So, yeah, sorry about the radio silence. It turns out that this publishing-a-book thing is a bit of a time-suck. But, you know, in a good way. Since the book was published – almost a month ago now, bizarre though that seems – I have hardly had time to sit down. It has been a wonderful, mad, hectic ride, and …
Cry Me a River
Amazing the things you learn on twitter. I discovered a little while ago that a certain well-known book blogger, who lives and works in New York, decided only to read my book while she was at home. Apparently she was worried about crying while she read – and, as she put it: “There is nothing like crying on the subway …
UK Cover
In August A GOOD AMERICAN will be published in the United Kingdom by Fig Tree Books, an imprint of Penguin UK. (Fig Tree also brilliantly published The Help in England to massive success.) I met my lovely editor there, Juliet Annan, several months ago in London. She told me right away that the English edition would have a different cover …
What’s Important
So, finally. About seven years after I set out on this journey with Frederick and Jette Meisenheimer, their story is published today. Tonight I will stand up in front of a group of people at Barnes & Noble in Columbia, MO, and read from my finished book for the first time. It will be a sweet moment, I am sure, …
Linkage, Schminkage
Not long now. This is just a brief update to let you know about various things that have popped up on the web, if you missed my incessant tweets and facebook updates over the past few days. Publication isn’t officially until Tuesday, but the book has already been spotted in the wild. This is in Freeport, Maine: A GOOD AMERICAN …
Countdown!
There’s so much going on at the moment that I often lose track of what day of the week it is. So this is a quick post to bring you up to date with a few snippets of news, then I’m off to spend the weekend doing legal work, catching up with the stuff that has been piling up, both …
Librarians Are Not all like Philip Larkin. Really.
Let’s play a little cultural word association. If you ask an Englishman what comes to mind when he hears the word “Dallas,” he would probably answer Larry Hagman, JFK’s assassination, and possibly cowboys (although the cowboys would be wearing ten-gallon hats, rather than football helmets.) I’m told that if he was of a certain age and inclination, he might also …
Catching Breath
Not really. No time to catch breath. Just under three weeks until publication, and things are going ever so slightly bonkers. But in a good way. Lots of news to share with you. Where to begin? Let’s see… A GOOD AMERICAN was named #1 Read to Pick Up for February in O Magazine. Yes, that’s Ms. Winfrey’s little publication. Kind …
Missing Link
It occurred to me this morning that there was a photo missing from my last post, which illustrated an absolutely critical part of the process. Here it is: This is a page chosen more or less at random, during the second six month rewrite, after I had signed my deal with Amy. I am hopeless at editing on screen – …
A Story in Five Photos
Once upon a time, there was a blank sheet of paper. You know, that thing Ernest Hemingway was allegedly so scared of. This blank sheet of paper (and a few hundred others) got written on. Some guy had an idea for a story, and every morning at five o’clock, he hauled himself out of bed, switched on the coffee machine, …