Category: Newsletter

Moving off the Princess Track with Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of FASTING GIRLS & THE BODY PROJECT

February 17, 2019

Thursday, March 28, at 6pm, a reading and book signing with Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of FASTING GIRLS & THE BODY PROJECT. Join us for a fascinating and timely discussion about women, girls, body image and social change.

Leading up to this event, we had the opportunity to ask Joan a few questions about her books and herself.

Q: Since THE BODY PROJECT and FASTING GIRLS were originally published how have the issues explored in the books changed? Has there been an increase or decrease in anorexia nervosa with the growth of social media?

A: Social media and scientific medicine may have intensified the cultural imperative for bodily perfection. There are many more “body projects” requiring time, energy, money and persistent maintenance. The number of diagnosed cases of anorexia nervosa remains consistent but there is more disordered eating and orthorexia.

[Editor’s note: Orthorexia is the obsessive pursuit of ‘healthy’ eating.]

Q: From the research you’ve done about girls and body image, what’s the one thing you wish you could impart to girls and parents?

A: Stop reading each others bodies as well as your own. What your body can do is far more important than what it looks like. Young girls need to be moved off The Princess Track.

Q: What’s your relationship to Key West?

A: My husband and I are happy snowbirds, two months here, for almost a decade. We like winter in the Conch Republic and summer in Ithaca, NY on Cayuga Lake. We chose Key West because it is so different than the rest of Florida.

Q: What are you reading and recommending currently?
So far this season: Finished BECOMING on the plane and thought it was far better than most autobiographies of public figures. But I’ve also read THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS by Pam Jenoff, EARTHLY REMAINS by Donna Leon, THE WINTER SOLIDER by Daniel Mason. At home, I read mostly nonfiction, but not here.

~Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Artists & Mothers: Talking with Susan Conley, author of ELSEY COME HOME

February 2, 2019

by Robin Wood

Hearing Susan Conley, author of ELSEY COME HOME read from and discuss her novel was a great way to close out a busy January 2019 calendar of events. Conley’s novel about an expat American living in China deals with issues of artistic and personal identity, addiction, marriage, and motherhood.

Elsey, the novel’s protagonist is trying to figure out how to reconcile the divergent needs of marriage, motherhood with small children and art. Her husband suggests a yoga retreat in the mountains where Elsey meets a cast of characters, who, among other things, depict women dealing with different kinds of issues and challenges.

“Elsey’s problem is that she can’t cohere all the parts of herself,” Susan said. Painting and parenting both call for a kind of obsession, focus, that it is hard to divide. Art calls for a kind of recklessness – and more than anything else – for time.

And, though, Susan herself is now the mother of teenagers rather than young children, she says that need for time doesn’t go away. But while children require the alteration of artistic habits, Susan says they have also been a gift to her work as a writer. “A deeper sense of empathy, a more expansive emotional bandwith, I am more committed to my work,” she said.

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Planting Seeds with Andrew Furman, author of GOLDENS ARE HERE

February 2, 2019

by Robin Wood

Inspired by true events surrounding an historic Florida citrus season and the civil rights struggle, Andrew Furman’s GOLDENS ARE HERE offers a glimpse of the sea changes occurring in Florida and the nation in the 1960s through the prism of one family’s negotiations with the land, their neighbors, and each other. Leading up to his reading and book signing Feb. 6, we had the opportunity to chat with him about his background and new book.

Q: Please tell us a little about how you came to write GOLDENS ARE HERE?

A: I’ve lived here in south Florida for the past 22 years and one of my favorite things to do is hop in the car with my family and visit some of the more scruffy out-of-the-way outposts of our Sunshine State. The seeds for GOLDENS ARE HERE, if I might use a botanical metaphor, originated in one of these trips with my family to the small town of Titusville and its rural outskirts. As I walked the streets of this historic town and visited the remaining orange groves along the nearby Indian River, I found myself imagining what the place must have looked like and meant to the people who lived there in what might be considered the region’s hey-day, the 1960s when the space-race was hitting its stride, the citrus industry was booming, and, as my research would uncover, the Civil Rights struggle was impacting black and white lives in significant ways. It seemed like a rich time and place to direct my creative energies. It wasn’t too long before a cast of characters and a story emerged in my mind that would allow me to engage with the intersections between the social and environmental realms, which has long been a primary interest of mine.

Q: You’ve also written a memoir about Florida? Can you say a little about how you decide to cast a subject as fiction or nonfiction and how you think readers respond to those narrative choices?

A: This is an excellent question that preoccupies much of my attention these days. In fact, I’m currently teaching a graduate writing workshop at Florida Atlantic University entitled, Writing Across Genres, which examines the work of writers (e.g., Colson Whitehead, Marilynne Robinson, Jesmyn Ward) who write both nonfiction and fiction. The aim, ultimately, is for my students to contemplate their own choices, vis a vis genre, more deliberately. Most of my writing—both nonfiction and fiction, and as my answer above suggests—originates in place. From there, I might choose the essay form if I feel that my own personal experiences in and of a particular place stands the chance of resonating with readers in a powerful way, and/or the real-life experience of another person associated with that place demands attention, or if some feature of the place (an animal or plant, say) intrigues me so much that I’m compelled to research and reflect upon this feature in earnest. BITTEN, my recent memoir, documents my experiences coming to know various fascinating aspects of my adopted home state.

I think I turn to fiction when there’s something about a place that inspires me to imagine an entire story and set of characters outside my own personal experiences, when to imagine a place as fully as I desire, I require the freedom of the “make believe” realm. As I review this response, I realize that I’ve positioned fiction, perhaps, as the more “creative” genre. I resist this notion, in theory, as I believe that the essay form can be every bit as creative as fiction, and as some of my most creative work, certainly from an aesthetic point of view, exists within the pages of my essays. But there we are.

In terms of how readers respond to these narrative choices, this is an even tougher question. But if I understand the question correctly, and given all the scandals in the realm of nonfiction lately (James Frey, Margaret B. Jones, et. al.), I will say that I believe that writers enter into a sort of contract with their readers when they purport to write nonfiction, that writers implicitly promise to be telling the truth (not to be inventing characters or events out of whole cloth, for example) and that readers have a right to be disappointed when writers are discovered to have violated these essential terms. In my creative nonfiction classes, my students and I spend a good bit of time brooding over the more nuanced terms of this contract.

Q: If you can boil it down, what’s the top piece you’d give aspiring writers?

A: This one’s easy. Don’t give up! That is, if you love the writing part of writing, keep at it and don’t be discouraged by the obstacles that come your way as you seek publication. I find that many aspiring writers simply don’t realize how many false starts, how many drafts, how many rejections by agents and editors, how many years, in short, go into a typical book. Perseverance pays.

Q: What are you reading and recommending currently?

A: The best novel I read recently is Richard Powers’ THE OVERSTORY, in which several interconnected characters and plot-lines beautifully evoke the long and tangled relationship between trees and us. On the nonfiction front, I was fascinated and moved by Sy Montgomery’s THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS, which forced me to look at octopuses (not “octopi,” I learned) in an entirely new light, and to rethink my alimentary choices at Greek restaurants and sushi bars!

Finally, upon learning of Mary Oliver’s recent passing (who was living just up the coast in Hobe Sound), I’ve been re-reading many of the poems I’ve so admired over her long career and reading some of her newer work in DEVOTIONS, a fairly comprehensive recent anthology of her poetry.

Q: What are you working on next?

A: Funny that you ask. I’m delighted to report that I’m currently working on a novel manuscript and a related collection of stories set in the Florida Keys! While I don’t like to talk too much about my current projects, I will say that I was inspired by my several bird-watching visits to the Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park. As some of your readers surely know, this hammock and much of north Key Largo was slated for residential development in the 1970s and 80s, and some construction had ensued. Thanks in no small part to the tireless efforts of various environmental groups, including the Izaak Walton League, Friends of the Everglades, and the Upper Keys Citizens Association, led by Dagny Johnson, the land was finally acquired by Florida’s Conservation and Recreational Lands Program. The 2,421 acre park, which I encourage readers to visit, is now home to 84 protected species of plants and animals.

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

A Q&A with Holly Goldberg Sloan, co-author of TO NIGHT OWL FROM DOGFISH

February 2, 2019

by Robin Wood

Photo credit: Gary A. Rosen

Come meet Holly Goldberg Sloan, co-author of TO NIGHT OWL FROM DOGFISH and be among the first people to read her new middle-grade book. Attendees at Holly’s Sunday, February 10, reading and book signing will have the opportunity to get the book two days before its official release.This 2pm store event is free, family friendly and open to the public.

Holly Goldberg Sloan, author of the New York Times bestsellers COUNTING BY 7s and SHORT, has teamed up with Meg Wolitzer, the New York Times-bestselling author of novels for adults and kids, on TO NIGHT OWL FROM DOGFISH, a moving, exuberant, laugh-out-loud novel about friendship and family, told entirely in emails and letters. Get to know a little bit about Holly and her new book below and come ready with your own questions.

Q: How did you and Meg Wolitzer come to write this novel together?

A: Meg and I met in Naperville, Illinois at Anderson’s Bookshop’s YA Conference. I thought Meg was so funny, and it wasn’t long before we discovered that we had so many life similarities. We’re both writers married to writers. We both have two sons. We both want to laugh more than anything. Over the course of the next few years, as we sent each other email and text messages, we decided we wanted to write something together. We didn’t know how, exactly. I remember asking my husband, and he said, “Just start by emailing each other.” He meant, for the record, that we should send emails back and forth with ideas, themes and possible outlines. I didn’t understand. I thought he meant I should email Meg as a character. So I did that. The very first email of TO NIGHT OWL FROM DOGFISH remains very, very close to that first message! I’m pretty proud of that. We never had an outline. And in fact, I resisted talking much about the story. It was so exciting to not know where it was all going.

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from Avery, Bett and their family?

A: Our book is about two young girls who are trying to navigate the fact that their single fathers are now in a relationship. It’s about identity and family, and it’s funny and, I hope, moving. The big take away, I believe, is one of acceptance. We live in times of great division. If these two girls (and their two dads) can find a way to work things out, there’s hope for us all.

Q: What do you like about writing for middle-grade readers?

A: I think that both Meg and I write stories that interest us. So we don’t target readers so much as we target intriguing characters and stories. I believe that adults will get as much out of TO NIGHT OWL FROM DOGFISH as kids.

Q: What are you reading and recommending? For adults? For kids?

I loved EDUCATED, by Tara Westover. And I just finished ASYMMETRY, by Lisa Halliday. I love all of Kate Dicamillo’s books. And Jackie Woodson makes the world go round.

Q: Have you been to Key West before? What are you most looking forward to here?

A: I have never been to Key West and I will visit 15 cities in the next month as Meg and I promote this new novel. Key West is by far the place I’m most excited to see. I have heard that the drive from Miami is epic. I’m ready!

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Practicing Yoga with Michelle C. Johnson, author of SKILL IN ACTION

February 1, 2019

by Robin Wood

Michelle C. Johnson will read from her book SKILL IN ACTION: RADICALIZING YOUR YOGA PRACTICE TO CREATE A JUST WORLD on Friday, February 8, at 6pm. We had the opportunity recently to ask Michelle a few questions to give you an idea of the concepts she will discuss during her presentation.

Q: Please tell us a little about the links between yoga and social justice work?

A: Yoga is a transformative practice physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. The practice of yoga is about more than our individual transformation, it is also about our collective liberation. The principles of yoga invite practitioners to consider how to live in ways that decrease harm, increase being truthful about the cultural context and our social location and to live with an awareness of our devotion to something bigger than us. Given these times, it is important for yogis to consider how they can live into their yoga and transform the world.

Q: How did you come to this combined practice of yoga and social justice work?

A: I was an activist before a yogi. I entered into my teacher training with an anti-racism lens and a liberatory framework. With each introduction of the tenants of yoga I heard justice infused in them. I have only practiced yoga in this country and my experience as a black yoga teacher has reflected my experience as a black woman navigating the dominant culture. Yoga can be exclusive and a I don’t fit the norms of yoga in the U.S. based on race and body type. Given my experience of oppression in the world and oppression in the yoga room I saw the need for the yoga community to begin to explore the ways in which it is exclusive and not living into the universal truth of our oneness. I have had times when I experience liberation on my yoga mat but in the room I don’t feel free because I am the “only one” or I don’t see myself reflected in the class or teacher.

Q: What will people who aren’t yoga practitioners get from your presentation?

A: Justice is created through social change. Each one of us moves on this planet and needs to be thinking about our identities, our power, our privilege and the healing that needs to happen based on the identities that are oppressed by dominant culture. My presentation is for everyone because yoga and justice are for everyone. I speak about yoga as a way of living and being, not as a physical practice. Often the practice begins when we roll up our mat or step off our meditation cushion. Everyone can relate to navigating a culture with an awareness that we are moving in different ways. The presentation is for anyone interested in social change, creating a just world and deepening their understanding of power and privilege.

Q: What are you reading and recommending currently?

A: EMERGENT STRATEGY by Adrienne Maree Brown
RADICAL DHARMA by Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams
THE HEALING by Saeeda Hafiz

~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager

Knopf presents: A Conversation with Susan Conley, author of ELSEY COME HOME

January 28, 2019

by Robin Wood

Publishing company Alfred A. Knopf put together an excellent Q & A with Susan Conley, author of ELSEY COME HOME to get you ready to meet her in store on January 31 at 6pm.

Q: How would you describe Elsey to readers meeting her for the first time?
A: Elsey is someone you want to talk to at the dinner party, because she’s self-deprecating and also bitingly funny. She can read a room and has a warm smile, and what might really attract you to her is that she’s curious about you and asks good questions. But she doesn’t want you to ask questions about her, because she doesn’t want to give her secrets away. She’s known great success as an acclaimed painter, so she moves through the world with a certain level of confidence on the outside. In this way she seems self-possessed, but by the time we meet her she’s struggling, and her life is unraveling, and she’s trying hard to hide it.

Along with her reading and book signing on Jan. 31, Susan Conley’s ELSEY COME HOME is our current Virtual Book Club pick. Read the book along with us and interact with us on social media by posting and following the hashtag #bbkwbookclub. Share your thoughts and photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We’re @booksandbookskw.

Read the full Q & A from Alfred A. Knopf at: Conley Q&A

Maximizing space with Key West Designer Debra Butler

January 24, 2019

by Robin Wood

Don’t just take our word for it. Leaf through a copy of SOME LIKE IT HOT. More than 220 color images from the work of Florida interior designers will give you tons of ideas to create your own Florida style. We caught up with Key West designer Debra Butler, one of the book’s contributing designers, prior to our meet & greet and book signing on Tuesday, January 29, at 6pm, to talk inspiration and storage.

Q: How did you end up in Key West?

A: Sorry, it’s a long but not interesting story. I’m sure, not different from many others. I moved here in 2000, was supposed to be here for a year or so, while I decided on my next city… I never left.

Q: What tips do you have for pulling together a Keys style that isn’t too stereotypically beachy?

A: I don’t really approach design from a beachy or really any trendy perspective. I spend a lot of time working with my clients & learning how they live or plan to use the space. I like to combine natural textures with colors also found in nature. When I juxtapose these with bold accents either material or color & let as much natural light or views become part of the accessories. If we have a lush garden or ocean view to balance beautiful art or unusual piece of furniture even better.

Q: Do you find that your background in custom cabinetry is particularly useful in dealing with small space living?

A: Yes, absolutely. Understanding function and maximizing space & often storage is so important to all my designs.

Q: What are you reading and recommending currently?

A: Right now I prefer fiction (thrillers & suspense) & books on spirituality… I know I should probably read more design & art… but I haven’t lately… reading is a big part of the time I spend away from work.

At the Library: Mark Powell, author of FIREBIRD

January 7, 2019

by Robin Wood

Photo credit: Pete Duval

Books and Books @ The Studios is pleased to partner with the Key West Library as they present Mark Powell, author of literary thriller FIREBIRD, on Tuesday, January 7th at 6pm at the library (700 Fleming St.).

Spanning the U.S. and Eastern Europe, from New Haven and D.C. to Kiev and Bratislava, Mark Powell’s FIREBIRD takes you into the 2014 Ukraine-Russia conflict and reveals the corrupt relationship between war, money, and political power.

The plan was simple: foment a small-scale conflict in Eastern Ukraine that will prevent the vast Ukrainian shale gas field from being tapped. Should the project succeed, Leviathan Global’s billionaire founder stands to profit mightily from the sale of gas reserves in Slovakia. But when a disillusioned staffer named Hugh Eckhart uncovers a dossier containing bank accounts laying out the conspiracy, things begin to unravel.

Patricia Engel, author of The Veins of the Ocean writes FIREBIRD is “[a]n unrelenting thrill ride across the globe and deep into the political intrigue and machinations that drive our lives without our knowing; this is a thriller with a conscience that will change how you see the world. Mark Powell is a fearless and master storyteller and FIREBIRD is an absolute powerhouse of a novel.”

Prior to his event, we had the opportunity to ask Mark a few questions:

Q: In one or two lines, how would you describe the new novel?

A: FIREBIRD is a political thriller set between the U.S. (Washington, New Haven, Florida) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Slovakia) that addresses (speculatively) the U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war in the run-up to the 2014 election. Bob Shacochis once said he writes books that are “entertainment for people who pay attention.” I’d like to steal that line.

Q: The novel is very concerned with the spiritual and the political inclinations of its characters. Do you see these as being inherently linked? How does it drive the narrative?

A: The theologian John Caputo once wrote “The greatest fantasy of religious belief is the fantasy of political power.” I’m always interested in how fervently-held (if deeply-misguided) beliefs manifest themselves in the actual world. Think of George W. Bush’s “Crusade” into Iraq — we may well feel the violent repercussions for the rest of the 21st C.

Q: Did you read any great books this year?

A: I read a number of great books this year. Two that I think will really stick with me are FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and OUR MAN by George Packer. FLEISHMAN, as one blurb notes, reads like John Updike updated for Tinder and the #MeToo movement. It’s also hilarious and poignant. OUR MAN is equal parts a biography of the diplomat Richard Holbrooke and an autopsy of those five or so decades we sometimes call the “American Century.” Both books capture perfectly our current political, moral, and emotional moment.

Q: What advice would you give to new writers?

A: My advice to beginning writers is embarrassingly basic, but, I think, remains true: read everything you can, particularly the writers you want to write like; don’t chase trends, they’ll be gone by the time you catch up; and, at least at first, develop a certain discipline about when and how often you write.

Special thanks to Key West Library Administrator Michael Nelson for the questions and facilitating this interview.

Virtual Book Club Pick: Elsey Come Home

January 4, 2019

by Robin Wood

Every other month or so, we chose a new book for our virtual book club, giving us the chance to share a book we love with other readers far and near. Read along with us. Share your thoughts and photos with our virtual book club on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by following and using the hashtag: #bbkwbookclub.

ELSEY COME HOME by Susan Conley is a staff favorite, and we’ve asked bookseller Camila Duke to introduce the book to all of you.

“I was about to head across the country without my family for the very first time since my eldest son Phineas was born. He’s 8 and my youngest is almost 5. So, it’s been a while since I could read uninterrupted on a trip. I needed a book for the plane and ELSEY COME HOME was recommended by our manager Emily and our co-founder Judy Blume. I had no idea what the content was, but based on who suggested it… it was the winner.

As I started to read it on the first of two flights that day, I realized that this was the PERFECT book for my trip. Elsey and I were both heading to wellness retreats away from our families. We were both moms of two, and we shared the loves and frustrations that go along with family life. Sometimes we feel a little lost or alone. At times we have a glass of wine at the end of a very long day, or in Elsey’s case a bottle of wine and a couple of six packs. Maybe our similarities ended there.

Elsey had to go on a week-long mountain retreat in order to save her marriage, herself, and her connection with her young daughters. She was given an ultimatum. If she didn’t go, sober up and take care of herself, she would lose everything. Elsey and her family were comfortably settled in China. She used to be a well-known painter, but when she became a mother her identity shifted, and she lost herself.

This novel takes us on her journey to find herself again. We go along with Elsey and meet fascinating characters that help her along on her path away from home and back again. I finished this book en route and continued to think about this novel while I was away. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did. Susan Conley created a very real character with relatable problems.

You don’t have to be a mother, an artist, or an alcoholic to relate to this character and story. There is a connection for everyone in ELSEY COME HOME.”

Mixed Doubles: Spencer Wise, author of THE EMPEROR OF SHOES

January 4, 2019

by Robin Wood

Spencer Wise photo by Molly Hamill

The New York Times Book Review calls Spencer Wise’s THE EMPEROR OF SHOES “Evocative,” going on to write, “THE EMPEROR OF SHOES underscores the extent to which the promise of economic opportunity still moves people across great distances on our planet…[A novel] of our times.”

Spencer will be giving a joint book talk with author Bethany Ball, Thursday, January 17th at 6:00 p.m. at B’Nai Zion Synagogue, 750 United St. in Key West. This event is free and open to the public. Please join us for what is sure to be an insightful and engaging conversation.

Leading up to this fun double-bill, I had the opportunity to ask both Spencer and Bethany a few questions.

Q. How did you come to be touring together?

A. Bethany and I have the same agent, Duvall Osteen, out of the Aragi literary agency in NYC. We have similar personalities (funny, but totally neurotic) and we also wrote our debut novels about Jewish people in the diaspora (Israel for her, China for me). Also she’s awesome and funny. And we both love tennis and we’re way too competitive despite not being that good in the grand scheme of tennis things. I think it was our agent who introduced us—Bethany was kind and generous enough to blurb my book, which was a big honor. We did a reading in NYC together, then Miami, now Key West, and Montreal is coming up. So we’ve been very lucky in that regard.

This event is interesting because the one-and-only Judy Blume is a huge fan of Bethany’s novel and invited her down to read. So a lot of stars aligned for this event and we’re so excited about it. We’ve been talking about it for months.

Having a touring buddy is the best! There is always someone to kvetch with instead of having to torture your partner/spouse over the phone. I’ve probably done 40 cities at this point on a six-month book tour and every event has been an absolute honor, but it’s a little more fun when I get to share the stage with a great writer like Bethany.

Q. Sell me Bethany’s book, WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS.

A. Bethany’s book is fantastic. Stylistically it’s innovative. Somehow, she balances all these disparate plot lines and makes them all come together at the end. It’s a real tight-rope act she pulls off. The book is about the decline of the kibbutz system in Israel, a fading patriarch, and a family scattered across the globe in the diaspora. It’s full of sympathetic characters who are real and flawed. And it’s loaded with a dark, wry humor. It’s about what it means to be Jewish in 21st century and how one forms identity. And I’d say both our books are about a similar paradox—a strong desire to be with your family and the horrifying realization that you can’t get away from them.

Q. What was the genesis of your own book?

A. My family are shoemakers going back 5 generations to a shtetl in Russia. I wanted to explore that legacy, but also explore what happened to all these American textile and footwear factories when they closed in the late-60s and were outsourced overseas. My dad has been making shoes for the past 30 years in China. In 2014, I went and lived in a shoe factory in South China to research this novel. I was able to interview migrant workers in the factories and see the complex social and political realities they’re facing. So this is a very personal book. It’s totally fiction (when I go off on a reading my father always says, “Have fun and tell them it’s fiction for God’s sake”). The story itself is about a young man who goes to China to take over his family shoe business from his father, but he falls in love with a Chinese worker who may or may not be using him to start a workers’ revolution.

Q. What are you reading and recommending?

A. Well, I’ve got a mountain of books on my bedside table I’m looking forward to, but I’m also a college professor—I teach creative writing at Augusta University—so right now I’m feverishly reading all the books and stories I’ve assigned for the new semester. Some I’ve read before, others are new. I’ve got The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and Maus by Art Spiegelman in there, two classics, both profound and warm, and I love teaching all the history behind them.

On my nightstand—a new collection called Hong Kong Noir that I’m enjoying a ton. There’s a great story by Carmen Suen. Very excited for a debut coming out this February called Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad. It’s going to be a biggie. I also have a few secret gems—a terrific upcoming book by Jing-Jing Lee called How We Disappeared and a coming-of-age memoir by John Glynn titled Out East that’s going to be amazing. Folks are in for a treat. Keep your eye out for all three authors in 2019.

Q. What are you working on now, if you don’t mind saying?

The next novel! I don’t talk too much about the project though until it’s done because it might change and suddenly it’s all about a feral cat colony on Mars (which it isn’t…yet) and everyone is disappointed.

~Robin Wood, Associate Manager