Posts Tagged ‘books’
Texas Munchly
Drove down from Fort Worth to Austin today. Last night’s reading in Fort Worth was small — 14 people plus your author — but actually calming, fun. I had people sit in a circle in the TCU Barnes & Noble cafe. I donned the Burger King Wise Man crown (hey, Laura T. Faherty: It travels…
Read MoreFrisco and Plano, from the rear-view mirror
About 50 or 60 (?) people came to the Tinsel reading at Frisco’s Stonebriar Centre Tuesday night. For those who expected fireworks (or a Hank Stuever effigy burning!) I am so sorry to disappoint: The crowd was very interested in the book and gave me a very warm reception. (Um, it helps that the audience…
Read MorePress here and press there
Stonebriar Centre Barnes & Noble tonight. Where it all began. I hope people bring lots of questions. Here’s a picture of me in the Stonebriar food court in October, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News article. Here’s a li’l roundup of some press in the last week or so for Tinsel, while I have a…
Read MoreAll I want for Christmas is some screen presence
Here’s the video trailer for the book. (Don’t you know that the only way to get people to buy a book anymore is to throw together a three-minute movie?) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt arranged to have this done. Charles Halpin at Bookstream Inc. made it happen and a very nice videographer named Herb, from Silver Spring,…
Read MoreJust like Christmas
The door buzzer rang this morning, about 20 minutes ago. UPS. Package from … Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I was opening it and suddenly realized what moment this was about to be. My book. I took it upstairs and showed Michael the envelope. “Is that it?” “I think so.” I took it out. I held it.…
Read MoreThe Good Writer
Stand back, I’m gonna explode with praise. But first, a plug: If you live in Washington, go see David Finkel read from The Good Soliders tomorrow night (Monday, Oct. 5) at Politics & Prose. Now for the praise explosion, really just a mash note: If you’ve ever been a feature writer at a newspaper in…
Read More‘Pleasant but uneven’: A bad review! Ow-ie!
Yesterday my editor at Houghton sent me Kirkus Reviews‘ take on Tinsel from the Oct. 1 issue. Remember when I promised I would post the bad reviews along with the good? Well, here’s a bad one — not horribly awful, but far from glowing. First of all, you might ask: What is Kirkus Reviews? It’s…
Read MoreShe works hard for the money
It’s funny when you open your morning newspaper and there’s a big story about your particular raging anxiety right there on the front of the Style section. Although I did not know he was working on such a thing, there’s this spot-on story today by my colleague Neely Tucker about how authors have to do…
Read MoreMy one-man book club meeting, now in progress
Between work and Tinsel pre-pub jitters and promo stuff, I keep forgetting to develop the part of my brain that can think of anything remotely worthwhile to type here and send off into the ether. So, until I get things rolling again, how about some book reports? I have three quickies… Finished reading Lorrie Moore’s…
Read MoreSibilance. Sibilance.
This is my blog. (Check one-two. Sibilance. Is it on?) How come? Why now? I know I’m eight or nine years late starting one. All this time I had the only outlet I ever needed, writing for the Washington Post’s Style section about darn near anything I wanted, for 700,000 or so paying customers who…
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