Another quick post today to mention that I’ve put two ARCs of Alcestis up for giveaway on GoodReads. If you request one before January 15, you’ll be entered to win — then GoodReads chooses two winners, and I mail an ARC to you! (And then, I hope, you love it, squeeze it, call it George, and write a review about it.)
If you haven’t joined GoodReads yet, I recommend it — it’s a fun voyeuristic to see what your friends (or total strangers) are reading, and there are loads of interest groups dedicated to swapping recommendations. I’m a particular fan of the Historical Fictionistas and Endicott Mythic Fiction groups.
In my last post, I mentioned my recent trip to MLA, the big annual convention for languages & literature academics. It’s kind of an overwhelming experience: hundreds of panels, hundreds more nervous interview candidates, converging on a cold city during the worst possible travel week of the year (the week between Christmas and New Year’s). I’m reliably informed that this year’s MLA was pretty tame due to the poor economy — much smaller and quieter than conventions held even two years ago. There won’t actually be a 2010 MLA; the organizers have finally decided to move it to early January, so next year’s conference will skip right to 2011. (It will also be in LA, which will at least be warm.)
The most fun part of MLA is the exhibitors hall, where publishers set up giant displays, sometimes complete with wine and cheese. I didn’t buy anything — I try to travel light, and also, I’m a poor grad student — but I was lucky enough to snag an ARC of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I’ve been aware of this book for a while, thanks to having read some of Skloot’s science journalism and then stumbling across her Twitter feed months ago. Then Skloot herself was on the cover of the issue of Publishers Weekly that reviewed Alcestis – wacky. Anyway, I really love good science writing and hardly ever have a chance to read it these days, so I grabbed the offered ARC from the nice Random House booth person and started reading as soon as I got back to Texas.
This is a stunning book. The story itself is inherently fascinating, but Skloot also does a brilliant job of weaving together her own history with HeLa — the years of research, the frustrating, contentious, and ultimately rewarding relationships she developed with Henrietta Lacks’s family — with the narrative of Henrietta’s death and subsequent “immortal life” in biomedical research after a cluster of her cancer cells were taken by doctors in the “colored” ward at Johns Hopkins in the 1950s. Lacks’s adult children, still suffering the effects of poverty, discrimination, and abuse, struggle to comprehend the facts of the strange life of their “mother cells.” They’re simultaneously desperate for Skloot to publish her story and fiercely afraid that she intends to take advantage of them.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough (and as you can see on Skloot’s page about the book, I’m not the only one). This is the kind of work nonfiction writing is meant to do.
Last week, a box of real, true, honest-to-god hardback copies of Alcestis appeared at my house. My lovely editor Katie had told me that the final copies were printed before Christmas, but I didn’t know how long mine would take to arrive. My official publication date is February 1, and with the holidays and all, I didn’t know when to expect them.
I was in Philly last week for MLA — a trip that went remarkably smoothly, despite the whole Detroit underwear-bomber fiasco the week before — so I made T. wait to open the box until I got home. And then there was a lot of jumping around and squealing, because seriously, these are some GORGEOUS books. Everyone at Soho did such a wonderful job! T. and I did an impromptu photoshoot up in our attic just now so I could share the joy. (See also this outtake, which I just posted on Twitter.)
Here’s a closer shot of the book itself:
I can’t believe that February 1 is less than a month away! And that means we’re also just barely a month away from my book launch party. It’ll be held on Sunday, February 7, at 3 pm at BookPeople in Austin (6th & Lamar). There will be food and drink and a bit of reading (or more, if requested) and hopefully lots of general merriment. I’m so thrilled to have a get-together with all my Austin people who have seen this book go from a stack of ms. pages in my first workshop at UT to, well, what you see in the photos above. And if you’re reading this blog post, I hope you’ll come, too! This will definitely be a the-more-the-merrier kind of event.
I’ll be posting more about the book party soon, as well as other promotional things as my publication date gets even closer. I may even try to post here every day until then — which would be shocking, as anybody who’s been reading this blog since its beginning knows! But this whole weird delightful process of getting a book published is leaving me with lots to say.
I’m also going to be redesigning my website a bit in anticipation of February. If you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see here, do let me know! I do have a few fun little things related to Alcestis that I’ll put up — kind of like DVD extras. But I welcome other ideas, too. What would you like to know about Alcestis?
