DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE - miscellaneous lovely pictures from launch
It’s been a busy, busy week, and I was terrified going into it, and feeling very rusty about in-person promo stuff after the US version coming out during COVID lockdown. But it ended up being really nice, so here is a photo dump of some of the things that happened in the weeks of the launch of DIE LETZTEN HEXEN VON BLACKBIRD CASTLE.
Very fun was that it was one of ORF’s book pick of the week. Which means this little witch book was on morning television in Austria. Thank you to whoever chose it!
Another highlight were the Solothurner Literaturtagen, where I did a bunch of school readings and went to the Swiss Literature Prizes to cheer for the Junges Literaturlabor, where I teach occasionally, and which won the prize for literature promotion/mediation.
I met wonderful, kind authors at the festival, and had a great time, and by the end of the week, I was infinitely less nervous than at the beginning of it. Thank you to all the teachers who signed up their classes, and the students who came and listened, and to the organizers of this festival for the immense amount of work, and of course, Diogenes, for doing the heavy lifting of getting me there.
Hundreds of children were read to.
Books were signed.
Beautiful Solothurn was wandered.
Before one of the shows.
During one of the shows. (Here is me with the authors Katja Alves, Micha Lewinsky, and Brigitte Schaer.)
Spotted in the bookstore wilds at Buchhaus Lüthy.
I also wrote a very personal essay for the NZZ, a big German-language newspaper. It was a bit of a struggle, and I don’t know why I decided to write something quite so personal when the theme was just “What moves you,” which means I could have written about the weather, which regularly moves me to either stay indoors or go outside. But if you for some reason want to know, in broad strokes, why I did all the things I did over the thirty years of my life so far, here you go.
I find the headline they chose a bit embarrassing and not really what the essay is about at all, so I’m chopping it off and pretending it doesn’t exist. 🙌 (The editor was super nice, though, lots of thanks to him for working with me on this.)
There’s probably more, but I’m flying back to Düsseldorf in a few minutes and need to run. I’m feeling very grateful and happy with the week, and for all the people I got to meet. Thank you, thank you!