This coming Saturday afternoon, 4/28, I will be participating in Small Press Saturday at the wonderful Newtonville Books. I look forward to representing Atticus Books alongside folks from Concord Free Press, Madras Press (whose Sumanth Prabhaker will host the event), Nouvella Press, Muumuu Press, Agni, The Common, The Normal School, Post Road, Redivider, Salamander, and Tuesday.
I hope you’ll come out and join us, if you’re in the area — especially if you haven’t yet seen the store’s new location.
Thanks to Susan K. Perry for interviewing me recently at Psychology Today.
If you’ll be in Chicago for AWP next week, please be sure to say hello. I’ll be sitting at the Atticus Books bookfair table (C-16) from 9:00-11:45am the morning of Friday 3/2, to sign books or just chat. And that night at 9:30pm I’ll be reading with a terrific roster of folks at Literary High Jinx, a joint affair hosted by Atticus and Patasola Press at Brando’s Speakeasy.
Thanks to the folks at Iambik Audiobooks for inviting me to answer a few questions about The Bee-Loud Glade recently. You can read the interview here, and you can check out the audiobook of my novel here.
Better yet, it’s available as part of Iambik’s Literary Fiction Collection 5 bundle, along with novels by Paul Almond, Kirsten Kaschock, Benjamin Parzybok, and some guy named Thomas Hardy. (Just kidding, Tom! You know you’re one of my favorites.).
Also, thanks for a few enthusiastic recent blog reviews, from Nettie Thomson, Between The Covers, The Scarlet Letter, and Forever Overhead
Thanks to Iambik Audio for including The Bee-Loud Glade in their latest literary fiction bundle, along with novels by Paul Almond, Kirsten Kaschock, Benjamin Parzybok, and some guy named Thomas Hardy. (Just kidding, Tom! You know you’re one of my favorites.).
I forgot to mention this over the holidays, but thanks to Lori at The Next Best Book Club for inviting me to join some other fine folks in sharing a few favorite reads of 2011.
Also, one of the highlights of the last year for me was writing for The Millions, a website I’ve long admired. So I’m especially pleased that my essay “Making Room For Readers” is on their list of most read posts of 2011.
Thanks to Full Stop for inviting me to contribute to their series The Situation in American Writing, and to comment on things it’s entirely possible I have no business commenting on. While you’re over there, don’t miss the rest of the series and everything else Full Stop offers.
Also, thanks to Karen Lillis for inviting me to suggest a few books for her Best of the Small Press 2011 series.
Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness of the Books on the Nightstand podcast were some of the earliest and most enthusiastic champions of The Bee-Loud Glade. The listeners’ retreat they invited me to launch the book at last spring wasn’t just a chance to meet a warm, wonderful community of readers and authors, but to feel for the first time like a “real author” myself, and I can’t ever thank the two of them enough for giving me that opportunity and for their ongoing, incredible, generous support. Between you and me, just remembering that retreat gets me downright emotional. And now they’ve included The BLG on their list of favorite books of 2011, so I have one more thing to thank them for.
Jason Chambers of Three Guys One Book was one of the earliest supporters of The Bee-Loud Glade, for which I am deeply grateful. And now I’m even more grateful, because he’s included it on his Best of 2011 list. Thanks, Jason, and all at Three Guys One Book.
Also on Jason’s list is What You See In The Dark, by Manuel Muñoz, who I was lucky enough to share a reading with last spring at Newtonville Books. I’d like to second Jason’s recommendation: What You See In The Dark is definitely worth picking up.
It’s been really nice to see my novel have a little late burst of energy here at the end of the year. In addition to a few kind mentions I shared the other day, thanks to Jen Michalski for including The BLG in her list for Karen Lillis’ Small Press Holiday Recommendations, and to Mel Bosworth and Sal Pane for putting in on their own lists of recommended reading, too.
Also, I was pleasantly surprised and deeply honored to discover it on 3:AM Magazine’s longlist for “novel of the year,” and in such good company, too.