Report from Fairbanks

The event in Fairbanks went fine and was followed by a surprise review in the Sunday paper. (I am accepting the few factual errors although referring to the Company as a "bottom feeder" is certainly sigh-worthy.)



Sunday I flew out from Fairbanks to Anchorage with an old friend in the captain seat of the 737 on Alaska Airlines which was very cool. Because of fog in Anchorage we took our time going south and got crazy close to Denali (aka Mt McKinley, largest peak in North America). It's actually eight miles off the wing but so big it looked a lot closer. This was the kind of view most folks dream of so I'm pretty happy to have seen it. (My husband actually had the FAI-ANC flight for years with the commuter he worked for and used to fly past the mountain all the time. He saw climbers on a few occasions with was very cool.)



Over the past week I met with a bunch of folks, received assurances that books will be ordered to replace those sold (sold out more than once), and got the word out pretty much as best as I could in the state's metropolitan areas. Now we regroup and think about contacting some smaller town bookstores and getting back into the Pacific NW and other areas. (I'm especially thinking about more aviation-centric locales.) All of this has been quite interesting and made me think about writing and publishing from a whole different perspective. I met many frustrated authors this past week, all of whom have written amazing (award winning) books but can't seem to get noticed by the public. It's so hard to cut through the noise, but I made a good stab at over the past six days. Now back to writing, reviewing and, coming soon, the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Ballou Sr High School!