Tag: book launch

Shelved

Posted on by roselee

October has been a whirlwind of bookstore launches, after-parties, interviews, reviews, and appreciation via email, phone and old-fashioned note cards from family, friends, and strangers, and best of all, oceans of love. As wonderful as this experience has been, there was one small public moment and one big private one that were most powerful for me, distilling it on both a macro and a micro scale.

After signing extra copies of Dying in Dubai for my home bookstore, Oblong Books & Music, to sell post-event, I waited a few days to return. When I did, I made a beeline for the memoir section. There it was, the most satisfying accomplishment of all: my book on a bookstore shelf, cover face out, adorned with a silver “autographed copy” seal, propped against a few more, Napoleon to its right, Mindy Kaling on the left, Michael Maslin above, The Black Calhouns below. If you’ve been reading my previous blog posts, you will recognize the continuing theme: my manifest arrival in the company of other authors. The simple fact that my first book sat on the shelf of a bookstore made the achievement concrete. I saw it. I felt it, and  I was grateful for it.

That was the macro (public) moment.

The micro (private) one was this: the day after my official book launch in Montclair, New Jersey–a sold-out SRO event with an audience reflecting our whole family history and mine before Jerry; even a grad school friend showed up–I entered my Hudson Valley home, tired but satisfied, and noticed that the copy of Dying in Dubai I had propped weeks before on a high shelf in my living room for all to see, face out (as in the bookstore photo), was on the floor. It had been standing there for weeks, as had a few other books I displayed similarly, which stayed put. Books didn’t fall off my shelves.

Nothing else in the room was amiss. I shrugged and went to my bedroom to unpack. About 15 minutes later, I reentered the living room. Dying in Dubai was on the floor again–in exactly the same place. I noticed that it was a few feet from the bookshelf, as if it had been thrown.

I should say here that I don’t believe in ghosts, I don’t talk to them, but I do believe that we are all made of energy that changes, yet doesn’t leave. I looked up, and said out loud, “Jerry? Okay, okay, I hear you.” Then I picked up the book and placed it back on the shelf. It hasn’t moved since.

I had the distinct feeling that the book fell the first time, while I was in our old hometown reading from it to our community. Later, I wondered if my husband was sending me a specific message, that he was with me regardless, because I had forgotten to go to his grave; Jerry was buried in Montclair. I had every intention of paying my respects while I was in town, but by the time the event was over and my son and I had our brunch debrief at our favorite restaurant the next morning, all I wanted to do was go home. And I did.

Reading this, the skeptics among you might think that this line of thinking is a bit crazy. I agree, but I can’t dismiss what happened. It was as real and as important as seeing my memoir on the bookstore shelf. Jerry’s energy is out there, whether between the covers of my book or in my new home. My beloved husband is in the world. Still.

Author

Posted on by roselee

It’s two weeks until my book launch and I feel tremendous anticipation about what is certainly a defining moment in my life—very much like the two other days in my past when my public identity changed: my wedding day at the bus stop where Jerry and I met, when I became a wife, and the day, almost exactly three years later, when I gave birth to our son, Oliver, and became a mother. The launch on October 1st in our old hometown, Montclair, New Jersey, marks the moment when my status as a writer transforms permanently into that of “author.” Though I’ve had stories, essays and articles published in journals, magazines and anthologies, as well as plays professionally produced—the theatrical equivalent of publication—the publication of my memoir brings me to an entirely different level of achievement. An author is a writer who has published a book, and with the publication of DYING IN DUBAI, I have met the definition.

I remind myself how momentous and satisfying the launch event will be, as I tick down my list of To Dos: check in with my publicist, contact libraries and bookstores to schedule more events, organize the receptions, plan my readings and remarks, test pens, practice my signature, and answer the all-important question: What am I going to wear? At least once a day, I have to stop and take a conscious deep breath, lest I become the author version of Bridezilla. I tell myself, it will work out fine—you deserve it—now enjoy it.

On a particularly trying day, when I wondered how I was going to get from here to there— I was so frazzled that I actually spelled my first name “Rosalie” in an email signature—I stumbled onto the website for my local Rhinebeck bookstore, Oblong Books & Music (near my new home in the Hudson Valley), where I will have a second launch on October 6th, I had meant to hit another link, but rather than immediately switch sites, I found myself mesmerized by their home-page sliders of upcoming events: Man Booker Prize finalist, Emma Donoghue, Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday fav, Elizabeth Lesser, Bright Lights, Big City legend, Jay McInerney…and me, Roselee Blooston. I had to watch the loop of their faces and names, before and after mine, three times, before I could begin to absorb its import. I wasn’t delusional. I knew my career existed on a far more modest plane than these heavyweights, but even so, each slider was the same size and style; in this simple, direct presentation, we were equals—peers—because we had something fundamental in common: we were all published authors promoting our new books.

I let out a sigh and sat back nodding. It felt good.

Present and Past at Pre-Launch

Posted on by roselee

When my good friend and Vassar classmate, Robyn Travers, offered to pitch an Author Talk for me at the Jacob Sears Memorial Library, her local Cape Cod branch, neither of us realized that its event coordinator was Janet Robertson, another Vassar ’73 grad. They both did an incredible job publicizing the August 23rd event, which—with my publisher’s blessing, since it was 6 weeks before my official Oct 1 launch—included a reading and signing. There’s nothing better than the power of old school ties!

And that was only the first of the remarkable associations that manifested that evening. As I waited to begin my talk, I sat to the side of the podium (which I didn’t use, since I prefer to move, and because I’m so short, I would have looked like a literal “talking head” behind it), and overheard a mother and daughter talking. I had put postcards about the book on each seat. The young woman picked up one, turned it over, and remarked, “Mom, this is from my school!” I introduced myself, and asked if she attended Loyola University Maryland, home of Apprentice House Press, my publishing house. The answer was yes—she was a senior there—but she had come, because she had just spent 2 months in Dubai. Ah, synchronicity!

A few minutes later, I was surprised and delighted by Janet’s introduction. She was incredibly thorough, going as far back as my one-person plays. When she mentioned “The Queen’s in the Kitchen,” and my long ago status as a professional look-alike, I spontaneously did the wave. The audience laughed and I was over the hump before I’d spoken a word. Considering the subject matter of my memoir, I had been concerned that the talk would be too heavy. No worries. Between QE2 and the romance and fun of my bus stop wedding, there was plenty of levity. In any talk, especially one about an emotional subject, it’s important to make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry. I did both.

The tears weren’t all sorrow; some were sweet. At the end of the talk, I read a Cape Cod scene featuring my Vassar friends and fellow drama majors, including Joan Bogden, who had given me her professional coaching advice gratis that very afternoon. Together the 3 of us had visited the Monomoy Theatre in Chatham, MA, where I had done 2 seasons of summer stock. Before the reading, I had given Joan and Robyn inscribed copies and told them not to look at Part Two. This was why. They didn’t know they were in it. I had managed to hold myself together, when I spoke of losing my husband, but seeing Robyn and Joan tear up while I read about our little jaunt, I almost lost it.

Afterwards, a woman approached the table where I was signing books, handed me her copy, and asked when I had performed at the Monomoy and in what shows. I told her, rattling off 5 or 6 plays. “I saw them all,” she said, “and I remember you.” I was moved and humbled. Actors and writers don’t always know their impact. When a moment like this happens, it is a gift. It’s not often that present and past merge so seamlessly. Now I can trust that, like my performances, my book will reach and touch strangers over time. The very point of writing it.