This Friday, February 23rd, is the official birthday of my new book, Here in Sanctuary–Whirling, a collection of poetry inspired by my work in the immigration justice movement.

So this week, I’m feeling myself floundering as I try to get all the pieces in place for a perfect birthday party.

When my children were little, birthday parties were a huge stress. My older child, especially, wanted everything exactly how she wanted it… the color of the plates, the order of activities, the guest list/seating arrangements, and where she would stand to hand out the paper for an art activity featuring red and blue food coloring. My younger child was a little more chill, but I do remember making several calls before I found a baker who would be willing to do a birthday cake with a salamander on it (a picture, thank goodness–not a real salamander, though I’m sure a live one would have been preferred!)

Keeping a bunch of pre-schoolers entertained for two hours, containing their sugar-induced energy, and making small talk with parents I didn’t know while wondering how much they were judging me for the cleanliness of my house, my parenting style, my children’s uncensored responses to gifts they didn’t like all heightened the anxiety. I loved hanging out with my children, but I dreaded birthday party season!

Luckily, a book can’t tell you want it wants the way a child can. But this also means all the pressure is on me. As I sift through a nauseating number of articles and listserv comments on book marketing, I’m recognizing some important things about myself. I did succumb, as suggested, to posting myself on video on Instagram opening up my box of books, even though I thought it was silly. But ultimately I still believe parties should be low-budget affairs. I’m not interested in the $100/day plan, or anything that requires huge monetary investments, even when I’m promised that investing a daily $100 will net a daily $150.  I got into this to be a writer, not a business person and I refuse to think of my work as a commodity that I have to manipulate an audience into buying. As it is, I’m already spending too much time in my analytical marketing brain rather than my dreamy and comfortable writing brain.

But the goody-goody schoolgirl who also lives inside me reminds me that I can’t simply do nothing. My book will be so disappointed if I don’t give it a birthday party! Yet, I’m going to delay the big launch until May, where it can be in conjunction with a photography exhibit on detention that my immigration justice group is putting on at the Anchor House of Artists. I’m still coming off my last book (Immigrants‘) birthday party (also delayed) which I’m glad to finally be on the other side of, even though I was wowed by the love and support of nearly 50 guests who showed up. I hope they liked the color of the plates (brown, compostable) and the gluten-free brownies.

In the meantime, I’ll invite people to wish Here in Sanctuary–Whirling a happy birthday on social media. And the gift this book would love more than anything else, for anyone who feels so inclined, is a review on Amazon or Goodreads. I guarantee, unlike my kids, the book will not talk back, no matter what you say. Or if you’re not someone who ever reads poetry, you can say happy birthday by adding the book to your Goodreads “want to read” shelf.

One birthday party I am co-planning and looking forward to is my mother’s. She’s turning 90 just a few days after my book is officially born. I’m thankful she’s never cared about the color of the plates. I got to order the cake. It will not have a salamander.

Ironically, the day after I wrote the last post about my love/hate relationship with the spotlight, this wonderful feature of me in the Substack Starry, Starry Kite appeared. (Please check out this newsletter and subscribe!) So, I guess that means I’m doing my marketing homework.

It feels overwhelming, but in the past few weeks I’ve doubled the time I’ve spent on social media, mostly searching for and posting to groups. I also culled lists for a final email blast inviting people to my book launch next week, updated my Amazon and Goodreads author pages, revised my website, talked up the book at local bookstores, wrote an article for my alumni association, and connected with a number of editors of journals I’ve been published in to ask them to spread the word about the book. Still on my list is to set up and publicize a Youtube channel, investigate more blogs and podcasts, and connect more with journals and other relevant groups I know on social media, etc. etc. It never ends.

And as I was going full-steam ahead, a surprise snuck up on me. My poetry book  Here in Sanctuary–Whirling was suddenly in its final stages of pre-publication. In fact, it’s scheduled to come out from Querencia Press in late February and can already be pre-ordered at this link.

So now I have two books to drum up the buzz about. It’s kind of like having a second child, and (like the way I felt before actually having a second child) I’m worried about giving each book the love and attention it deserves. I had a similar situation in 2006, when my two children’s books, Escaping Into the Night and Playing Dad’s Song came out within months of each other. Escaping Into the Night continued to do well, since its unusual Holocaust story generated a lot of interest from middle school students and teachers. But Playing Dad’s Song, a book very close to my heart about music as a healing force from grief and aimed at a slightly younger audience, never found its niche. And several people with knowledge of the industry suggested its lack of success might have been related to being published too soon after my first book.

But these two new books are thematically related, so my plan is to market them together and let the books build on each other, treating Here in Sanctuary–Whirling as more like a late-arriving twin than a second child. There’ll be some differences in audience, since not all fiction readers like to read poetry and vice/versa. But both books center on the very human stories related to immigrants and immigration justice–one through poetry, the other via short fiction. And I believe there’s an emotional core in both these books that matters, and that we need to tell these stories to soften hearts and reject the horrible rhetoric that depicts immigrants as less than people.

And this alone is reason enough to keep marketing–and braving the spotlight.

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