Remember me? First of all, my apologies for the radio silence. It has been, without question, the busiest six or seven months of my life. In addition to the publication of SETTING FREE THE KITES and the attendant tour, I also put on the second Unbound Book Festival in April which was an astronomical time suck (if also fabulous fun.) …
Notes From the Road
Today is, I am reliably informed by various pieces of electronic equipment in my hotel room that must surely know better than I do, Tuesday. I am, therefore, in Seattle, and later today will be flying to Birmingham, Alabama. Today is also the first time in eight days that I will not stand up in front of a crowd of strangers and …
Let’s Do Launch
Greetings from… wait, where the hell am I today? Oh yes. It’s Thursday, so I must be in Kansas City, sitting in my hotel room before going to my event this evening where I will be talking with the wonderful Vivien Jennings from Rainy Day Books. Vivien is one of my very favorite people and has been very supportive of me …
The Calm Before the Storm…
Nearly there. I’m writing this on Monday afternoon, February 20, 2017, the day before SETTING FREE THE KITES is published. At the moment all seems relatively calm. I know from my previous books that the day of publication can be something of an anticlimax. Because here’s the shocking truth: the rest of the world has the temerity to continue on …
Audiobook news and e-book sale!
Not long to go now. This afternoon I am planning a trip to Walgreens to get “travel size” packs of shaving cream and toothpaste. Then I’m going to get my suitcase from the basement. Then I’m going to fill the suitcase with books. All of which is to say… publication of SETTING FREE THE KITES is now four days away. We’re …
The First Rule of Book Club is that… oh, never mind.
Groucho Marx once said that he would never want to belong to any club that would admit him as a member, but my guess is that he was never in a book club. I love book clubs. I’ve visited an absolute ton of them over the years to talk about A GOOD AMERICAN. Some I’ve attended in person, and many more …
Getting Close…
Somehow, the launch of SETTING FREE THE KITES is now less than two weeks away. After the excitement of having the final book delivered and subsequently eaten by the neighbors’ dog, I’m pleased to report that a couple of days later three boxes of pristine, undigested books appeared on my doorstep, looking as delightful as I could have hoped for. …
Magic Moments.
The road to publication is a long one, paved with many moments that (if you’re lucky) linger long in the memory. One of the most precious, which is often memorialized in writers’ social media posts, is the moment when the finished book is delivered to your front door. This is always close to the end of the process. Prior to this point there …
One Month To Go…
In exactly one month’s time, SETTING FREE THE KITES will be published. After all this time, it’s a little difficult to wrap my head around the idea. I delivered the first draft of the novel to Amy Einhorn, my then-editor at Penguin, almost exactly three years ago. That’s right. Three years. Since then much has happened. Amy left for pastures …
Book Trailer.
It’s been a strange weekend here in Columbia, MO. We were promised the mother of all ice storms on Friday. School was canceled early Thursday afternoon, the grocery store shelves were bare, people were stockpiling candles… and then nothing. Tomorrow, people whispered. And then nothing. Well, OK then, Sunday, went the word. It’s now Sunday. And guess what? Because we’d …