Thursday, February 6, 2014

Brown Bags & Books

Bonnie Schroeder and I posed yesterday in the local authors section of the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse, holding copies of our books. Bonnie's book, Mending Dreams, just came out; it's available in print and ebook form. You can read the first chapter at BonnieSchroederBooks.com. I haven't read it yet but I now have a signed copy!

The photo was taken by author and journalist Susan James Carr. Bonnie and Susan were both instrumental in getting me invited to the Flintridge Bookstore's Brown Bags & Books club, which meets once a month. Yesterday they discussed Camelot & Vine over delicious scones (homemade by head of Marketing, Advertising and Authors, Sandy Willardson) plus cookies, smoothies and gourmet coffee. There's always food and drink at a book club because sharing food is as convivial as talking about books. (In my experience there's usually some gossip and chat to start things up, too.)

It helps if people like my book, which they did, but it almost doesn't matter. So many other things made it memorable: the simple fact that they invited me to talk about it for one, and that they all read it and asked interesting questions and wanted to know more, and meeting the individual readers--all these things are valuable to an author. I had an absolute blast, which as you know is a very authorly thing to say. "Authorly" not being a word, and all.

I'll be visiting another book club on Friday via Skype. I'd love to fly to Chicago to meet with them, but Skype will have to do! I'm told there will be wine and food at their meeting so I'll have something at my desk to ingest and imbibe while we chat. Just to be in the swing of things.

I've read recently about authors charging fees for book club visits, but I'd be delighted to visit your club for the price of a few convivial comestibles.

18 comments:

LONDONLULU said...

Authorly is a fab word! Of course you'd be good at finding fab words:) What a great time it must've been - everyone's beaming!

Jean Spitzer said...

Looks like fun.

Authority works.

TheChieftess said...

Sounds delightful!!! I love Flintridge Bookstore!!!

Petrea Burchard said...

It's a great store. Gorgeous, smart, involved in the community by involving readers, authors, kids, artists...a great store.

Bellis said...

Glad it went well! And aren't you grateful for Skype, which saves you from having to be in Chicago right now? I bet they're deep in snow.

Petrea Burchard said...

Yeah, Skype is great. Such an amazing tool. It should be interesting to Skype with a group because you can't talk over each other like in normal conversation.

LOLfromPasa said...

What a great photograph! Keeping very busy, I see. Hooray!

Petrea Burchard said...

Lauren, that's true. It's never been a problem for me!

dive said...

What a wonderful double portrait!
Three hearty cheers for authorly folk!

Anonymous said...

Is Bonny the reference librarian at Alt Lib? Looks just like her.

Petrea Burchard said...

I don't think so, she's never mentioned it to me. But that would be a cool job to have.

Ann Erdman said...

What a nice shot in one of my favorite book stores! I just love my copy of Camelot & Vine (that I won from you)!

sonia a. mascaro said...

Just great, Petrea!
Congratulations!

Petrea Burchard said...

I'm glad you like it, Ann.

Thanks, Sonia!

Margaret said...

I have a copy of Bonnie's book. Haven't read it yet but I am looking forward to it.

Pasadena Adjacent said...

Great book store.

Petrea, you showed me a printer they had. Could that printer be used to create self published booklets?

Petrea Burchard said...

I'm just about to start her book, Margaret.

PA, it's called the Espresso book machine and it absolutely would.

Dina said...

I love your happy face, Petrea. :)