Doing laps in the LA Fishbowl

Adventures in Publishing: Blurbs and Lockdowns

This is especially true in publishing.

Hi all! It’s been a red-letter day today. I started the morning from a Facebook message from rock star graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang (writer of Boxers/Saints and ABC: American Born Chinese), someone whose books my son Ben and I both love (hey, Boxers/Saints got Ben interested in reading about HISTORY, so you know it’s compelling). He had read an advance reader copy of my book  Still Life Las Vegas and was kind enough to give me a great blurb to use on the jacket. Time and time again, I’ve been amazed at the kindness of strangers, who
will give up their precious time to help a new author out by reading their work and (hopefully) liking it enough to lend their name. Many thanks to Gene, and y’all should read his most excellent work.

Next up, I discovered that a personal essay I submitted to the online magazine The Rumpus is up on their site! It’s actually been there for five days, but, hey, I was kinda busy this weekend. The piece is called “Lockdown,” and it’s about a particularly harrowing time of my life a couple of years ago, right before I found my lit agent. They added great illustrations by Dana Schartz to the piece. It should be up for a little while longer— hope you can all check it out!
http://therumpus.net/2015/04/lockdown/

Now, to go and fix my garbage disposal.

PS. Just so I don’t get too cocky or anything, I was in a fender bender this afternoon, pulling into Walgreens. Thanks, Yin & Yang! Way to keep me balanced!

April 27th, 2015 - Still Life Las Vegas

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2 responses to “Adventures in Publishing: Blurbs and Lockdowns”

  1. Elizabeth says:

    James, you DRIVE now?!? I recall in Chicago just the idea of driving terrified you. You’d hang around the people with cars after rehearsal to get rides for the both of us (well, me probably as I was having back trouble). Bless your heart. You looked out for me. You had a major influence on my spiritual life~in a good way. Well heck, write a few more books and you can get a chauffeur. Ha.

    I belong to Chautauqua and another book club. I’ll put a plug in at both.

    • James Sie says:

      Yes, I needed to learn to drive for a movie, so… I’m now a veteran. Hey, Elizabeth, I’m available for virtual book club Skype chats or to answer any questions if you’d like. Also, there are a list of discussion topics in sieworld.com/writer under “About the Book.” Feel free to use!

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