01 Apr A Book Tour Embrace
A wall of rain made it nearly impossible to see the sign for the Palm Beach Bookstore just across the street as I pulled into a parking spot. I turned off the engine and picked up the copy of my new book, Wild Florida: An Animal Odyssey, I planned to read from. I flipped to my intended passage, then stared at the waterfall tumbling down my windshield. I shut the book. What was the point of practicing? Who in their right mind would attend a book event in these conditions?
A row of cheeky gray foxes from my book cover greeted me as I entered the store. It should’ve been a welcome sight, a pleasant validation of the publication date this signing meant to celebrate. Instead, I sensed the intent gaze of these foxes would taunt me through the evening as they sat unmoving on the shelf. My worst fears were reinforced by the bookstore owner whose warm greeting was tempered by a warning that her Palm Beach clients were fair weather fans and unlikely to emerge on a night such as this. Sensing we were doomed, I accepted the glass of wine she offered and prepared for an evening of browsing New York Times Best Sellers. Before I’d taken my first sip though, the shop door tinkled open and a woman announced she was there to buy several copies of my book for Christmas presents. No sooner had I signed those than a father brought in his daughter who adored animals and wanted my autograph on her new wildlife book. I was still talking to this young girl when a woman who had driven nearly an hour through the storm arrived. There was never a crowd, but there was a constant flow of damp but dedicated visitors. They had heard or read my media interviews in the preceding days and had braved the weather to meet me. By the end of the evening, my wine glass still sat full and the only book I’d opened had been my own.
A few days later, I sat at a small table with stacks of my fox-covered books strategically placed at the entrance to the Barnes and Noble in Naples. It was sunny with blue skies outside, yet I once again feared the foxes would taunt me with inertia as the first several customers streamed past, diligently ignoring my timid greetings. Then a woman who turned out to be a school teacher stepped purposefully to my table, grandparents with their three grandchildren did the same, a fisherman who had heard my NPR interview earlier in the week arrived, followed by friends of mine from the Naples area, and others visiting from Maryland. I was humbled as once again, a slow but steady stream of people arrived, nearly all compelled by my interviews and a passion for Florida’s nature. By the end of the signing, Barnes and Noble had sold their entire stock of books.
I’ve spent the last five months once again crisscrossing Florida, this time with very few opportunities to visit its wilds. I’ve presented Wild Florida at bookstores, native plant society meetings, garden club meetings, Audubon Society meetings and events, Sierra Club meetings, camera club meetings, and other not-for-profit venues. I’ve been interviewed for newspapers, TV stations, National Public Radio, magazines, and blogs. I’ve been thrilled to find Wild Florida in the front window of Books & Books both in Coral Gables and at the Studios of Key West. I’ve had more bookstores sell out of Wild Florida during my visits, and I’m continuing to schedule new events to share my book and my adventures that created it. Wild Florida was designated one of the best Florida books of 2023 by Creative Loafing in Tampa, and recently won the Florida Book Awards’ Gold Medal in Visual Arts and First Place in the National League of American Pen Women’s national Nonfiction Book Award. It is incredibly gratifying to have both my words and my images recognized, but even more gratifying has been the response of people I’ve met on my tour.
The day after my stormy book launch in Palm Beach, I received a picture of the little girl who’d come through the rain with her father – she was nestled among her stuffed animals reading my book. At a native plant society meeting in Gainesville, a man who discovered our shared passion for carnivorous plants gave me a pitcher plant button and sticker that now respectively adorn my desk and jeep. A woman in Tallahassee gave me a card with her own gray fox image on the front, and another in Pensacola came hurrying back into Barnes and Noble after my talk to give me a jar of her homemade granola for my long drive back to Miami. Yet another woman emailed me to say her husband had given her my book for Christmas and that it had given her the gift of returning to Florida’s wilds since a stroke no longer allowed her to it explore on her own. Tears filled my eyes as I responded, knowing that my father was in the process of reading Wild Florida to my mother who was unable to read it on her own because of her own recent stroke. These were just a few of the individual moments that stood out, but it’s been the cumulative experience that has moved me. It’s overwhelmingly clear that there is a strong community of people united by a passion for Florida and its environment. It’s a community filled with hope and love, with arms wide open.
Thank you all for taking me and Wild Florida into your embrace!
No Comments