The Last Leg of the Tour

Thirty-six events.  Driving to Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Flying to San Francisco.  Yesterday marked the eight-month anniversary of my novel’s publication, and I can now declare that the tour is done for 2009, because I have no more bookstores, colleges, or events to visit for the rest of the year.  I’ve done a lot of driving around for this tour:

April 10 – NJ indie bookstores visits – 230
April 11 – NJ indie bookstores visits – 180
April 18 – KGB reading – 122
April 25 – Borders @ Eatontown – 142
April 29 – Princeton Public Library – 96
April 30 – Boston Public Library (Metro Park, NJ) – 74
May 9 – CAAA – 122
May 14 – AABF – 606
May 19 – Cornell Club of Lancaster, PA – 200
May 21 – AAWW – 122
May 22 – Newark Airport Borders – 110
May 28 – Newark Airport for SF reading – 110
June 5 – to Ithaca, NY – 171
June 7 – from Ithaca, NY – 176
June 10 – Beatrice reading – 122
June 13 – Bootleg Books interview in Brooklyn – 136
June 14 – Books NJ (Paramus, NJ) – 122
June 18 – Cornell Club of Phillie – 138
June 23 – McGoldrick (Queens, NY) – 60
June 25 – Generations XYZ, NYC – 122
June 30 – Scotch Plains Library – 80
July 1 – Korea Society – 122
July 16 – KCCP Princeton – 97
July 31 – Brielle Library – 168
August 7 – Raconteur – 92
August 20 – hunterdon county lib – 51
September 12 – baltimore and gaithersberg, md – 224
September 13 – DC – 240
September 17 – Montclair – 104
September 19 – Princeton – 96
October 14 – Ridgewood, NJ – 123
October 20-22 – Aurora, NY – 398
November 4 – Easton, PA – 27
November 12 – NYC – 122
November 18 – Hackettstown – 28

That comes to a total of 5133 actual miles.  That’s New-Jersey-to-California-round-trip kind of miles.  I’m sort of floored by that number, but really, I shouldn’t be.  It’s the power of gradual accrual, and it’s how books are written, too, a page at a time.

Check out some nice photos from the Dirty Laundry reading with Ed Park, which was just all-around awesome.  Ed read a hilarious excerpt from his new novel (tentatively titled Disambiguation), and I read from my short story “Translation” [PDF].

The last photo is actually from Centenary College before I started reading (Smith Hall Rotunda).  This was a delightful event — it was part of International Week, so I got to meet students from Korea, China, and Japan.

And that’s all she wrote.  Until next year, that is, when the paperback comes out.

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