Book promotion is intense. Book promotion during a global pandemic, largely without childcare, on top of paid work and amid other multiple crises (climate, racial/colonial, democratic) is fucking nuts and also feels…wrong? to some extent. Also, if you have any kind of social anxiety or introversion, book marketing feels kinda awful. It’s funny. I once thought “writing” meant finishing something. Eventually I realized that “writing” meant the responsibility not only to finish something but to share it with the world, to make it public. But then once you do share something, you realize “writing” also encompasses this whole other realm of work, beyond drafting and revising and even submitting, this industrial or business or busy-ness realm of meta-work, which consists of telling people you’ve shared something and why. (Here’s where my socially anxious brain screams: Isn’t it enough to put something out there? Do I really have to let people know I’ve put something out there??)

But I believe in my book, and I believe in the political power of art to help us survive and think through crisis. And so it was that I spent the the last three months of last year trying to figure out all the things you’re supposed to do to let the world know you’ve published a book (launch event! reviews! social media presence! media hits! libraries and bookstores!). Then I spent the first six months of 2021 trying, to the best of my abilities, to do those things. I’d hoped that by July I might be able to turn my attention back to new writing–and slowly, slowly I’m getting there–but one last thing remains, which is (now that I’m double vaxxed) to get out into the world and do some readings.

So, I’m hitting the road both figuratively (in the case of podcasts and virtual stuff) and literally (in the case of bookstore/festival/library events). I thought about making one flyer that includes all the dates confirmed thus far, but a lot of those details are still pending, so instead I’ll just post a flyer I made for the first event, a reading just a couple miles from my house at an indie bookshop called Dead Tree Books. Will post other upcoming event info as those details take shape. I’m most excited about a reading in Laredo alongside Carlos Nicolas Flores and a reading in Victoria at the only indie bookstore serving rural South Texas. Maybe a reading in Corpus too since one of the book’s key scenes takes place there.

One other thing to mention is that the Dead Tree Books reading takes place just a couple days before my birthday, so there may be cake…just sayin.