On Monday morning, the nice UPS man knocked on my office door with a package from New York. In it were five galleys, or Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs, of A GOOD AMERICAN. These are, essentially, final softcover versions of the book (it will be published in hardback) complete with (brilliant) cover art, embarrassing author photo, blurbs, and what-have-you. Penguin …
Take Cover!
I am very proud finally to be able to show you the US cover for A GOOD AMERICAN. I had discussed various possible themes with Amy soon after the text was finished, but really had no idea what to expect when this little electronic file plopped into my inbox. I was, I can admit now, a little apprehensive. But I …
UK News
I’m just back from a wonderful and refreshing vacation in Maine, which I will write about shortly, but I wanted to share a little bit of exciting news before then. The UK edition of A GOOD AMERICAN now has a publication date. It is scheduled to be published by Fig Tree Books, an imprint of Penguin UK, on August 2, …
Music for the Ages
Finally, a respite from all the advice. Now it’s my turn to ask for your help. (And, I know. You never asked for mine.) I’ve been having a fine old time lately enjoying Spotify, a music website that has (finally) been made available over here in the US. It is an amazing resource and I have been discovering lots of …
When Imagination Meets Reality
As regular readers of this blog (and especially my twitter feed) will know, I have just returned from a quick jaunt down south to New Orleans. It was a great trip. New Orleans is one of the few places that managed to live up to my preconceived notions of the place. I had a blast, ate far too much (the …
Where Was I?
Goodness, turn around for a half a second, and a week or two flies by. Apologies for the lack of recent posts; things have been busy here. The fact that I’m in the office on a sunny Saturday should tell you something. My parents will be arriving in Missouri on Monday for an extended stay, which I am really looking …
Long Journeys
“Frederick loved America. He loved its big open spaces, the sunsets that drenched the evening sky in blistering color. Above all, he loved the smell of promise that hung in the air. Europe, he could see now, was slowly suffocating under the weight of its own history. In America the future was the only thing that mattered. Frederick turned his …
In Praise Of Eggs
I have developed a peculiar fondness for making scrambled eggs for my son. I have adapted a recipe I found in Eat Me, the brilliant cook book by Kenny Shopsin, proprietor of Shopsin’s in Greenwich Village. (We were introduced to Shopsin’s by our friend Don, who actually appeared in the hilarious documentary about Kenny that was made a few years …
Foreign Rights
Earlier this week I tweeted and posted on Facebook that we had received an offer for UK and Commonwealth rights to A GOOD AMERICAN. This is obviously wonderful news for me personally, since I am English, and it would have been a little strange to have written a book (even though it is an “American” book) that wasn’t published in …
Covers and Blurbs
Very interesting piece up at The Awl about the trials and tribulations of novelists when it comes to the choice and design of their book covers, and the sometimes painful process of asking other writers for blurbs. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are deep in that process right now, and so far, fingers crossed, touching wood, etc., …