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| This was taken in Houston. In a totally legit school gym. With a borrowed sharpie. |
I always mean to write about a tour from the tour.
But it never happens.
Probably because I spend the better part of tours totally overwhelmed by tour-ness.
This is the plight of the introvert. We get weaker the farther we get from our respective nests. We tend to eat cookies to deal with this. This is why I wear big billowy skirts on tour. Although they do require ironing, which is a pain.
That said, this tour was a pretty amazing ride.
AND it was adequately captured by the people who came to see us.
So you're welcome to go search photos of me with my mouth open in mid gab, or me just starring at Jillian, hypnotized.
Seeing these pictures did make me glad I brushed my hair for some of these things. Because sometimes, I forget.
I enjoy when people come to these things and draw us, like this sketch of Jillian and I at Politics and Prose by Gareth Hinds. Which I like because it captures the fluidity of my hand movements.
Like two rabid butterflies.
All in all we did stops in San Francisco, Berkeley, Toronto (for TCAF), New York, Brooklyn, rounding it off with a stop in Washington DC.
I discovered the following:
In California, students do yoga while waiting for visiting speakers.
There's a place in Petaluma where you can get amazing bread AND trade your book for two free loaves of bread (if you are so inclined).
TCAF remains one of my favorite comic festivals I think because everyone there is so cute. (Also three cheers to TCAF attendees for making the MASSIVE sweatshirts the unofficial TCAF sweatshirt of choice. I got one. It is AWESOME!)
NYC's Society of Illustrators has great dumplings.
Before entering a high school in Jersey City, make sure you take your headphones off before walking through the security gate (because when you set the alarm off you will want to hear the woman yelling at you).
Politics and Prose in Washington DC has a kick ass Girl Power reading group.
Probably my fav moments were meeting new readers. Like the kid with the rainbow hair who got a ride from his mom back to Petaluma so he could get a book.
Thanks, kid.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came out and who bought their copy of This One Summer. Especially to those of you who waited around to get it signed.
I hope I didn't spell anything wrong in your book.
I will say it is still such a hard thing to do, to write something in a book that doesn't sound trite. I try. I really do. I did have this brief spell where I forgot how to spell, words like "appropriate" as in "read this while listening to the appropriate summer tunes" started slipping out of my brain around NYC. How cool is it to ask someone how to spell something when you're a writer signing a book? It doesn't feel to me like it would be cool.
In addition to touring I did a teensy bit of writing this past few weeks. Here's a brief selection.
Here is the blog post I did for Huffington Post about Fat Girls in YA
Here is my latest Dear Teen Me
Here is a blog post I did, as part of my Blog Tour, about Writing as a Feminist for Nerdy Book Club
Now it's time for some cottage time relaxin. I wish I still had the mug pictured above. That might be my new flea market goal find.
Stay tuned for more news and more blogging soon.
xom