Saturday, March 22^nd, at 10:30 a.m. at the Alexandria Public Library

2 p.m. at the Cornwall Public Library

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I wasn’t going to do a book launch. It just seems to invite humiliation. I’m asking people to give up their precious time (on a Saturday!) to move their physical bodies (not just press Like!) to come see me, because I’ve done this archaic thing: write a book.

Brené Brown has written a lot about vulnerability, and I never understood why people got so excited about it, although this Zen Pencils cartoon kicks flying donkey eggs. I mean that as a compliment. Pow!

Then I realized that every time I write a book and publish it, every time I submit a story for publication, heck, every time I sit down at the computer to write, I risk failure and mortification. But I’m used to it. Each time I pick up a patient’s chart in the ER, I might screw the pooch.

I basically never wear white coats, except for author photos. And for this book launch! Photo by Jordan Matter

Raising kids? Ample opportunity for failure. (Side note: Anastasia broke our upstairs toilet by falling off of it while I was on the phone with the auto insurance agent. A. tells this story quite proudly. “I wanted to. I want to break the toilet!”)

So if we’re “actually in the arena,…face…marred by dust and sweat and blood,” celebrating Terminally Ill, we are doing it balls out. Ovaries proudly on display. (That expression doesn’t work so well. But “ovaries lovingly nestled in our abdominal cavities” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. And this is more than any ol’ book launch.)

Mark Leslie Lefebvre will rock the casbah. Not only is he an author who has outsold Stephen King, the editor of Tesseracts 16, and the Director Self-Publishing & Author Relations at Kobo Inc., but he is a hilarious speaker and a genuinely nice guy driving all the way from Hamilton to attend. Mark flies around the world to speak and was just a guest instructor at the Superstars Writing Seminar, which costs up to $1499 in tuition. So if you have a novel tucked into your hard drive—or just in your brain, or your heart—please, please come and learn for free. I know that if no one shows up, I’m going to pick Mark’s brain mercilessly. So come on down and save his neurons.

If you just want to discover fresh new writing (readers! We love you!), Williamstown writer L.K. Below will read from one of her latest books. Lindsay writes everything from YA to romance and beyond. I once heard her sing a song she’d written for a musical about the Sirens. So I can’t wait to see what she’s up to.

Plus: door prizes! And music!

Even I’m getting excited!

One more exclamation mark: Publishers Weekly calls Terminally Ill “entertaining and insightful”! (http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-927341-23-0)

Montreal physician Hope Sze is looking for simple entertainment when she attends escape artist Elvis Serratore’s show, but when Elvis nearly dies in mid-act, Hope’s medical skills are available to save his life. She is less enthusiastic about his plea for her to use her detective skills to find out who tried to kill him by sabotaging his equipment. The subject of unwanted fame as a sleuth, Hope struggles with a too-complex love life, is faced with an ominous death at the hospital at which she works and becomes concerned about a young patient whose requests have deeply disturbing implications. She soon learns that if she does not seek out mysteries, the mysteries will seek her. The most recent installment in a series comprised thus far of three novels and a radio play, this novel demonstrates familiarity with the conventions of mysteries without being constrained by them and with the realities of Canada’s medical world. Although the tone is light, the author is not afraid to introduce darker themes. The three intertwining mysteries and Hope herself provide a narrative by turns entertaining and insightful. (Feb.)

    Goodreads Book Giveaway

       

          Terminally Ill

          by Melissa Yi

            Giveaway ends March 06, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

For anyone who can’t make it to our launch in the flesh (what, you don’t want to drive for six hours each way, like Mark? What’s wrong with you?), the Terminally Ill Goodreads Giveaway ends March 6^th. Free, free, free!

I’ll give the last words to Elizabeth Gilbert, who speaks out on vulnerability:

“I live a creative life, and you can’t be creative without being vulnerable.  I believe that Creativity and Fear are basically conjoined twins; they share all the same major organs, and cannot be separated, one from the other, without killing them both. And you don’t want to murder Creativity just to destroy Fear!  You must accept that Creativity cannot walk even one step forward except by marching side-by-side with its attached sibling of Fear.

So here’s my magical thinking — I decide every day that I love Creativity enough to accept that Fear will always come with it. And I talk to Fear all the time, speaking to it with love and respect, saying to it: “I know that you are Fear, and that your job is to be afraid. And you do your job really well! I will never ask you to leave me alone or to be silent, because you have a right to speak your own voice, and I know that you will never leave me alone or be silent, anyhow.  But I need you to understand that I will always choose Creativity over you.”