Lee Upton, author of the wildly successful The Tao of Humiliation, recently spoke with The Quivering Pen for one of its regular features, “My First Time,” in which writers “talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers.” With clarity and good humor, Upton shares with readers her hallucinations and realizations about being a writer. Here is a fun sneak-peek vignette from the interview: “At first I was so excited I could hardly speak,” says Upton of the first time she learned one of her books would be published. The publisher at University of Alabama Press spoke to her for awhile, explained the publication process, and then they ended the call. But then, Upton had to call back—because she thought she had hallucinated the whole thing: "Within an hour I called him back. It wasn’t one of those cases where I thought that maybe I had received a crank call. I called him back because I thought I might have hallucinated his call. When I asked him if he had actually called me, he told me not to worry about thinking I’d hallucinated the call. He said my reaction was normal, even though it wasn’t. I’ve always been grateful for his kindness." Go to The Quivering Pen to read more about Upton's first time killing and resurrecting characters, and her first time with the feeling of finally holding one’s own book: “shouldn’t the book inflate and fill the whole room?” Don’t worry, Lee, your books do. Click here to read the full interview at The Quivering Pen. The Tao of Humiliation is available now at the BOA Bookstore.