I got away from the housecleaning last night to go see my pal Tim Maleeny at Centuries and Sleuths Bookstore. Tim's on the West Coast, but he's been to Chicagoland a few times now promoting his mystery series, the latest of which is entitled Beating the Babushka.After the signing, we went to a very smoky bar (Tim pointed out that smoking's not allowed now in California and New York bars--something I hadn't known), and we dished about writing and publishing until the smoke got to my contact lenses and they started to peel off of my eyes. :)
Today Tim was off to Minneapolis to promote at a bookstore there, and then he was winging back to the coast to be home for the holidays.
It got me thinking about the whole notion of writers and promotion. It's a huge job, and as far as I can tell, it falls largely on the writer's shoulders these days. If a writer has the misfortune of not having thousands of disposable dollars to spend on touting his or her work, they may just be out of luck.
This seems like an odd way to celebrate talent.
Tim is someone I've interviewed before; you can see the whole conversation here.
Now I have some terrific things to read over the holidays: Tim's new novel and the new mystery that I just received from my friend John Dandola, whose work I also recommend.
Okay, back to the cleaning and the grading. (And yet, nothing is ever entirely clean or completely graded. There's an existential problem for you.)
