Notes from the Road

On travel, Roe v. Wade, and roller skating

At the Wurlitzer organ console in my parents’ barn, wearing Impala roller skates and a Jenn Reese-designed T-shirt.

I’ve been writing. And I’ve been traveling. I had two out-of-town book events in June: one in Bend, Oregon, at the fabulous Roundabout Books, and the other at the American Library Association conference in Washington, DC.

My roller-derby daughter and I have Impala skates with jelly-like sparkly wheels that don’t scratch the wood floor. We brought our skates to the DC suburbs to skate around the upper level of my parents’ barn. Being able to roll around a big space like that, practicing turns and safe stops, gave me a sense of physical glee that I haven’t felt since my 2014 brain injury. For once, I wasn’t (terribly) worried about falling, the consequences of movement, the potential devastation of one mistake. Instead, I let the momentum and the accompanying joy carry me around in circles. Over the weeks there, with multiple skating sessions a day, my hips and thighs gained strength and I marveled at how quickly I found my way to balance—not perfect skills, but enough competence that I could appreciate the momentum and the exercise.

The day the Roe news broke, I posted an Instagram reel of me roller skating, featuring nickelodeon music and despair. My caption was about telling my daughters about coat-hanger abortions and then going roller skating in the barn. I asked myself, What era is it?

The right-wing trolls responded. They criticized my parenting, why I would dare talk to my daughters about abortion. I didn’t internalize the comments or read all of them. I peeked just enough to feel my heartbeat quicken, the waves of worry rolling through my body. Then, instead of blocking the meanies, I panicked and erased my reel. Silenced myself.

This was a kindness: to stay present for myself and my children. To answer their questions, to glide around the barn in my shiny skates, to mourn and grieve and get angry for the women who no longer have agency over their bodies because they live in states that don’t let women make decisions about their own bodies. In erasing the whole thing, I kept the personally directed hate outside these walls.

Now that more days have passed, I can see how my message must have been effective—or it wouldn’t have attracted a frenzy of haters. And using words is everything to me—as a publisher and novelist and essayist. So how come I silenced myself? And what will I do next time? Prepare better, I guess. Go into posting something personal knowing the ugly might surface and find me. I do regret taking my reel down, but I don’t regret taking care of myself and my daughters, holding space for the anger and grief instead of letting anonymous trolls take up space in my already-terrified, already-devastated cave of a heart.

I’m still feeling fragile—not from the trolls because erasing the post meant dismissing their attacks and not holding onto them, but from the overturning of Roe v. Wade and fury and fear about what we’ll lose next in our society. And what’s at stake, especially for black and brown women across the country and also for all my queer friends and family.

On a quieter note, the three-month birthday for my book, Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary, comes up mid-month, on July 19—a kind of time’s up in this industry. But compared to everything else, it doesn’t feel that big. I don’t really buy into this deadline thinking, anyway, as a small-press publisher, but the concept is this: you have three months to make it or your book disappears. What making it means depends on who you ask. I’m pleased with my sales numbers—and here I want to add qualifiers—for COVID times, for a small press without mainstream distribution, for a debut novel, for a book with a small advance. But I didn’t make it onto the regional bestseller list, let alone the Powell’s one, and once we hit that three-month anniversary, the chances of Really Big Things grow even slimmer.

Signed and/or personalized copies of Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary are available at Annie Bloom’s Books! Just specify who you want the inscription made out to and you can choose local pickup or shipping.

As a publisher, I know it’s unfair to measure a book by its first three months, and yet others will. How’s it selling? is a question I get asked sometimes and even though I can see numbers and databases most authors can’t access, I tend to say, It’s selling. If they press for more information, I say I’m pleased with the numbers, because that’s what matters—not whether the stats would impress someone who isn’t me. I did pay for some bookstore advertising this summer in three regions—California, Pacific Northwest, and Mountains and Plains—just to see if we can capitalize on the initial publicity and availability of my book before returns set in. It felt like something I could do at the end of this three-month window, as an author but because of my connections as a publisher. We’ll see how it goes.

My next big book event is this coming weekend—the legendary Oregon Country Fair. I’m speaking on festival stages once a day and living there off the grid as part of the staff for the whole festival. As someone with chronic pain and autoimmune issues, I’m worried about camping for four days. About sleeping in a sea of tents, with nighttime noises and despite humans who stay up later than me. But I’m excited to spend time in the woods, to bring novels and notebooks—not my laptop—and to support the other performers and vendors.

After that I’ll be a keynote speaker at the Willamette Writers Conference (in person), then running a character workshop as part of The Work Behind the Work Series (virtual), and then talking about ways to tell small presses apart for Write on the Sound (virtual).

Is that the end of my tour? I have some other things cooking, so probably not. But if you’re interested in any of these events, I’d love to have you in the audience. What I love most about publishing is sharing insights from this side of the desk with authors who otherwise wouldn’t have that access. All these next events have that purpose in mind.

Short reading list: I’ve been obsessively reading lately and some recent favorites include:

The Sturgeon’s Heart by Amy E. Casey (Gibson House). I spoke with Amy at ALA and loved her fabulist tale of three characters trying to leave their pasts behind in a small Michigan town. If you liked Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary, this might be up your alley too.

Hurricane Girl by Marcy Dermansky (PRH). Coming into this book as a brain injury survivor, I wasn’t sure what I’d think, but I loved this book. Allison, the protagonist, reminds me a little of Pattianne Anthony, one of my all-time favorite characters and the protagonist of Joanna Rose’s A Small Crowd of Strangers (Forest Avenue).

A Life in Men by Gina Frangello (Algonquin): This is a backlist title I’ve had for a long time but somehow never started until the plane home from DC, and wow, it’s a compelling look at friendship, illness, and how individual decisions can alter the course of one’s life—all told from different points of view and with velocity-inducing leaps in time. Clever and compelling and masterfully paced, but also deeply heart-wrenching: some of my favorite qualities.

YOUR BRIGHT SIDE INVITATION: I don’t have a prompt this time so much as a request. Do something that makes you feel great. Take a walk. Soak in the tub. Get your hands dirty in the garden. Read in a hammock. Send a postcard. Go to the local roller rink and rent a pair of skates. It’s July and with so many awful things happening in the world, whatever you can do to tend yourself will help you keep going.

Feel free to leave a comment! I started this newsletter to create an intimate but accessible conversation space about creativity, grief, and the societal reset that the pandemic has offered creatives like us. I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can reply to this email to have a conversation just with me, or you can comment on the post to connect with other readers. You’re also welcome to forward this to any friends who might like it.