Summer's over

 The September rains are upon us. The outside world has gone back to their jobs, the kids are in school, the cottagers are closing up and going home. A great time to hole up in the office and get into the new work. I've had an amazing summer, reading, walking, thinking about stuff. I took a parttime job working in an independent bookstore and discovered what it was like to be on the other side of the counter. Fun and tough at the same time. Fun talking books to customers and discovering some gems of my own with my employee discount; tough eavesdropping on customers who were planning to buy on their Kindle instead.

Even I could see the writing on the wall. The independent bookstore is on its way out as a place to buy books, particularly in cities, but perhaps they can be repurposed as literary salons, venues for readings, book clubs, discussions. Heck, they already have the coffee. I think more we'd sell more books, no matter what the format. 

Case in point: My bookstore hosted a reading at the end of August as part of Wakefest 2010, an arts event staged every year in my tiny town. This year's Authors on the Lawn featured Brenda Chapman, Tom Henighan and Diana Beresford-Kroeger whose book, The Global Forest is garnering international attention. Diana's presentation was so passionate, I couldn't hear her without wanting to leap into action to save our nation's forests. Isn't that the whole point to writing, publishing, bookselling? We are trying to get ideas across. We are trying to save the world.

This is me chatting about THE GREY LADY, my most recent manuscript. Trying to save the world, one murder at a time. Many thanks to mystery author, Brenda Chapman for taking this.