Now That My Book's Out...

I got into a conversation the other day with a fellow who’s painting the house. He starts telling me about a big job he had painting Pearl Buck’s house years ago. Since she won a Pulitzer, and was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, I suddenly feel I’m in very good company. He tells me there were ghosts in her house. Says he could feel them all around, and hear them too—footsteps and other sounds. Says he’d have to go outside at times when he couldn’t take it anymore. I mention my book and the chapter about the ghost at White House Farm in Chestertown. It’s a real pleasure connecting with someone through my book. And, who knows? He may end up reading mine, even if it is not quite in the same league as Buck’s The Good Earth. 

About Book Talks, someone asked if I always give the same one each time. Can’t say that I do. What I try to do is get the audience involved early on. After talking a little about the book, I ask them questions like “What do you think? Does this make sense? Do you have any questions for me?” And when they do, it moves things along in directions that interest them. Livens it up for the audience and for me, too, and makes each talk quite different from the others. Next stops on the Book Talk “circuit:” Delray Beach, Florida and Easton, Maryland. 

My book is getting reviewed soon by Delmarva Review. I can’t wait to read it. It’s one thing to have friends and others at the Book Talks be positive about the book, but quite another to discover what a professional critic thinks and says about it. I have no idea what to expect, but that’s OK. I’ll take that risk in return for having it covered in such a good publication. 

Speaking of potentially critical reviews, I recently told my daughter Lucy about this blog of mine. She says she’ll read it. “Let me know what you think,” I tell her, and “you don’t have to be honest!” But she probably will, having won a writing prize in grade school, edited a literary publication in high school and majored in literature in college. She can write!