Nick Flynn on Being Flynn + Special Screening at AWP

Just in time for the special screening of Being Flynn at AWP this weekend (and its opening in select theaters), Jacket Copy caught up with the poet-memoirist: "'The attention one gets from being a poet isn't great,' Flynn said. 'So when I started getting attention on ['City'] it was a little difficult. My wife had to point out that none of it is real. They'll soon move on to something else.'" More:

Not everyone moved on, however. As the film project progressed, Flynn learned that [Paul] Dano would be playing the Nick Flynn character. The author decided to go to his local Brooklyn bookstore to buy a copy for Dano, whom he would soon be meeting. As it turned out, the owner told him that Dano shopped at the store too, and that the lone copy on hand had been set aside for the actor.

"So I decided to write an inscription," Flynn recalled. "I wrote 'I am you and you are me,’ and left the store. And then right after I wondered if he might find it creepy. What did that mean? And how would I know this was his book? But I went with it,” Flynn said. “I hope he didn't think I was too much of a lunatic."