Tonight's event was in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Home of those pesky UM Wolverines. The staff at Nicola’s Little Professor were very excited to have us there. And I was happy to finally get to meet contributor Cynthia Barnes.
Except for four travel lovers, everyone else was home to watch Kerry/Bush Debate pregame. And right they should. That was far more important. However, our show still went on….
We ignored the empty row of seats and made a circle out of armchairs and couches. My rockstar greeting was hardly necessary and quickly swapped for asking their names. They were a happy group of three women, plus a friendly store attendant, plus a man who came about half way through. And then another man who ran in at the tail end and wanted to tell me all about the book, The Bookseller of Kabul.
The small turn out didn’t bother me, but Cynthia is meeting up with us twice on the tour to educate herself for when she is promoting her book, still in the works. Hopefully this experience will show her that it happens. I have heard or read about authors who get annoyed/frustrated/hurt by a small or nil turn out. Lucky for me, I’d seen it happen numerous times before going on tour for one of my books so I’m not phased. Unless it were to happen every time for the rest of the tour, but then I would just blame myself for not doing more publicity to support it. So there.
Back to the event. We read from Whose Panties and also from Sand. They were entertained, laughed plenty at our stories, and asked a bunch of questions about how we got into this, how we travel, etc. It made our evening more like a conversation than just a reading. It was nice.
Cynthia is no newcomer to misadventure or travel writing. In fact, she’s one of the more tenacious writers I’ve met. Man can she hustle and network! And she gets the gigs. Right now she’s on assignment for Mother Jones, just finished up writing for Salon, frequently writes for Slate and MSN…and my fave…tagged along on an archaeological dig for National Geogrpahic. “Blame it on Rio” is her first participation in an anthology.
When we finished we rushed into town just in time to catch the debate. I left early, but heard the rest on the radio as I headed out to another Motel6. Now to drive on to the award winning Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops. I’ll be at the one on Downer at 8pm. Come on by! Ooh I can’t wait. I LOVE this store and just had to add it after visiting it last year. Love it, love it. I’d even consider moving to Milwaukee if I had a compelling reason. Big houses with porches. Tree lined streets. Lake. Ma and pa stores. University town. Outdoor dining downtown with a theatre district. Big enough, but small enough.
Ooooooh and look at this great review they gave us “Globally sidesplitting humor.” Thanks!
Hi Jen,
Hope tonight’s goes well! It was great to meet you and the nice people who skipped the debate pre-game to come out and see us. Also thanks for not sharing that I was the debate-watcher hissing, muttering and singing “I Hate Him” whenever the Chimp-in-Chief opened his smirking mouth.