Category: Workshops

Occasionally, the universe hands you a lollipop for your hard work after you’ve been eating meal after meal of humble pie. On Monday night, when we walked into Loganberry books in the Shaker Heights neighborhood of Cleveland, we got our lollipop. One of the great pleasures of going on tour is discovering new bookstores. And the second you walk into Loganberry, you realize you’ve stepped into a literary oasis.
We imagined Loganberry to be a tiny bookstore because every time we called prior to our arrival, Harriet Logan, the owner of the store, always answered the phone herself. But we walked into a mecca of books, with room after room of rare first editions, startling book oddities, and even a real vintage rack of Golden Books. And then there was Otis the cat. It was like we died and woke up in book heaven.
Harriet could not have been more warm and gracious. She took us to a room in the back that was set up living room style with purple chairs and cozy couches. Olive was whisked off by our old friend Margaret and Andrew to have Apple Pie with “whup” cream. Margaret was our intern one summer while she was a student at Reed College. Now she is a professor at Oberlin! Clearly, we taught her everything she ever needed to know!!!
To our surprise and delight, a very charming and ruggedly handsome fellow showed up with a giant state-of-the-art camera bearing the logo of ABC. Turns out he was there to film our Pitchapalooza for the eleven o’clock news.
Our guest panelist for the night was, Anne Trubek, a professor at Oberlin and author of A Skeptic’s Guide To Writer’s Houses, was wise and witty. Our pitchees formed a semicircle with Otis-the-cat taking up the right end. As the lights went up and the camera started rolling, you could feel the tension and excitement mounting in the room. And, as always, we heard some top notch pitches. In fact, we choose two winners. Erick Trickey gave a truly stunning pitch about a much misunderstood American Legend. You’ll have to wait for the book to be published to find out who it is! And Katheryn Norris captured us with her tale of what happens when American teenage excess meets India. Afterwards, we roamed the shelves finding ourselves each a gem to come home with. We could’ve stayed there for days. In the end, we think Olive did best of all, not only did she befriend Otis-the-cat, but she came home with a vintage edition of Alice in Wonderland!
One last thought, Loganberry is the opposite of retail chains taking over America. Its individual flare was noticeable from all the way down the block. We’ve never seen a bookstore like it before and we’re sure we won’t find another. This is what’s so exciting about the independent bookselling community. It represents, in many ways, what’s best about our country. Have a dream, build it, and let them come.

Tour City is a strange, simultaneously liberating and alienating place, full of smiling chamber maids who don’t speak English, concierges who are walking wikipedias (or know absolutely nothing), and bell hops who make Olive’s day.
We always assume we’re going to get so much done when we’re going to go on tour because, let’s face it, you don’t have to do dishes, or laundry, or pay bills, or or or. In theory, you’re only working a couple hours a day. Each time, we go on tour, we vow to work out every day, finish writing our novel, and catch up on all of our emails. But the reality is, the days go by lickety split, and everything is slightly exhausting, and you don’t get enough sleep even if you get enough sleep, and instead of working out rigorously, you always, inevitably, end up eating the molten chocolate cake with raspberry coulis and a scoop of ice cream instead. Plus, there’s the relentless pressure of having to not only put on a great show, but make sure there’s an audience that shows up. Occasionally we fantasize about what it must be like to be Sue Grafton, Neil Gaiman or Margaret Atwood. Where all you have to do is show up and the general public flocks. The frustrating part for us is that we just know there are tens of thousands of writers who desperately need our help wherever we go. From goth teenagers to octogenarian grandmas, soccer moms to newly minted college grads, CEOs to cab drivers, we just know that every city is full of Citizen Authors with dreams of writing successful books. But even in this day of Twitter and Facebook, it’s just hard to connect with and let writers know what we’re up to and how we can help them. And so far this tour has felt a little bit like the classic movie, Spinal Tap. Remember when the band shows up at record stores where the only person in attendance is the incredibly apologetic record company rep? But we keep reminding each other to embrace the joy and feel the love. And in this respect, it’s been an absolute boon to have Olive with us. She doesn’t care whether anyone shows up, she’s just excited about going to a strange new place called Cleveland.
Today, Arielle took Olive down for breakfast and we met Darryl the Bellman. He took us up to one of the three largest ballrooms in the world. Then took us to the special piano room which housed two grand pianos. He sat down and played Scott Joplin rags while Olive danced. As we walked out, an old lady in a classic hotel uniform watched us. Turns out it was Miss Ida who has been working at the hotel since 1951. As we left the hotel today, Darryl handed Olive a yogurt and a spoon that was a gift from Miss Ida. This was all just a reminder of what is truly important in life, to see 50-year-old Darryl and 3-year-old Olive, these two kindred spirits, make such a joyful connection. Despite the difficulties and the challenges, we also keep reminding each other that you never know how and when the tipping point will be reached–when that big piece or some world famous blogger will mention your book in just the right context to send it shooting through the roof.
And then there’s Dayton…Books and Company has been a stalwart for us. We’ve been twice before and both times our events were packed. This is a store that knows how to put on an event, knows how to draw a crowd. Good to know you can always depend on Dayton.