Do you remember...the 21st night of September?
Books, gossip, and assorted whimsy
The Assorted Whimsy Portion of The Tumbleweed
Today is the most magical day of the year, because it’s the day that Earth, Wind & Fire’s song “Dancing in September” takes place. Why does this matter? For one thing, it’s the most grab-your-gal-and-twirl-her-silly song I know of. And for another, singer Philip Bailey was born and raised in my hometown, Denver.
Seven-time Grammy-winner Bailey went to Denver’s East High School, as did five-time Grammy-winning jazz singer Dianne Reeves, as did Golden Globe-winning and Academy-Award-nominated actor Don Cheedle, and Grammy-winning folk singer Judy Collins.
I did not go to East High School. I went to another illustrious Denver Public High School: Thomas Jefferson, where we proudly wore the brown and gold raiment of the Spartans. To give you an idea of the differences between East and TJ, the most famous graduate of my high school is Michael Winslow. Who’s that, you ask? None other than the famous “Man of 10,000 Sound Effects” who graced the silver screen in both the Police Academy and Cheech and Chong franchises. He has never won a Grammy or an Academy Award, but Mr. Winslow has appeared in a Geico commercial.
While I was in high school, for the school newspaper, I interviewed teachers about Michael Winslow, who remained memorable to them even though he’d graduated about twenty years earlier. “Sometimes he would imitate a fire alarm,” my Ancient History teacher confided. When she was a young, first-year teacher, the fire alarm would peal, and she’d get the whole class to troop outside, and then she’d discover that no other classes else had evacuated. Michael Winslow: legendary scamp.
TJ was a colorful place, and I’ve written about it in one of the stories in my collection, Mixed Company, that will be published October 15. How was that segue toward the self-serving content of this newsletter? Not as smooth as an Earth, Wind & Fire across-the-stage glide? Well, like I said, not all of us went to East High School. Some of us went to TJ.
The Book Review Portion of The Tumbleweed
I started this newsletter in part because I currently lack a stable place to share my book reviews. For ten years I reviewed books for the Rocky Mountain News (until that paper went under), and for four years I was the Books Editor of NewWest (until that website went kaput) and for eight years I reviewed for the Dallas Morning News (until they laid off the books editor and most of the freelancers with him) and for four years I blogged about books for Barnes & Noble (until a new CEO came in and sacked everyone, just absolutely everyone). I swear none of it was my fault!
I’m still reviewing for a few places here and there, that I haven’t yet managed to kill. (But like I said, I went to TJ, so I’m working on it.) And have I got some reading recommendations for you!
My September recommendation is Kristin Valdez Quade’s marvelous novel The Five Wounds, set in New Mexico. I once got to interview her for America. To my shock and surprise, they actually flew me out to Princeton to interview her. This has never happened before or since in my book journalist career. The biggest perk I’ve ever gotten is a stray bottle of honey, like the one included with the advance copy of Lauren Groff’s Matrix (which I’m reviewing next!). Kristin was shocked too--she asked me why they’d flown me out, and how they had the budget for it, and I told her I had no idea! And we laughed! And then I interrogated her.
I thoroughly enjoyed this pre-pandemic lark of a trip to the Princeton campus, which basically looks like Hogwarts, and all the people walked around thinking so hard with their smart brains that it actually produced halos of steam around their heads.
But I digress. If you want a fantastic novel to read or share with your book club, give The Five Wounds a whirl. I wrote, “The Five Wounds is a story about living with the consequences of choices and actions. The novel cycles around luminous moments of connection its characters experience when they commit fully to one another. Yolanda’s whole life was dedicated to commitment. As the story plays out, her more fickle family members finally begin to see the purpose of maintaining such steady grace. Each member of the family embodies human weaknesses yet remains worthy of love, and Valdez Quade shows they are stronger together than any of them is alone.”
Read the full review here, in America.
The Q&A Portion of The Tumbleweed
I frequently receive questions about writing and publishing from students, friends and treasured internet randoms. I’d be glad to answer your Q, if you send it my way. This month I took a question from a kind woman who had emailed me, mistaking me for another Jenny Shank (there are quite a lot of us, as it happens). I informed her of the error, and a few months later, she wrote back and mentioned that she’d googled me and learned I was a writer. She, too, aspired to become a writer, but mostly wanted to focus on making her story the best she could make it and then she planned to self publish it. She asked if I had any advice. As it happens, I know very little about self publishing, but I know of some good resources related to it.
A few years ago, I interviewed author Chris Cander, who started out by self publishing, and eventually published with a major press. If you look on her website, she has some info about how she made her self-published book a success.
There are a couple of organizations here in Colorado that support self-published authors, including Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.
Patti Thorn, who was my dear editor at the Rocky Mountain News, started Blue Ink Reviews, which offers professional reviews for self-published books, and their website has many self-publishing resources.
And finally, I love Jane Friedman's advice about all things publishing-related. She keeps an updated list of resources on self publishing.
The Self-Promotional Portion of The Tumbleweed
Yes, it’s come to that. I will be emerging from my basement to promote my book next month, and it would be lovely to see you at any of these events:
Saturday, October 16, 7 p.m., Mixed Company Denver Book Launch, BookBar (4280 Tennyson St. Denver, CO). If weather allows, this will be on the Covid-safe patio! Free Eventbrite tickets available now!
Thursday, October 21, 6:30 p.m. Mixed Company Boulder Book Launch, Boulder Book Store (1107 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, $5 tickets, good for $5 toward a purchase available now
Saturday, October 23, Montana Book Festival Short Story Panel Discussion, 3 p.m. MST, Via Zoom, https://www.montanabookfestival.com/2021-event-schedule/2021/9/4/the-big-short-story-big-imaginations-in-small-spaces
Saturday, October 30, 5 p.m., Mixed Company Happy Hour at Lighthouse, Lighthouse Writers Workshop (York Street Yards, 3845 Steele St, Denver, CO), free, plus I will be baking little pumpkin-shaped madeleines for you lovelies. No link yet for the RSVP, but it will be here soon: https://www.lighthousewriters.org/workshops?workshop_type=4
And also, normally nothing happens, but this fall for some reason, things are happening. I will have an essay about a wayward tumbleweed that once attached itself to my car (the inspiration for the title of this newsletter) in the new anthology Dear McSweeney’s: Two Decades of Letters to the Editor from Writers, Readers, and the Occasional Bewildered Consumer. People you’ve heard of are in it, such as Jonathan Lethem and Hanif Abdurraqib, and come to think of it, maybe the Jenny Shank featured in it is not me, but the one whom all the misdirected emails are intended for. There will be a Zoom celebration of its release at the Boulder Book Store on October 5 at 5 p.m.
