The Blue Pacifica
Saturday. 6:15am. I’m on the road again in my blue Pacifica, the newly paved asphalt and concrete of I-35 rumbling beneath the floor (my apologies to Steve Goodman). The title of this piece was stolen from friend, musician, and memoirist, Paul Metsa. I’m not off to much of a start here in terms of originality; I’ve ripped off Goodman’s lyrics and Metsa’s book title and we’re not even through the intro! Oh well. That’s what we writers do; we collect ideas and scenes and characters and themes that other folks aren’t using and we adapt them to our own warped little view of reality. Anyway, as I’ve recently written, I’m all but done for awhile with the writer/author/lecturer circuit. Except…
When you make a commitment to do a thing, well, you’re not much of a man or a woman if you bow out and leave someone hanging. I’d agreed to be on a panel of authors at the Bloomington Theater and Arts Center at the 10th Annual Writers Festival and Book Fair. So far as I know, there are only two of these writerly events left in Minnesota: The Bloomington Writers Festival and Book Fair, the one I’m headed to, and the Twin Cities Book Festival in October sponsored by Rain Taxi Magazine. There have been others I’ve participated in over the years: the Deep River Writers Festival in Mankato and the Great Northern Festival of Words in Duluth. But these other events no longer exist, having followed many local festivals and art fairs into retirement on the heels of a damaged economy and diminished volunteerism. I’ve attended most, if not all, of the festivals hosted by the lovely Bloomington Theater and Arts Center and, in return for a table to sell books and the proverbial free lunch, I’d agreed to join three other authors and moderator/publisher Tom Keyes to discuss the topic of “Pathways to Getting Your Book Published”. I’d made the promise before I decided to pull back from marketing. Hence, the early Saturday morning drive down I-35.
Location. Location. Location. Last year, my table was at the intersection of two hallways packed with authors and books: A great spot in terms of traffic flow and visibility. This year, I’m at the far end of a secondary hallway: a dead end. It’s sort of like being the last bar in a dark and dreary alley. By the time the drunks realize there’s one more tavern to visit, they’ve blown their wad. Oh well. I’m getting the space and lunch just for talking, right? Who can complain? I set up my table, which, given that I am down to stock of only two of my books, Laman’s River, my latest novel, and Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story, a brick thick biography of my dead legislator uncle that I have cartons of stacked in my basement back home, takes very little time. In short order, I’m open for business and I settle in to read. It’s a bit after 9:15 and the doors have been opened to let folks in to hear the keynote address at 9:30.
The Festival
Folks wander in and begin browsing tables stacked with self-published and subsidy published books. Each passing customer is a potential reader, a future fan for the hundreds of amateur authors like me sitting patiently behind their rented tables ready to discuss their work. I’ve never sold many books at this particular event but I’ve always made a new friend or two. Because I’m at the tail end of the hallway, the crowd thins by the time it reaches my table. But that’s OK. It gives me time to dig into Shelter, a nifty little memoir by Minnesota author (and friend) Sarah Stonich. I just started the book and already, I’m hooked. It’s a tough balancing act, reading someone else’s prose while trying to sell your own, but it’s a trapeze wire I’m well adept at walking, having sat in hundreds of events like this in hundreds of locations over the decade I’ve been a published author. Over time, I’ve acquired a second sense, an innate ability, to discern, from body language alone, when a person stopped in front of my books is actually interested or simply curious. The simply curious I leave be. I keep reading. For the actually interested, I lift my head, place the book I’m into on the blue cloth covering my table, and engage. Sometimes this connection with a potential customer results in a sale. More often than not, it doesn’t. But the conversation is always cordial, sometimes illuminating. And it comes with the territory.
A 10:40, I wander down to the Bloomington City Council Chambers where our panel will be presenting and meet Tom Keyes, the panel’s moderator. Tom and I are joined by authors June Anderson, Dave Fingerman, and Steve Filippini. After receiving preliminary instructions, the four author/panelists head back to our tables with the promise that we’ll all be on time for the 11:00 start of the panel. Despite the notion that most novelists are irresponsible drunken louts, we’re all in our places and behind our microphones when the cable access guy starts the video rolling and the panel discussion begins. As with most of these sorts of events, the hour flies past. Unlike some of my more recent blogs about my publishing efforts, which have tended to the dark and depressing, I try to remain upbeat, to give hope to the aspiring authors in the seats across the room. After all, who am I to step on someone’s dream, right? Besides, sitting in those chairs filled with college kids, retired grandfathers and grandmothers, and all sorts of folks in between, there may just be the next Sarah Stonich: a first-time novelist who lands a deal with a national publisher. One never knows. And so, I display a sunny optimism about the world of self-publishing in hopes of keeping the authorial aspirations of the audience alive. The panel ends with a few questions from the audience and we’re released by Tom to engage in personal commerce.
I trade a comp ticket for a free box lunch-a turkey wrap, assorted condiments, and a bottle of water-and return to my chair behind my table at the end of the line. I sell a few books. I chat with Randy and Kath McCarty, two friends from Grand Rapids who are insanely supportive of my writing, and then, when the traffic begins to dwindle with the shifting afternoon sun, I climb back into Stonich’s story, lost in her description of single motherhood, building a wilderness cabin, and trying to find a place in the world. Before too long, it’s 3:30 and time to pack up and wheel my boxes of words and thoughts out to the blue Pacifica for the ride home.
Shelter by Sarah Stonich
You can find Sarah’s work at: http://sarahstonich.com/home.html. You can track Paul’s comings and goings and buy a copy of his memoir, Blue Guitar Highway, at:
http://www.blueguitarhighway.com/.
Buy a book and help a Minnesota author out!
And for those of you who don’t know who Steve Goodman is, shame on you! (Check out: http://www.stevegoodman.net/)
Peace.
Mark
