by Alina Simone Dear Ms. Simone, I’m writing to you in regard to my husband Kenny who has gone through surgery. My husband is a very big fan of yours. I would like to ask if you could please send him an autographed photo. If you could I know he would be thrilled and I would be forever grateful to you. Thank You Very Much Sandy. This message, which I received about two years ago, was followed by an address in Buffalo. My husband happened to be sitting next to me when it landed in my inbox. Immediately, he pointed at my face and said, “See? All this time you’ve been whining away about how no one loves you and no one cares about your music, while secretly there are sad men in hospitals whose entire recovery hinges on just one kind word from you!” (Ok, I’m paraphrasing here.) “Um, wow,” I said, the warm glow of pride already stealing over me. “Well, it would be kind of mean-spirited of me to just send him a photo, right? I should at least send a copy of my record and maybe my new book, too.” “Totally,” Josh said. “Don’t be greedy.”

The last Nerd Jeopardy went so well, we decided to bring it back for the annual Lit Crawl. It's essentially a bar crawl with literary events added on top. As such, there will be a few key...