Dear readers,
I'm writing this with a feeling of great abundance, which is, I would argue, the very best place from
which to write a newsletter. For the last few days, seeds I sowed a while ago have been bearing fruit.
Four years ago I put this workbook together for the first time, and it has become popular enough that now I'm asked, come early December, whether I will be producing an updated version. Yes, I am, and here it is. Enjoy! Seminal moment for me yesterday: the advance reader copies of my book
arrived! This is the first time I'm seeing (and touching!) my book in book format! I can actually page through it! I have to say that, after eight years in the making, this is a mega-cool moment! No matter what happens with the book in the market place, I have arrived. I have a book I can put on a shelf and say, yes, I did it!
As so often in life, when it rains, it pours. There are periods of drought when you have drudge on, and then there are periods when good things happen, one after the other. Receiving my
advance reader copies was the culmination of a week, or rather, a month, that brought good things. Nevertheless, none of these good things happened "just like that'" or "overnight." I remember when the director of the wildly successful German film The Lives of Others was interviewed about his "overnight success," he replied, "this was no overnight success, it took
me ten years!"
Save the Date: If you're in Chicagoland, I'd be greatly honored if you could attend my
Book Launch
Party Thursday, April 6 4736 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago
If you're coming, I'd also greatly appreciate it if you could buy your copy of Jumping
Over Shadows at the Book Cellar. They were very helpful to me when I was searching for comparative titles back in the summer, and so I'd like to send business their way. Plus they are just a fun independent book store to have around. Oh and if you come, you will of course get a signed copy!
More on the book and how you can get involved even if you don't live in my vicinity will be
forthcoming, as will invitations, of course. In the meantime, if you don't live close to a bookstore that you could nudge to stock Jumping Over Shadows, pre-orders on amazon help a great deal in determining the initial print run. So thank you for those!
In November, Artful Blogging published my photo essay "The Accidental Travel Blogger." Getting into that magazine has been a long-standing dream of mine because it was so seminal in redirecting my career as a writer, and I just love the
work they do. While I am super proud to be in there, I also have to tell you that I knocked on their door more than once. "The Accidental Travel Blogger" was not the first article I sent their way; I kept crafting photo essays that I thought they might like, and I kept submitting.
(Jess and Colin/Flickr) via Tablet Magazine
Some gifts keep on giving: Four years ago Tablet Magazine published the first excerpt from my book, an essay on Giving Up
Christmas. They have been recycling it ever since, meaning at least once each holiday season they include it in their daily newsletter. Wednesday, after spending an evening visiting Chicago's Christkindlmarket (an annual family tradition that this year we happily shared with one of our British cousins), I came home to find an email from a reader commenting on that essay. This tipped me off to the fact that Tablet had featured it again. I do subscribe
to their daily newsletter but I don't always actually look at it. This is the kind of evergreen content book publicists love and a great case of why it's a good thing to publish online. I published this once, and I still reap the
benefits.
Ah, yes, Christmas at the Hemingway Birthplace Home (photo by me, December 2014)
Remember my time as writer-in-residence at the Hemingway House two years ago? I'm still reaping benefits from that gig! This year I judged the Hemingway Shorts contest and gained a new writer friend in my successor, David
Berner. This week, I met with their former executive director who's now program director at the American Writers Museum, scheduled to open in Spring 2017. It looks like I'll be running workshops for them! How cool is that? I will also teach another
workshop at the Hemingway House this spring in conjunction with my book coming out, and one of writers who participated in the class I taught there just contacted me asking if she could join memoir workshop at StoryStudio. Speaking of, this fall semester marks the ten-year anniversary of my teaching memor writing at StoryStudio.
The last bit of news is that my new website will launch in January. It will be
under the same url, namely www.annettegendler.com. If you follow my blog through any of the Blogger Follower plug-ins or Readers, you might lose updates once I switch to the new site, so please subscribe to my blog via email, at least for the time being, as I can easily migrate email subscribers. The new site will retain all of the old content
but will be structured more around my book. It's been in the making for a few months, and I really like the new look and am looking forward to sharing it with you.
In the meantime, on the eve of Christmas and Chanukah, I hope the holidays bring a sense of abundance your way. If you're celebrating Chanukah, don't forget to sign up for my little Chanukah project: 8 Days of Chanukah Emails!
With best wishes for a happy, prosperous and creative New Year and a merry holiday season, |
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