“To all the clueless wannabe writers…”
Yesterday I reacquainted with my past for a few pleasant hours. My past, being B.C. (Before Covid, and the event – a Book Launch at my local library.
It was publicized as ‘Meet the Author’, but having attended quite a number of similar events as both writer and reader, I know it to be a thinly disguised attempt to publicize and promote sales of a new book.
Way back, when BC was long in the future, supporting local writers was a regular social activity for me. My calendar would be full of opportunities to buy a book from the fountainhead of its creation. Indeed with most of my friends sharing a similar interest, we would take it in turn to purchase a book, which, when read, would be passed along our chain, before discussing its merits over a group coffee morning. A simple pleasure, costing little but time, and giving us all collective pleasure, while providing the author with a reason to return to the keyboard and begin another literary offering.
Yesterday’s event was a little similar insofar as our local library is a pleasant one, keen on providing light educational events that would encourage regular patronage to its environs. . While being modernized to acknowledge the advent of our digital world, it retains enough ambiance to encourage Mums with their kids, to attend Story Telling time, and begin their offspring’s adventure of living in worlds of literary creation. (Just for the record, that is NOT my local library in the heading …. I wish!)
About 20 of us turned up yesterday, mostly women, and listened to an enthusiastic events librarian ask the why, where, when, and how the book had been formulated from an idea to the finished page. The four-book author was pleasant, not overly polished in her replies, but nevertheless honest and engaged in response, and after 45 minutes we were also told that for the sum of $20.00 the author’s ten-year-old son Joshua was more than happy to sell us not only the new addition but any one of Mum’s other books. We all smiled, applauded, and were invited to have a ‘cuppa and a biscuit.’
At this point, everybody got up and foregoing this final pleasure of a “Cuppa” or purchase of a new book, dispersed their various ways into the library. I took out a $20.00 bill, then, thinking of my full shelves back home, checked with the librarian that the new book would soon be available as an mp3, and in the meantime, took an earlier book by the author out on loan. Not entirely satisfactory for her – but excellent for me.
As Britain’s former Prime Minister said, when booted out of office, “Such is Life.”
And for those of you curious about the heading, it is the dedication by the author to Missing You by Kylie Kaden –
“To all the clueless wannabe writers – like me,”
And by the way, it’s a damn good read.