A New Year, In Photos

Video: Amanda Gowin at Sylvester Memorial Library

the video!!! took forever to get this mess uploaded. i realize it’s an hour long, but at least stick around long enough for the church fire anecdote… plus i read a story. mainly i ramble. but i think it turned out pretty well! 

Booked. on Radium Girls, plus interview!

Robb & Liv talked about my booooook,  then had me on to talk about it. There’s a lot less discussion about writing than Billy Idol, but it works! And as far as the review part goes,  they’re not title experts. No matter what they say… I wish they’d let me be on every episode.

 

 

http://www.bookedpodcast.com/2014/06/11/209-radium-girls/

 

The Logic of Radium Girls

 

Order here:

http://www.amazon.com/Radium-Girls-Amanda-Gowin/dp/0692211683/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1401733149&sr=8-3&keywords=radium+girls

Radium Girls teaser pics – post #1

Think of them like trading cards! Pretty little pictures with snippets of the stories, overlaying photos of my friends and I – just scattering these to the wind, tossing them about on Twitter and Pinterest. More teaser pics to come, more news to come. The cover is in the works and the novella (the Final Puzzle Piece) is almost where I want it…..

Radium Girls and the “Hush Release”

Radium Girls is my upcoming collection from Thunderdome Press, set for release late this spring, no later than my 35th birthday on June 5th. It will include short stories both previously published and unpublished, a couple of co-written stories with friends, some flash, disguised truth, an email or two, and a novella called The Pink Manatee. It will be a patchwork of photos and genres.

I’m excited! I want to hold this book in my hands, shake it in my teeth, imagine it poking from between couch cushions, from under mattresses, gathering condensation rings on end tables, covered in underlines with ink, pencil, crayons, dog-eared, loved.

But the idea of promotion makes me twitch like my 5lb dog. Information on the progress of Radium Girls, and how to buy once it is available will be easy to find, but I’m going to try things -this “promotion” thing – a quieter way. Sometimes it’s easier to filch an honest piece of conversation than to re-shape thoughts. Below is a copy/paste from an email to a friend (that I’m leaving anonymous because it seems the polite thing to do!):

“I’m ‘inventing’ something new to promote Radium Girls, which is basically the freedom to not over-promote it or pressure people to promote it. I’m going to call it a “Hush Release” and will feature no events, no giveaways, no Facebook and Twitter over-saturation, no asking to link share or pms, Dms or emails informing people and asking them to spread the word, no huge release date, no build-up, no plays for reviews. It WILL feature a steady but unobtrusive sharing of information about the book itself, the leaving of all online stories that are in the collection STILL online, links, pictures, information on how to buy, but absolutely no BANG POP WOW LOOK AT THIS HEY HEY LOOK AT THIS. I feel pretty good about it. Going to do a blog post about the collection, and about the Hush Release approach, on Tuesday, with a couple pictures and links to online stories I might include. My hope is that the IDEA of a Hush Release will catch on with people, or at least be a breath of fresh air whether they buy the thing or not. I refuse to stress about it. Being totally honest with myself I realized it’s why I was dragging my feet to finish the whole thing. The release was actually putting me off it, the idea of jumping into that promotion machine. That’s a horrible way to feel about releasing a collection – and my first collection! So I’m just skipping all that so I can enjoy it!! What do you think?”

 

Work in Progress…

The rectangle of fluorescent above me is the exact opposite of my garden, and my garden is the exact opposite of a grave – which logically means fluorescent lights are perfect facsimiles of graves. “I met a boy. I might be in love.”

-from The Pink Manatee