And That's Ten

Notes from the beginning of my third book promotional cycle in one year

On a brisk last Tuesday evening for which I had not dressed warmly enough, on the second floor of the Colony House, its eighteenth century floor rendered knobby by the rolling of cannon across it some three hundred years ago, I celebrated the release of The Penguin Book of Pirates among a delightful crowd of pirate lovers assembled by the Newport Historical Society and the wonderful Charter Books. I was joined by Daphne Geanacopoulos, author of The Pirate’s Wife, about the life of Sarah Kidd. At the end of our talk, which will be available on YouTube one of these days, a woman in the audience paid me a compliment that might be surprising, for someone who thinks of herself primarily as an author of historical fiction.

“Thank you,” she said. “For telling the truth.”

I had talked a lot about the connection between Golden Age piracy and the transatlantic trade in enslaved people, how the one with its conditions of radical freedom was predicated upon the other, with its conditions of radical unfreedom. I was surprised when my review of the primary sources led to that conclusion, but the archive doesn’t lie. Sometimes our hunger for stories can lead us to understanding a deeper truth.

Then a bunch of us went out for dinner, and though the rum selection was not sufficiently piratical, the evening was merry.

Before I left Newport, they asked me to sign the wall. No no, not of the historical society building! Of the Charter Bookstore stairwell. Though I’m told that they filmed a scene from Amistad at the Colony House, and that Matthew McConaughey left his initials somewhere in the rafters after filming. (Poor form, Matthew.)

The Penguin Book of Pirates is my tenth published book. (There’s one in the drawer, and rightfully so, but I never know whether to count that invisible labor in the grand tally when being reflective like this.) Here they all are, the contents of my brain for every waking moment, pretty much, of the past fifteen years, all gathered together under the drifting cherry blossoms in my back yard.

So what’s next?

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that The Penguin Book of Pirates made Parade’s magazine’s list of books they’re excited to see released this week. And you can try a free sample of the audiobook, voiced by three talented actors and one desperate woman (me) on Audible if you are so inclined. Tonight, I’ll be at RJ Julia bookstore in Madison, Connecticut at 6:30 pm with the debut novelist Rachel Rueckert. (One of us tends to appear in pirate costume, but I’m not telling you which.)

And after that, this:

May 4 in Salem at a fundraiser for the Salem Lit Fest. (Yes there will be grog! Courtesy of Rumson’s Rum)

May 6 at Belmont Books.

May 11 at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of the Book.

May 18 at the Gaithersburg Book Festival.

June 13 at the Nantucket Book Festival.

July 7 at the Marblehead Festival of the Arts

And some day, some day very soon, it will be time for me to start writing something new.