. So now that I'm older and how best-selling author, I hired a guy to do it

rather than doing it myself. Actually, the true reason is that Viram wasn't available and I don't

have any other friends as talented as him and I'm not ready to lead the project. So anyway,

it just got finished yesterday and rained last night and everything seems to be dry. So it's sort

of a historic moment for me to be back in this little office with so many memories. Yes,

there's a hammock strung right across. The office is just big enough to string a hammock across.

That'll give you a sense of what it's like. Anyway, this episode, I've been sitting on this one

for a long time. I recorded this shortly before leaving Portland, which would have been, what,

November, I guess. It was getting dark, it was rainy, and I was very lucky to be able to spend

a couple of hours in the company of an author named Tom Spanbauer. He's published many books

of his own and he's shepherded many more to publication. He is a legendary writing teacher in

...