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Maggie Summers

Today I share the blogging with my son, Evan, age nine, who earlier today wrote an update of our time in the deep south (see below). Evan's comments will be in a bigger font. We just arrived in Bryan, Texas a moment ago, so I don't have much to say about Texas yet except that it is big and dark and rainy. [Oh, I just realized that as I type this, it is techincally by 41st birthday! :-) ]

EVAN: Ok, so yesterday we left Atlanta (we got up at 7:00) and did a 2 and a half hour drive to Alabama, and all Of a sudden, we see this sign that said: ENTERING ALABAMA CENTRAL TIME ZONE . What?! We shouted. Then the clock that before said 9:49 (which was when we were supposed to arrive) went down to 8:49. We could have slept an hour later! Well, at least we get to relive the past hour, said my dad. On the road we made up a game. The game was, if you saw a water tower and shouted torre de agua (that’s Spanish) first, then you would get a point. At the end of the trip, whoever had the most points, won. To me, the driving wasn’t very long, but that’s probably because I was waching tv.

MARK: I love the south. It's green and lush, and the people are friendly and the weather has been beautiful. I also love that it has a chain of grocery stores called Piggly Wiggly. Whevenver we see one, we Hugheses are all about the Piggly Wiggly! I took this picture through the windsheild of our car on our way to Birmingham, AL:


Oh yes, Piggly. I will follow...

One thing I do miss about Massachusetts, though, is the availability of Starbucks. In fact, I've been on a daily quest to find one anywhere near where we go. On the way to Birmingham I found one! I was so pleased, I took a picture of my grande Gazebo blend.



Evan: We went to the Alabama welcome center and my dad and me got Hank Williams posters. Hank Williams is like an Elvis to country music. My dad was very happy. I was happy too, except I had never heard of Hank Williams before this. But I'm sure he must be pretty good.

Mark: Because of the unexpected time-change (what? did we miss a memo or something?), we arrived in Birmingham earlier than planned, which allowed us time to look around. Since Birmingham metal-working played a big role in the city's history, they have a huge statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of the fire and forge.



EVAN: Later, we had lunch with Hester Bass the author of So Many Houses, and her family (father Clayton, kids Anderson and Miranda) in Birmingham. We ate at a Cracker Barrell, a southern place I'd never eaten before. It was good. My mom and dad ate southern food. I ate grilled cheese. It was good. Hester gave us copies of her book, which was very nice of her.

Mark: In addition to being the author of the early reader So Many Houses, Hester is also the author of a soon-to-be released picture book biography of American artist, Walter Inglis Anderson, to be illustrated by the acclaimed E. B. Lewis and published by Candlewick Press. Hester and her family were amazingly kind to drive all the way down to Huntsville to meet with us. It's lovely to meet such wonderful people when you're far from home. Many thanks to the 'Bama Basses, our new friends!

   

EVAN: Next, we had dinner with the Campbell family In Jackson, Mississippi. I played with three boys named Graem, Nathan and Douglas. They had a big snail called a wolf snail. I let it crawl up my arm. It was so cool!

Mark: Sarah is the author and photographer of an upcoming picture book about wolf snails, snails that eat other snails -- an amazing creature I'd never heard of before. Her photographs are absolutely beautiful and her book will be published in the Spring. Although we were total strangers, Sarah and Richard and their boys fed us and treated us like family. We had a wonderful Mississippi evening which we will never forget -- complete with fireworks set off by neighbors. Thanks you, Campbells, our other new friends in the south!




This morning (actually, yesterday morning now) we stopped by at Lemuria Books in Jackson, a cool independent bookstore with a relaxing atmosphere. Here we are with a very nice bookseller named Ciel. 



Lots of traffic problems on the way through Louisianna to Bryan, TX, so it took us much longer than it should have. Still, we're here safe, sound, and happy. Soon I'll actually go to bed. 

A big, Texas good night to y'all. 
-- Mark

Blogged about at "A Latte A Day"

Getting back to the basic technical skill of drawing feels so good. The way I like relax is to sketch and my favorite place to sketch people is at Starbucks, sipping a yummy hot latte, mmmmm. This was a quick 5 minute sketch to which I added some color as I loved the red sweatshirt she was wearing from Aeropostale. I love their t-shirts too, especially this Pink Shoulder Script Baby T. They're nice and long and go great with low riding jeans. What do you do to relax?

Stuff:

1. There’s a new issue of The Edge of the Forest out with an article by Mother Reader on how to “Be a B-List Blogger.”

2. Brotherhood 2.0 is teaching you how to be a Nerd Fighter! All you have to do is compose the theme song for your personal Nerd Fighter type.

3. Is anyone else having problems with New Blogger? Not only am I getting more spam, but…yeah: comments, spam, loading weirdness, and I’m really not lovin’ the fact that Word to Blogger program doesn’t work anymore. Anyone else having these problems/complaints?

4. The Pacific Northwest Bookseller’s Association Spring show is this weekend, in case y’all are in town and interested.

More Stuff:

So I’ve been sitting here thinking about numbers, specifically sales numbers of books vs. viewer numbers for TV shows. Why is it that Grey’s Anatomy can routinely pull in twenty-five million viewers, but very few books will ever experience those kinds of numbers? What is it about television that has made it a more appealing medium than the written word?

Now, let me make it clear that I don’t expect a single title (that is not Harry Potter) to have the same mass appeal of G.A. You can’t expect that many people to turn to one novel when they have thousands upon thousands a year to pick from when compared to less than the hundred shows on at any hour. Add to that that television feeds into our short attention spans, allowing us to limit our time devoted to any one thing. With a smaller selection to choose from it makes sense that shows can command larger audiences. Even shows considered to be failing (250,000 viewers or less) command a larger audience than most print runs.

But this reduced selection driving higher numbers can be seen in the book world as well, take the success of Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, for example. As the book club pick of the Starbucks company, A Long Way Gone benefits from not having any direct competition within the Starbucks stores. As the only title present in a store otherwise devoted to coffee and coffee products, the title has a chance to attract both regular readers and those who might never step into a bookstore on their own. This larger audience brings in more sales not only via Starbucks, but by the people who see the book at Starbucks and choose to pick it up at a more traditional outlet. My store had many people who chose to buy the former Starbucks’ title (Mitch Albom’s For One More Day) from us because of our discount card. How do I know this? Well, they’d come right out and tell us.

Is this happening with Beah’s book? I can only assume so when 9,000 copies were sold during the first week in bookstores alone (17,000 were attributed to “other”—read: Starbucks, etc—outlets), which is amazing (at least in my mind) for a debut nonfiction title on heavy subject matter.

So is Starbucks acting like ABC with A Long Way Gone taking the place of Grey’s Anatomy? Is that even possible?

I’ll let those of you not suffering the loopiness of allergy meds figure it out. Let me know your thoughts.

It's the second annual Starbucks coffee break. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're giving it away tomorrow morning. Send yourself, send your staff or send your spouse. And next year we'll have to work a free public library card sign-up into the deal.
Free coffee, free access to information=what could be finer!

Starbucks has tapped a first-time author to promote next in 6,000 of their shops (following Mitch Albom). When I saw "first-time author" I felt a pinch of jealousy. Until I saw what the book was. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a memoir about Ishmael Beah's experiences in Sierra Leone's civil war and his eventual escape to the U.S.

Starbucks will charge full price - $22 - for the title, and will donate $2 of every sale to UNICEF, with a minimum contribution of $100,000. There are reports they have ordered nearly 100,000 copies.

That's the true blessing of writing - taking something horrible and allowing it to be transformed.





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