This week: Back in the tour-diary saddle

After several weeks in limbo, I have finally converted the hurried scribblings from my gray pocket notebook into a coherent, narrative Book Tour Diary. It will re-debut here in Vagablogging tomorrow — starting with a report from Seattle (entitled “What was the name of my book again?”), and continuing on subsequent days with dispatches from Portland (“The bungled tale of Kurt Vonnegut’s asshole”), San Francisco (“Breaking my own rules of vagabonding”), and Berkeley (“Cruising Berkeley in the Bourgeois-Mobile”). Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis, Wichita, and New York entries will appear next week.

An irony, of course, is that Jen Leo has already beat me to the punch in some of these places, having already posted her own Vagabonding tour dispatches from Seattle and Portland. My thanks for her help (and the help of Chris Heidrich and BootsnAll) in those two cities, as well as her very flattering reports of those events. My Tour Diary will further this glimpse into my book-promotion travels, and, I hope, demystify what it’s like for an author to go on a book tour. The first two entries are available via the archive here.

I mention a fair number of friends (old and new) in these upcoming dispatches, but there’s no way to fit everyone into the narratives. So for now, I’ll just send out special thanks to everyone who gave me a place to crash along the way: Torrey, Angela, Steve and Hae-Sung in Portland; Jeff and Christi in Seattle; Gabe, Raana, David and Mary in the Bay Area; Jason and Erin in Austin; Lynda and Dale in Kansas City; Jean and Nancy in St. Louis (with a special nod to Lori for driving up from Memphis); and the incomparable Anna Allen in New York. Cheers, everyone — it wouldn’t have been possible (or as fun) without you!