Leslie Leyland Fields

October, 2009

 

I'm back from my "down south" book tour. I flew, of course, but took a Greyhound bus from Little Rock Arkansas to Memphis. Was reminded why everyone should take a Greyhound now and then. Waiting at the station, everyone watching infomercials on a giant flatsceen over our heads about some miracle mop that looked like it might transform all our lives. I sat next to a young man arguing with his mother on the phone for 45 minutes. she was crying, pleading for him to send her money. he was refusing. One bathroom stop, with the driver occupying it for the whole allotted time while I danced the dance . . .. .At the station, the towering black bus driver hit on me repeatedly, grinning at his own jokes.

Yep, good, bracing doses of humility, falls that land in grace.   Like doing book signings at big box stores... which are declining, along with author tours. (I don't do signings anymore, only readings or presentations.) But I got roped into one I just couldn't refuse---so of course, had to write about it, and it's own particular brand of author-humiliations. Just finished that essay: "Diary of a Book Signing: A Writer Embraces Failure." Let's just say I did NOT greet everyone at the door with my new book in hand, pressing it into their palms and showering them with my own bookmarks, pens and other paraphenalia as some desperate "experts" of the book-signing form recommend. No. I'm not even close to desperate. Grateful for the humbling purge, but not desperate.

All this aside, it was an excellent trip!  Recorded 3 radio shows with Family Life, kicked off a 9 week class on my myths of parenting book with 100 women, spoke to two other groups . .. and saw my father in Florida. Then was very glad to escape the 90-something heat with 85% humidity and return home to Kodiak.

New essays will be coming out in some publications---will post them as they appear. My newest book (on a brand new topic) may soon have an official home. More on that later! Until then, some sage words from one of my favorite writers, Eugene Peterson:  "We are not interested in knowing more, but in becoming more."  Amen.

Thank you, friends, for reading!