Years ago, back when I was writing for Minnesota Monthly magazine, I was faced one day with an impossible story. You know the kind: I had done too much reporting, put my whole heart into the research, and now I wanted so deeply for it to be good that I choked. Set the bar too high, and then just sat there looking at it.

Time to enlist the help of Calvin Trillin.

No, I don't know Mr. Trillin. Never met him. But I have been reading his writing almost as long as he has been producing it. I carry aound copies of "Killings" and "American Stories" and press them on people (and then immediately panic and demand that they absolutely must return them--"Killings" is out of print).

I also rip his pieces out of the New Yorker and file them away in a file folder labled 'GOOD STUFF BY OTHER PEOPLE." It holds a lot of stories, from newspapers and magazines all over the country and Great Britain, but mostly it is crammed with Mr. Trillin.

That day at Minnesota Monthly I pulled out my favorite of all his pieces--"Thoughts of an Eater with Smoke in His Eyes," his piece about attending a barbecue competition in Memphis back in 1985. It is a lovely piece, typical casual, witty Trillin, with wonderful phrases and graceful meanderings. (At one point he hopes that barbecue competitions don't go the way of chili cookoffs, which have gotten extreme and ridiculous--he calls it "crossing the Chili Line.") And he is wonderful at picking up local vernacular and working it into the story a couple of times; "Why, you taste these ribs you'll throw rocks at other folks' ribs" became one of the piece's motifs.

But also, underneath his genial persona, are sharp observations about Memphis' troubled history, and race relations, and urban renewal. It is a wonderful piece, and it was exactly what I wanted to write for Minnesota Monthly, except that I wasn't writing about Memphis or racism or food.

Brian Achman/startraksphoto.com, Star Tribune
Calvin Trillin

Reading it calmed me down. It reminded me how he did this. It was written with such grace and confidence that it gave me confidence, too, and I wrote my story, which actually turned out to be OK.

Trillin will be in town in September for Talk of the Stacks at the Central Library downtown. He's just one of five great writers who will be here over the fall--Nuruddin Farah on Sept. 20, Lisa Randall on Sept. 29, Leslie Marmon Silko on Oct. 20 and Will Hermes on Nov. 10. All events are free and open to everyone. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and it's a good idea to get there then; the events start at 7 p.m., but the auditorium fills up fast.

At this point, I should try to make some kind of Trillin-like witticism here, something about throwing rocks or whatever, but that would be crossing the Chili Line, so I think I'll just let it be.