Vagabond's Debut
This post was written on April 4, 2016
This week, I flew to New Orleans for Vagabond’s early-release event, part of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. It was a big trip for my little book. You’ve all seen pictures of Each Vagabond By Name, and if you live near me or have visited, I’ve undoubtedly pressed the review version into your hands to admire. The cover has, quite literally, taken over my own image on Facebook. Still, all this is personal. I’ve talked about the book publicly a couple of times so far, but it still felt private somehow, me here in my home, my book under the protective cover of being as-yet unreleased.
No more.
This week, for the first time, Each Vagabond By Name--the real, actual version--was available for sale in New Orleans. It was piled on a table at my reading on Thursday evening, and I spotted it in the wild at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival book fair. And I talked about the book in person, answered questions, talked to readers. The official launch isn’t until June, but this pre-release has been an unveiling as important and welcoming as I could have hoped to receive.
It started Thursday afternoon, when I met the editor-in-chief of UNO Press and saw the press’s offices, where boxes of my book were piled under a desk. In a recording studio on UNO’s campus, I was interviewed for an amazing New Orleans NPR program (details to come when it airs in June). I’m not sure it will ever be unsurprising or unthrilling to hear someone say they love my characters, love my story.
That night was an after-party with the editors and students from the class, and I met some of the people who were instrumental in Vagabond’s journey: the woman who posted the call for contest submissions; the woman who read my manuscript in the submission pile and told everyone she’d found “the one”; and the woman who created the stunning cover art. I met the two people who’d translated the editorial comments from more than sixteen readers into a smart, cohesive document, and those who’ve created a website to support the launch. I’ll likely never see these people again, and most of them are moving on to other places and other things. Vagabond exists apart from them now. But the book owes its existence to them.
I’m home now, in what feels like an uneasy in-between time--pre-release behind me, release-release still months away. Once it’s launched, Vagabond will be a little less mine but also more mine than ever. Like the final days of pregnancy, so much ends, so much begins.
And then, Thursday evening, was my reading. The Antenna Gallery is on the second floor of a pretty house in the Bywater area of New Orleans, and the first thing I saw inside was Each Vagabond By Name on a table, for sale. I began meeting some of the students who’d ushered the book through the selection and editing process. Ultimately, over forty people gathered, sitting on the floor and standing in the back, and I began to read. Then I answered questions and signed books. (Did I give a list of printed-out questions to my sister and cousin-in-law in case there was radio silence at Q&A time? But of course. Overprepation is my style signifier.)
That night was an after-party with the editors and students from the class, and I met some of the people who were instrumental in Vagabond’s journey: the woman who posted the call for contest submissions; the woman who read my manuscript in the submission pile and told everyone she’d found “the one”; and the woman who created the stunning cover art. I met the two people who’d translated the editorial comments from more than sixteen readers into a smart, cohesive document, and those who’ve created a website to support the launch. I’ll likely never see these people again, and most of them are moving on to other places and other things. Vagabond exists apart from them now. But the book owes its existence to them.
I’m home now, in what feels like an uneasy in-between time--pre-release behind me, release-release still months away. Once it’s launched, Vagabond will be a little less mine but also more mine than ever. Like the final days of pregnancy, so much ends, so much begins.
