I Heart Owen

Many thanks to Ravenna Third Place Books in Seattle for hosting me and my predominantly University-Pres-flavored posse last night, and to that group for turning out. If you haven't been to that branch of Third Place, it's an intimate setting, in more ways than one.

Consider that the author events take place in a cozy nook surrounded by the Health and Humor sections. Yes, so while you sit there listening to your particular author drone on and on, your eye can wander to the many enticing titles at your elbow, including, but not limited to:

1. F U PENGUIN by Matthew Gasteier. Kudos to Gasteier for thinking up such a winsome title. It begs to be said aloud, and we did, just for the sheer fun of it. And an honorable mention to the cover designer, who picked possibly the cutest baby penguin picture ever, for maximum humorous contrast.

2. bOObs: A GUIDE TO YOUR GIRLS by Elisabeth Squires. Also irresistible on many levels. I bet I would have attracted many more folks and certainly the random customers drifting about the bookstore had I busted out that book. (But, as Mary Crawford in MANSFIELD PARK says, "...Do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.)

3. TITLE I DIDN'T CATCH by Author I Don't Remember. You can hardly blame me for not remembering because the byline on this book was all about "vulvovaginal health." "Vulvovaginal"! What a word. Try saying that five times fast.

Beyond the setting, Third Place Books also features Owen. Yes, dear readers, Owen. Quite possibly the World's Most Charming Author Introducer. He was about twenty! He worked in a bookstore! He was polite and subdued! And, most alluring of all, he had read the first chapter of MOURNING BECOMES CASSANDRA on Scribd (because I neglected to leave a review copy earlier) and proceeded to give his own mini-synopsis. He had me at "she even thinks of burning the house down." Sigh. I might have sold more copies last night if they came with your own Owen.

If you missed all these things last night, you can still keep me company at the Seattle U Book Festival this Saturday, 2/13, at 1:00 p.m. Christina Dudley versus Robert Fulghum! Smackdown! And forgive me for the sporadic blogging--I've been on a total tear with my next book and can't seem to find enough time to write...

Say What?

In the FB and Twitter inboxes this morning I found competing advice. The first article declared that, if you're an unagented author, you have a better chance of being kidnapped by aliens and forced to do embarrassing things (my words, not hers, but that was the gist), than of getting an editor at a publishing house to consider your manuscript. The second article talked about how nearly-impossible it was to get an agent these days (unless you've been kidnapped by aliens and forced to do embarrassing things and thus gotten on Oprah) because you need to be mediagenic with a built-in platform to buy your books (cf. Sarah Palin and Steve Martin, among others). It isn't that the time-honored technique of sleeping with the right people no longer works--it's just you can't even get--without much perseverance--to the people you're supposed to sleep with, and nowadays there seem to be stables of people that must be slept with, to make anything happen. Can a boob job be written off on your taxes?

I'm just mulling this over hypothetically, of course. There are plenty of would-be published authors who will become published authors in a matter of time (my cousin, included) because they have the talent and the do-or-die stick-to-it-ness to get there, but I'm beginning to think I'm not among them. For one, I ran out of gas approaching agents after, what, five tries? I'm cutting my conference attendance in 2010 by 50% (one conference, instead of two), and I've grown a little weary of pimping my book. I just want to write and get copies in the hands of friends!

Of course, right after I decided I was going into semi-retirement as a book pimper, I heard back from Third Place Books in Ravenna (Seattle)--see ya there on Tuesday, February 9, at 7:00 p.m. But after that, and the Seattle U Book Festival, I'm outie. At least for now.