Readings, signings, and other events vaguely literary for Friday, November 14, 2008
Madeline DeFrees
* 7:00 PM: Hugo House hosts Poet Populist-elect Mike Hickey, finalists Ananda Selah Osel, Roseanne Estelle McAleese, and Chelsey Richardson, and other, unnamed, nominees. There will be drinks and door prizes. Woot! [LINK]
* 7:30 PM: Amitav Ghosh has won the ALA Notable Book Award and was a finalist for this year’s Man Booker Prize. He’ll be at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight to read and sign his newest novel, Sea of Poppies, the first in a proposed trilogy. Fans of Ghosh’s work will undoubtedly be all over this book, but new readers might find the first volume of the “Ibis” trilogy a bit uneven and schizophrenic, with an abrupt ending that offers no resolution. Which can happen with series’ novels… [LINK]
* 7:30 PM: Fremont’s Café Babel hosts author Jeffrey Overstreet. Overstreet will read from Auralia’s Colors and his new novel, Cyndere’s Midnight. Billed as Christian Fantasy, the series is available at SPU’s bookstore. Attendees with a copy of one of the books in hand will get a free poster of the cover art. [LINK]
Thank you for announcing tonight’s reading at Cafe Babel.
It has come to my attention, however, that there are two misleading statements in your announcement. So bear with me as I make a suggest a couple of corrections…
1) Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight are not "Christian fiction." They’re just fiction. Fantasy, to be specific, and thus may appeal to anyone who enjoys books by J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Phillip Pullman.
2) The SPU Bookstore is offering books for sale at the reading tonight, yes, but the books are available in *any* good bookstore, not just the SPU bookstore.
I hope I’ll see some Metblog readers at tonight’s reading! Thanks again for spreading the word.
Jeffrey Overstreet
http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com
Thanks for clarifying. Unfortunately, I haven’t read them, so I had to go by my research. Google generated a little over 8500 hits for your name combined with Christian Fiction, but only 2700 in combination with Fantasy Fiction. Both are catalogued as fiction, not SF/Fantasy by SPL.org. The Publisher’s Weekly review of Auralia’s Colors I read mentioned the "Christian bones" of the story, while Cyndere’s Midnight is catalogued as both Christian Fiction and Fantasy Fiction. Most of the reviews I skimmed were from Christian and Catholic reviewers. Finally Auralia’s Colors is nominated twice for a 2008 Christy Award. Sorry, but I’m afraid you are probably going to have to live with the categorization, at least for a while. One could do worse for literary compatriots than CS Lewis or Annie Lamott. And, frankly, it is probably better for your sales than a Fantasy Fiction billing, at this point in your fiction career.
Oh, and it’s polite to plug a signing author’s vendor and/or sponsor. Hopefully, attendees will buy from them, and that’s a good thing.
I hope your event went well! Again, thanks for commenting.
Stan
I like you, Stan. You’re so nice (too nice, perhaps?), and you research well.
& Jeffrey, you’re going to have to define what a "good bookstore" means, because the best bookstores in Seattle that I know of and frequent deal exclusively in these things called "used books." (A category that I’m sure that you and your publishers would like to avoid for as long as possible…) ;)
You’re doing OK in the Seattle Public Library system, though, with 5 copies and 2 holds on your latest, and 5 stocked copies with 3 holds on Auralia’s Colors; both classified as "CHRISTIAN FICTION" (yeah, I hate the librarian establishment for compartmentalizing/classifying me, too!).