I feel like that title should describe a set from Fischer-Price. It would include a table, a few fake, hollow plastic books that only open to the first page where, with a wet erase marker, the toddler can sign their books. I feel like they would feel less conceited and out of their depth than I did yesterday. The beauty of the whole situation was that I further learned something that gives me hope in humanity, something I've known from my acting days: People love honesty on the "stage". I knew this was going to be an intimate affair when I chose the venue. I knew we'd have a tub of candy (because it's the beginning of spooky season, duh) and light refreshments, and I expected to see friends and family members, and the odd passer-by. I did NOT expect to nearly sell out the copies of the book I have. I also did not expect to connect so deeply with two other authors in the area and have such earnest conversations.
About five after three, I read a bit of Dancers in the Desert, leaving the ending to all in attendance to read later, and then I opened things up for questions and conversation. The incomparable Kerrie Taber and I were having a very frank conversation about university life and waiting for pre-publishing to be done (it's scary, okay [yes, university and pre-publishing]) when the legendary Darneisha F. Airhart came in and I had to gush over how much I love that she wrote a children's book about Alphonso Trent and his Orchestra (go look them up on Spotify RIGHT NOW if you don't know them, listen to St. James Infirmary first and thank me later) and how much I love their music, story and ties to our area. Then we just started to chew the thick fat of writing and publishing and existence. They made me excited for our upcoming round tables. All that to say, a few folks that showed, came because of the Writer's Guild. Many showed because I personally knew them, and the number of people that came to an event that Facebook had seen fit to not promote until the day of, TikTok had seen fit to not promote at all because of the text style in my ad flyer (it happens a LOT), and Reddit had deleted from both r/fortsmith and r/arkansas for some reason, staggered me. Spoiler alert: Lots of characters in that book you may fall in love with won't survive, don't hate me too much. I'll see you again soon with a less disjointed and rambly post, and for those who want signed books, we will have another event soon and I will have some at my round-table in October! <3
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