and july in philly

I'll be back in Philly for the steamiest month of them all and ready and willing to rock, read, or collapse at any venue in your jurisdiction. The Chestnut Hill Book Festival and Faber Books in 30th Street Station are stuck with me on July 9 and 8, but other dates around then are open if you need me. The Fees, Monsieur Finder and his lovely wife Madam Appearance have in fact strayed from my social circle, so I'm sure it won't be difficult for you and I to agree on a lovely moment together should such an opportunity present itself.

Here's the fully updated schedule for May through July:

April 30, Saturday, 1 to 3 p.m. (signing only), Books-A-Million, Anderson Shopping Mall, Anderson, SC

May 6, Friday, 7 p.m., City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC

May 7, Saturday, 3 p.m., Blue Ridge Books, Waynesville, NC

May 14, Saturday, 1 to 3 p.m. (signing only), Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

July 6, Wednesday, 6 p.m., Lucien E. Blackwell Regional Library, 52nd and Sansom, Phila., PA

July 8, Friday, 4 to 6 p.m. (signing only), Faber Books, 30th Street Station

(Faber has sold 29 copies of Fight for Your Long Day, emphatically crushing the competition and supporting John McNally's point that books are often best sold in locales where they take place. Alas, I can only dream that one day they'll have a book-trading annex in the men's room on the opposite side of the station.)

Chesnut Hill Book Festival
July 9, Saturday, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., The Stagecrafters, 8130 Germantown Avenue

All of these, of course, are free and open to the public.

Thanks so much if one of them finds its way into your schedule.

southern leg

The Southern leg of the Fight for Your Long Day tour kicks off in sunny Anderson, South Carolina at the most fashionable Books-A-Million in the Anderson Shopping Center. On Saturday, April 30 I'll sign copies there from 1 to 3 p.m. and then sprint to the discount sneaker store to sign autographed pairs of aged Jordans and preowned Answers, all in support of my tired, old man sneaker charity, a specialty program designed to support fallen arches and sore ankles from sea to shining sea. Get your bucket of saltwater ready!

After Anderson, we're taking the show a bit further up the road to scenic southwestern North Carolina, where our version of the home-and-home series means readings Friday May 6 at 7 p.m. at City Lights in the beautiful downtown of Sylva, North Carolina and then on Saturday a trip up the winding highway to a May 7 3 p.m. reading at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville, North Carolina. These two Indy stores both have a spectacular selection, particularly relative to their square footage, and the Blue Ridge even has a full service coffee shop where you can get caffeinated, sandwiched up, and ready to rock and be read to all afternoon.

But that's not all!

(I imagine some of you are now expecting a stainless-steel fridge offer; alas, it is not to be.)

The following weekend, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina plays host to Cyrus Duffleman with a Saturday, May 14 signing event from 1 to 3 p.m. Word on the street is that the Duffler plans to shake it old school and the authorities are closely monitoring the scene!

To recap:

April 30, Saturday, 1 to 3 p.m. (signing only), Books-A-Million, Anderson Shopping Mall, Anderson, SC

May 6, Friday, 7 p.m., City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC

May 7, Saturday, 3 p.m., Blue Ridge Books, Waynesville, NC

May 14, Saturday, 1 to 3 p.m. (signing only), Fiction Addiction, Greenville, SC

But for now, back to April 11.

shelve your debut novel now, City Lights!

Hey, if you want to help get some cool debut novels find safe harbor in San Francisco's famous City Lights Bookstore, follow this link http://www.citylights.com/bookstore/ and e-mail about a title or just write to this address:

City Lights Bookstore
Att. Book Buyer
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco,  CA  94133

And guess what?

I have a list of novels for you to choose from:

Andy Breslin's Mother's Milk
Steve Himmer's The Bee Loud Glade
Nadia Kalman's The Cosmopolitans
Alex Kudera's Fight for Your Long Day (never heard of it)
Kate Ledger's Remedies

Mark SaFranko's Hating Olivia (could be there already)
Ben Tanzer's You Can Make Him Like You
Charles Dodd White's Lambs of Men
Joe Zeppetello's Daring to Eat a Peach
Tommy Zurhellen's Nazareth, North Dakota

OK. Except for Ben and Charles, these are all debut novels, and they are all from new novelist-publisher partnerships. I'm sure any help is appreciated. Tap me on the keyboard if I missed you, and I'll be sure to add you to the list (new novelists or indy book buyers).

Note: for Mark, several novels have already been published in Europe in English and French translation.

What an amazing blogger! What a weirdo.

Wah (translated as "wow" in both Korean and exhausted English).

long weekend

Friday evening, Ron Rash burned bright at The Bengal Tiger's first reading in the spring series, and it went well enough that we will have at least three more readings (look for details soon), including my own on March 1 (a Tuesday, 7 p.m.). We then saw and heard Ron read again at City Lights in Sylva, NC the following Sunday, as in yesterday, a bright, beautiful day at that.

And so, I'm motivated and in the mood to read from Fight for Your Long Day. In front of an audience, no less. I'm fairly certain I'll have details soon for my spring reading plans. If you want to book me for an event (in a way that doesn't involve electrocution by wet kindle or slamming an unabridged dictionary over my head), please do not hesitate to e-mail, f-book, or t-weet although telepathy remains my e-best mode of communication of course. It looks like I'll be in the mid-Atlantic from March 20 to 27 and the Clemson region (within a couple hours of Asheville, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc.) for the rest of Feb through April.

And now I'm here, too, squatting on Old Man Bezos's land.

Slog Through Your Tuesday!