bookshop.org

by | Apr 1, 2020 | Field Notes

Here we go. I want indies to survive this pandemic so they are still here, creating community and a literate society, for us and with us, as they’ve always done, when we emerge from our sheltering in place. Please consider opening a book buying account at bookshop.org if you have the means to do so in these uncertain times.
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You’ll see when you swipe thru this post [go here, for this post and photos], that my books, as an example (all book shots are from bookshop.org) are not only competitive w Amazon prices (within a dollar or even less in most cases), they are available, and they come to you from business owners in your local communities who will employ your neighbors and serve you personally, culturally, specifically, and joyfully. And again, one day, face-to-face.


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Now is the time to help them help you through this pandemic. We need stories like we need each other, because we *are* stories. We need puzzles and games and laughter and stuffed animals, and togetherness, even as we need to shelter at home and stay informed. Indie bookstores stand ready with all these things.
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Follow your bookselling friends on IG, FB, etc, and let them hand sell you visually in their feeds… they are so good at this — and then order directly from them or use bookshop.org.
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Every dollar you spend at bookshop is divvied up to help your chosen bookstore as well as all bookstores under the bookshop umbrella (swipe to see snippets about how this works, from the Forbes article about bookshop that I linked to here on Feb 15).
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The bottom line is, we all benefit. We all keep reading and telling stories and puzzling with one another and squeezing our chosen comfort softies through hard times. We can do this, together. Love and light and reading, xo Debbie
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— click on my IG bio to go to bookshop.org, and thank you. I’m going to tag some of my bookstore friends in the comments [on IG], locally and including those I’d been scheduled to tour with this month, so you can follow them, too, along with some folks who partner w indie bookstores in a myriad of ways. Please add your favorites to this list – you, too, Indies — so I can follow them, too. Here we go.

books in the time of corona

by | Apr 1, 2020 | Field Notes

Hello, friends. What a time. I’ve made some posts on IG and want to put them here, where I will end up posting in more depth about Kent State and other books, and, well, life in the time of corona, I guess. Without belaboring anything, here is post one, which I’ll follow immediately with post 2, and then you’ll be caught up. Stay safe and stay well. There is so much to say, and at some point, there will be a time to say it. Keep reading. Keep telling stories. We’re living quite an amazing story right now. xoxoxo Debbie

Kent State publishes 3 weeks from today, into a very different world than the one we had prepared it for. No in-person anything, including a national bookstore tour, speaking at Kent State, school visits, and book festivals.
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Like so many of us who are creating new normals while sheltering in place, flattening the curve, and caring for one another through this pandemic, work matters. Stories matter. And our history matters, too, especially as it echoes, in its heart, what is happening in our country right now.
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So I want to talk about Kent State as it comes into being on the 50th anniversary of the May 4, 1970 shootings that killed 4 college students and wounded 9 others as our country was being torn apart by a war that killed over 58,000 U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians; a war waged within and without in our country,  when our government’s response was on the line, just as it is today.
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Kent State is a chronicle of those days in May while also a call to action… a call we are witnessing right now, as it happens. I hope you’ll not mind me sharing several posts about the book here over the next weeks as my publisher and I change up our labor in order to midwife and deliver this important book into your hands. It has had quite the intense gestation and is ready to be born.
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Thanks so much for coming along. You can read more about Kent State at my website and you can pre-order the book at bookshop.org — the link to that page is in my IG bio. Stay home if you can, stay safe, love one another, and work for peace, peace, peace. xoxoxo Debbie