My teddy bear, Kmart, is named after the place where I purchased him: Kmart (specifically, the one on Broadway).

Well, as it so happened, on Friday night, while Kmart and I were eating vanilla cupcakes, reading books about etiquette, and starting our collaborative biography on the Little Mermaid, Kmart turned to me and said (somewhat grouchily, as Kmart is somewhat grouchy): “I want to hold a literary conference!”

“Oh?” I replied.

“Yes,” confirmed Kmart, “and I want it to be right here in New York City. It can be held at Bergdorf’s. It can also be held at McDonald’s. But we won’t need to inform anybody where it’ll be at any given time because only special creatures will be permitted to attend and special creatures are always aware of where special things are.”

“Well,” I said, as I bit into my 27th cupcake, “will there be panels? will there be guests? will there be food? will there be hotel accommodations?”

“Maybe there will be panels, like one panel could be called, ‘Why The Little Mermaid Is More Marvelous Than Everyone.’ But, then again, if I’m feeling grouchy, then there won’t be any panels. And, of course, there will be special guests. Pretty Edna St. Vincent Millay, whom I text with regularly, will come. So will William Carlos Williams, Maya Angelou, Edie Sedgwick, and much more.”

“What about hotel accommodations?”

“The Plaza,” sassed Kmart, “obviously.”

“Sponsors?”

“Duh,” groaned Kmart, “Bambi Muse and Fox News…. Now, let’s return to our Little Mermaid biography. Should we start our author’s preface with a pronoun or an adjective?”

[NB: For complete, comprehensive coverage of the first ever Kmart Belle Lettres Conference read this site – HTML Giant.]