*MISS EMILY* USA BOOK TOUR - PICS

I keep a travel journal when I go on trips, so the idea of re-writing all I wrote there here is not appealing. So, as usual, with pressing writing/book launch matters to deal with I will just do a brief photo-n-captions piece for my US book tour.

Firstly, book launch details. All welcome:

My husband came with me as driver (there was no way I was driving on the other side of the road and working for the week). After a knuckle-gripping start, he got into it. I pulled a muscle in my neck the day we left Ireland so was in constant pain for the first five days, which made things a bit stressful. Still, I managed to thoroughly enjoy my events and meeting the booksellers and audiences. The car remained a bit of a trauma - country roads were OK but those interstates, eek! Speeding rock-bedecked trucks, crazy weavy drivers, a dopey sat-nav...anyway, we survived!

I had various radio and TV interviews along the way but I'll link to them later, if I get the chance. Life is hectic and I am jet-lagged out the wazoo. Crazy broken sleep last night.

Our first stop was Mystic, Connecticut, a pretty maritime village on Mystic River. My event there was a meet-the-author lunch in Bank Square Books where we were warmly welcomed by events manager Elissa, owner Annie Philbrick and her dog, Charlie. We had a delicious, chatty lunch and the participants were enthused and friendly. Very enjoyable.

Bank Square Books window

Pre-lunch signing in Mystic

Author lunch in Bank Square Books, Mystic

While in Mystic we went to the aquarium and fell in love with this fella:

Beautiful beluga whale at Mystic

Penguin-gazing

Ice-cream at the aquarium

The jellyfish were amazing

After two nights in Mystic, we headed north again to Boston, where I had a TV interview with the lovely Smoki Bacon and Dick Concannon at The Literati Scene. Then we went on to Cambridge, Massachusetts and my reading/event at Harvard Book Store.

Miss Emily on the counter at Harvard Book Store

Mr Harvard himself in the Yard

Hipster fun-poking in Cambridge

I was thrilled that Jennifer Tseng, author of Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness came to my reading

Cambridge is a gorgeous place: great book shops, great food (we had tdf bagels in Crema Café) and, my favourite shop, Anthropologie, where I had a happy browse before we headed west to Palmer, Mass. My friend Suzanne Strempek-Shea very kindly gave us the use of her house for five days.

Our house for five days in Palmer, Mass.

My first event in Western Mass was at Odyssey Booksop in South Hadley, run by the super-inviting Joan Grenier and her team. That was a great event at which some friends turned up: author of the other Miss Emily, Burleigh Mutén, as well as Stas and Cindy Skarzynski and their friend Michele, who have all been so supportive of me since my first research trip to Amherst.

Joan Grenier, owner of Odyssey Bookshop

Signing at Odyssey

Traditionally, visiting author's sign the bog wall at Odyssey Books.
I put an Emily quote, of course :)

I had a very welcome day off (well, I had one radio interview in the morning) on Thursday so we headed to Toys R Us in Springfield (Juno's dream destination) and then to the museum quadrangle, also in Springfield, which was very good. $46 for the three of us for a variety of museums. (Though we are so used to museums being free in Ireland that the entry fee feels wrong to us).

For all you 'Orange is the New Black' fans, it appears
Pennsatucky's ancestors were from Springfield

Communing with Dr Seuss, who was also from Springfield

Museum fun with Junior

The Lorax, Juno and Little Ponies

Friday saw the start of the Emily Dickinson International Society meeting (a mini-conference) and it was great to reconnect with people I met there last year: Jeff Morgan (ED Museum guide), and authors Susan Snively and Burleigh Mutén. There were wonderful plenaries, most especially from the sublime Marta Werner.

We also went to the Beneski Nat Hist Museum to view birds that Emily mentions in her poetry. And Finbar, Juno and I went to Emily's house and took the two-house tour - it was moving to be in that space with them, to see their reactions to Emily's stuff and world.

Juju, Emily and 'pink milk'

Items atop Emily's grave, West Cemetery

West Cemetery

Jonnie Guerra, who moderated Susan Snively's and my event

Juno with Emily's house behind

Susan and I signing after our event, which went off well

Susan reading from The Heart Has Many Doors, her wonderful novel about Emily's love affair with Judge Otis Lord

Kate Wellspring, curator at Beneski Museum shares Emily-related birds with the EDIS group

The meeting was brilliant and my event with Susan Snively on Saturday (which I was very nervous about) went well - a typically warm Western Mass reception to us and our fictions. (Though many people had traveled from other States, as well as France, Japan, the UK etc.)

There is a certain terror in standing in front of Dickinson scholars reading a fictionalised life of our beloved Emily. But they were welcoming, laughed at the right bits and asked good questions. Inevitably someone asked 'Why bother?' but I think I managed to explain my rationale and, anyway, I sort of agree with her. Why do we do these things, indeed?

While I was conferencing, Juno and Daddy went to swim in Puffer's Pond

Last pic: Huge thanks to Finbar for putting up with my neck-and nervousness-related whinging and for driving us all over.

There is a ton more I could say, but let it suffice to thank my PR team in Penguin, Emma and Meredith, for all their work, also my agent Gráinne, and all the lovely people who hosted readings, events, lunches and interviews along the way. It was a total blast to work with you all on this tour. I had a great time!

'The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.' Emily Dickinson

IRISH PEN DINNER - PICS & AFTERS

Sebastian Barry

My husband and I went to the Irish PEN Dinner to honour Frank McGuinness on Friday night. He received the 2014 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature. The event was held in the very swish surroundings of the Royal Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire and we had fun getting dressed up and sallying forth. We were welcomed with a delicious glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and we sat in the beautiful Formal Bar, saying hello to the (few) people we knew and spotting the celebs among the guests.

Frank McGuinness

I don't personally know Frank, but I'm a member of Irish PEN and was happy to be there on his big night. Sebastian Barry, a long standing friend of Frank's, gave the award speech and it was theatrical and moving, as you might expect. (Sebastian B, who seems to be getting younger as the years pass, however he does it, has a novel out this year - The Temporary Gentleman.) He called Frank, 'the fullest example of a gifted man' with 'an admirable and exemplary biography'. He also said he was 'the perfect example of the artist and the man'.

Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin, Vice Chair of Irish PEN and Director at writing.ie

Frank thanked the Abbey, other theatres, his agent and all of his publishers, singling out his poetry publisher Peter Fallon as 'a gentle leader'. He spoke of Íde Ní Laoghaire, his editor at Brandon, and said she is 'the most wise and watchful and, in the best possible sense, threatening of editors'. By the time he thanked his parents (no longer living), saying 'I salute you tonight' the whole room was dabbing at their eyes.

Me enjoying wine in the Formal Bar

We were at the young people's table (it seems!), though as middle-agers how we ended up there I do not know. It was lovely to chat to the fabulous youngsters at our table (mostly MA candidates from UCD), one of whom has also just secured a deal with Penguin. We both vowed to get penguin tattoos on our ankles ;)

At each PEN event an empty chair is placed in the room to symbolise writers who can't be present because they are imprisoned, detained, disappeared, threatened or killed.

It was a lovely night of fancy clothes and not-too-fancy chatter, made all the nicer by the beautiful surroundings and glow of good feeling towards Frank McGuinness.