However, for the next three weeks, I’ll take to the air and head out to the West coast.

Here are the first two stops on the West coast tour:

    9/7 Seattle, WA at the Seattle Public Library (Secret Garden Bookshop) on Sunday at 2PM

    9/8 Bellingham, WA at Village Books on Monday at 7PM

I’ll be speaking, signing, and taking questions so please stop by if you can.

After Washington state, I’ll be in the San Francisco Bay area and in and around Los Angeles. Then I’m off to Colorado, Arizona, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Click here for my full book tour schedule and all of the details.

I hope to see you soon.

A work in progress. Bobbin lace on a lace maker's pillow.

A few days ago, I was in South Hadley, MA at the wonderful Odyssey Bookstore to speak about The Lace Reader and to do a signing. One of the attendees brought in a piece of lace she was making (in the photo, it’s attached to her lace maker’s pillow.) Having tried and failed to make lace myself, I’m always in awe of anyone who can nimbly toss the stick-like bobbins back and forth and end up with something so beautiful and delicate. Another lace maker in the audience remarked that lace making is not very complex, reducing the process to it’s most simple. “You take two threads and you either go over one or go under the other. ”

While what she said is absolutely true, my failed attempt tied not only the piece I was working on into knots but my mental state as well. I ended up putting my work (with bobbins still attached) into a hatbox and shoving the whole thing to the back of my closet with all the other treasures I plan to fix or complete.

So I am thrilled when the lace makers come to one of my signings, and even happier when they embrace the book. Lace makers are true artists, and they are all around the country. So if you get a chance to see a demonstration, or even to try lace making yourself, I encourage you do it. Who knows? Like the Whitney women, you might even see a vision in the lace.

And there I sat for a long long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me. 

                    Nathaniel Hawthorne

My national book tour began a few days ago at the House of the Seven Gables, in the shadow of the masterful Hawthorne. The Lace Reader is set in Salem, and it has been embraced by the city and by the staff of the House of Seven Gables, in particular by Anita Blackaby, the executive director of the famous domicile. After reading my book, Anita emailed and invited me over for a visit. Not only did they want to help to make my book successful, but they also wanted to create a Lace Reader litera-tour so that many of the places in the book could easily be located by readers visiting Salem. And, upon finding out that my second book will be set on the same street as the Gables, Anita offered me writing space in their beautiful gardens. What a delight! I can’t thank her enough.

Cornerstone Books in Salem hosted the event which took place in two parts. The first was my reading, a presentation, Q&A, and a signing. Then later, in the gardens, there was a reception to benefit HAWC, a local group that helps abused women and children, a fitting pairing since my fictional story deals with an island shelter for such victims.

The event was sold out, so Cornerstone hosted another, earlier signing. It was warm and muggy plus I was a little nervous. Ben Bruton, my publicist from William Morrow, kept me cool and calm by telling me stories of his visit to Salem, most particularly about his witnessing of a tourist attraction called Cry Innocent which is mentioned in my novel. In this guerilla theater reenactment (which runs several times a day during the summer months), Bridget Bishop (Salem’s first of the accused) is literally dragged through the streets, then tried for witchcraft all over again, giving the tourists a chance to act as the jury and perhaps to change the historical outcome. On this afternoon, a particularly hot one, tourists were hard to come by, so another local actor (who was playing a fully costumed giant slurpee for a shop on the corner) tried to help, grabbing Bridget by the arm. The image that Ben created of the giant slurpee dragging Bridget down the street, while the young actress stayed in perfect period character vehemently protesting her innocence, made me laugh out loud. I realized once again why I love this place. These are my people: from Hawthorne, to HAWC, to the giant Slurpee, - what a great city!

To learn more about The House of Seven Gables, click here.

To learn more about HAWC, click here.

Last Monday, I flew to Washington DC to appear on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show to discuss The Lace Reader. The show is an hour long, and it is live, so I was a bit nervous. I didn’t sleep much the night before. Instead, I sat in the dark, making mental lists of all the ways I could mess up. Of course, I knew better. If you’re going to make mental lists, make them of all the ways you can be successful, right? But middle of the night list-making often yields darker results, so, eventually, I turned on the light and started to read.

In the morning, when I walked into the studio, all of my apprehension faded. What a great group of people! They are gracious, smart, and funny. They had me laughing within about a minute. Diane is such a good conversationalist that you get better just by being in her presence. The hour flew by. In the second half of the show, we fielded some very interesting questions from listeners.

The only thing we didn’t get to was the promised definition of chop suey sandwiches (CSS). So for those of you who were listening and for others who may be curious, here’s the dish.  CSS are a popular treat in The Lace Reader and in the real city of Salem. When I moved back to town about a decade ago, they were the best value around (beating even McDonalds at sixty-five cents apiece, though the price has increased since by a dollar). They are sold at two different take-out Chinese places along the midway at Salem Willows Park. John Rafferty (the book’s fictional detective) eats at least one of them per day, partly because he really loves them, and partly because he has acquired a sense of New England frugality that would make the locals proud. 

Basically, the sandwich is a scoop (some would say lump) of very traditional chop suey, with soy sauce squirted on top, and sometimes a bit of chicken, all served on a hamburger bun. It’s not one of my favorite treats, though my brother swears by it. I swear by the popcorn that is sold two shops away and is (hands-down) the best on the North Shore. But that’s a story for another day. So, if you listened to the Diane Rehm show, you now know what a CSS is. If not, and you are interested, click here to listen to the show.

If you’re at all curious about the book publishing business, click here to listen to it. 

Tomorrow is July 29th, the day The Lace Reader goes on sale. I feel a bit like Wendy Darling on her last night in the nursery. My national book tour also begins tomorrow and, according to my recent schedule, it will last until mid-November so for the foreseeable future, I’ll be writing to you from somewhere on the road.

The press is building, loud enough now for even me to hear a bit of the buzz.

If you haven’t seen the book trailer, click here.

The Lace Reader is not about witches, though it is difficult to write anything about contemporary Salem and not include something about the witches who didn’t exist at all back in the days of the witch trials but thrive here in great numbers now.

I was recently asked to comment on this for USA Today. Click here to read it.

They asked me why writers would choose to create stories about Salem now. At first I wasn’t sure. Unlike the other writers, I live in Salem, so for me it was a natural setting. But it was more than that. In one respect, The Lace Reader  is a cautionary tale. We live now in fearful times. And just as in the Salem of the 1600’s, we have to be careful not to let our fears make us recklessly assign blame and create enemies.

But there is another more optimistic side to the story, and that is the quote they chose to use from my interview for the USA Today story.

I talked about the Harry Potter series, and how those books give children, who are relatively powerless, a feeling that they can change the world. I think this ability to connect with our inner strengths is a very important part of my story as well. Magic and everyday miracles are a very hopeful part of our collective consciousness and thus appear frequently in the stories we tell.

I can’t speak for the other authors, but, ultimately, my book about Salem is optimistic. More than anything else, The Lace Reader is about healing our deepest wounds, recovering our strength, and moving on. I can’t think of anything more hopeful than that.

The loons actually answer me. There are two loons on our tiny lake, nesting right in the wooded area at the shoreline in front of our house where the old tree fell ten years ago and was never removed.

Last summer, a good friend (who has studied loons more closely than I) informed me that my loon call was actually a loon distress signal. This caused me a great deal of consternation. The last thing I would ever want would be to distress the loons. My intention was simply to be friendly. So, for the most part, I have stopped doing my loon call, or at least I don’t do it as often or unless there is something real to distress them about (like the bald eagle who shows up on occasion, or maybe a flock of geese).

But, on the Fourth of July, I give myself permission to sound as many loon calls as I can, because, on the Fourth of July, a loon call means something entirely different on our tiny lake.

Though there are much better fireworks displays than our little show, no one would ever think of going to them. Sure their pyrotechnics are flamboyant, and their shows last more than ten minutes. But we have something much better on our tiny lake, we have Harry and Bill and the old raft. And as many fireworks as they can buy in Hampton Beach with the money they’ve been able to collect door to door.

And we have a special set of sound effects.

At approximately 9 PM, the lake begins to sound like a barnyard. Or a jungle. Or in our case, like the frogs and loons that inhabit the lake. Everyone sits on their little beaches. Protected by the anonymity of darkness, they not only imitate, but seem to become their favorite animals. We have whales, macaws, several roosters, cows, and what I can only descibe as an asthmatic hyena. We signal our approval after each launch of fireworks with calls that have gotten better over the years and that I can only assume have been practiced during the long New England winters. Every once in a while, someone yells “Good one Harry,” or “Way to go Bill,” but, for the most part we just cackle, crow, or moo.

Later in the summer when we see each other at the Lake Association meeting, we will try to match the voices to the sounds. As Mike stands up to register a complaint about impending milfoil, my husband will turn to me and mouth the question “Bantam rooster?” I am pretty certain that the eighty-year-old woman who lives two doors down and serves formal tea to her husband on the screened porch every afternoon is the macaw, but I’d never ask.

Last year, as I stood up to complain about the speed limit of motor boats on our lake, I am pretty sure I heard Harry turn to Bill and whisper, “Cue the loon.”

I am now working on my impression of a Norwegian harbor seal.

What could be better, you ask? Only that The Lace Reader recently received a Starred Review in Library Journal, so the buzz at the show was quite favorable. Click here to read it.

While I was only there for one day, I did manage to get a lot done:
- a book signing at the Harper Collins booth
- a “Live” stage reading from The Lace Reader
- a podcast interview for I Love Librarians with Virginia Stanley (Click here to listen.) (Note: this interview is only 10 minutes long even though it says 1 hour. Not sure what happened there.)
- Spoke at the Friends of Libraries / America’s Library Trustees & Advocates Gala Author Tea & Signing with authors Ron Carlson, Christopher Reich, Joseph Michelli, and Rich Wartzman. All terrific writers and inspiring speakers.

So now it’s back to New England, as the clock ticks on The Lace Reader release date (July 29th all across the country).

And this weekend, we head up to our vacation home in NH (another place that vies for my “happiest place on earth” title) and another set of fireworks (a unique experience and undoubtedly my next blog entry). Let’s see, a screened porch, a lake, friends and family, fireworks and a book I just borrowed from my local library. What could be better?

Happy 4th of July everyone!

New Englanders are a strange mix of propriety, humorous subtext, and open aggression, especially in the face of anything they find pretentious or dishonest. Growing up in New England, I came to discover that you can get along pretty well by resorting to your Emily Post or Miss Manners, but that when people really began to like you, they will mock and tease you mercilessly. If a person is always polite to you, it is never a good sign.

Now that The Lace Reader has been sold in many countries around the world, I am beginning to interact with the various translators and I’m finding that 95% of their questions deal with sarcasm, self-effacing humor, and mocking understatements. Making translatable sense out of tongue-in-cheek remarks is challenging enough but even more so when a culture is devoid of multi-generational taunting. Do cultures like that really exist? If so, what do they do at family gatherings?