{"id":58,"date":"2006-10-21T18:00:17","date_gmt":"2006-10-22T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2006-10-21T18:00:17","modified_gmt":"2006-10-22T00:00:17","slug":"the-oklahoma-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll begin by noting that Julia Spencer-Fleming has posted a very nice review of Hornswoggled<\/em> on her web site. Please go have a look at it, Dear Reader. The address is www.juliaspencerfleming.com.<\/p>\n

The Oklahoma tour had everything you could ask for in a book tour experience – laughter, tears, thrills and spills, edge-of-your-seat adventure.\u00c2\u00a0 It left me satisfied, yet physically and emotionally exausted. All in all, my review is two thumbs up.\u00c2\u00a0I\u00c2\u00a0wish, though, that I were rich and famous enough that I didn’t have to do these marathon tours.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Or maybe I wish I were younger and more energetic\u00c2\u00a0and these things didn’t tire me out so.<\/p>\n

We drove from AZ to\u00c2\u00a0OK, a distance of about 1200 miles through some spectacular country.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a fascinating trip the first 50 times you do it, but after\u00c2\u00a0twenty years, it seems to have lost it’s allure for me.\u00c2\u00a0 We drive so that I can take loads of books with me, as well as my husband and every piece of clothing I own. We’re rather wimpy drivers and take a full three days to get from Phoenix to Oklahoma City.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m already tired when we get where we’re going – there’s no need to push it to the point of blithering exhaustion.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s my philosophy.<\/p>\n

My first event was in Oklahoma City at Full Circle Books, which is a gorgeous\u00c2\u00a0independent bookstore.\u00c2\u00a0 They always publicize their events well and are extremely hospitable, which all authors know is not something to be counted on.\u00c2\u00a0 I was able to do a talk, which I like better than just sitting behind a table to do a signing.\u00c2\u00a0 I had a fair crowd, including two of my cousins and my Freshman college roommate whom I hadn’t seen in 40 years.\u00c2\u00a0 From OKC we drove to Norman, home of the University of OK, where Don and I went to graduate school and then a few years later both worked in the University Library system.\u00c2\u00a0 The signing was at a Borders, and if it weren’t for childhood friends and blood relations, that event would have flopped miserably.\u00c2\u00a0We had a good time anyway, since we had dinner with our friends and got a refresher tour of the town we lived in\u00c2\u00a025 years ago.<\/p>\n

The Enid event was a grand success, thanks to Don’s sister Dolores, who rounded up dozens of people with a whip and chair, and to reference librarian Amanda Kasheverof.\u00c2\u00a0 She publicized the event out the wazoo, if I may be crude.\u00c2\u00a0 There were three different notices and features in the Enid paper.\u00c2\u00a0 I was able to speak again, and sold lots of books. We love Enid, since it’s Don’s home town, and we love our relations there, too, of course, so that event was special for me.<\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to have an interview taped for “Read About It”, which is a program on books and reading put on by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Each program is\u00c2\u00a0shown all over the state every day for\u00c2\u00a0a week, so the exposure is wonderful!\u00c2\u00a0 The host is BJ Williams of the lovely green eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 She interviewed me last year for Buzzard,<\/em> and was kind enough to have me back this year for Hornswoggled. <\/em>She also gave me a chance to talk about the Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma program, so we hope that means I drummed up a couple more votes for Buzzard.<\/em><\/p>\n

The program aired the week of Oct. 16, and I was actually able to catch it just before we left the state on our way back to AZ.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve done TV before in my various career incarnations, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen myself.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an odd sensation to see yourself on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather like having an out-of-body experience.\u00c2\u00a0To tell the truth, I didn’t much identify with that woman on the screen. That odd phenomenon did allow me to see myself in a somewhat more objective light, and I was surprised that I looked as good as I did. The hair was in place and the outfit was nice, and I seemed relaxed and fairly articulate. I don’t mind doing TV – I’m never nervous, but I never remember just what I said, either. The thing that surprised me the most was that I appeared to be a rather gentle person. I’ve known for years that I have that Southern veneer of manners whether I like it or not, but I never knew how it looks. I certainly feel much fiercer than that inside.<\/p>\n

Since this is such a long post, I’ll save the rest of the trip for the next entry in a couple of days. I had three more events after the interview, all of which were pretty eye-popping – especially the trip back to the fount of it all, Boynton itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll begin by noting that Julia Spencer-Fleming has posted a very nice review of Hornswoggled on her web site. Please go have a look at it, Dear Reader. The address is www.juliaspencerfleming.com. The Oklahoma tour had everything you could ask for in a book tour experience – laughter, tears, thrills and spills, edge-of-your-seat adventure.\u00c2\u00a0 It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writer-rant"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2H58s-W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doniscasey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}