Tegan of Tegan and Sara Writes Song for Augusten Burroughs Audio Book; To Play HIV/AIDs...

In our virtual world today, a lot of things can get done without anyone ever seeing or ever meeting the person on the other end. You IM, you text, you email. People have become just names in inboxes, not faces in boardroom meetings. Despite the detachment these virtual relationships still get a lot accomplished and Tegan Quin, one of half of the Canadian twin sister act Tegan & Sara, and best-selling author Augusten Burroughs are one example.


"I've actually never met Augusten, just emailed and talked that way." Tegan says of the virtual relationship behind SPIN.com's Liner Notes, an event to celebrate the magazine's book club and raise cash for HIV/AIDS research. Tegan and Burroughs, who will finally throw their virtual relationship into the third dimension, will co-headline the event at New York's Housing Works Bookstore on Thursday, September 4th 2008. Circa Survive's Colin Frangicetto, Spelling & Grammer's Elizabeth Seward and Anberlin's Stephen Christian will also participate.

So how did this virtual relationship lead into a book club gathering? Burroughs, best know for his best-seller Running With Scissors, reached out to the Vancouver-based musician via email.

"When Augusten finished [his latest novel] A Wolf At The Table, he came up with the idea of the audio version of the book," Tegan explains. "He wanted to have almost a score to the audio version and have these original songs. The first audio book I ever heard, years ago, was David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day. It was hysterical. I don't do a lot of audio books, but I love listening to NPR."

However, Tegan, an avid Burroughs reader (she has all his books), gave him the "Absolutely!" After a couple reads of A Wolf At The Table, that "Absolutely!" turned to a "What the fuck?"

"I was completely perplexed on how to even begin because I had never written a song for anybody," she admits, "and certainly not about a book that had nothing to do with me."

So, Tegan just started writing Burroughs a letter about what she had just read.

"He had such a tumultuous relationship with his father and his brother and the household was always in chaos," she says of Burroughs novel. "It's me questioning how he survived. Personally, I don't understand how he survived. I don't know how he managed to put up with such a terrible and terrifying existence."

A few months later Tegan ran into the people from the Spin book club that asked to pick an author "that'd be cool with Spin" and well the rest is just virtual history

While the sisters took the summer off to write for their new album, they will reconnect for a final runaround behind 2007's The Con. The tour kicks off September 20th at the San Diego Street Scene fest.

"We write all our music separately, record it all separately and then we collaborate at the end. Sara will play something on a song I wrote and I'll play something on her song," she says of making the new album expected in 2009.

"I honestly believe that my purpose in life has been connecting," Tegan says. "Whether it's through talking on stage, with people, or being an entertainer and telling stories and making music. I've actually started books and written a lot of stuff. I've been talking about putting it all together. I'm not that great of writer but I love doing it."