ELLEN'S PLAY DATES: Maybe it's obvious that a newly minted author has to get out there and promote her book, but to be honest, I didn't see the whole thing coming. I supposed that Margo and I would do our little dance through her neighborhood, Tampa; then waltz to the three big book-loving cities (Portland, Seattle, San Francisco) in my region, and we'd be done with it. Not so. Both of us have continued with public or not-so-public appearances since our book hit bookstores in early November.
My latest travels have taken me to the Multnomah County Library, Albertina Kerr Center (a Portland children's services provider) and one of numerous book clubs that have extended their hospitality to me since "Between the Covers" was published. All have proved that the community of readers is alive, well and extremely varied.
At the library, for example, I was on a panel that recommended favorite books with independent filmmaker Joss Antonio Millian, who reads screenplays for the fun of it; Sara Ryan, who writes and reads graphic novels; and Lloyd Cohn, seller of vintage DVDs, who mentioned his literary keepsake -- a reply from James Cain after he wrote a fan letter years ago to the author who helped create crime noir and Hollywood's film version of it and died in 1977. One of Cohn's favorite vintage reads is "Fake!", by Clifford Irving -- a book about an art forger by a man who forged the biography of Howard Hughes. Call it "layered duplicity."
My next public appearance will be on KATU-TV's "AM Northwest" at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10. A book club and two mother-daughter teas will round out the roster for that month. And the beat goes on...
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