Book promotion? Good god, y’all

It’s damn hard to think about hawking a new novel when the world has gone mad

War, huh / What is it good for? / Absolutely nothing, say it again …

Beaverton, Oregon “No Kings” protest, image one.

Two months ago today my debut novel, Sunshine Girl, came out from Heliotrope Books of New York.

A week and a day ago, on June 14, millions upon millions of us took to the streets in cities big and small, blue and red and purple, from sea to shining sea, to protest the horrors this administration is inflicting on the masses. We held signs that said “No Kings” and “Pro-America, Anti-Trump” and “Free Press, Free People.” We held hands and sang folk songs and waved flags—some right-side up, some upside-down.

We held our breath for a better tomorrow.

Beaverton, Oregon “No Kings” protest, image two.

Then.

Just yesterday, our government bombed Iran, wading into a fight started by Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu—without consulting congress, and without, it seems, a whole lot of forethought and maybe any afterthought. Who knows where things will go from here?

We’re all waiting to find out where the political and existential chips are going to fall.

“Clearly grounds for impeachment,” said AOC, echoing others in her party.

"This is not constitutional," conservative Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky declared.

The voices of reason right there.

And yet, uncertainty reigns. Will the House and Senate invoke the War Powers Act? Are the Iranian nuke-building facilities really gone? Will we commit our troops to war in the Middle East yet again? To what end?

Beaverton, Oregon “No Kings” protest, image three.

Beyond dropping bunker-busters in the dead of night, what will Trump do next? The current Oval Office occupant, ever the cagey one, is registering “hazy” as his Magic 8 Ball answer to that question on Truth Social. We are not amused.

We’re off balance, not sleeping, our stomachs in knots. We’re trying to function, running on empty.

Still, there is coffee to make. Thee are dogs to walk, and laundry to do. Grandkids to watch. Friends to care for. Substacks to read.

And for some of us, books to sell.

I get it. This is an SOS situation of gigantic proportions. It feels trite to say come to my reading at this place or that. Here is my author photo, and some details. I’d love to see you. Buy my book.

But I am doing the thing, and will continue to do it.

Because my novel is about newspaper journalism and First Amendment freedoms. Because we badly need credible news sources and I want to stand up for that. Because I think it’s a good story.

And because I have been told: Anne Frank read books in the attic, before she was taken away to Bergen-Belsen.

Beaverton, Oregon “No Kings” protest, image five.