Scenes from a Book Launch

Garcia Street Books, Santa Fe, NM
March 19, 2008

Garcia Street's announcement board.

(Many thanks to Peg's dad, Dr. Steven Spencer, for taking all but the last of these photographs. The last one's by Sheila -- who's always on the look-out for a metaphor come true!) Enjoy! Wish you could'a been there!

Do we look excited or what?

We were excited, alright -- not least because we found the place only minutes before "show time." Thanks for driving, Peg! The fault was all mine. I just had to make 50 different bookmarks for the occasion!
Peg here: Notice how full this bookstore is. They don't waste a shred of space! Our attendees sat on chairs tucked in between the islands of books you see here and shelf-covered walls. Very cozy!


This is us (Sheila, L, Peggy, center) with Andrea, one of the bookstore workers. So lovely of her to greet us with such a warm smile --- and wine to calm our nerves!
My Dad noted that Andrea and her colleague, Aaron, were smiling throughout the event. And that in spite of us staying an hour past closing time! They were very gracious and generous. And they sold a bunch of our books, too!

While the two of us signed books, audience members enjoyed some of our toys. The woman in the foreground is looking at the "twin scales" she's weighing in on -- to see if she's literally balanced.
To the right is Peggy's sister Sally, trying out our Loofah-on-a-Stick. (You whack yourself with it --- feeeeels sooooooooo gooooooood!) And her son, Peggy's nephew Jaden is there in the middle, putting the Hoberman sphere through its paces. Yes, we had a grand old time, authors and audience alike. Didn't break out my guitar pillow, but.... next time!
We passed out Sheila's beautiful home-made bookmarks, each of which has a Way (chapter) title and brief description, then the audience members enjoyed reading their pick out loud. We also used these nifty souvenirs to help us randomly pick sections of the book to read aloud. The folks were very game, even getting up from their chairs to try out one of our "cool moves," a Key favorite called "Lasagne Loca!"

And finally, here's that "metaphor come true" -- Peg's and my BIG WISH to finish the doggone manuscript... so New World Library could make it into a book... so stores like Garcia Street Books could sell it... and so we could actually go there and "meet our public" (even if they were mostly Peg's family that night!). Thanks to everyone who had a hand in making our BIG WISH come true!