Hello from Las Vegas,
I am taking two days to rest in one of the most chaotic places on the planet before heading to Los Angeles tomorrow.
I’m going to try to remember everything important that has happened in the past few days.
Last week, before we left Rochester,
and Beef Gordon recorded an audiobook version of The Island.
It sounds really great! I’m excited for people to listen, and especially people who haven’t been to any of the readings so far. The Island started as a performance piece and I think it’s really worth listening to as well as reading… so I’ll keep you updated. First I just need to figure out how to publish an audiobook, but it can’t be that hard, I hope…
On Wednesday of last week, we travelled to Buffalo to do an event at Fitz Books.
Something that made this event feel really special was that we invited two young writers from the Just Buffalo Literary Center to read with us. Log Off is narrated by a teenage girl and so it felt very meaningful for us to hear writing by two real teenage girls. Something Kristen and I have talked about a lot is that teenagers, and especially teenage girls, are so often underestimated and disrespected. I remember experiencing it when I was younger, and I didn’t like it one bit! So seeing Angelina and Pride perform so confidently, and listening to their carefully considered work, made me feel really happy.
In general, the Buffalo event felt really wonderful. One thing that feels almost impossible to describe or quantify in doing all this is the strangeness and importance of just catching up with old friends for a few hours. Talking in depth with Matthew Bookin about the structure of The Island and hearing his thoughts in the context of the entire history of Shabby Doll House, asking questions about Aidan Ryan’s new book that comes out next year and feeling inspired by his release ideas, laughing with Rachelle Toarmino about how we’re basically insane literary project managers. This is what life is all about for me!
The next morning we took an early bus across the border to Toronto and while on board we discovered that Kristen’s interview at The Creative Independent had gone live.
Here’s a question and answer I really enjoyed from the interview:
I think writing a book is a huge leap of faith. It’s something you have to do on your own time with no guarantees that it’ll ever see the light of day. How did you cope with that reality and yet, at the same time, reach the finish line of this manuscript?
I think I just really believed in and loved the story and the characters. If you’re having a good time writing, you’re going to have a good time editing and finishing it, even before you think about what will happen publication-wise with the book. I was having a good time finishing the book. I wanted to be in this story and be in this voice, so that wasn’t hard.
I think there is a leap of faith, though, in terms of what will happen to it out in the world. And yeah, that was unknown. That took a while to sort of figure out in terms of querying or going with an independent publisher. But this was never going to be a drawer book for me. It’s a book I really believe in. And if you believe in your book, I really do think that something will happen with it, because you’ll make that happen in any sort of way, even if your first original plan doesn’t work out. I really do believe that. I’m not just like, “Oh, motivational pep talk time.” If you just believe in it so hard, you will not give up on that. It might take longer, or it might just be a different path than you originally thought.
Once they let us into Canada, we went over our notes for that evening at Type Books in Toronto! This was the first event on the tour that was an ‘in conversation’ between Kristen, Oscar and I. Very grown up, I know. We came up with a plan that involved both authors reading excerpts, along with a discussion of topics from both of the books, some background on the publication process and a brief history of Shabby Doll House. One thing I really want to get across to people is that we’re literally just a small group of friends making all this happen in our free time. I think it worked.
After the reading, a big group of us went to a local bar and hung out and drank beer and ate nachos. It was so fun. I was talking with my old friends from when I lived in Toronto, Metatron authors, Sennah Yee and Sofia Banzhaf, who I hadn’t seen in a long time, Claire Foster and Kyle Buckley who work at Type Books and helped us organise the event.
Type Books is so cool. I was very happy to be able to have our event there. Last year they stocked SALMON by Sebastian Castillo when it first came out and selected it as a staff pick. This sort of thing is huge for small presses. It makes such a difference to have real people out in the world who actively want to celebrate and sell your books.
The next night, after a birthday party, we met up with Kyle and Claire again and talked about publishing, bookselling, translation, and books/writers we love. It felt so invigorating to meet people who care about this stuff as much as we do, and yet are coming at it from different angles.
On Saturday afternoon, as I was on my way to the airport, I saw that both The Island and Log Off were included on Dennis Cooper’s Favorites of 2024 so far.
I was particularly pleased to see Log Off listed next to Juliet Escoria’s You Are The Snake in the fiction category and The Island next to Ted Rees’s Hand Me The Limits in poetry.
We love Dennis!
And speaking of, I’ve read his new book Flunker which comes out in a couple of weeks, and it’s so great. You’re going to love it.
More on this coming soon…
This Thursday in Los Angeles! We’re reading at Heavy Manners Library. The first ever west coast Shabby Doll House event. Please come if you’re in the area!! And tell your LA friends.
I understand this makes no sense, but after that our next reading is on July 7th in Provincetown, MA.
And that will conclude the North American leg of the Escape the Internet tour!
Just two more events to go. Come see us if you can!
Rumour has it that a European leg may be forthcoming in the autumn.
Let me know if you want us to come visit!
I’m feeling very grateful to all the people who have helped to make this tour possible, and to everyone who has supported the books so far.
Thank you so much if that’s you!!
Talk soon,
Lucy
<3
P.S. If you want me to help you with your manuscript this summer, I’m hosting an editing workshop in August for anyone who wants to figure out how to finish their book. Sign up by July 1st to join us.
:)