The Meet the Authors event happened last night. I’m happy and relieved to report that it went very well!
We had quite a day! Michelle’s touring company held their end of the season staff party out at Mosquito Lake (it’s much nicer than it sounds!) where Michelle’s boss has a new house with rental cabins. We got over an inch of rain on the homestead through the morning, so the planned cookout in the yard didn’t sound so comfortable. However, the skies lightened, and we actually had a fair amount of sun for the event.
Great food and wonderful people, a few old friends mixed in with a lot of new, did wonders for my nerves. The party took my mind off of the reading most of the afternoon.
At the library, the event coordinator told me that she planned to have an intermission after the other two readers, then finish with my reading. I felt sure people would leave, so I felt better when she said, “or maybe we’ll just plow on through.”
The meet and greet portion was rather lightly attended, as the museum had an art opening at the same time, but we sold a couple of books. I know a few people bought Ms Moustakis’s book, and I think a few bought Ms Kennedy’s as well.
Tom from the book store played standards on an amplified guitar and fiddle. If I hadn’t been so nervous, I might have grabbed Michelle to dance.
People showed up after the art opening, and we gathered a small crowd by the time we started reading.
The first two readings were great! Short, though—I’d prepared a program of about 25 minutes, short of the half hour I’d been allotted, but when Ms Kennedy clocked in around 20 minutes, and Ms Moustakis finished in about 15, I began to mentally edit on the fly.
If I have one regret of the evening, it’s that I cut the essay Living By the Season: A Meditation rather than the one I led with, Simple Living: Simple Celebrations, which is exclusive to the book, but that’s a minor quibble. I read three other short pieces, including Sacred Coffee: Elevating the Habitual to the Mindful and Coffee With a Whale, (the book versions of these essays differ from the blog versions) finishing with an edited version of How To Dress Like a Southeast Alaskan from the blog, which went over quite well. People visited afterward for a while, and Michelle says halibut jackets and XTRATUFs seemed to be a hot topic of conversation.
Michelle and I got to visit with Ms. Moustakis a bit, and we saw friends we haven’t seen in a few weeks or more. Even some of our Mud Bay neighbors attended!
We made a little money both for us and the library, I got to read from Sacred Coffee for the first time in public, and it seemed well received. As a bonus, the predicted storm for that evening’s hike home never materialized.
I’m very pleased with how this turned out. I’m glad it’s over, but I’m really glad we did it!
(The event coordinator took some photos, which she said she’d send me. I’ll post them here if there are any good ones of my reading.)
Mark-
I’m so sorry I snuck in late, but it was great to hear you read.
(To the readers who weren’t there, you don’t “sneak” into a space that small. You slink in visibly and sit in the back. Which is two rows behind the front.)
Angie, early or late, I’m really glad you came! And, you snuck in as far as I was concerned. I looked up, and there you were!