It’s the fifth installment of this newsletter!
Good news — so far two winners have been drawn. Jim Freund, of Brooklyn New York and Erik Ferguson (who writes as Keech Ballard), of Roswell, Georgia should by now have received their stuffies. Next drawing is next week.
A Better World comes out soon! A reminder on tour dates–
Saturday, April 6, 2:30pm / Burbank, CA / Dark Delicacies / in conversation with Amy Nicholas
Sunday, April 7, 12noon / Columbia, PA / Vortex Books / w/Cynthia Pelayo and Todd Keisling
Thursday, April 11, 7pm / Culver City, CA / Village Well Books & Coffee
Sunday, April 14, 11am / Rhinebeck, NY / Oblong Books @The CENTER Rhinebeck in conversation w/Hilarie Burton Morgan
Monday, April 15, 7pm / New York, NY / The Strand / in conversation with Patrick Radden Keefe
Saturday, April 20, 4:30pm / Los Angeles Festival of Books / “Haunted: The Contemporary Gothic Novel,” with Johnny Compton, Ashley Winstead, Alix E. Harrow
Wednesday, May 8, 7pm / Palm Springs, CA / Best Bookstore
Wednesday, May 15, 7pm / Chicago / TBA
It is an odd serendipity that Hilarie and I have struck exactly the same pose (above).
In other news, I returned last night from a trip to Santa Fe with my childhood friends, whom I met at the respective ages of 4, 5, and 10. It has been about twenty years since we’ve all been together (maybe more?). We laughed harder than I can remember laughing. My stomach actually hurt. Every day, we’d make up a rough plan, then mostly wander around, laughing.
There is nothing better than old friends.
I tried to introduce myself at a local bookstore, but they seemed to believe I was a crazy lady who maybe was self-published and writing about the power of crystals or the second coming, but not in a good, Tom Perrotta way. I gave them my galley, which surely they’re all fighting over at this very moment.
The above is a cool painting I spotted in a gallery, by Santiago Michalek.
Reviews continue to come in for A Better World and except for the one-star on good reads, saying it should have been about zombies (?), they’re strong.
What I’m noticing is that some early reviewers need to put the book in a context — it’s post apocalyptic, it’s dystopian, it’s literary, it’s a psychological thriller. The work is then evaluated according to how well it fits into its box.
I’m grateful to the readers who’ve made the effort to do this work. They do it because they love reading. They genuinely help writers and they value the written word. I do wonder, though, if boxing things robs them a little, of the joy of discovery.
Then again, I may be totally wrong about that.
Thanks for playing. Talk to you next week. Mean time, don’t get none on ya.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah
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