It's not like going to Suwannee or Coachella, but there is a definite sense of "morning after" with a book festival. Bookish festivals are less Bacchanalia, more tea-party, in my experience. Rarely do we experiment with questionable dance moves or off-script substances. Communal toilets, however, are common to both. Oh, did I guzzle a big honking glass of wine at the end of the day? Yes, but I wasn't hung over that way. Did I get dehydrated in the interest of reducing trips to the ladies'? I did. It was a choice. Was it either freezing cold or slightly sweaty at all times? Indeed it was, and I should have worn my wool skirt with the deep pockets and the flannel petticoat, because I—a volcano under most circumstances—was on the edge of shivering all day. None of this physical fiddle-faddle plays into it. What gives me the morning-after feels is the overload of stories. So. Many. Stories. Get us together and writers know how writers are; we're all playing with paper dolls in our rooms. So even the shy ones are willing to talk about why they write what they write, confident that ain't nobody gonna cast stones in this big glass house. At the mixer before the event, I consider the crowd and think: it's almost as if the authors themselves fall into genres: The ones who do it for the children in their circle, the ones who want to share their history, the ones who want to shoehorn their lifetime's expertise into the setting of a cozy mystery. Putting aside for a moment what drives them, I should be ashamed to admit how the optics play out for me: the man straight out of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a rheumy eye affixed upon the hapless wedding guest. I couldn't keep looking away from that tiny masked lady who wore enough purple marabou to render her into a child-sized, dyed Easter chick. Truly, it's my failure getting stuck on appearances. I might have learned their stories rather than allowing them to write themselves in my imagination. That's on me. But the stories I did not (could not?) make up: The generous sci-fi author who asked gently if I wanted feedback on my website. Bless him for actually looking at it! And he was right: it needed a stronger focus on the book itself rather than on chatty old me. Alert readers will spot the new section "Reviews and Awards" on the landing page. The children snubbed up like a boat under tow to a parental flank, being hustled past my spot, their gazes pulled like magnets to the bowl of Smarties next to my Venmo sign. The surprising number of people determined NOT to look at anything as they attempted to move along the center of the narrow aisles. Nope, not even their screens. Just eyes forward and feet moving, as if they were in a bad neighborhood at night. The weekend's highlight? Well, after seeing the sweet faces of some Tampa friends, it would be... That reader with the expensive hair and a fluffy dog under her arm who spoke with the dizzying frankness of someone who has been drunk for a very long time: "Where are the vampire books? Seriously! Where?" They weren't, she assured me, in Sci-Fi or Fantasy. "Did you check the romance area?" I offered. She hooted in derision. I kid you not even a little bit. The fluffy dog did not react to the hooting. It might have been stuffed. There ensued a longish, loopy discussion of Dracula, Renfield, and something about Stoker being her celebrity crush. As she meandered off, she said, "Can you tell I was an English teacher?" I actually love stuff like that: I mean not much weirder, but that weird was perfect. Especially since I was sitting under a cloud this year. My near neighbors each had a beef about something. One griped about the day, the table, the event, the lack of customers. And so forth. Another muttered darkly about which passers-by needed to get on Ozempic. Et cetera. Et cetera. A Pollyanna, golden-retriever-at-heart, glass-half-full person had her work cut out keeping upbeat. As a pre-tween, I was pressed into use as a tiny servitor at my grandparents' cocktail parties. I think most of the cousins were. I'm grateful, decade after decade, to have had this early job. It was useful not only in teaching me that gimlets* aren't the same as martinis, but also at fostering a layer of social callus. *Ask me how long it took for me to differentiate between "gimlets" and "giblets." Stir "gauntlet" and "gibbet" into that confusing mix as well. To earn Mimi and Bompa's approval as a waist-high moppet, one had to go ahead and give up the idea of being timid. It meant asking random adults the obvious question about what they wanted to drink, and then listening to what else they say. If they said something incomprehensible or uncomfortable, deflect and move along. Or in the case of this book festival weekend—being tethered to the table under a cirrus-puff of grievances—deflect and attempt to chat up any readers within reach. It made for a loooong day.
On the plus side, I got to ramble in Payne's Prairie a bit on the way up, share meals with a couple of button-bright youngsters of my acquaintance, and visit two very nice bookstores in Gainesville. Aw, that glass is lovely! And it's nearly half full!
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As with birdwatching, so it is with authors. Oh, I've seen Stephen King stepping into his big black SUV at the Publix, but most writers are drab birds, well camouflaged and not terribly showy in the wild. Until they gather in flocks. When USF used to host the Suncoast Writers Conference, it was a bit of amusement for my sister and me to play "Spot the Oddity." For instance, the guy in the brown wool cloak and Gandalf staff? On a hot Florida afternoon, btw. Def a fantasy novelist. 10 points to Gryffindor! Oh, and that lady with the Crocodile Dundee hat who thrust a photo at Connie May Fowler in the signing line. Connie May, a charming and delicate woman, looking up at the Dundeehatter with a look of horror. "It's the trailer park where you grew up!" the woman said. Then she added, in case we had doubts, "I'm a writer too!" I went to a reading in maybe 2013 where the poet—lovely writing, by the way—was sporting a leather jacket and lace spats (like Madonna circa "Lucky Star"), but NOT ironically... We listen, and we DON——oh, I do so judge. Mostly, even as I judge, I'm curious about why. Perhaps the choice is driven by the panicked thought of so many watching eyes, when many writers spend their days deep, deep within the safe snail-shell of their skulls. To be fair, I'm also living pretty deep in my own brain. Maybe the eccentricities of dress that strike me as an audience member are not as uncommon as I imagine. Perhaps these sartorial options are simply outside of my own area of observation. (Parallel to my favorite rock radio tagline, "WROK, If we're TOO loud, you're TOO OLD!") I mean, I built several circa 1910 walking skirts, which I wear, so who am I to judge? And as I prepare to venture to the annual bird feeder, I mean book festival, I'm giving my closet the side-eye. What to wear, what to wear... PS: If you're in Gainesville, swing by the Sunshine State Book Festival. It's excellent people-watching. I'll be there, trying to sell some books and meet up with my flock.
https://guides.fscj.edu/writers/ConnieMayFowler https://writersalliance.org/event/2025-sunshine-state-book-festival/
It's quite possible to use a pencil and a pack of cocktail napkins to write a novel. Allen Ginsberg famously used toilet paper when writing "Poem from Jail."
Bruce Chatwin is a Moleskine notebook fancier, while William Carlos Williams used the backs of envelopes. (Don't get me started on WCW and his poems. Not a fan.) Between interruptions, Jane Austen filled thin cream paper to the edges using a quill pen and oak-gall ink. Marilynne Robinson's first drafts are in ball-point in college-ruled spiral notebooks. Not putting myself into that elevated league, but I prefer the smooth slide of graphite across paper when emptying my bony cauldron of thoughts.
When it comes time to organize these pencilings, I use my laptop and Scrivener, a word-processing/organizational software that has a bunch of helpful tricks not available to cocktail napkins.
With Scrivener, I can make chapters and then shuffle them around without the sort of cut-and-paste formatting consequence that can drive a person to drink.
Scrivener gives me a list of chapters so I can navigate quickly—plus it builds in handy spots to stow research and background material. I'll pop an interesting phrase or scene into "Extra words," or take notes on a character in the section "Characters," or add a cool website to Notes.
Scrivener also composes a de facto outline of the story as it gets written, which can prove handy if—ahem—a person neither plans nor outlines her story ahead of time. Of course I could make a nested folder of Word files.
I could also improvise finger-paint in the style of the Marquis de Sade.
But the lingua franca for the industry, and what my editor uses is Microsoft Word.
So the time comes when one must bid a fond adieu to clever and kindly Scrivener. Instead, I wince under the brutal overhead light of Word. A software that does count up my words on this project, along with offering the odd bone-headed grammar suggestion and—IRONY!—refusing to accept the existence of new words.
Sidebar: Even now, in 2024, editing and proofreading seem to come easier for me on paper: not for the use of a colorful pen and the elegant symbols of the copyeditor, there's science that suggests we slow down and read more carefully when it's on paper. Which tracks for me.
Science behind the paper v. screen rivalry
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7510370/ This study on the same topic has some flaws, and is focused on non-fiction and study, but it's interesting: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X18300101?via%3Dihub
And yes, for those of you dear readers following along: a morning spent on Pass-A-Grille—that generational home-beach— brought the name for this second book a little bit closer.
I circle it like a moth hoping to touch flame. That faint tang of singed Lepidoptera? Impending good news.
I'm both wracked with doubt about the current project and also passionately loving it, which seems to be the writerly condition in a nutshell.
That cognitive dissonance of huge self-confidence (it's brilliant! I really got it this time!) pairs well with a deep, DEEP anxiety about how the project will appear to other people (ain't nobody, no how, no where, EVER gonna like this steaming hot mess I have created).
But, as with so many worries in this world, one must look away from the void and carry on. So while the project is getting edited (squeee! it's with the editor!), it's time to move on to book design.
This is a fairy-tale inspired short novel. Think The Last Unicorn, Greenwillow, The Princess Bride, Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner. All of which one can judge by the cover... On She Taught Me Everything, I calibrated the book interior design from the cover. I commissioned an artist to make the cover and then coordinated the font and spacing to that and the general literary genre. As someone described the job of book design, "You want your book to stand out, but not too much." Overall, I want this new creation to feel pretty—bougie even—intriguing, consciously a touch old-fashioned. I do NOT want readers to expect a spicy-romantasy (be still my beating loins!), even though it's about true love. Look how a font sets the stage, even with place-holder Latin instead of content for the chapter:
That first, swirly font tells me to expect either a breezy self-help book or, possibly, a romance set in some retail world. So no.
And the second, hmmm, maybe a gritty speculative fiction? Something urban? Also no. The chapters in novel #2 have text titles, not just numbers (see also "consciously old-fashioned"), which affords a chance to make the chapter openings a little extra. I am not a designer, but I do have opinions. Here's a chaotic look at how I'm shopping fonts:
The choice really sets the stage, I think.
Plus, get this, turns out it's the work of a few keystrokes to insert a bit of graphic art into a wordy document. Which translates into interesting chapter openings!—at least for the paperback book version. The ebooks, well, it's more of a hit-and-miss situation for artwork. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. First steps:
Nothing is set in stone, but I am liking this experiment so far.
Like a Balrog, the thought reaches me from the void: But What About That Title? Sigh. Yes. It's still between titles. I'll be going to the beach to think about it soon. It's been quite a year: humbling to start in the position of hoping that somebody–anyone? Beuller? Beuller?—would read my book. And then the intense gratification as people (strangers!) have read it, reacted to it, talked about it, and asked me exactly the kinds of questions I love love LOVE to answer. And to top it off, surprise presents, wrapped up in a bow: the book won a thing! Two things! Contests! Oooh la la! Wheeeee! Awards! Prizes! Not that contests are all that...(she said with a weary sigh) One sad truth about publishing: EVERYBODY puts a hand out. Some of those outstretched hands are dipping boldly into pockets, like raccoons in quest of graham crackers. Publishing's an industry built on dreams–naturally, opportunities abound for exploitation. And there are contests and contests: some are designed to highlight excellence and broadcast the news, others are designed to extract fees and stroke egos. I can't claim to be immune; my pockets are overspilling with graham crackers. Sometimes one learns best from uncomfortable mistakes, right? To determine whether a contest is legit. It's not rocket magic. It's the same process with which we should approach any transactional relationship: due diligence and dial the BS detector to "zero tolerance." Each writing contest and award offers a value proposition: at the heart, the contest gives writers the opportunity to be read by a judge (ooh! one reader at a time!), the chance at wider readership (appealing beyond words), and possible bragging rights (world-famous even if a tiny world!), often in the form of a sticker to slap on the cover of the book. An award has some value to me as creature made of vanity, but does it have value to my customers? Maybe. I read a whole slew of Newbery Award winners one summer. I know book clubs that selected only Nebula Award winners or Booker Prize books, so that's something. On the other hand, I bought a "Reader's Independent Something or Another Award" book recently because of the shiny sticker, and tbh, it was pretty awful. But THESE prizes, the ones my book brought home? THEY are not that. Both contests rate well among watchdog groups, and one is cutting me a check for $1000. Big time, baby! I won the quarterfinal round of the annual Booklife Prize. Booklife is the self-publishing arm of Publishers Weekly magazine. They give you a nifty little electronic image for promotional purposes. I think a quarter-win is still a win. Plus I'll be quoting their critic's report on my various retail product pages. And—drumroll please—I earned a nice fat check for $1000 and the top spot in the Writer's Digest Annual 32nd Annual Self-Published Book Award in the Literary/Mainstream Fiction division. This contest has been around for 30+ years, and is generally known for providing a chunk of useful feedback to entrants. She Taught Me Everything is still in competition for the grand prize from Writer's Digest, which earns another nice purse and the cover of the magazine (with 40K paid subscriptions). We'll cross fingers for that one. Meanwhile, $1000 will purchase a lovely cover for novel #2. References One list of contests from Reedsy: https://blog.reedsy.com/writing-contests/ This list of contests from Poet's Weekly: https://www.pw.org/grants A blog about fake contests https://writerbeware.blog/2019/04/26/awards-profiteers-how-writers-can-recognize-them-and-why-they-should-avoid-them/ A watchdog list of contests: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/author-awards-contests-rated-reviewed/ The website for Writer's Digest's contest https://www.writersdigest.com/writers-digest-competitions/self-published-book-awards My BookLife Contest Critic's Report around here https://booklife.com/prize/9/category/11/1
I'd been working on novel #2 for most of the summer, Irish-fading from regatta parties to get to my portable writing study, listening distractedly to friends while thinking about that story, welcoming rainy days for the chance to sidle past regret as I put my head down and set my fingertips to the keyboard.
Stealing time from real life.
The book is past Draft 1, which means I kinda know how the story starts, goes, finishes. I know the theme and the setting, and I've gotten to know the characters. It's all flexible: characters might get cut or split into two people, events might change order or get worse, and so on, but I have the general shape.
Draft 2 should be hugely better, with plot holes filled in, structure revised, themes bolstered, and characters grown rounder. I tend to underwrite sections as the plot takes me, and overwrite scenes that I have known for a while. But it's not always easy to get there.
To a great extent, writing equals me daydreaming about my imaginary friends. So late this summer, I sat on station, butt in chair, hands poised over the keyboard, imagination flapping around the story when it occurred to me, obvious as a brick to the back of the head: the friendship between the two young women in my story was big and important, but it got very little screen time in the story as written.
Aha, I thought, how can I show the depth and importance of this connection? More scenes? More conversations! More! My characters—then called Annie and Lila—were already sitting together and chatting while sewing in chapter 5; I sat back and eveasdropped, knowing that they are best friends. Lila's nursing a crush on one of Annie's brothers. Annie's beloved has disappeared. The chatter goes back and forth, with Lila eventually crossing a boundary to ask a painful question of her old friend. I jotted down their conversation as I imagined it, not judging when they nattered on, knowing I—mighty queen of this universe—could take a nip and tuck at will later. Here's some of what I kept pressing them/myself to know: How to express the tenderness between best friends? How to show that they've been friends for ages? I knew what Lila was jonesing to ask Annie, but how to show Annie's feelings, the pressure she feels, and and how to present this all without sounding 21st Century-ish? As I wrote "Annie said," "Lila said." "Annie replied," and so forth, I realized two things: first, Annie is far too modern a name for my maiden hero and second, the names Annie and Lila are not nearly distinct enough from one another. These are my own dear creations, and I'm getting them confused? That cannot be good.
It's quick work to do a global change, but to what? O high-speed internet on the farm, how we do thee entreat? Clicketty-clatter ensues.
A morning passed as I stopped by baby name sites, checked etymology, and consulted the mighty Goog. Annie has become Auda, a name with a Scandinavian twist, as befits the setting, and Lila has become Lilan, a name that appears in a variety of cultures and calls to (my) mind the flower. These names, I hope, make sense in the vaguely Northern, pre-Industrial, magic-exists, wool-processing, flax spinning, small village setting. I like to think these names give them a bit of depth and roundness. And to my shortcut-favoring brain at least, the names appear different enough on the page to keep me from confabulating the two. Victory is mine! One scene down, half a dozen more to go. Does neurodivergent not seem like the best of descriptions? It covers such a multitude of quirks. And it seems as if everyone has a bit of it. Or is that just too much Instagram science talkin? Maybe some of us are growing conditioned to have shorter and shorter attention spans. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. Promo Monday. For a few years now, I've aimed at limiting promotion activities to a predetermined chunk of time. Like a kid getting a set number of minutes with their video game. (A game that is both addictive and designed to keep your attention engaged—to the exclusion of sleep and food. Just ask author Johann Hari.) Monday mornings might find me watching a YouTube video from another independent publisher on what is working, or checking my website for optimization. But what's been most difficult — and most vital! — is figuring out what I am promoting. Let me step back to take a long swing at this: back when I first went away to college, I shared a dorm suite. Two girls in each room on either side of a shared bath. One of our suite-mates was a self-absorbed full-blare yacketty yakker. Through the popcorn textured walls, her voice would drone on and on: "I moimel moimel ME, moimel moimel, I, moimel moimel MY." It was a solid early lesson on the distinction between what feels important to one person and what SOUNDS like a dental drill to another. Even if Lifted Board Press had a blockbuster budget to promote She Taught Me Everything, you know how it goes: you see an exciting movie trailer four times, then one of your buddies goes, "Oh hells no, that crap cost me 1 hour and 47 minutes I'll never get back." Personal opinions just weigh more. With a tiny media budget, I rely on friends. On Facebook, for instance, what's going on with the writing gets a lot of air-time, but I don't want to be that girl, broadcasting day and night in stereo. Likewise Instagram, a platform that my artist sister suggested. Less politics, more pretty pictures, she promised. Turns out I have a weakness for funny reels—which absolutely does NOT help my focus. I try to post, but not be spammy. It's a reasonable-enough marketing motto, right? Be Not Spammy.° Honestly, it's a low bar. Not that anyone is born knowing how to do this stuff, and it sometimes does seem like yelling louder is a strategy. Ask any toddler. But no, a quick précis (by way of a couple of seminars and a dive into the beautifully open world of YouTube creators) zeroes in on the dang point of social promotion: giving value for anybody's attention. In other words, listen up and it's gonna be good. Easy on the Spam. I might adopt a personal code of arms of non-maleficence, thanks in part to sweet Ms. Larson, my Latin teacher: Non esse servavit porcos. I ventured to the clock to play on TikTok for a bit. Overall, I enjoyed engaging with other writers (Golden Angel! Oh my!), even though it felt like exposure therapy to see and hear myself on the tiny screen. So instead of serving up seasoned pork, how about some opinion, theory, facts? The value I offered: opinions about books. After a couple of months, it was clear, however, that whatever new readers TikTok sent my way, and regardless of the community spirit, the time-drain and brain-drain was not worthwhile. In July, a Monday whim and a detour sent me to Pinterest, a site I associate with designing a cabin or finding out how to fold fancy paper stars. It allows you to save ideas onto various "boards," which appeals to the organized creature I long to be. Turns out Pinterest is a kind of a social media anomaly: instead of yelling into the void and having a day or two to make an impression, this social content sticks around. Pinterest provides something like an endless reading room, full of beautiful images and content that endures. And the best part for my selfish needs? Readers hang out here too! With advice from various Pinterest gurus (discovered via Pinterest. I have them pinned on my "Self-Publishing Lessons" board. Naturally.), I set up an account for myself as Author Amy Smith Linton and began to curate. It did not cost a dime, though I spent time making pretty pictures. Two months into the experiment (it's all experimental!), I give Pinterest a few hours a week, and get kind of a lot of traffic in return.
By my standards a lot: two thousand views the first month, six thousand last month. Do these numbers translate into sales? Modestly, possibly, yes. I can't tell for sure, since I cannot quiz the individual book-buyers, but there's an uptick. And that's gratifying. Daunting, but gratifying. And on we plow, making our furrow as we go... °Why not "Don't Be Spammy"? Because, though I haven't found the source for this data, the rule I remember is: when attempting to effect social change, it's far more effective to suggest what to do rather than what NOT to do. For example "Bin Your Trash" works better than, "Don't Be A Gross Litterbug." References https://www.addictioncenter.com/behavioral-addictions/social-media-addiction/#:~:text=Social%20media%20addiction%20is%20a,impairs%20other%20important%20life%20areas. https://www.goldenangelromance.com/ https://www.pinterest.com/liftedboardpressllc/ https://www.tiktok.com/@creativelyflailing?lang=en
Have I been slacking at book promotion this summer? Yes, yes I have.
Is it because I'm lounging on the divan, popping bonbons into my gullet and binge-watching David Attenborough? No, not at all. First, I don't have an actual divan. Second, I can't eat dairy. Third, well, honestly, I do enjoy his lovely voice, but television is not my vice. Instead I have been listening to a playlist heavy on Anaïas Mitchell, Allison Kraus, Hozier, and Rhiannon Gibbons, working on the next thing.
The next thing.
If I were a younger writer, I might have put this next thing aside and focused instead on writing another novel like She Taught Me Everything. A contemporary family drama, say. It would be a smart career move, to focus on building a brand for my readers to more easily identify me. Excellent strategy long-term. But I am not a young writer. So rather than thinking about building a brand within a genre, I have passions. Ambitions. Wild horsey dreams.
Plus this other chunk of words: what I've labeled on my computer as the "Woodkeep trio."
These are three (actually five now, but okay, it started as three) related stories clamoring to become as big as a Rubens, and which ask significant chunks of time from me.
The three (five) are very different from She Taught Me Everything --like set in a pre-Industrial magic fairy-tale world different.
If I've lost you at fairy tale, so be it. The folks clamoring in my imagination don't care about genre conventions. Who am I to argue with fictional characters and their demands? They have a story to tell, dammit! But enough excuse-making. They are who they are.
Two Scottish ballads haunt me. One is Tam Lin, about Janet, a spunky noblewoman who will NOT be told what to do. Forbidden to go to Carter Hall, she hikes up skirts and skedaddles, "for young Tam Lin is there."
As night follows day, Janet finds herself pregnant, and thinks to end the pregnancy with some herbs at Carter Hall. Tam Lin confronts her and when she says that she will NOT be having a baby with some freaky-deeky fairy knight, he tells her that he's just a poor human, held prisoner by the Queen of Fairyland. And if Janet is willing, she can save Tam Lin from a fate worse than death this coming Halloween...
The other ballad is Thomas True or Thomas the Rhymer, in which a guy is snatched up by the queen of fairies — that hussy! — and when he tells her that he wants to go home to the world of humans, she says fine, be that way, and she lets him go...giving him the gift of speaking only truth. Nice gift!
And that's partly what is inspiring me this summer. These two ballads, along with The Princess Bride, the concept of true love, and a cat. Not a real cat, because allergies, but a cat. I don't have a title yet (working on it!), but I do have a date with my editor. Which means, I must hustle back to the—oh, yeah, I am already at my computer. Ah, the feared and abhorred red ink. Yeah, no, not the accounting red ink. We are all pretty good at ignoring debt, I think. I refer instead to teacher ink. Correction ink. That big red check mark that screams:"WRONG!" It's also those scarlet suggestions, notes, generalized messages that teachers and editors are prone to making. They often use red pencil, actually, which likewise does not erase from the page. When I am an editor working on someone's paper manuscript, I like to use green ink or purple, just to mix it up. Still, even if it's purple, it's red. And when you are a writer, red = love. Or in my world it is. Because when I have plunked down cash, it's nice to hear from my editor that they like a turn of phrase or the story is interesting. But far better is the attention, time, and—yes--love poured into a note that says something along the lines of, "I think this section could be tighter. Does this word convey the emotion you want? Why are we learning this right now?" The point of a critical editorial reading is to improve the work. In the immortal words of the original Soloflex ad, it's hard to make improvements. So when the manuscript returns with lots and lots of red ink—and yes, the modern version is a Word or Google annotated file, which provides less emotional connection, as you aren't seeing the hasty checkmarks grooved deeply into the page —it's a joy.
Because it's gonna hurt, but it's gonna be better at the end. I swear I was not lurking at the Barnes & Noble. I was there to take a photo of my novel in the wild. It's perhaps endlessly thrilling to see the thing you've worked on out there sitting on a library shelf, a bookshelf, someone's hands... But truly, I was NOT lurking. A pair of young women drifted past the table of stacked books, and one, Rachel, picked up my book. "Squeee! You just picked up my book!" I said. "Wha?" she said, not yet fully alarmed by my obvious excitement. "Look on the back!" She flipped the book over and compared the author photo with my face. "It's you," she said. "I know!" I said, then, because emotions: "I've got goosebumps!" "I picked it up because of the cover." "It's beautiful," I agreed, without the slightest self-consciousness. "And it's about sisters!" Were they sisters, I asked, indicating Rachel and her book-browsing friend. "No. But we both have sisters." Rachel gave me a shrewd look and added, "Is this inspired by a real sister?" "Yes," I said, truthfully. "But my charismatic older sister is much nicer than that one." "Oooh," Rachel said. "I'm a charismatic older sister." And that, gentle reader, is how I accidentally strong-armed an unsuspecting passer-by into purchasing a copy, as well as how I ended up signing a short stack of books at the Barnes & Noble bookstore this afternoon. Thank you https://www.facebook.com/bntampafl Barnes & Noble South Tampa. And thank you, Rachel! In other authorial news, I was invited to map the settings for She Taught Me Everything into a nifty little app called Squirl. Squirl is designed to help users, as its tagline announces "Discover the places described in books." You can visualize where a book is set. So, is Brooklyn Heights your hometown? What snippet from the book did this author choose to go with the pin on the map for Brooklyn Heights?
You can check the map for books set in any given place—a special treat for bookish folk: to see the locations we've read about. Or, if you're built this way, it's a way to pre-view spots before visiting by finding books to read that are set in a specific spot. I love this idea, and hope other authors and their publicity departments will pile on! Thanks https://squirl.co/ |
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