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June 16, 2005
My friend Lindsey had just arrived early for our writers group last night when the UPS man rang my door. An eight-by-ten padded envelope, from Penguin Group, solid in my hands—I knew what was inside. I went to the kitchen and cut open the packaging, then handed the contents to my husband Bill as though it were junk mail to deposit in the trash. “What’s that?” Lindsey said.
“Oh, it’s my book.”
“Your book!”
I couldn’t stand to look at it yet. I go through the same routine when any article that I’ve worked especially hard on comes out in the newspaper. I pick up a copy, then let it sit on my desk for ten or twenty minutes, unopened. What if it has mistakes, misspellings, awkward syntax, unfortunate edits? What if, in cold hard print, it’s not nearly as good as I had hoped? Can I bear to see it? I still haven’t read the final printed version of the essay I wrote about my brother’s leave from Iraq—the story meant too much to me.
So I let Bill examine the book first, and then Lindsey, and when they had let out enough comforting oohs and ahs, I picked up the book myself.
There it was in my hand, not too heavy and not too slight, material, non-retractable, real. And beautifully printed. The page stock, the fonts, the cover colors—all lovely. No errors I could find. Beneath the jacket, an elegant ivory hardcover with classy black binding. I could bear to see it. And after my writers group left yesterday evening I kept picking it up and passing it from hand to hand, enjoying the weight of it, the slickness of the cover under my fingers.
I was so pleased that I stayed up a bit late to make minor tweaks to this site, assisted by trusty webmistress Stacy at Sekimori design. Now to your right, on the navigation bar, you’ll find not one but four pages related to “The Lost Night,” including a list of the readings I’ll be doing in August and September. The “Gallery” will have more photos related to the book soon. So explore and enjoy, and thanks for indulging my small moment of celebration
Posted by Rachel at June 16, 2005 10:40 AM
Comments
so pleased to see readings in the valley. we know a few literary groups in fresno who are definitely interested...maybe even some madera high school teachers will come along;) my parents included!
Posted by: lauren at June 17, 2005 02:40 AM
Congratualtions! There will be plenty of landmarks in this long process, but this is a very special one. Glory in it.
Posted by: sandi at June 19, 2005 04:04 PM
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