Last week was an absolute whirlwind. Lots of traveling, lots of smiles, lots of good book stuff. I’ll share some highlights and photos.
Side note: I started my first blog in 2003. Remember what blogs were then? They were all full of posts like this! I loved it. Honestly, I would scrap every piece of social media we have today to bring back personal blogs. But I digress.
I almost can’t believe last week was a short week. After a day off with family for Labor Day, I packed so much activity into four days.
Tuesday: Fly With Me launch event!
On Tuesday night I drove out to Frederick to attend the launch event for Andie Burke’s debut rom-com Fly With Me. I left super early because I have anxiety, which gave me time to check out a local brewery before the show.
I tried a tasting flight of two NEIPAs and a sour at Idiom Brewing in downtown Frederick. The sour (“It’s the Berries” triple berry) was a surprise favorite. It may be the best sour I’ve ever had. While I ate and drank, I took notes and muttered to myself in preparation for my own upcoming author event. Clearly I’m the coolest person at the bar.
Andie’s event went great, from my perspective. The bookseller from Curious Iguana, Frederick’s indie bookshop, facilitated a lively discussion. The chairs were full. I thought of a good question to ask during the Q&A. The book signing line was so long, I went to the bathroom and came back and still had to wait at the back of the room.
I could not have been happier. Andie and I have been friends and critique partners for years. I know how many books she’s written, how much her work has grown, and how hard she has worked. To see her not only get a dream deal with a Big Five publisher, but garner a ton of positivity and buzz around her debut? It’s a sparkly feeling. Plus Fly With Me is a great book with a beautiful cover. Its very existence is pure handheld joy.
Wednesday: off to Pennsylvania
Still riding the high from Andie’s event, I stayed up long past my bedtime Tuesday night, mindlessly scrolling on my phone. I do this all the time. Whenever I do a people-ing in the after-dinner hours, my brain has to spend something like two hours slowly decompressing its nervous energy afterward. This is why I’m a day drinker and a lunch socializer.
But I digress (again). Wednesday morning I had to haul my carcass out of bed and prepare to travel to Pennsylvania for my own book event.
Somehow I managed to pack, do a Yoga With Adriene video, get some work done, and take my kid to and from school before my train. Then it was off to my native Bucks County, PA.
Major thanks to my aunt and uncle for shuttling me to and from the train station, as my dad had warned me rideshare drivers “don’t like to come all the way up” to his house. I swear I don’t even come from the complete middle of nowhere.
Thursday: She’s Not Home event at the Frenchtown Bookshop!
Thursday night I did a reading and discussion at the Frenchtown Bookshop in Frenchtown, New Jersey. It’s a sweet little space and I was so honored to be invited to do an event there. This place is immediately across the river from my hometown, right in the heart of the setting for She’s Not Home. Thursday also would’ve been my paternal grandmother’s ninety-second birthday. She’s Not Home is dedicated to her, so that made the event feel even more special.
(No pressure, right?)
The weather looked menacing as I drove across the bridge to Frenchtown. I worried the dark clouds and restless wind might keep people at home. It probably did keep some people at home.
However, despite the holiday week and the weather, we had a decent turnout of around a dozen people. It was enough to make the room feel populated and form a line at the counter for signed books. I saw some favorite familiar faces, a couple new ones, and—this really made my night—a high school classmate I hadn’t seen in twenty years! Shout out to Ben, who was and remains one of the nicest guys in our class.
Whew! I’d never had this much time (thirty minutes or so) to fill on my own as a fiction author. I’ll write a separate post on how I managed my nerves before this event. They were plentiful. But I did it, and it went well. I even included a bonus reading from one of my old zines, a la Grownups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. The surprises you get when you see me in person!
That’s a wrap!
After we wrapped up at the bookshop, a few of us walked down the street to the Rathskeller bar, and I enjoyed one of those serendipitous nights out on the town that makes you love your current people and place with all your heart.
It was a lovely note to end on.
I stepped off the train in Baltimore Friday afternoon tired, hungry, and hot (when is the fall weather arriving again?), but also content. I could not have asked for a better week of fellowship and books.
Congrats to Andie on her seriously outstanding debut, and thank you to everyone who braved the threatening skies to come to my reading. Authors live for this stuff.
(Well, and for sitting alone with our laptops. But when we do have to leave our writing cave, we want it to feel just like this.)
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