Where You'll Find Me
Dear All,
This is the latest episode of Don’t Press That Button, a newsletter about books and music and movies and cats and baseball and whatnot. As the name would indicate, we are very cautious about buttons around here. We’re not about to encourage you to go pressing buttons willy-nilly. What about the button from Lost, you ask? Wasn’t it good to press that? Doesn’t everyone know that when Desmond failed to press the button inside the hatch it caused Jack and Kate and Locke’s plane to crash? Yes, that’s true, but also, no. No! From where I’m sitting, that button should never have existed; at this late date I’m hazy on the details, but I recall that the button was connected to some kind of energy-dumping mechanism that had to exist because of the mess that the overreaching scientists from the Dharma Initiative caused by tunneling too deeply into the bedrock of the island. If anything, that whole scenario backs up our position here at DPTB: you don’t even want to get near weird buttons, and you certainly don’t want to find yourself in a position where you have no choice but to press them. Desmond got tricked into button duties by Clancy Brown and it was a grueling, unhappy task.
However, I’ve investigated the button below, and it has nothing to do with the Dharma Initiative. All it does is subscribe you to this newsletter. If you’re new here, and you’d like to stick around, you can safely do so by clicking on it.
Finished Book Day
It was a joy to receive my box of finished copies of The Curator a few days ago. If you go to my Instagram, you can watch a video of the big moment, but my goofy expression in the screenshot below sums up the feeling pretty well. Finished Book Day doesn’t come along too often.
I’m 45 now, and I published my first book sixteen years ago. When the galleys came, Kelly and I were living in Maine, and it was the dead of winter, and I had to meet the FedEx driver because the road we were on was too snowy for him to risk driving on it. Let me tell you, it wasn’t too snowy for me to risk. I was out on the road five seconds after he called. I’ll never be as excited about a book publication as I was about that one, but I’m pretty excited about The Curator.
Out on the Open Road
Here’s the complete list of my spring appearances for the book. I’d love to see you if can make it to one, or to say hello if you can drop in virtually.1 I'm incredibly grateful to Kelly Braffet, Tom Bissell, Anna North, Christopher Golden, and Kelly Link for taking the time to appear with me. I’m a huge fan of all these authors and I hope you’ll give them a read.
FYI, although the book isn’t officially out until March 7, it will be available at the Tucson Festival of Books.
You will need to register to attend the events at Oblong Books, Mysterious Galaxy, the Center for Fiction, An Unlikely Story, and the Odyssey Bookshop.
The penultimate Goodreads giveaway for the book is still ongoing if you would like to jump in.
As always, my thanks for subscribing, and in case you ever have a question or a comment or just want to say hi, if you reply to the email, I will see it. I’m also over on Instagram if you want to follow along there.
All Best,
Owen
Along with the Mysterious Galaxy virtual event, the event at the Center for Fiction will also be available to watch streaming.